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The President’s new message is: No second stimulus. This one will work. Ride it out and be patient.

In an earlier post I attempted to correct Dr. Austan Goolsbee’s incorrect and inflammatory statements about President Bush.  I would like here to add my views to one additional question on the auto industry discussion on this morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday.
Host Chris Wallace moderated a discussion this morning with:

Dr. Austan Goolsbee, Member of [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March employment report at 8:30 am.  Here is the least you need to know:

Net payroll employment declined in March by 663,000 jobs.
That’s a terrible number, and in line with expectations.
The unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 8.5%.

Much of the press coverage talks about “5.1 million jobs lost since [...]

Last Friday I raised the question of how much funding is left in the TARP.  This is now a broader discussion involving Secretary Geithner and the Treasury staff, the General Accounting Office, the Wall Street Journal and ABC News.  I’d like to review the progression of this topic over the past six days and see [...]

The President has arrived in London for the G-20 economic summit.  I have different policy views than the President on some of these issues, but I will not criticize him while he is overseas.  I will attempt to gently highlight a couple of substantive issues that concern me, but at the same time I want [...]

I think President Obama will soon need to ask Congress for more TARP funding, and that such a request will displace his legislative agenda for a while.  Let’s do the math.
When President Obama took office, $387 B of the $700 B of available TARP funds had already been publicly committed.  Here’s the breakdown.

Public commitment

Banks — [...]

Here is the “Leaders Declaration” for the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy (aka the G-20 Summit) hosted by President Bush last Friday and Saturday in Washington, DC.
This is the second of a two-part note.  Here’s the first part.
A fair amount of the press coverage followed a ready-made storyline:  “Lame duck President … [...]

The President hosted the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy this past Friday and Saturday at the National Building Museum here in Washington, DC.
This is the first of a two-part note.  Part one will describe the mechanics of the Summit and show some photos.  Part two will describe the substance.
The action began in [...]

President Bush spoke at the Manhattan Institute today on financial markets and the world economy.
This speech is a prelude to the financial summit the President will host this weekend.  I’ll write separately about the Summit, and about the elements of today’s speech that talk about principles for reform.
I want to draw your attention to two [...]

We’re getting questions about whether banks that receive taxpayer funds from the Treasury are “hoarding” that cash, rather than using it to support lending.
We know that banks aren’t hoarding yet, since at most they’ve had cash for two days.
Remember that there is a two-fold purpose to this program:  (1) strengthen the banking system (prevent a [...]