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US Budget spending soaring - Risks drowning US in Debt

Domingo, 29 de Agosto de 2010 05:24 Gerardo E. Martínez-Solanas

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has updated its 10-year budget baseline, and America’s fiscal outlook continues to worsen

Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) has performed a useful service by analyzing the 10-year budget baseline of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which puts the deficit at $6.2 trillion. Riedl says that’s a phony figure because CBO is forced to make assumptions based on what Congress tells it. The true baseline deficit, says Riedl — based on a continuation of current spending and tax policies — amounts to $13 trillion over the next decade.

Aug.19.- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects $6.2 trillion in additional deficits over the next decade. This darkening budget forecast would have been even worse, were it not for the unrealistic assumptions that Congress requires the CBO to employ to make future budget deficits appear smaller.

With more realistic assumptions, the budget baseline shows that:

Even as war spending phases out and the economy recovers, the projected budget deficit never drops below $1 trillion, and reaches nearly $2 trillion by 2020; Add a comment 45 hits

New Wall Street rules pit SEC vs. the media

Sábado, 31 de Julio de 2010 22:41 Democracia Participativa

Photo: Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein

The press is pressing for transparency on business deals and government regulations in the United States. People are entitled to know what is going on within a democratic system. And the free press is a good watchdog. Let them go in pursuit of the truth.

New York, July 29 (CNNMoney.com).─ One of Wall Street reform's littlest known provisions is getting big attention for giving a government agency a possible loophole for avoiding journalists' requests for information.

Fox Business Network has been arguing in court with the Securities and Exchange Commission since March 2009 about gaining access to internal government documents that could shine some light on the way the agency investigated the Bernie Madoff and R. Allen Stanford Ponzi schemes.

But on Tuesday the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to shoot down some of those requests once again, according to the cable network.

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US Federal Report Faults Banks on Huge Bonuses

Sábado, 24 de Julio de 2010 21:12 Gerardo E. Martínez-Solanas

With the financial system on the verge of collapse in late 2008, a group of troubled banks that were TARP recipients doled out more than $2 billion in bonuses and other payments to their highest earners. Obama administration's czar Kenneth Feinberg's review released Friday did not determine that payments were contrary to the "public interest" requiring monetary reimbursement, but simply "ill-advised". Therefore, government did not get any authority to force repayment from employees or companies under the Recovery Act. Rather than demanding they return the money, Feinberg invited the 17 banks listed to give their boards of directors more power to withhold pay during future crises, but ... the request was voluntary!!

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Madoff & Goldman Sachs - Where was [is] the SEC?

Martes, 20 de Julio de 2010 19:13 Gerardo E. Martínez-Solanas

The Securities and Exchange Commission is experiencing a crisis of public esteem, particularly for failing for more than a decade to bust confessed Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff and alleged Ponzi-schemer Alan Stanford. This week's $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs over fraud charges notwithstanding, "Where was the SEC?" has a familiar ring.

One of the simpler and more effective things the SEC could do is adapt a new system of statistical incentives for agents to measure themselves against. Instead of encouraging field offices to take on a larger number of cases, the SEC should encourage them to take on more complex cases.

Jul. 14.─ Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the Securities and Exchange Commission recently held discussions about a possible settlement to simultaneously resolve the fraud lawsuit against Goldman and some of the agency's lower-profile probes of the Wall Street firm's mortgage department, according to people familiar with the situation.

The settlement idea was floated by Goldman, which is eager to end the bad publicity swirling around the New York company ever since the SEC sued it in April over a collateralized debt obligation called Abacus 2007-AC1, these people said. Combining a settlement of the Abacus lawsuit with a resolution of related SEC probes could so the Goldman clients and investors, while shielding the firm from the release of information that could be used against Goldman in private litigation.

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Académicos afirman que se agotó el modelo de crecimiento de Venezuela

Jueves, 08 de Julio de 2010 21:47 Rolando H. Castañeda

Por los datos económicos es evidente que Venezuela atraviesa una difícil situación de estanflación. Desafortunadamente, el gobierno no ha hecho nada para sustantivo para corregirla.

Tan pronto dispongamos del documento lo comentaremos.

Caracas.- El Consejo de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales de la Universidad Central de Venezuela alerta que el país no enfrenta una recesión sino el agotamiento del modelo de crecimiento.

"Un país que exhibe cuatro trimestres consecutivos de contracción del PIB no experimenta una simple recesión, sino más bien un agotamiento de un modelo de crecimiento basado en la estatización de su economía", afirman los académicos. Destacan que el descenso del PIB, durante cuatro trimestres consecutivos, ha ocurrido en medio del alza de los precios del petróleo.

"La contracción ha ocurrido en el contexto de una recuperación importante de los precios petroleros, los cuales, entre el cuarto trimestre de 2009 y el primero del 2010, pasaron de US$/b 38,6 a US$/b70,6. Es decir, mientras el precio del petróleo aumentó 83%, se acentuó la caída de la actividad económica.".

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