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A leadership deficit lies at the heart of the financial storm
First, a debt crisis, exemplified by sub-prime mortgages, with millions of Americans with mortgages greater than the value of their house. Second, with so many bad debts, and such uncertainty about their magnitude, there is a credit crunch. Banks don't even know the extent of their own problems; how then can they have much confidence in lending to others. The third problem is macroeconomic. The US has been sustained by a housing bubble, leading to a consumer binge -
(Trade Deficit) The Truth About Who's Responsible For Our Massive Budget Deficit
President Bush, you will recall, inherited a budget surplus (the first in decades). Then, hit with a recession, he took the budget into deficit. Then he cut taxes, growing the deficit to $400 billion a year. Then, the economy boomed between 2005 and 2008, reducing the deficit to $200 billion a year. Then, the financial crisis hit, and the Bush deficit ballooned to $400 billion again. -
The problem with deficit-neutral tax reforms (savings deficit)
The cost of the House proposal is no surprise; tax rate cuts are very expensive. TPC analysis suggests that just a two percentage point rate cut would cost about $1.5 trillion over ten years, a level that (as discussed in the next section of this paper) could easily exceed the level of tax-expenditure savings lawmakers can actually pass. For example, the Administration’s proposal to limit the value of various tax expenditures to 28 cents on the dollar, which has encountered stiff opposition fr -
How Bill Clinton’s budget deficit destroyed the american economy
The Housing Department was Fannie and Freddie’s top regulator — and under Cuomo the mortgage giants were forced to start ramping up programs to issue more subprime loans to the riskiest of borrowers. -
A number of great import (Trade deficit)
Such trends suggest that China’s surplus could narrow further. Zhang Zhiwei of Nomura thinks it will drop to 0.4% of GDP by 2015. This will be helped by a less competitive yuan. Last year China’s exchange rate, weighted by trade and adjusted for inflation, rose by over 7%, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Only the Icelandic krona and Israeli shekel rose more. The yuan’s rise is even more dramatic when compared with the countries it competes against in world markets. Their cur -
The Federal Budget Deficit Has Disappeared. Really.(Budget Deficit)
The federal deficit was $128.7 billion in August. That’s 13 percent lower than it was during the same month last year. budget surplus in September and $80 billion or so in black ink is in fact projected for next month. If that occurs as expected, the deficit for all of 2014 will be about $500 billion. That will be more than 26 percent below 2013 and the smallest federal deficit by far since 2008.