A California solar energy company that was unable to meet a deadline for an Energy Department loan guarantee last year has sought bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
Solar Trust of America’s Chapter 11 filing on Monday listed assets between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities between $50 million and $100 million.
Why did you bury this story so deep no one could find it?
Last Friday (January 27) the US Bureau of Economic Analysis announced its advance estimate that in the last quarter of 2011 the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8% in real inflation-adjusted terms, an increase from the annual rate of growth in the third quarter.
Good news, right?
Wrong. If you want to know what is really happening, you must turn to John Williams at shadowstats.com.
What the presstitute media did not tell us is that almost the entire gain In GDP growth was due to “involuntary inventory build-up,” that is, more goods were produced than were sold.
Net of the unsold goods, the annualized real growth rate was eight-tenths of one percent.
And even that tiny growth rate is an exaggeration, because it is deflated with a measure of inflation that understates inflation. The US government’s measure of inflation no longer measures a constant standard of living. Instead, the government’s inflation measure relies on substitution of cheaper goods for those that rise in price. In other words, the government holds the measure of inflation down by measuring a declining standard of living. This permits our rulers to divert cost-of-living-adjustments that should be paid to Social Security recipients to wars of aggression, police state, and banker bailouts.
When the methodology that measures a constant standard of living is used to deflate nominal GDP, the result is a shrinking US economy. It becomes clear that the US economy has had no recovery and has now been in deep recession for four years despite the proclamation by the National Bureau of Economic Research of a recovery based on the rigged official numbers.
A government can always produce the illusion of economic growth by underestimating the rate of inflation. There is no question that a substitution-based measure of inflation understates the inflation that people experience. More proof that there has been no economic recovery is available from those data series that are unaffected by inflation. If the economy were in fact recovering, these date series would be picking up. Instead, they are flat or declining, as John Williams demonstrates.
For example, according to the government’s own data, payroll employment in December 2011 is less than in 2001. Meanwhile, there has been a decade of population growth. The presstitute media calls the alleged economic recovery a “jobless recovery,” which is a contradiction in terms. There can be no recovery without a growth in employment and consumer income.
Real average weekly earnings (deflated by the government’s CPI-W) have never recovered their 1973 peak. Real median household income (deflated by the government’s CPI-U) has not recovered its 2001 peak and is below the 1969 level. If earnings were deflated by the original methodology instead of by the new substitution-based methodology, the picture would be bleaker.
Consumer confidence shows no recovery and is far below the level of a decade ago.
How does an economy recover without a recovery in consumer confidence?
Housing starts have remained flat since 2009 and are below their previous peak.
Retail sales are below the index level of January 2000.
Industrial production remains below the index level of January 2000.
To repeat, the only indicator of economic recovery is the GDP deflated with an understated measure of inflation.
The US economy cannot recover, because the US economy depends on consumer expenditures for more than 70% of its activity. The offshoring of middle class jobs has stopped the rise in middle class income and caused a drop in consumer spending power.
The Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan compensated for the absence of US consumer income growth with a policy of easy credit and a policy of driving up home prices with low interest rates. This policy allowed people to refinance their homes and to spend the inflated equity in their homes that Greenspan’s policy created.
In other words, an increase in consumer indebtedness and dissavings drove the economy in the place of the missing growth in consumer incomes.
Today, consumers are too indebted to borrow, and banks are too insolvent to lend. Therefore, there is no possibility of further debt expansion as a substitute for real income growth. An offshored economy is a dead and exhausted economy.
The consequences of a dead economy when the government is wasting trillions of dollars in wars of naked aggression and in bailouts of fraudulent financial institutions is a government budget that can only be financed by printing money.
The consequence of printing money when jobs have been moved offshore is an inflationary depression. This catastrophe could begin to unfold this year or in 2013. If Europe’s problems worsen, flight into dollars could delay sharp rises in US inflation until 2014.
The emperor has no clothes, and sooner or later this will be recognized.
The economy did horribly in the last three months of 2011.
I know that’s not what you’ve been hearing.
During this past Christmas season you were first told that consumers were dying to get to the malls and shop. That turned out to be true — for a couple of days at least, while stores were desperately discounting everything they had.
Then you were told that manufacturers were having a bang-up month and that automakers were selling cars like it was the old days.
And Apple — who could forget Apple? — was selling iAnythings like they were some sort of lifesaving device and every American was in the hospital emergency room.
Last Friday the Commerce Department released its tally of business conditions in October, November and December. And it was, well, quite disappointing if you actually know what to look at.
The headline number you saw on the evening news that night and in the newspapers on Saturday was this: the nation’s gross domestic product rose at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the 2011 fourth quarter, which was better than the 1.8 percent growth in the July-September period.
In the first place, 2.8 percent isn’t a good rate of growth for any year.
Take out your calculator, divide 2.8 percent by the four quarters of the year, and you’ll see that fourth-quarter growth — even if you take these numbers at face value — was just 0.7 percent.
Tepid. Lukewarm. Disappointing. Not what should be happening four years into a recession (oh, right, that’s supposed to be over) after the Federal Reserve has used all its tricks and our elected officials have bankrupted the country.
But it gets worse.
(If you start coughing up blood while reading this column I suggest you dial 911. Remember, I’m just the skeptical messenger trying to set things straight, so don’t take it out on me.)
And that meager 2.8 percent annual growth really isn’t what it seems to be.
That’s because 75 percent of that 2.8 percent growth involved businesses restocking inventories. Who says? The Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which released this data.
So people like you and me weren’t really buying all that stuff in the last months of 2011. It was businesses buying stuff and putting it on their shelves in hopes that people would soon come along and buy it from them.
Inventories will only build up so much before companies say “no more.” So these restockings are not considered a particularly good thing when the ultimate buyer — the consumer — is still uncooperative.
But that wasn’t the only scary thing in the GDP report. In fact, it wasn’t even the most important thing.
In order to get to that 2.8 percent growth the Commerce Department used a very unrealistic level of inflation in its calculations.
Let me explain: The government comes up with a figure on how much it thinks the economy grew, or shrunk. Friday’s figure was a first estimate for the fourth quarter, so most of the numbers used in the calculation are only guesstimates anyway. (But that’s for a different story.)
The government then takes that growth figure, subtracts the rate of inflation and comes up with the real growth it reports in its press release.
So, in other words, if inflation is rising it reduces the rate of actual, after inflation, growth — which is the figure that Washington reports.
In Friday’s number the government used 0.4 percent as the rate of inflation. Zero. Point. Four. Percent.
In which country is inflation that low? Certainly not in America. Absolutely not in the last four months of 2011.
The consumer price index, which is put out by the US Census Bureau, had prices up 3 percent for the year.
And the rate of inflation used in calculating the third-quarter 2011 GDP was 2.6 percent; in the first and second quarters, combined, the rate was 2.5 percent; it was 1.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.
So how does the Zero-Point-Four-Freakin’ percent sound now?
That’s how Commerce got to the not-very-inspiring 2.8 percent growth it reported last Friday.
Let me put this another way in case you are missing my outrage.
If the inflation figure used in last Friday’s GDP figure had just remained the same as the 2.6 percent rate from the third quarter, Washington would have had to report fourth-quarter annualized growth of just 0.6 percent.
(Calculation: Inflation was lowered by 2.2 percentage points. So subtract 2.2 percent from the 2.8 percent growth to get 0.6 percent.)
And that’s an annualized rate. So divide the 0.6 percent by four quarters and the economy expanded at an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny 0.15 percent in the fourth quarter.
On Friday, the Labor Department will issue its employment report for January.
Freddie Mac, based in Northern Virginia, says its job is to purchase “loans from lenders to replenish their supply of funds so that they [the lenders] can make more mortgage loans to other borrowers.” That’s one reason why Freddie has a gigantic portfolio containing loans that generate income from mortgage payments. Critics say this investment portfolio has been allowed to grow far larger than necessary to further Freddie’s policy mission.
Plus, in 2010 and 2011, Freddie didn’t just hold a simple pile of loans. Instead, for hundreds of thousands of home loans, it used Wall Street alchemy to chop these loans up into complicated securities — slices of which were sold in financial markets.
This hypothetical example may help explain what happens:
1) Freddie Mac takes, say, $1 billion worth of home loans and packages them. With the help of a Wall Street banker, it can then slice off parts of the bundle to create different investment securities, some riskier than others. The slices could be set up so that, say, $900 million worth are relatively safe investments, based upon homeowners paying the principal on their mortgages.
2) But the one remaining slice, worth $100 million, is the riskiest part. Freddie retains that slice, known as an “inverse floater,” which receives all of the interest payments from the entire $1 billion worth of mortgages.
3) That riskiest investment pays out a lucrative stream of interest payments. But Freddie’s slice also has all the so-called “pre-payment risk” associated with that $1 billion worth of loans. So if lots of people “pre-pay” their old loans and refinance into new, cheaper ones, then Freddie Mac starts to lose money. If people can’t refinance, then Freddie wins because it continues to receive that flow of older, higher interest payments.
If the homeowner is unable to refinance, the Freddie Mac portfolio managers win, Simon says. “And if the homeowner can refinance, they lose.”
A team of engineers from Northwestern University haveredesigned the lithium-ion battery — the chunky energy cell found in the majority of modern gadgets — so that it can charge ten times faster than current batteries, and last ten times longer.
Chemical engineer and lead author of the research Harold Kung claims that his battery could charge your phone in just 15 minutes and go on to last for a week. “Even after 150 charges,” he says, “the battery is still five times more effective than lithium-ion batteries on the market today.”
Bernie and Ruth Madoff met in 1954 when they were teenagers, and from the beginning Bernie criticized Ruth, perpetually, pointing out every minor imperfection in his young bride.
As a result, she led a life in which fear was her overarching motivator: She was so afraid of Bernie cheating, she allowed him only 24 hours of travel alone.
Yet, cheat he did.
For 16 years, he regularly slept with Sheryl Weinstein, a top executive at the time for a women’s Jewish group, who eventually penned a Madoff tome, “Madoff’s Other Secret.”
Shockingly, it wasn’t her son’s death or the loss of her fortune or her husband’s vile plot and resulting imprisonment that unsettled Ruth the most
Are you a sucker betting in that shell game called stock market? Here you go…. below is the reason to stop betting against the people with the supercomputers.
Notice at 6:30 the future trading floor – it will be a room full with computers.
China ratings house says US defaulting – Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies — eroding the wealth of creditors including China….Heh-heh-heh…. Suckers!
Dow closes below 12 0000 – Investors were dour after U.S. May import prices showed a surprise rise of 0.2%, hinting at an inflation push coming into the U.S. from abroad. Surprised, eh?
JPMorgan Forecasts Another Drop in Home Prices – JPMorgan Chase is forecasting another 4 to 5 percent drop in home values over the next 12 months. The forecast number is low, if you ask me.
Home prices may drop another 25%, Shiller predicts – Home prices may drop as much as 25 percent, after inflation, over the next five years, economist Robert Shiller, co-founder of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, said Thursday
30% Of People With A 401(k) Have Taken Out A Loan Against It – One-in-seven people took out such loans last year — up by double digits from 2009, according to the consulting group AON Hewitt. More people not retiring and working into their 80s.
Ohio restaurant name-checked by Obama to close – The owners of an Ohio restaurant touted last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government’s Chrysler bailout said Thursday that tough times are putting them out of business. Obama is toxic any way you look at it.
States considering online lottery sales - Republican New York Assemblyman Clifford Crouch is sponsoring a bill that would allow online sales of Quick Draw and other games, with a goal of expanding the market. Legalising sin to boost revenue…soon to pass – lowering the drinking age to 14 and legalizing drugs and prostitution (I am not saying it is good or bad thing)
Americans’ equity in their homes near a record low – Falling real estate prices are eating away at home equity. The percentage of their homes that Americans own is near its lowest point since World War II, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The average homeowner now has 38 percent equity, down from 61 percent a decade ago. And some realtors continue to say that the homes are supposed to be our pigi-banks to help our retirement?
US Is Nearing Even Worse Financial Crisis: Jim Rogers – In the last three years the government has spent staggering amounts of money and the Federal Reserve is taking on staggering amounts of debt. ”When the problems arise next time…what are they going to do? They can’t quadruple the debt again. They cannot print that much more money. It’s gonna be worse the next time around.” Why not?, Why not?
Job Plan With A Page From Marx – Presumably, if enough community college students can be trained for traditionally unionized manufacturers, employers will have no choice but to hire them. That’s a win-win-win-win for educational bureaucrats, unions, jobs and Obama’s political prospects. Below is a different prospective with which I agree more.We can have manufacturing here – high tech innovative manufacturing. Still do not agree with the part where the government gets to decide who is the winner and who is the looser in funding private businesses with grants
Less than half of African-American men now have full-time jobs, and less than half of all white men will have full-time jobs in 2018, according to post-2000 trends hidden in federal population and workforce data.
There are roughly 14 million people formally labeled as unemployed, but “there’s probably 22 million to 23 million people who are unemployed, mal-employed or underemployed,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
O-mama….”Less than half of African-American men now have full-time jobs, and less than half of all white men will have full-time jobs in 2018″
And see the above story should have been first page news everywhere….But what passes for news today are the distraction of the real problems – releasing 24 000 of Palin’s emails while she was governor (who cares?), that Weiner guy is probably going to keep his seat as our employee and we will continue to pay him to twitter his weine (I personally do not care about his private life, but boy if he lie so bluntly, can you trust him to represent you?), Obama to play golf with few other political hacks….probably discussing how to run America down the drain faster…
The Hidden Cost of Ethanol Subsidies – By mandating 40% of our corn crop be dedicated to ethanol, we’ve created domestic shortages that may turn the U.S. into a net importer of corn and destroy our dominance in one more area of the world economy. And as usual the bad news doesn’t come alone…It seems we will pay higher prices for the corn…and the ethanol
Tightening stockpiles drive up corn prices – Corn jumped to the highest price in almost three years after the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast tighter supplies, as adverse weather hurt crops
What’s up with the youth today in America….Oh, yeah – undereducated and out of work, no body is hiring right now so….-…so, they kill for joy….
Dozens Brawl Outside Downtown San Jose McDonald’s; 2 Stabbed – Witnesses told CBS5 that the brawl was so big it looked like a riot. That kind of behavior isn’t surprising to some. One man, who only identified himself as “Julio,” said the area looks like a “war zone” late at night with groups of youngsters looking for trouble.
NM teens tied up, smothered foster mom – Arrest documents say two 15-year-old girls accused of killing their foster mom in New Mexico put her in a chokehold, tied her hands and feet and then smothered her with a pillow.
Wash. residents warned of ‘bloodthirsty’ dog pack – You know what kind of countries usually have problem with bloodthirsty dog packs? Third world countries. In times of financial hardship some owners let the dogs go out to take care of themselves and feed with the garbage on the srteets. Few eventually will get together and start acting as their brothers the wolf in searching to kill a pray. Now the animal control cannot take care of the problem because the states and county budgets are in red, so they cannot care for them in the animal shelters because of lack of food and neither have enough people to hunt down the dogs. So what we did in my ex-third world country – the residents hunted them down themselves with poison meat and shotguns. May sound cruel, but I bet you do not want to see kids and old people eaten by dogs.
Obama’s Egghead Economic Saboteurs - Official motto of the White House economic team: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, fantasize in the classroom, fail in Washington and then return to the Ivy Tower to train the next generation of egghead economic saboteurs. Life is good for left-wing academics. Everyone else pays dearly.
Professor disaster – Rats, say goodbye to the ship of state: Gone are Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag. Headed out is Goolsbee, who abruptly announced his resignation Monday to return to teaching at the University of Chicago. With the water lapping over the gunwales, the lone holdout is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the former tax cheat, who sails grimly on. Heckuva job, guys.
O’Donnell: Most Voters “Don’t Really Know Anything About The Economy” – MSNBC’s LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: But a recent poll shows that a majority of voters–a majority of whom don’t really know anything about the economy–don’t believe that the economy is recovering and blame President Obama for the struggling economy
Illinois Tax Firesale – Illinois is proving what bookshelves full of studies have found: Handing out special favors one business at a time is politically corrupting and an ineffective economic development strategy. A sounder way to create jobs is to provide a welcome tax and regulatory climate for all businesses. Some states, such as Arizona, constitutionally prohibit politicians from granting special favors to a business or citizen.
New Jersey and New York Ranked as Worst States for “Individual Freedoms” -Freer states are attracting citizens from other states while less-free states are losing citizens — and their tax dollars. The study results also showed that a 0.25 unit increase in economic freedom increases the average annual growth rate in personal income by about 0.25 percentage points.
Fed survey: Economy falters in several US regions – Economy falters because of slower manufacturing and weaker consumer spending. Gee, how do you make consumers spend or manufactures produce if some of them believe we are heading to a depression….
