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Journalism and other myths.

Gameday in Washingtoon

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Another year, another battle over the budget.  This time the threat is a trifecta, a showdown over shutting down government, defunding Obamacare, and a default on the Federal Debt by not raising the debt ceiling.  The stakes could not possibly be higher – and yet just about no one outside of Washingtoon wants to be in this game in the first place.  How did it get to this?

First of all, this is about the Republican Party and absolutely nothing else.  Boehner and the leadership had to prove their mettle to more vocal Tea Party members if they wanted to have a chance to keep their positions.  But there is little doubt that even if they win the greater party outside stands to lose the most in this game.  For the rest of us, all we can do is hope that nothing stupid winds up happening.

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Bernanke in Charge

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Another Federal Reserve policy meeting, another restatement of the QE3, another big rise on Wall Street.  The breakdown on the Fed’s continuing to buy $85 a month in treasury bills was predictable, if generally wrong and leaving just about everyone to speculate on why, regardless of how plainly the case was made.  Make no mistake about it, though – Ben is still in charge and things are going pretty well in many ways, at least until the showdown on the budget and debt ceiling.

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Poverty Persists

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How good are things getting?  It depends a lot on where you are in the economy.  At the top end life is definitely improving – but at the bottom end it’s just endless misery. That’s the only conclusion that can be reached after two reports released this week.

The first was an analysis by the Associated Press that showed that underemployment is much worse for those at the low end of the economic scale, which in technical terms is hardly surprising.  But what they found is that 20% of those at jobs worth $20k per year don’t have enough hours, versus 7.2% of those who would normally qualify for jobs over $150k.  The second piece release was by the Census Bureau showing that 15% of Americans, 46.5M people, are stuck in poverty as they have been for 4 years.

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5 years After Lehman

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Five years ago, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and it looked for a while like everything was going to collapse.  No one knew exactly what was next as the financial system was imploding all around us.

Today, we’re still struggling to regain what we lost in the aftermath of this panic, although there is some reason to hope that we’re beginning to turn the corner.  What has happened in the wake of it all?  It’s worth taking stock and seeing where we stand.

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How Good Will It Be?

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The economy is indeed getting stronger – and is probably setting itself up for the best holiday season since the big downturn in six years.  That’s a strong statement to make five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 which set off the worst recession and second slowest recovery since the Great Depression.  But there is every reason to believe that 2013 is indeed going to be the year that everything turned around – and by mid 2014 we will have recovered all the jobs lost since the downturn started.

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