source AP..

WASHINGTON — The recovery lost momentum in the second quarter as growth slowed to a 2.4 percent pace, its most sluggish showing in nearly a year and too weak to drive down unemployment.

Weaker spending by consumers, less growth coming from companies restocking shrunken stockpiles and a bigger drag from the nation’s trade deficits were the main factors behind the second quarter’s slowdown.

The recovery has been losing power for two straight quarters. That raises concerns about whether it will fizzle out. Or worse, tip back into a “double-dip” recession.

The economy began to grow in the third quarter of last year after having suffered the worst recession since the Great Depression. And in the following quarter the economy’s growth surged at a 5 percent pace, the high water mark of the rebound.

Much of the expansion was driven by the government’s massive $862 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased spending. Also, companies helped energize growth with a burst of spending to replenish inventories that were cut down during the recession.

Now, as those forces are fading, concerns are growing as to whether the private sector can boost spending and investment enough to keep the recovery afloat.

Consumer spending, usually the lifeblood of economic activity, slowed in the second quarter. Such spending rose at an anemic 1.6 percent pace. That was down from a 1.9 percent pace in the first quarter and was the weakest showing since the end of last year.

The 2.4 percent growth rate logged in the April-to-June quarter was slightly less than the 2.5 percent pace economists were forecasting. It was the weakest since a 1.6 percent pace in the third quarter of last year, when a record streak of four straight losing quarters came to an end.

With the economy growing at a subpar speed, the 9.5 percent unemployment rate is not expected to fall.

It takes about 3 percent growth in gross domestic product just to create enough jobs to keep pace with the population increase.

Comment by American Grand Jury:

This Obama economy really sucks.. the only good news is that these low numbers will really hurt the Democrats in the coming election.

Speaking of the coming election:

by Rick Moran

A new Fox News poll has the good news:

With less than 100 days until the midterm elections, American voters would give the edge to Republicans by an 11 percentage-point margin if the Congressional election were today. Yet a majority doesn’t think a Republican takeover of Congress would lead to positive change.

A Fox News poll released Thursday finds that if Americans were heading to the voting booth today, they would back the Republican candidate in their district over the Democrat by 47-36 percent. Two weeks ago the Republicans had a slimmer 4-point advantage (41-37 percent).

As has been the case all year, Republicans continue to be more interested in the upcoming election. Thirty-six percent of Republicans are “extremely” interested compared to 23 percent of Democrats.

Despite the Republican edge on the generic ballot question, voters have mixed views on how things would change if the GOP gained control of Congress. Thirty-eight percent think there would be no real change. Thirty-seven percent think it would lead to change for the better, while 21 percent say it would change for the worse.

The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats have said that they want to raise taxes in the top two income tax rates in January 2011. Under their plan, the 33 percent rate will rise to 36 percent, and the 35 percent rate will rise to 39.6 percent automatically in January. These rates affect families and small business owners earning at least $200,000 per year

According to the IRS, most small business profits pay taxes in households making more than $200,000 per year. The IRS keeps track of two types of small business income: sole proprietors, and “pass-through” entities like partnerships and S-corporations.

S-corporations and partnerships. There were 8 million partners and S-corporation shareholders in 2008. On net (profits reduced by losses), these owners reported business profits of $717 billion. A majority of this profit–$398 billion—faced taxation in households making more than $200,000 per year. 55 percent of S-corporation and partnership profits will face a tax rate hike under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid tax hike plan.

source..

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Comment by American Grand Jury:

Welcome to the Obama economy.. based on lies, corruption and communism.

This is a perfect example why many refrain from watching the news on ABC, NBC, CBS, or MSNBC.

Recently on a segment of the “Glen Beck Show” on FOX (Fox Cable News) was the following:

Even though President Usurper Obama is against off shore drilling for our country, he signed an executive order to loan 2 Billion of our taxpayers dollars to a Brazilian Oil Exploration Company (which is the 8th largest company in the entire world) to drill for oil off the coast of Brazil ! The oil that comes from this operation is for the sole purpose and use of China and NOT THE USA ! Now here’s the real clincher…the Chinese government is under contract to purchase all the oil that this oil field will produce, which is hundreds of millions of barrels of oil”..

We have absolutely no gain from this transaction whatsoever!

Wait, it gets more interesting.

Guess who is the largest individual stockholder of this Brazilian Oil Company and who would benefit most from this? It is American BILLIONAIRE, George Soros, who was one of Obama’s most generous financial supporter during his campaign.

If you are able to connect the dots and follow the money, you are probably as upset as I am. Not a word of this transaction was broadcast on any of the other news networks!

by Janice Shaw Crouse

Warning signs are everywhere — most of them carefully phrased and nuanced, but warnings, nevertheless. Greece and, closer to home, California are painful reminders of what could happen. CNBC is reporting that the Dow is repeating patterns that prevailed just before the Great Depression. The U.S. workforce suffered one its sharpest declines ever — a drop of 652,000 — in June. Economists claim that “wages are flirting with deflation.” It’s hard to find good news on the financial front. Now, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its “Long-Term Budget Outlook” to confirm what people already feared: The national debt is devastating for the future of America. According to the CBO, “the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits, as a share of the economy, since the end of World War II.” As a result, the CBO paints a very bleak picture of our nation’s future prospects. Further, as the world’s remaining superpower, this country’s terrible financial condition affects all other nations — a fact that makes the CBO report even more alarming.

To compound the alarm, the CBO admits to understating the severity of the problem because its report does not include the negative impact that “substantial amounts of additional federal debt” would have on other aspects of the nation’s economy.

We’ve been warned; is anybody listening?

The CBO made it clear that ObamaCare — the health reform package that was shoved down the nation’s throat — did not “diminish” the problem; plus the economists at the CBO think that the president’s pledge of tax cuts for the middle class will make matters worse and that health care costs will continue to “spiral out of control.” Indeed, some analysts believe the Obama health care package locked in the unsustainable health care spending path. These expert evaluations confirm my recent report, Obamanomics, in which I noted: “Americans are learning that ObamaCare will pile on to an already insurmountable debt. … It is obvious that ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster for both our health care system and the nation’s fiscal future.” The CBO does not mention the failure of the stimulus bill — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — that was supposed to create jobs, but unemployment remains close to double digits, and there has been no impact on either employment or payrolls. In short, the national debt is pushing us toward a fiscal crisis, and ObamaCare is expected to add $10 trillion to that debt over the next decade.

Almost no one questions the assertion that ObamaCare and its impact on the national debt are devastating for the future of America.

Nile Gardiner, a D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst for the British Telegraph, wrote, “America is sinking under Obama’s towering debt.” Thomas R. Eddlem, in the New American, wrote, “CBO Labels Current U.S. Debt Path ‘Unsustainable.’” While such headlines are alarmist, they are accurate. While Greece has already faced a financial meltdown and the U.K. is launching austerity measures to deal with its debt crisis, the Obama administration is ignoring the warning signs about the nation’s debt crisis and downplaying the devastating report from the CBO.

The CBO report notes that the federal debt will likely reach 62 percent of GDP by the end of this year. One projection is that the debt-to-GDP ratio will be 80 percent by 2035, and another projection is far bleaker — 87 percent by 2020. That latter, more likely scenario means “the growing imbalance between revenues and noninterest spending, combined with spiraling interest payments, would swiftly push debt to unsustainable levels. Debt as a share of GDP would exceed its historical peak of 109 percent by 2025 and would reach 185 percent in 2035.” As the CBO noted, such numbers are “uncharted territory.” Put simply and appallingly, these numbers mean that “health care costs, Social Security and interest on the national debt will exceed all tax money coming in to the federal government by 2035.”

Such an unheard of level of debt to GDP would “reduce national saving, leading to higher interest rates, more borrowing from abroad, and less domestic investment — which, in turn, would lower income growth in the United States. Growing debt would also reduce lawmakers’ ability to respond to economic downturns and other challenges.”

In other words, the U.S. would face an unprecedented fiscal crisis that would lead, inevitably, to America’s decline and to international instability of unimaginable dimensions. John Shaw, at MarketNews.com, described previous CBO reports as seeming like a car headed “steadily, inexorably, toward a cliff and nobody seems able or willing to grab the steering wheel or slam on the brakes. Ahead a calamitous event looms.” Shaw claims that this year’s report is similar, only worse. “The car is still moving toward great danger, the cliff seems closer, the fall ahead seems more dangerous than ever — and the margin for error is almost gone.”

Sadly, Shaw’s dismal picture is not sobering enough. Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the CBO, noted that the nation’s debt to GDP surged from 40 percent to 62 percent in just two years. Elmendorf’s most realistic scenario is 87 percent debt to GDP by 2020, 223 percent by 2040, and a “mind boggling” 854 percent by 2080. All this, Elmendorf said, “could include higher interest rates, more foreign borrowing, less private investment and lower income growth, if not a full-blown fiscal crisis.”

Note that nobody is talking about dismantling the out-of-control entitlement system, including ObamaCare, which is the cause of this crisis. Instead, the proposed “cures” include continuing with business as usual and “piling on” America’s already beleaguered middle class.

Those who recommend increasing revenues and cutting spending acknowledge that it would be an intricate balancing act, where the wrong action at the wrong time could make the “sharp deterioration in the fiscal situation” even worse. The situation is bad. And, as Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, said, “The booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing.”

Look at these two crooked Senators smile.. they love socialism, government, Unions, Globalism and money. They sold their souls to the Devil. The only good news is: one is retiring to avoid the fall-out, the other is running from the Tea-party patriots in Nevada.

Story from WSJ:

By Damian Paletta and Aaron Luccetti

WASHINGTON—Congress approved a rewrite of rules touching every corner of finance, from ATM cards to Wall Street traders, in the biggest expansion of government power over banking and markets since the Depression.

The bill, to be signed into law soon by President Barack Obama, marks a potential sea change for the financial-services industry. Financial titans such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. may be forced to make changes in most parts of their business, from debit cards to the ability to invest in hedge funds.

The Senate passed the bill 60-39 Thursday, following House passage last month. Earlier in the day, three northeastern Republicans joined with Democrats to block a filibuster, allowing the bill to squeak through.

Now, the legislation hands off to 10 regulatory agencies the discretion to write hundreds of new rules governing finance. Rather than the bill itself, it will be this process—accompanied by a lobbying blitz from banks—that will determine the precise contours of this new landscape, how strict the new regulations will be and whether they succeed in their purpose. The decisions will be made by officials from new agencies, obscure agencies and, in some cases, agencies like the Federal Reserve that faced criticism in the run-up to the crisis.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has designated 30 “team leaders” to begin implementing its expansive new authority over derivatives, and has asked for $45 million for new staff. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Securities and Exchange Commission are also in the thick of the implementation.

NOW WE WILL HAVE 10 REGULATORY AGENCIES TELLING THE FINANCE INDUSTRY [which affects every man, woman and child in this Country] how to do business.

By Patrice Hill

Finance bill favors interests of unions, activists

The financial reform bill expected to clear Congress this week [already passed] is chock-full of provisions that have little to do with the financial crisis but cater to the long-standing agendas of labor unions and other Democratic interest groups.

Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.

The so-called “proxy access” provision, which activist groups say they will use to try to improve oversight of corporate financial practices, has provoked a backlash from the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other major non-Wall Street business groups.

“This legislation includes provisions totally unrelated to the financial crisis which may disrupt Americas fragile economic recovery” and lead to increasing political battles in the boardrooms, said John J. Castellani, president of the roundtable.

Business groups are also rankled that the legislation would impose costly new burdens on airlines, utilities and other non-financial businesses that were victims rather than villains in the crisis, simply because they use financial derivatives to hedge their businesses against risks such as fluctuations in oil prices, interest rates and currencies.

Such hedging practices played no role in the crisis, though they helped many businesses weather the financial turbulence and recession that followed in the aftermath of the Wall Street storm.

Other provisions of the financial legislation…. favor Democratic constituencies directly by requiring banks and federal agencies to hire and do more business with them.

The bill would create more than 20 “offices of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.

Comment by American Grand Jury:

…The bill would create more than 20 “offices of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies…

More “Affirmative Action..” just what the Doctor ordered.. that should really jump-start the economy.

First Obamacare, now Financial-Reform.. next Cap and Trade.. welcome to the Communist New World Order.

For the first time in my life, I truly believe these communists will drive our country into a Depression, one far greater than the last. Of course, that is exactly what the NWO wants.. control and dependence on government.. it is truly sickening.. may God help us!