Capital Gains and Games

Federal Reserve Bank Of San Francisco Accurately Sees The Future

Stan Collender — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:27:51 PST

Take a look at this new website just launched by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco called "the Economy: Crisis & Response," and then admit to yourself that the world has changed in ways that were unimaginable not that long ago. (The images below are from the site.)

At least some of the many part of the Federal Reserve system -- the Board of Governors and the regional banks -- have obviously realized that they are going to have to communicate differently than they have in the past. Not only are the system's actions being being scrutinized and criticized more often by a wider group of people than perhaps at any other time in its history, but the board and banks may well be given much broader roles in the new financial regulatory scheme being developed that will require them to talk more often to different audiences than they have ever talked to before.

And given it's new visibility and political vulnerabilities, whenever it happens the Fed is going to have to defend why it is raising interest rates to many more people than it has in the past.

In other words, the time for Greenspanspeak -- oracle-like, technical pronouncements from on high that seem to say a great deal without really saying much of anything -- may have to come to an end. At the very least, they are now likely to be supplemented with communications that are far more accessible and readable than what the Fed typically has done in the past.

What's most remarkable about the San Francisco bank's new website is it's nontechnical orientation. It will take you to staff reports and other studies that only an economist could love, but the information initially is provided in a way that an interested and concerned nonexpert will be able to appreciate. Also note the very clean and easy-to-use design.

The Fed will have to do more of this in the months ahead. If it gets any of the consumer financial regulatory authority it is seeking, it will need to do much more.

GOP Goes All-In

Stan Collender — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:22:37 PST

I still can't tell for sure if this is happening because of some grand design or is just a series of events that add up to something bigger, but it looks to me as if the Republicans have bet the farm...and their future...on being the extremist, take-no-prisoners, we-never-compromise-no-matter-what-the-result political party in the United States.

Consider the following, all of which happened just in the past week:

1. Rather than support the candidate designated by the local Republican committee, and even though she who was given $1 million in financial backing by the Republican National Committee, GOP leaders from Karl Rove to Dick Cheney to Sarah Palin supported the Conservative Party candidate in a special election in New York because they considered the GOP candidate to be too moderate. Not only did this force the Republican nominee out of the race a week before the election, but it handed what had been a very safe GOP seat to the Democrats. As a result, House Democrats got an extra vote on health care that allowed them to let one of their more conservative members vote against the bill and, therefore, enhanced his or her reelection prospects next year.

(Anyone know what happened to Ronald Reagan's eleventh commandment of not speaking ill about any Republican?)

2. The House Republican leadership didn't just endorse Michelle Bachmann's tea bagger demonstrations on Capital Hill, it embraced them. These demonstrations then got a great deal of television time and in the process made the whole party look like a conglomeration of the most extreme elements in American politics today. One GOP House leader -- House Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor -- felt the need to criticize the tea bagger posters that used pictures from a Nazi concentration camp and images of the president as Hitler, although his language was tepid.

3. As Dana Milbank reported in today's Washington Post and as you can see from the clip below, the behavior of the GOP representatives during the House debate on the health care reform bill was as bad as the behavior of the tea baggers. They weren't just boisterous; they were rude and totally disrespectful in a way that would have had them demanding sanctions if the Democrats had done it to them. They made few substantive arguments against the health care bill during the lengthy debate and instead decided to disrupt the proceedings as much as possible.

There will be several things to watch in the coming days:

1. Is Rep. Cantor forced to apologize for his criticism of the tea baggers and, several days earlier, of Rush Limbaugh? Do House Republicans threaten his minority whip position if he doesn't?

2. Is it possible that party identification polls show identification with the GOP falling below the abysmal 22 percent some have shown recently?

3. Does what happened in the New York special election force moderate GOP candidates not to run for election or reelection?

4. Do any moderate GOP House members (Joseph Cao from Louisiana, who voted for the Democrat leadership sponsored health care bill is the most obvious choice) decide to switch political parties?

5. Do Democratic leaders realize that Republicans have gone all-in and decide to stop looking for compromises that will never come?

6. In particular, do Senate Democratic leaders decide that there's no reason not to use reconciliation procedures with health care because the GOP is going to be highly critical and disruptive no matter what they do? Why not just use reconciliation and only need 51 votes instead of needing 60 to stop what now appears to be an aboslutely certain GOP filibuster? That will allow 9 Democrats to vote against the bill if they feel the need to do so.

Why I'm Still Not Buying A Car

Stan Collender — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:34:18 PST

Floyd Norris had an interesting article in yesterday's New York Times about the state of the auto industry. He notes that car buyers in general are coming back and, as he shows in the second graph, there's been a sharp uptick in consumer purchases.

But I'm not one of these buyers, and am not going to be for quite some time in spite of the fact that my current car is almost seven years old and that I've never had a vehicle this long before. The reason? Somehow the experience of buying a new car has become even worse than it was before the economy in general and the auto industry in particular tanked and it's simply not worth my time or frustration.

So I'm voting with my feet...and wallet.

It's not for lack of trying on my part. As I first described last May, I've made several attempts. But the most recent...which have occurred over the past four weeks or so, have been even more infuriating. They've included salespeople who:

Know less about their products than I do
Don't know who to ask when they don't know the answer to a question
Think it's my responsibility to find the person in the dealership with an answer
Don't return phone calls
Don't get back to me even within a day of when they promise

In one case I walked into a dealership knowing what I wanted and prepared to buy, but after 30 minutes couldn't get a salesperson to work with me.

I left.

In another, the deal being offered didn't add up. I don't mean that it didn't make sense; I mean the numbers literally didn't add up. When I pointed that out, they were unwilling to change them.

I left.

Online sales have been just as nonsensical. When I get a response at all, the e-mail I get about a particular model says nothing more than come on in. (Note to online sales people: IF I WANTED TO COME IN I WOULDN'T BE CONTACTING YOU VIA E-MAIL!). In several cases the car I wanted and which supposedly was in stock didn't actually exist. Twice I was told that the car shown on the website had been sold more than a month earlier.

And all of this was as true of dealers for foreign and domestic manufactures.

I'm not sure whether the problem is fewer qualified people wanting to be salesmen and women because there's less money to be made, dealerships cutting back on training and quality control to save money, or a total disdain for the consumer.

Here's my bottom line: if auto companies want to sell more cars, they had better realize that the buying experience is as important as the quality of the vehicle.

In the meantime, I'm going to start learning more about quality repair shops.

Why Reading the Health Bill Is a Waste of Time

Bruce Bartlett — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:50:39 PST

The 1,990-page length of the health reform bill is once again bringing forth demands that members of Congress be required to read the legislation before voting on it. While a seemingly reasonable demand, it is, in fact, a waste of time.

The reason becomes obvious the moment one actually reads legislative language. Here is a section I pulled at random from the health bill:

(a) AMENDMENTS TO THE EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY ACT OF 1974.--

(1) REDUCTION IN LOOK-BACK PERIOD.-Section 701(a)(1) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 181(a)(1)) is amended by striking ''6-month period'' and inserting ''30-day period''.

(2) REDUCTION IN PERMITTED PREEXISTING CONDITION LIMITATION PERIOD.-Section 701(a)(2) of such Act (29 U.S.C. 1181(a)(2)) is amended by striking ''12 months'' and inserting ''3 months'', and by striking ''18 months'' and inserting ''9 months''.

(3) SUNSET OF INTERIM LIMITATION.-Section 701 of such Act (29 U.S.C. 1181) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

''(h) TERMINATION.-This section shall cease to apply to any group health plan as of the date that such plan becomes subject to the requirements of section 211 of the (relating to prohibiting preexisting condition exclusions).''.

What is immediately obvious is that none of this language makes the slightest bit of sense without reference to the underlying law that is being amended. To begin to comprehend what this language seeks to accomplish one would need to have a copy of ERISA as well. Then one would have to see what exactly these additional words do to change whatever section of law is being amended.

But this is just the beginning because many terms like "preexisting condition" have a precise legal definition that may be spelled out in some other law or changed in some other part of the legislation. Moreover, that definition may have been clarified in some way by government regulations or court cases that are not even referenced but may be critical to understanding precisely what the new legislation actually accomplishes.

For these reasons, reading an actual bill is a completely useless exercise for the vast majority of members of Congress and staff. They rely heavily on committee reports that are supposed to accompany all bills coming up for a floor vote. These reports are written by committee staff and are required to faithfully reflect the bill's intent. They may contain important details, clarifications, data, citations to hearings, and supporting materials, such as a section-by-section analysis, that allow the legislation to be intelligible to non-lawyers and other non-experts.

In addition, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have organizations that review all bills coming up for a vote, summarize them and offer political perspectives. Here, for example, is the House Republican Conference report on the health bill. If one's party holds the White House, a member may find the Statement of Administration Policy to be important in understanding a bill and how to vote on it. Here is the SAP on the health bill. The Congressional Budget Office's analysis may also be important. Here is its report on the health bill.

Finally, on important bills a member's office is flooded with analyses by trade groups, think tanks, and vast numbers of lobbyists. In many cases they employ very high-powered lawyers who go through legislation with a fine-tooth comb and are more than happy to make their expertise available for free to any congressional staffer seeking guidance.

Unfortunately, even on important bills a lot of critical materials will be unavailable at the time of the vote. I could not find a committee report on the current version of the health bill. But in practice, most members pay little attention to such things anyway. In each party there are go-to members who specialize in particular issue areas--health, taxes, banking, energy, agriculture, whatever. In most cases, they are members of the committees with primary jurisdiction and more often than not are the chairman or ranking minority member. It is what these people say is in a bill that really matters for most members.

Also, most members learn quickly from experience that there are certain members who share their point of view and can be trusted. If one of them says support such-and-such bill or amendment, they know they will have the votes of some number of other members. The leadership knows who these people are and party whips will work with them to make sure that certain interests are protected. A bill's managers may arrange to have statements inserted in the Congressional Record or engage in a colloquy on the floor that become an important part of the legislative history. Courts and the agencies tasked with implementing public laws rely on such things to determine congressional intent.

The point is this discussion is to show that actually reading a bill is not going to tell the average congressman or senator anything useful about it. Making it some sort of requirement for enactment simply wastes time that would be better spent absorbing summaries and analyses that tell members what the legislation is supposed to do.

A Deficit Reduction Commission Is Coming

Pete Davis — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:04:05 PST

Commissions rarely have much impact on Washington policymaking, so why do we have such a long string of them? Because political leaders want to convince their constituents that they really stand for whatever the commission is set up to do, when, in fact, the laws they're voting for do the opposite.

Bruce's post lists them. Most recently, President Bush's Tax Reform Commission did an unusually good job, only to find their work was for nought. The Kerrey-Danforth Commission did an excellent job on entitlement reform, leading to welfare reform, but not much else.

The Greenspan Social Security Commission has more mythology surrounding it than most commissions, and I take every opportunity to disabuse people of the idea that this was the beacon for Social Security reform. I was there on the Senate floor in early 1983, when we were a few months away from not having enough money in the Social Security Trust Fund to pay benefits, as a I recall, on May 1, 1983. Mr. Greenspan and his fellow commissioners had met for months and were secretly deadlocked, despite optimistic public statements. Members of Congress were uniformly terrified of raising payroll taxes or cutting benefits, both of which obviously had to be part of any real solution. Then, one late afternoon, Pat Moynihan (D-NY) walked across the floor to talk to Senate Finance Committee Chair Bob Dole (R-KS). I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize the topic was Social Security. They cut the deal in broad outline right there, fed it to Mr. Greenspan, and left the details to his Commission. So at the last minute, Republicans and Democrats locked arms around a plan "to save Social Security" by raising the payroll tax, to shave benefits, and to very gradually raise the retirement age on future retirees. President Reagan endorsed it, and the rest was history. Like a lot of bad economic theory, the idea that the Greenspan Commission solved the 1983 Social Security crisis has the causality backwards. Dole and Moynihan fed the deal to the Commission, not the other way around.

Commission just provide political cover for good or for ill. It would be nice to think that a deficit reduction commission could lift the massive burden we've just left for our kids to pay for, but our elected representatives will have to do the heavy lifting first if it's ever going to happen, just as with Social Security reform in 1983.

Yet Another Budget Commission?

Bruce Bartlett — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:00:22 PST

Forbes.com

How to make this one work.

Bruce Bartlett, 11.06.09

One of these days, Congress needs to raise the federal debt limit. As of Nov. 3, the debt subject to limit was $11,978 billion--and the limit is $12,104 billion. With the Treasury needing to borrow $26 billion per week to finance this fiscal year's deficit, time is clearly running out.

Raising the debt limit is always contentious. Members of the party opposite the president always demagogue the issue--and just as predictably switch gears when a president of their party is in the White House. For example, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., had these choice words about an increase in the debt limit in 2006, when a Republican was president:

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren."

Obama even voted against raising the debt limit that day. But in a few weeks, he will be begging his former colleagues to pretty please vote for a debt limit increase lest the government run out of cash and grind to a halt.

To make the medicine go down a little more easily, some congressmen and senators are hoping to attach an amendment to the debt limit legislation that would establish yet another commission to study the deficit and make recommendations for reducing it. We've had a number of such things in the past. Here are a few off the top of my head:

Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (Hoover Commission), 1947-1949; President's Commission on Budget Concepts, 1967; National Commission on Social Security Reform (Greenspan Commission), 1981-1983; President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (Grace Commission), 1982-1984; President's Commission on Privatization, 1987-1988; National Economic Commission, 1987-1989; Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform (Kerrey-Danforth Commission), 1993-1995; President's Commission to Study Capital Budgeting, 1997-1999; U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission, 1998-2000; President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, 2001; President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, 2005.

In addition, there have been any number of ad hoc working groups in the administration and on Capitol Hill, plus innumerable studies by the Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office and other governmental bodies on the problems of debt/deficits/entitlements/taxes that would fill a small library. For decades the CBO has regularly published a convenient list of options for reducing deficits that have been ignored just as regularly.

Although some commissions had a modest impact, for the most part they were forgotten the day after their report was issued. The exceptions were those that involved recommendations the administration could implement without legislative action or those where there was a clear consensus for action that just required a bit of cover and direction. The Greenspan Commission on Social Security, for example, was up against a hard deadline for fixing a specific problem that forced legislative action.

Those proposing another commission are hopeful that this one will be different by making it similar to the various Base Realignment and Closure Commissions that recommended closure of military bases that were no longer needed. Their key feature was that the president had to approve or disapprove the recommendations as a package and they were implemented automatically unless both houses of Congress passed a resolution of disapproval.

The new budget commission's recommendations would not be implemented automatically, but would be guaranteed an up-or-down vote on the package as a whole. This is important because budget deals necessarily involve trade-offs. If the commission members don't believe any deals they make will be honored they have no incentive to do anything except posture.

For this reason, I also think Congress should avoid even allowing deficit-neutral amendments to the package. First, it's too easy to pay for real spending increases with phony-baloney savings. Second, if amendments are allowed it will be harder for the commission to make trade-offs if those deals are potentially expendable. And third, it could easily lead extraneous issues to be raised that are potential deal-breakers.

I think the commission could be strengthened in a number of ways. The biggest problem is that it would largely be composed of members of Congress. In theory, this gives members a stake in the outcome. But in fact, their presence virtually ensures failure.

First of all, members of Congress don't have the time to devote to a budget commission on top of their day jobs. Second, it is unrealistic to believe that they are ever going to support actions that harm their primary constituency. For example, no farm state representative is ever going to support sharp cuts in agricultural subsidies.

In my opinion, the commission should have no members of Congress at all among its members. Former politicians with no further political ambitions would be far better suited to the task. They can speak the truth in a way no sitting member can about things like putting higher taxes on the table as part of a deficit reduction package.

The chairs of such a commission are absolutely critical to its success. (Bipartisan co-chairs are probably unavoidable.) As a practical matter, they are going to be its public face and its driving force. Weak chairs or those not absolutely committed to a successful outcome--which doesn't mean just issuing a report, but seeing the package enacted into law--will doom the venture out of the box. I think former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush would be ideal since they both enacted meaningful deficit reduction legislation.

Having a good quality staff is also critical. Too often these commissions try to operate on the cheap with detailed staff from federal departments. Congress needs to appropriate adequate funds to hire good quality staff and consultants and give them access to all the resources they need to do their jobs. I would suggest hiring a former Congressional Budget Office director to be the chief of staff. They know the issues and the political problems inherent of crafting proposals for congressional consumption.

One thing to be avoided, in my opinion, is public hearings. They are just a waste of time. The idea that average people have worthwhile ideas about cutting the deficit that no one has thought of before or rise above the level of cutting foreign aid and pork is a myth. However, I think the commission might usefully invest in a good pollster to gauge the political toxicity of some ideas before putting them forward.

One idea the commission might get some mileage out of is allowing the discounted present value of some entitlement program changes to be counted toward deficit reduction now. For example, an increase in the retirement age would need to be phased in over a period of decades and will save real money, but not for a long time in cash-flow terms. This tends to put such an idea off the agenda when deficit reduction is discussed because there is always a premium on near-term savings. If some portion of out-year savings can be counted immediately then it will make programmatic changes in entitlements much easier to enact.

Finally, I think Congress needs a substantial debate on the scope and necessity of significant deficit reduction in advance of creating a commission. In this respect, I think the enabling legislation needs to spell out, in a broad way, what the deficit reduction package should contain. It's not enough to just say that all options are on the table.

I believe that a deficit reduction target should be specified--$X trillion over 10 years with, say, a third coming from higher revenues, a third from entitlements and a third from discretionary spending. In particular, unless Congress commits itself in advance to raising taxes then I think the whole exercise will be for naught because that will be the toughest nut to crack.

It's unrealistic to think that a budget commission is going to find some painless way of reducing benefits and raising taxes--taking real dollars out of people's pockets. If Congress acknowledges this fact up front then I think there is a much better chance that the commission will be able to come up with the best ways of doing so.

For all the hand-wringing about the deficit, especially among Republicans who didn't give a damn when they were in power, I don't think Congress is yet to the point where it is ready to grapple seriously with it. That will only happen when the American people are suffering from problems that can plausibly be traced directly to the deficit. At that point, deficit reduction will have mass support because whatever pain it involves will be seen as less than that caused by inflation and high interest rates.

We may not be that far from the point at which those factors begin to have political importance. It's a certainty that both inflation and interest rates will rise from where they are now--just getting back to historical rates will involve a significant increase from current levels. By the time the budget commission finishes its work in a year or so the political climate may be quite different than it is today.

Own-to-Rent by Some Other Name

Andrew Samwick — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:03:40 PST

It took two years, but Dean Baker's own to rent idea for how to mitigate the disruptive impact of widespread foreclosures is gaining some traction. From the Wall Street Journal:

Fannie Mae will allow homeowners facing foreclosure to stay in their homes and rent them for as long as a year, as part of the government's latest effort to help troubled borrowers, while keeping more foreclosed properties from hitting the housing market.

The "Deed for Lease" Program lets borrowers who don't qualify for loan modifications transfer their property to Fannie Mae in exchange for a lease. Borrowers-turned-tenants will pay market rents, which in most cases are lower than the cost of mortgage payments, and might be offered extensions when their leases expire.

Fannie Mae wouldn't say in its Thursday announcement how many homeowners it expects would take advantage of the program. The company acquired 57,000 properties through foreclosure during the first half of the year.

The article notes that Freddie Mac began offering month-to-month leases to some foreclosed homeowners in February and may step up to a program similar to Fannie Mae's. Question: did it take this long for the idea to catch on, or did it take this long for the housing market to change to a point where Fannie Mae thought this would now be a good idea?

Pay Raise Equals Job Saved

Bruce Bartlett — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:21:44 PST

A commentator called my attention to this story. BB

Associated Press

November 4, 2009

STIMULUS WATCH: Salary raise counted as saved job

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON - The government's latest count of stimulus jobs significantly overstates the effects of the $787 billion program under a popular federal preschool program, raising fresh questions about the process the Obama administration is using to tout the success of its economic recovery plan.

An Associated Press review of the latest stimulus reports - which the White House promised would undergo extensive reviews to ensure accuracy - found that more than two-thirds of 14,506 jobs credited to the recovery act under spending by just one federal office were overstated because they counted pay increases for existing workers as jobs saved.

The inflated job count is at least partly the product of the administration instructing local community agencies that received money to count the raises as jobs saved.

"That's more than ridiculous," said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner.

Most of the inflated figures were like those cited in the 935 saved jobs reported by the Southwest Georgia Community Action in Moultrie, Ga. The agency, like hundreds of others collecting Head Start money, claimed all its existing employees' jobs were saved because they received a pay raise with the stimulus cash.

Similar claims led to overstating by more than 9,300 the number of jobs saved with more than $323 million in stimulus money distributed by the Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, the AP's review found.

More than 250 other community agencies in the U.S. similarly reported saving jobs when using the money to give pay raises, pay for training and continuing education, extend employee work hours or buy equipment, according to their spending reports.

The Georgia program inflated the numbers even further by claiming the recovery money saved more jobs than the number of people it actually employs. The agency employs 508 people but claimed 935 jobs were saved because of confusion over government reports.

That type of accounting error was found in an earlier AP review of stimulus jobs, which the Obama administration said was misleading because most of the government's job-counting mistakes were being fixed in the new data.

The AP's new review focused only on the money distributed by the Administration for Children and Families and was not an assessment of the money handled by dozens of other federal programs and other job claims made in the new stimulus report.

The administration acknowledged overcounting in the new numbers for the HHS program. Elizabeth Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for the White House recovery office, said the Obama administration was reviewing the Head Start data "to determine how and if it will be counted."

But officials defended the practice of counting raises as saved jobs.

"If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job," HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said.

The raises themselves were appropriate since the stimulus law set aside money for Head Start salary increases, but converting that number into jobs saved proved difficult. The Obama administration told Head Start officials to consider a fraction of each employee as a job saved.

Many Head Start programs around the country went further, counting everyone who received a raise as a saved job.

"It's a glitch in the system," said Ben Allen, the research director at the National Head Start Association. "There was some misunderstanding among some in the Head Start community about completing the reporting requirements."

Allen said a cost-of-living adjustment "may not be viewed traditionally as a job saved, but one could interpret it that, by providing COLA, you're retaining staff."

The Bergen County Community Action Program in Hackensack, N.J., noted the nearly $213,000 it received went to cover raises for existing staff only. But it also reported saving 85 jobs.

At Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, director Myrtis Mulkey-Ndawula said she followed the guidelines the Obama administration provided. She said she multiplied the 508 employees by 1.84 - the percentage pay raise they received - and came up with 935 jobs saved.

"I would say it's confusing at best," she said. "But we followed the instructions we were given."

Ed DeSeve, who oversees the stimulus at the White House, said the Head Start numbers "represent a few percent of all jobs reported" and said the problems would probably be balanced out by other errors that underreported jobs.

"We don't expect any corrections to this data to meaningfully impact the total 640,000 direct jobs," DeSeve said.

Last week's stimulus report claimed 640,000 jobs saved or created by the economic recovery plan so far. Those jobs came from 156,614 federal contracts, grants and loans awarded to more than 62,000 recipients, worth a total of $215 billion.

Obama has promised the stimulus would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year, and the data released Friday represented the first head count toward that goal.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jMNoef6xDenBbHWO0Im6rIjDmAgAD9BOSE601

Today, This Says It All

Stan Collender — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:53:29 PST

Nominal Spending Crash

Bruce Bartlett — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:58:49 PST

Further evidence that the decline in spending is our central economic problem.

http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-nominal-spending-history.html