Good News on the Economy

Seriously, I’m coming up on 9 years of writing here, and this is the first time I’ve been able to write those words without meaning it sarcastically.

First, unemployment is down to 8.1% (locally, down to 12.4%). That’s still too high, and it still doesn’t account for people who have given up on finding a job and people who have settled for part time work. And the economy still isn’t quite up to making enough jobs for people new to the workforce, and new grads are still going to have a crappy time out there. However, not that long ago we were looking at almost 10%.

Second, there are signs of life in American manufacturing. Auto plants are working at capacity, and may have to actually hire an additional shift of workers — which is much less expensive than building a new plant and then having it sit idle 16 hours a day. Some industries that decided it was cheaper to make it overseas and ship it here are thinking twice. Senior executives are cautiously optimistic, and 40% report moving operations to the United States.

Finally, home prices are starting to inch up. Granted, this is at least in part because of reduced supply (and at least in part because prices got stupid-low on a per-square-foot basis in some places).

So there you have it. People are getting jobs and buying stuff. Some manufacturers are running out of the ability to make more stuff — so they may have to build places and hire people to make even more stuff. Maybe soon the Fed can raise interest rates from the supposedly “stimulating” levels they are today, and in turn banks will be able to make a reasonable profit lending money without making up fees or outright committing fraud.

In Closing: Who could have guessed that Citizens United could open the door to ordinary people taking over elections?; never forget Romney’s dog; Tokyo Sky Tree now open; too useful to be real; cheap and free ebooks; yet one more reason I’m against school vouchers; FISA; $27,000??; and the Vatican gets outraged when nuns actually act on What Would Jesus Do.

 

The End of the BAMTOR Principle?

Alas, I can only hope. However, I do know better.

Somebody’s actually going to jail for fraud at a mortgage company that caused another bank to collapse. I’m quite pleased that finally, somebody is actually being punished for a crime. But frankly, we need a lot more bankers being escorted off premises in handcuffs. The only way to break the BAMTOR Principle is to make it so Joe Banker tells his boss: “I can’t do that! It’s against the law! Don’t you remember that they arrested Bob for that?”

Elsewhere, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are whining that they may actually have to pay “material fines” for breaking the law in foreclosures. Poor babies. B of A may also have to pay investors a few hundred million dollars for delaying foreclosures because it turns out that some pesky activist judges wanted them to follow the law! It seems like the only way to make a bank pay up is when it’s paying another financial institution. Gee FDIC, I hope you’ve got a plan for what to do when one of these big boys finally collapses.

Finally, some pesky activist judges are finally saying to big institutions “Just because it’s standard practice doesn’t make it legal.”

In Closing: Americans without passports; a recap; another reason to quit smoking; Bring It; no TSA required; stagflation; the center is way off here, no, a little more to the left; worth reading; budget cutting their own throats; stop manipulating me!; that sounds easy; free in Tokyo (did you know Tokyo is 4 syllables long?); and you know I don’t generally do celebrity news, but this sounds like the setup for a re-make of Weekend at Bernie’s. What could possibly go wrong??