Word: stimulus
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...Japan and all of Europe mired in the worst global recession in 30 years, China has shown a restorative strength that six months ago many doubted it had. A devastating slump in exports crippled growth late last year, but on the back of a $586 billion government stimulus program - about 13% of GDP, spread over two years - China has snapped back. The economy grew 7.9% in the second quarter and will now probably expand 8% or more this year. Evidence of increasing momentum appears almost every day. Factory production has begun to edge up, in part because Chinese consumers continue...
...world's undisputed economic locomotive. But that engine remains sidetracked. The IMF predicts the U.S. economy will contract 2.6% this year. American home prices continue to fall in some cities, while the unemployment rate has soared to 9.5%, the highest since 1983. The U.S.'s much ballyhooed stimulus plan has so far yielded little measurable benefit, save putting some spark back in stock markets. The absence of real signs of recovery has Washington discussing the possibility of yet another round of stimulus spending, despite a ballooning federal budget deficit...
Democrats in Washington have taken extraordinary steps to address long-term unemployment in this recession. Last year Congress added 33 extra weeks of unemployment benefits. As part of the stimulus bill this year, Congress added an additional potential 20 weeks for the worst hit states, raising to 79 weeks the maximum time a laid-off worker can draw unemployment assistance while looking for a job. To combat "hysteresis," or the atrophying of job skills in the labor force, the Labor Department issued an opinion earlier this year that workers can still draw unemployment insurance even if they work a volunteer...
...judge from the spiking numbers, those efforts may be having an effect. Despite criticism from the right that the stimulus was a waste and risked adding to government jobs, not private-sector ones, the unexpected drop in overall rates came with only an additional 7,000 jobs in the government sector. But July's indications of improvements do little to ease some economists' fears about long-term unemployment now that 1 in 3 unemployed persons has been looking for work for 27 weeks or more. Galbraith of the University of Texas at Austin believes that some workers have intentionally left...
Regulatory reform has been a relatively low-profile issue for the Administration, compared with health care, the stimulus bill and cap-and-trade legislation. But substantively, Obama and Geithner's proposal has the potential to dramatically change the way America does business. The two men have proposed creating a consumer-financial-protection agency that would have broad power to police financial firms by, for instance, ensuring they are complying with rules protecting consumers from things like predatory lending and deceptive practices. Geithner also wants to consolidate the work of some of the regulators, in particular giving broad new authority...