Hello
Thursday mishmash ahead.
President Obama's speech about WS reform today in New York:
...And I read a report recently that I think fairly illustrates this point. It’s from Time Magazine. I’m going to quote: "Through the great banking houses of Manhattan last week ran wild-eyed alarm. Big bankers stared at one another in anger and astonishment. A bill just passed... would rivet upon their institutions what they considered a monstrous system... such a system, they felt, would not only rob them of their pride of profession but would reduce all U.S. banking to its lowest level." That appeared in Time Magazine in June of 1933. The system that caused so much consternation, so much concern was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, also known as the FDIC, an institution that has successfully secured the deposits of generations of Americans...
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Gallup: Economy added 1.5 million new full-time jobs during the last month
PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup estimates that more than 1.5 million Americans who were underemployed became employed to full capacity over the last month. Gallup's 30-day average underemployment measure (not seasonally adjusted) declined to 19.2% on April 18 -- a sharp improvement from the 20.2% reported on March 21 -- and essentially matching its best level of the year.
Gallup's Job Creation Index (not seasonally adjusted) provides additional confirmation of the improving job situation, hitting +5 for the week of April 12-18 -- its best level of the year and its highest since November 2008. The 27% of American workers last week who said their companies are hiring matches the high for the year, while the 22% who reported that their companies are letting people go marks a new 2010 low.
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Existing home sales rise 6.8% in March
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Boosted by a federal subsidy to buyers, resales of existing homes rose 6.8% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million from a downwardly revised 5.01 million in February, a real estate trade group reported Thursday.
Sales were up 16.1% compared with March 2009.
Sales in March were slightly better than the 5.29 million rate expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch.
"The tax credit has done its work," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, in releasing the data. Given the momentum imparted by the federal tax credit, he said "the market would be able to stand on its own feet" in the second half of the year.
To qualify for the tax credit, buyers must sign a contract on a home by the end of April and must close by the end of June. The NAR data are based on closings.
Home prices have stabilized, Yun said. Median home prices rose 0.4% in the past year to $170,700, the NAR said.
Yun said the government's efforts to support home prices have preserved $1 trillion in household wealth, thus supporting consumer spending and the economic recovery.
Inventories of unsold homes increased 1.5% in March to 3.58 million, an 8-month supply at the current sales pace. Inventories have come down from the peak, but are still above normal levels, Yun said.
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Sales rose in all four regions of the country in March.
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Larry Summers: Instead of losing a million jobs, the auto industry had its strongest job growth in nearly a decade
What a difference a year makes. Just about a year ago, the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse. Today, General Motors announced that it has repaid its $6.7 billion loan to the U.S. government in full five years ahead of schedule, and Chrysler announced that, after taking one-time charges last year associated with its restructuring, it produced an operating profit in the first quarter of 2010 for the first time since the economic crisis began. The prospect of a faster than anticipated exit from government involvement and a return of most of the taxpayers’ investment in these companies has materially improved.
This turnaround wasn’t an accident of history. It was the result of considered and politically difficult decisions made by President Obama to provide GM and Chrysler – and indeed the auto industry – a lifeline, if they could demonstrate the will to reshape their businesses and chart a path toward long-term viability without ongoing government assistance.
In a new White House report (pdf) we look back at the distance that these companies and this industry have traveled over the past year. The conclusion I found most striking: In 2008, the American auto industry lost over 400,000 jobs and analysts estimated that at least 1 million more jobs could have been lost had GM and Chrysler liquidated. That didn’t happen. Instead, over the past nine months since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, the industry has actually added 45,000 jobs – the strongest pace of job growth in the auto industry in nearly a decade.
This industry and our economy have a long way yet to go to repair the damage from this recession and return to full health. But the distance these companies and the auto industry have traveled over the past year is a bright spot on the road to recovery.
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The World Prefers Obama’s America
By Joe Conason
A new international survey by the British Broadcasting Co. reveals that views of the U.S. around the world "improved sharply" during the first year of the Obama presidency, with positive opinion outweighing negative for the first time since 2005, when the BBC first polled this question.
Whether the improvement helps him politically or not, Obama’s popularity abroad—and the contrast between his policies and those of the preceding administration—will enhance American influence and advance American interests.
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In a single year, since 2009, upbeat views of the U.S. rose by 21 percent in Germany and 18 percent in Russia; downbeat views dropped by 23 percent in Spain, 14 percent in France and 10 percent in the United Kingdom, with the result that all three lean toward a positive view of the country.
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At a time of global economic dislocation, much of which can fairly be blamed on American corporations and policies, such recuperation is remarkable. It is even more notable because world perceptions of China and Russia are simultaneously worsening.
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Following the Sept. 11 attacks, that traditional approval was bolstered by a wave of international sympathy, extending even to such traditional adversaries as Cuba and Iran. But the good will that could have been harnessed in service of our best purposes was simply wasted by the Bush administration, whose invasion of Iraq, use of torture and disregard for the rule of law inflicted grave damage on our reputation.
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Obama knows he cannot reach any of his foreign-policy objectives without international cooperation. More important, he understands that the future of America’s children is connected inextricably with that of their generation around the world. Restoring a reciprocal esteem with the rest of humankind—a deep aspiration of this country’s founders—will benefit them for decades to come. He deserves great credit for the success he has achieved so far.
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Andrew M. Manis, associate professor of history at Macon State College in Georgia
When are we White Americans going to get over it?
For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."
Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.
But here's my three-point plan:
First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama.
Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
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Andrew Sullivan wondering if Nick Clegg, the leader of the surprising Lib-Dem party, is really "The British Obama".
Think of the last US presidential election. It featured very established party leaders vying for the same familiar positions. Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Huckabee were all familiar faces - and the most familiar won. Clinton was the established incumbent for the Democrats. But the mood in the country - after two disastrous wars, a spending binge, a deficit crisis, and a Wall Street collapse - was for more radical change. A new person emerged, Barack Obama, part of the two-party system but somehow able to transcend it. Ditto, in some respects, the delusional Palin, who seemed to come from nowhere to galvanize the GOP base.
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It's still a very long shot. But my gut tells me that the Liberal Democrats might even win this election outright. If they do, Americans will have to absorb the fact that Britain is becoming more liberal, and that its foreign policy may be moving sharply away from the US alliance toward European integration. Clegg is the most passionately pro-EU candidate for office in decades.
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And speaking of the British Prime Minister and and the US president, here's an old but funny clip:
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VP Biden reflecting on the BFD on "The View" this morning:
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The First Lady welcomes children of Executive Office employees at the White House’s annual Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, today at the WH.
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Please don't hot-link.
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First lady Michelle Obama pets the family dog Bo during an event to welcome children of Executive Office employees at the White House's annual take our daughters and sons to work day on Thursday, April 22, 2010 in Washington (AP).
(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
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First lady Michelle Obama during an event to promote physical activity at the DC River Terrace School on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 in Washington. (AP)
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President Barack Obama waits backstage to be introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer in Los Angeles, Calif., April 19, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama greets singer India Arie as he arrives to speak in a fundraiser for by Sen. Barbara Boxer in Los Angeles, Calif., April 19 (AP)
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet members of the U.S. Olympic Women's Ice Hockey team in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, April 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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The president today in New York and back. All photos by AP. *
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White House photographer Pete Souza, poses a picture of President Barack Obama and New York City firefighters from Rescue 1, Engine 260 and Engine 228, at the Wall Street Heliport in New York Thursday, April 22.
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