NEWS
April 17, 2009
Hopes that economic recovery will be quick or easy have been shadowed by a fresh flood of bad news. The housing market continues to stumble lower, construction of new homes fell sharply last month, and foreclosures surged in the first quarter. In Maryland, an array of companies announced continuing layoffs this week and General Growth Properties, owner of the Rouse malls and developments, filed for bankruptcy court protection. The bad news is a reminder that the clock is running on the Obama administration's effort to jump-start the economy.
NEWS
April 15, 2009
Americans hate taxes but, truth be told, these days they are more afraid of depression. So while Republicans are trying to move the masses toward tax rebellion with tea parties today in Annapolis and elsewhere intended to remind us of the pre-Revolutionary dumping of taxed British tea in Boston Harbor, they are unlikely to create much of a stir. For one thing, many American taxpayers are enjoying a nice tax cut this year - part of the effort to spur the lagging economy. For another, people are willing to accept a ballooning federal deficit if it means saving jobs and promoting an economic recovery.
NEWS
February 10, 2009
Americans want help, not more government There is a reason I have seen the word "selling" appear more than once in headlines about President Barack Obama traveling across the country to solicit support for the proposed economic stimulus package: Americans are not embracing this huge government expansion and need to be convinced that this program is in their best interest ("Pressure mounts on lawmakers as Obama begins selling stimulus to public," Feb....
NEWS
January 6, 2009
How do you spend an estimated $775 billion over two years without wasting money? That's the challenge President-elect Barack Obama has been struggling with in recent days as he assembled pieces of the economic recovery plan he is expected to present to Congress later this week. Economists of every stripe have urged that Congress quickly enact a massive short-term spending program to propel the economy out of a deepening recession that threatens to produce double-digit unemployment by the end of this year.
NEWS
By Patrick J. McDonnell | November 24, 2008
LIMA, Peru - President Bush and other world leaders vowed yesterday to act "quickly and decisively" to battle the global economic crisis, as a 21-nation summit predicted worldwide recovery in 18 months. But the final declaration from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum was short on specifics, beyond a vow by participating nations to avoid pressures to implement "protectionist" measures, such as import restrictions. "We are convinced that we can overcome this crisis in a period of eighteen months," the leaders concluded in a forecast added to a statement originally issued Saturday.
NEWS
By Lorraine Mirabella and Bill Atkinson | May 7, 2004
As the price of crude oil approaches record highs, the impact is beginning to flow far beyond the corner gas station. It's slicing through the economy, cutting into corporate profits, raising the cost of food, airline tickets, delivery services and countless other products. The cost of petroleum-based consumer goods -- everything from plastic wrap to Goretex to aspirin, luggage, surfboards and nylon stockings -- is expected to rise. Combined with record gasoline prices at the pumps, the spreading energy inflation means that Americans will have less spending power -- which is likely to dampen the economic recovery, experts say. For every $5 per barrel increase in the price of oil, roughly half a percentage point is shaved from the U.S. gross domestic product, economists say. Currently, that would be about $55 billion a year in lost production.
NEWS
By Jamie Smith Hopkins | March 6, 2004
U.S. employment barely budged last month, an economic problem for the 8.2 million people out of work and a political predicament for a president who doesn't want to end up in the same situation. About 21,000 jobs were created in February, the Labor Department said yesterday, a sixth the size of economists' forecasts. The unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent as 392,000 people dropped out of the labor force, just as the presidential campaign kicked into high gear. The Labor Department, which originally estimated an increase of 112,000 jobs in January, also revised that number downward, to 97,000.
NEWS
By Cynthia Tucker | March 1, 2004
ATLANTA - Dissembling on the campaign trail is always easy. So, for the two viable Democratic presidential candidates, it must be tempting to distort, to disguise, to demagogue, to look into the faces of desperate, jobless workers and pledge to fix everything - to bring back the good-paying jobs at American auto plants, to restore textile jobs by stopping Wal-Mart from importing bras from China, to penalize American credit card companies that send their...
NEWS
By Bill Atkinson | February 10, 2004
President Bush delivered an upbeat report on the economy to Congress yesterday, declaring that his tax cuts have spurred steady growth, which he expects will create 2.6 million new jobs this year. The buoyant forecast surprised economists who gave Bush credit for spurring an economic recovery but labeled as unlikely the creation of so many jobs this year. "That would be quite a trick," said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive of Optimal Solutions Group LLC, a Baltimore economic consulting firm.
NEWS
By Bill Atkinson | December 19, 2003
A raft of positive economic news sent stocks up across the board yesterday, and the Dow Jones industrial average shot to its highest close in 19 months as investors gained confidence that the economic recovery is firmly under way and the conflict in Iraq is going better. The Dow, an index of 30 blue-chip stocks, jumped 102.82 points, or 1 percent, to close at 10,248.08. The index is up 22.85 percent for the year, and has risen 465 points since the month began. It was the second 100-plus point gain of the week.