http://www.bloomberg.com/…

President Barack Obama, trying to bolster an economy he says still has a “long way to go,” announced 10 projects aimed at accelerating job creation, according to the administration.

The plans are meant to boost the effectiveness of a $787 billion stimulus measure sought by Obama and approved by Congress in February. The projects, including improvements to parks, highways and veterans medical facilities, will be the focus of recovery efforts during the next three months, an administration statement says.

The projects are intended create or save more than 600,000 jobs, about four times as many as were affected during the first 100 days since the rescue bill became law, the White House release says.

Construction equipment manufacturers Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. are among companies that may benefit from federal contracts for some of the work.

The new projects are being framed as the beginning of a “summer of accelerated Recovery Act activity” by the administration and include new services at health centers in 50 states, work on 107 national parks, improvements at airports, highway locations and veterans’ medical facilities. They will also provide funding for schools to hire more teachers.

Vice President Joe Biden, who later today will present Obama with the administration’s latest economic stimulus goals, said a “good foundation” was laid in the first 100 days of the Recovery Act.

“We plan to build on that foundation and accelerate our efforts so we can accomplish even more,” Biden said in a statement. “We’re going to get more dollars out the door, more shovels into the ground and more money into the pockets of workers and families who need it most.”

Glad I can help out Caterpillar and Deere. And all those people to get busy work hanging out at 107 national parks. I’m glad that the government puts the cart in front of the horse by expecting a healthy economy to spring up from putting people to work rather then people fulfilling the demand of labor of a healthy economy.

Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson must be to the politicians like Slim Whitman’s Indian Love Call is to Martians.

http://www.bloomberg.com/…

The following table details how the Fed and the government have committed the money on behalf of American taxpayers over the past 20 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

===========================================================
                                  --- Amounts (Billions)---
                                   Limit          Current
===========================================================
Total                            $12,798.14     $4,169.71
-----------------------------------------------------------
 Federal Reserve Total            $7,765.64     $1,678.71
  Primary Credit Discount           $110.74        $61.31
  Secondary Credit                    $0.19         $1.00
  Primary dealer and others         $147.00        $20.18
  ABCP Liquidity                    $152.11         $6.85
  AIG Credit                         $60.00        $43.19
  Net Portfolio CP Funding        $1,800.00       $241.31
  Maiden Lane (Bear Stearns)         $29.50        $28.82
  Maiden Lane II  (AIG)              $22.50        $18.54
  Maiden Lane III (AIG)              $30.00        $24.04
  Term Securities Lending           $250.00        $88.55
  Term Auction Facility             $900.00       $468.59
  Securities lending overnight       $10.00         $4.41
  Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility   $900.00         $4.71
  Currency Swaps/Other Assets       $606.00       $377.87
  MMIFF                             $540.00         $0.00
  GSE Debt Purchases                $600.00        $50.39
  GSE Mortgage-Backed Securities  $1,000.00       $236.16
  Citigroup Bailout Fed Portion     $220.40         $0.00
  Bank of America Bailout            $87.20         $0.00
  Commitment to Buy Treasuries      $300.00         $7.50
-----------------------------------------------------------
  FDIC Total                      $2,038.50       $357.50
   Public-Private Investment*       $500.00          0.00
   FDIC Liquidity Guarantees      $1,400.00       $316.50
   GE                               $126.00        $41.00
   Citigroup Bailout FDIC            $10.00         $0.00
   Bank of America Bailout FDIC       $2.50         $0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
 Treasury Total                   $2,694.00     $1,833.50
  TARP                              $700.00       $599.50
  Tax Break for Banks                $29.00        $29.00
  Stimulus Package (Bush)           $168.00       $168.00
  Stimulus II (Obama)               $787.00       $787.00
  Treasury Exchange Stabilization    $50.00        $50.00
  Student Loan Purchases             $60.00         $0.00
  Support for Fannie/Freddie        $400.00       $200.00
  Line of Credit for FDIC*          $500.00         $0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
HUD Total                           $300.00       $300.00
  Hope for Homeowners FHA           $300.00       $300.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
The FDIC’s commitment to guarantee lending under the
Legacy Loan Program and the Legacy Asset Program includes a $500
billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury.

Awesome. And Krugman says they aren’t spending enough. I guess we need to catch up to Japan with their debt being 170% GDP. Obama’s going to have to do better than $10 trillion deficit over the next 8 years to pull this off.

From Bloomberg:

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929. The U.S. also sold $30 billion of four-week bills today at zero percent for the first time since it began selling the debt in 2001.

“It’s the year-end factor,” said Chris Ahrens, an interest-rate strategist in Greenwich, Connecticut, at UBS Securities LLC, one of the 17 primary dealers that trade directly with the Federal Reserve. “Everyone wants to be in bills going into year-end. Buy now while the opportunity is still there.”

The benchmark 10-year note’s yield tumbled 11 basis points, or 0.11 percentage point, to 2.63 percent at 4:48 p.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. The 3.75 percent security due in November 2018 gained 31/32, or $9.69 per $1,000 face amount, to 109 23/32. The yield touched 2.505 percent on Dec. 5, the lowest level since at least 1962, when the Fed’s daily records began.

The two-year note’s yield fell 10 basis points to 0.84 percent. It dropped to a record low of 0.77 percent on Dec. 5.

If you invested $1 million in three-month bills at today’s negative discount rate of 0.01 percent, for a price of 100.002556, at maturity you would receive the par value for a loss of $25.56.

Year-end factor?  Perhaps, but more likely banks have no one left to lend to and are seeking somewhere to park their TARP loot.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

Writes Bob Higgs:

My source is Bloomberg.Requiring the Fed to disclose loan recipients might set off panic, said David Tobin, principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank Mission Capital Advisors LLC.

“If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,” Tobin said. “So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.”

I believe he said “the banking system is bankrupt.” That seems like an honest statement. And then he said “you try to keep it going.” Pretty cool, eh. Zombie banking system. Keep it going.

Some of the bailout assistance could come from tax breaks in the future. The Treasury Department changed the tax code on Sept. 30 to allow banks to expand the deductions on the losses banks they were buying, according to Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers tax and accounting analyst who teaches at Columbia University Business School in New York.

Wells Fargo & Co., which is buying Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., will be able to deduct $22 billion, Willens said. Adding in other banks, the code change will cost $29 billion, he said.

“The rule is now popularly known among tax lawyers as the ‘Wells Fargo Notice,’” Willens said.

The regulation was changed to make it easier for healthy banks to buy troubled ones, said Treasury Department spokesman Andrew DeSouza.

Note: the Treasury changed the law. The pretense that Congress makes the laws, with the president’s assent, has apparently been abandoned as unnecessary in a crisis. Besides, under the present emergency regime, the Treasury is the government, with assistance from the Fed and the FDIC. All the rest is mere window dressing.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/…

First batch here.

Here is the second. Like the first batch, they are well-considered and interesting throughout; they will surely make many readers continue to wish fervently for a Paul presidency.

Thanks again to Rep. Paul for his time and insights, and to all of you for the good questions.

Q: What is the first thing the country should do about its monetary policy?

A: We should immediately audit the Federal Reserve. I am the ranking member of the Monetary Policy subcommittee in the U.S. Congress, yet I can get more information about the internal workings of the C.I.A. than I can about our central bank. This secrecy is fundamentally wrong, and I believe that people from all over the ideological political spectrum can agree on that.

Bloomberg News this month has gone to court compel the Fed to disclose securities the central bank is accepting on behalf of American taxpayers as collateral for trillions of dollars of loans to banks. Expanding transparency is critical and could be done very quickly.

Q: What are your expectations for the next four years under an Obama administration? How might President Obama’s interventionist economic policies impact our lives?

A: Unfortunately, I don’t expect many good things. I do expect a lot of spending and even more debt. To really cut spending and balance our budget, we need to change foreign policy. Obama’s rhetoric on foreign policy is better than what we have gotten recently, but don’t expect any real change.

He may be more likely to wind things down in Iraq, but he’s still planning on keeping troops there for a least 16 more months. He wants money for Georgia and more troops in Afghanistan. He isn’t going to bring home our 30,000 troops from Korea or our 50,000 soldiers in Germany, and he won’t close any of our 700 foreign bases. At the same time, he is planning even bigger spending here at home. I hope I’m wrong, but if this spending and debt continue, the dollar is going to crash and we will see the middle class in this country take a grave hit.

Q: Do you deny global warming? Is Obama right to invest money in green technology? If you don’t deny it, and don’t think Obama is right, what is your solution?

Read More…

Bonuses for Wall Street Should Go to Zero, U.S. Taxpayers Say

Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) — U.S. taxpayers, who feel they own a stake in Wall Street after funding a $700 billion bailout for the industry, don’t want executives’ bonuses reduced. They want them eliminated.

“I may not understand everything, but I do understand common sense, and when you lend money to someone, you don’t want to see them at a new-car dealer the next day,” said Ken Karlson, a 61-year-old Vietnam veteran and freelance marketer in Wheaton, Illinois. “The bailout money shouldn’t have been given to them in the first place.”

Compensation at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and the six other banks that received the first $125 billion of the federal funds is under scrutiny by lawmakers, including Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat. President-elect Barack Obama cited the program at his first news conference on Nov. 7, saying it will be reviewed to make sure it’s “not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms receiving government assistance.”

Read More…