| December 14th, 2011, Mark Williams In the US, the import and export gap is still a big issue, especially when combined with huge unemployment, slow progress, a foreclosure wave and mounting government debt. Georgia lost a predictable 87,700 jobs and was the 10th worst hit state due to these crises. As per a study by the Economic Policy Institute, in the last decade Georgia lost 2.8 million jobs because of the trade deficit just with China. Nationally, imports have outweighed exports for over three decades. Economists’ reason for the amount of harm the trade gap has caused to the US economy, which includes loss of US manufacturing jobs, little or no developments in the research sector and also unstable growth. Last year Georgia exported more than $28.7 billion worth of US made products but also imported products valued at $60.2 billion according to the Department of Economic Development. To solve this trade gap, economists came up with an idea to sustain and spur the economy called “multiplier effect” where each dollar spent kindles other spending. But if “leakage” happens, termed by economists as spending going overseas, it reduces the impact at home. Example, when consumers take tax cuts and buy televisions made in China or autos made in Germany, leakage takes place. However, if they buy products like this cup holder, which is made in the USA, leakage is minimal. → Read More July 2nd, 2011, Archbob  With our national debt at $14 trillion and the budget shortfall projected to be at around $1.65 trillion, it is critical that the United States find innovative ways to close the budget gap and get itself back onto the right track. The solutions will have to come from changes in laws, our politicians working together, and yes, even some tax increases. I’ll explore some options that I believe the United States could take in addressing its budget shortfall. - First off, we need to talk about the legalizing of some drugs such as marijuana. I know many people are against legalizing any kind of drug but logically, legalizing marijuana would do us little if any harm, and a whole lot of good. Marijuana being illegal does not stop its use. It is so easy to obtain weed these days that it might as well be legal. I could literally walk down to the street corner and get myself a stash if I really wanted it to. Making marijuana illegal has about the same effect as prohibition had on alcohol. It didn’t stop its use at all – it only made dealings go underground and created very rich drug-lords. You could even make a strong argument that marijuana being illegal actually increases crime because of the fights between the dealers and sometimes the confrontation with law enforcement when they do make a bust. Making it illegal and forcing it underground also means we can’t tax it which means our country loses a lot of money because it is illegal. In a letter signed by 500 economists, it was stated that legalizing marijuana would save state and federal law enforcement roughly $7.7 billion in enforcement costs and if taxed like cigarettes and tobacco, could bring in revenues of $6.2 billion a year. That is $13.9 billion of extra money right there. While it may only be 1% of the budget shortfall, congress has to spin in circles to manage that much in cuts.
→ Read More June 30th, 2011, Jack Carraway  Potential benefits of short-term government stimulus and the long-term costs associated with such policies are tremendously important to analyze and understand. As the people in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and elsewhere in the European Union are now realizing, too much government spending can be a bad thing, even if it was spent for the good of the people originally. This idea is one that is driving the debt ceiling debate in the United States and has many politicians and analysts reconsidering what is and is not beneficial to the people over the long term. Among the hotly contested monetary policies of late has been the Fed’s quantitative easing, which seeks to increase market liquidity in an attempt to fill the “full employment” part of the central bank’s dual mandate. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig has often been the sole dissenter in the FOMC when it comes to monetary stimulus, adding this week that, “monetary policy is not a tool that can solve every problem.” → Read More April 30th, 2011, Denis Blesford  While other states are cutting back on unemployment payments, on Wednesday Oregon passed two bills that will extend federal and state unemployment benefits. Senate Bill 637, which authorizes the state to keep on drawing emergency unemployment benefits under a recent Federal offer on changing the “look-back” rules, was passed by an unanimous vote in the House. Additionally, the House also passed Senate Bill 638, which offers Oregonian 99’ers a further 6 weeks of state unemployment benefits. 99’ers are classed as those jobless workers who have been unemployed for 99 weeks and have exhausted all unemployment benefits, state and federal. Officials say that more than 17,000 of the states unemployed will be eligible for the 6 week emergency extension. They expect the money for the program to last until July 2nd. History: Oregon Emergency Benefits-3 (OEB-3) is an unemployment extension paid for solely by state funds. OEB is only available when the Oregon Legislature passes specific legislation which specifies when such benefits are available. During the 2011 legislative session, the Oregon legislature passed Senate Bill 638, authorizing the payment of OEB. OEB-3 provides 23% of your regular claim’s maximum benefit amount. The weekly benefit amount is the same as your regular claim. OEB-3 starts with the week of April 17-23, 2011, and ends July 2, 2011, or when the money allocated to the program runs out.
→ Read More April 20th, 2011, Denis Blesford  The face off between the Democrats and the GOP legislators over budget cuts brought over 37,000 jobless people to Raleigh on Tuesday to vent their anger at the “third-grade posturing — you either do it my way or else” as one protestor described the current standoff between the Dems and the GOP. Democratic Governor Beverly Perdue slammed the Republicans for “extortion” in their demand for deep budget cuts in return for passing legislation that would allow the unemployed workers to receive their final 20 weeks of benefits under the federal Extended Benefits program. The EB program is being phased out in N.C., as the stae no longer qualifies for the federal EB program. The EB program gives 20 weeks extra benefits to those jobless workers who’ve exhausted their initial 26 weeks of state unemployment insurance benefits. Even though the N.C. unemployment rate remains at 9.7%, one of the federal requirements of the EB program is that the unemployment rate must be at least 10% higher then the average jobless rate over the previous two years. Under that rule the N.C unemployment rate hasn’t risen enough to satisfy that requirement. → Read More April 18th, 2011, Denis Blesford  It may at first sound rather trite to suggest that one American technology company could have any noticeable influence on the nation’s unemployment levels. But last Friday, speaking on unemployment from the House Floor, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr, (D,IL) made the connection between Apple’s iPad and the current state of unemployment in the US. Jackson said “This new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your newspaper, download your book, download your magazine,” Jackson went onto say that in his congressional district the Chicago State University is now issuing freshman classes with iPad’s instead of text books. He quoted university President Wayne Watson as saying “he [Watson] aims to have a textbook-less campus within four years, where they don’t have textbooks.” → Read More April 14th, 2011, Sharon-GA  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will vote against a bill that cuts more than $38 billion from programs that help working families without calling for shared sacrifice by the wealthiest Americans. Bush-era tax breaks for the very rich were extended and expanded last December – driving up the deficit. “Today, in order to reduce deficits that Republicans helped create, they now are slashing programs of enormous importance to working families, the elderly, the sick and children,” Sanders said. “At a time when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, this budget is Robin Hood in reverse. It takes from struggling working families and gives to multi-millionaires. This is obscene.” While it is too soon to determine the exact impact the cuts will have on Vermont, Sanders, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said “there can be no doubt that these cuts will be devastating to working families in Vermont and throughout the country.” - At a time of soaring fuel prices, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) would be cut by $390 million.
- At a time when college education has become unaffordable for many, Pell grants would be reduced by an estimated $35 billion over 10 years, including a nearly $500 million cut this year.
→ Read More April 10th, 2011, Denis Blesford  President Barack Obama will lay out a long-term deficit reduction plan this week, White House senior adviser David Plouffe said Sunday. Earlier today, on NBC’s “Meet the Press, White House senior advisor, David Ploufe said that the President will present a long term plan to reduce the national deficit. ‘The president will be laying out his approach to long-term deficit reduction later this week,” said Plouffe. He went on to point out that the administrations 2012 budget already had in the pipeline a forward a plan for reducing the deficit by a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. It’s expected that President Obama will deliver his deficit reduction plan in a speech this coming Wednesday. While Plouffe said that Obama has already put in place much of his deficit commission’s recommendations, in this week’s speech Obama plans to set out additional measures that need to be taken. → Read More | Listen to Mike Colliss Interviews |
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