Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Krugman's thoughts on CBO:
Article Here
Full copy here:
CBO projections
Just a quick note on the new, pessimistic CBO budget projections:
1. These projections have no bearing on the case for a large stimulus now — none. Adding, say, another $600 billion to stimulus spending would, on net, add around $400 billion to debt a decade from now (net is less than gross because the stimulus expands GDP, which leads to higher revenues that partly offset the initial outlay.) This would make essentially no difference to the outlook. Peter Orszag has this exactly right.
2. What the projections suggest is that Obama’s longer-term agenda, or a progressive agenda in general, needs more revenue; that’s probably true, although there’s huge uncertainty about any long-term projection. That revenue might come from environmental policies: I’ve been hearing that realistic projections of the revenue from cap and trade might be much higher than assumed in the budget. In any case, however, it’s really a political question: are we willing, ultimately, to pay the modest costs of a better society.
Full copy here:
CBO projections
Just a quick note on the new, pessimistic CBO budget projections:
1. These projections have no bearing on the case for a large stimulus now — none. Adding, say, another $600 billion to stimulus spending would, on net, add around $400 billion to debt a decade from now (net is less than gross because the stimulus expands GDP, which leads to higher revenues that partly offset the initial outlay.) This would make essentially no difference to the outlook. Peter Orszag has this exactly right.
2. What the projections suggest is that Obama’s longer-term agenda, or a progressive agenda in general, needs more revenue; that’s probably true, although there’s huge uncertainty about any long-term projection. That revenue might come from environmental policies: I’ve been hearing that realistic projections of the revenue from cap and trade might be much higher than assumed in the budget. In any case, however, it’s really a political question: are we willing, ultimately, to pay the modest costs of a better society.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Forget special olympics, read this...
This just out from the CBO: Preliminary Analysis of the President’s Budget
Excerpts:
Excerpts:
Our updated budget projections indicate that:
-Largely as a result of the enactment of recent legislation and the continuing turmoil in financial markets, CBO’s baseline projections of the deficit have risen by more than $400 billion in both 2009 and 2010 and by smaller amounts thereafter.
-At the same time, under current laws and policies, revenues are estimated to rise from 15.5 percent of GDP in 2009 to about 20 percent in 2012 and subsequent years.
Our analysis of the President’s budget proposals indicates that:
As estimated by CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation, the President’s proposals would add $4.8 trillion to the baseline deficits over the 2010–2019 period.
-The cumulative deficit from 2010 to 2019 under the President’s proposals would total $9.3 trillion, compared with a cumulative deficit of $4.4 trillion projected under the current-law assumptions embodied in CBO’s baseline. Debt held by the public would rise, from 41 percent of GDP in 2008 to 57 percent in 2009 and then to 82 percent of GDP by 2019 (compared with 56 percent of GDP in that year under baseline assumptions).
-Proposed changes in tax policy would reduce revenues by an estimated $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. Proposed changes in spending programs would add $1.7 trillion (excluding debt service) to outlays over the next 10 years. Interest costs associated with greater borrowing would add another $1.0 trillion to deficits over the 2010–2019 period.
-Our estimates of deficits under the President’s budget exceed those anticipated by the Administration by $2.3 trillion over the 2010-2019 period.
Our current assessment of economic developments indicates that:
-Although the economy is likely to continue to deteriorate for some time, the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and very aggressive actions by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are projected to help end the recession in the fall of 2009. In CBO’s forecast, on a fourth-quarter-to-fourth-quarter basis, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP falls by 1.5 percent in 2009 before growing by 4.1 percent in both 2010 and 2011.
-For the next two years, CBO anticipates that economic output will average about 7 percent below its potential—the output that would be produced if the economy’s resources were fully employed. That shortfall is comparable with the one that occurred during the recession of 1981 and 1982 and will persist for significantly longer—making the current recession the most severe since World War II. In this forecast, the unemployment rate peaks at 9.4 percent in late 2009 and early 2010 and remains above 7.0 percent through the end of 2011. With a large and sustained output gap, inflation is expected to be very low during the next several years.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Oh my...
It's like the world as seen in Wall-E (but without the good parts). It's depressing, it's heartbreaking, it's unbelievable...
School's Out Forever
Abandoned Detroit schools.
PHOTOS AND WORDS BY JAMES GRIFFIOEN, via viceland.com
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
"Yeah man! Wall Street is mad as hell!"
Daily Show brilliance:
And Colbert follows up with more brilliance:
And Colbert follows up with more brilliance:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
