Democrats

World politics 7th November 2018

Two Economic Policies Likely To Change With Democrats In Control Of House

Steven Pressman via The Conversation | Perhaps the biggest surprise in the midterm elections was that, unlike 2016, there wasn’t one. Polls and pundits expected Democrats would take control of the House and Republicans would keep the Senate, and that’s exactly what we’re getting. The likely result: two years of congressional gridlock on economic policy, which requires both houses of Congress to agree on the same legislation. So, we can expect that the status quo on economic policy will mostly prevail.

World economy 21st August 2012

Show me the money: it’s voting time!

Mark Twain said once that The White House was the “best Congress money can buy.” In this battered economy, while millions of Americans are tightnening their belts, this presidential election is expected to be the priciest in U.S. history. Make a guess: how much do you think it will cost? The predictions by the Center of Response Politics (CRS), a nonpartisan research group tracking money in politics, are of almost…

World economy 14th August 2012

Paul Ryan, the man who wants to avoid “European sclerosis”

Interested in the world’s economy? There’s somebody you should meet. He doesn’t have an outstanding experience in the private sector but is determined to drastically cut U.S. government spending, boost market flexibility and avoid the “clouds” that are coming from Europe. If Republicans make it to the White House in november, Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president, will have a bigger say than the president. If not,…

World economy 9th May 2012

Obama is waiting anxiously for the jobs’ boost

NEW YORK | U.S. investors are looking forward to this Thursday’s jobless claims figures after the pretty lame monthly jobs report last week. Wall Street needs a sweetener, otherwise investors will keep on the sidelines of the stockmarkets. Only a better than expected (366,000 new jobless claims) figure could boost U.S. market and economical confidence. Indeed, last Friday’s report was shocking: America is creating employment almost at the same rate…

World economy 27th March 2012

Obamacare in Court: is it unconstitutional to imitate Europe?

NEW YORK | You are going to hear it more than often. It is called individual mandate: citizens required to purchase health insurance, or face a penalty. It is the Gordian knot of Obamacare, the new US Health law. And it is also the essence of both the Netherlands health system (it has been since 2006) and the Swiss (since 1994). In that regard, the US is trying to imitate…

World economy 26th January 2012

What Obama didn’t say in his State of the Union speech

NEW YORK | In his fourth speech in front of the nation, president Barack Obama addressed the financial crisis and pledged to fight for economic fairness. In the middle of the race to the November election, the president couldn’t find a better moment to speak about inequality. Earlier on Tuesday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney –Obama’s most likely opponent, according to some experts– disclosed that he paid an effective income…

Markets 2nd January 2012

Barclays: “US vulnerable to markets’ attacks like the EU”

A note from Barclays Spain: “The Fed’s double mandate (inflation and employment) has probably contributed to the present crisis. Greenspan, faced with the necessity to improve the anemic growth, but probably to a greater extent faced with the pressure exerted by Congress and American society to create employment, (which still has not picked up despite the GDP’s increase) maintained interest rates low for too long, promoting together with other factors…

World economy 15th November 2011

Is health insurance a must?

NEW YORK | Can a government compel citizens to purchase basic health insurance? For President Obama, it should, indeed. For all Republican candidates, this would be a clear violation of individual rights. The US Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up the case of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform in March. By June, the nation’s 9 top justices -viewed as one of the most conservative benches in…

World economy 22nd September 2011

The war on taxes

“I don’t mean to get all class-warfare on you… But unless we find a way to spread the burden upward and cut the middle class some slack, it isn’t Greece we will soon be resembling”, writes Ellis Henican for Fox News, “it’s those old Caribbean islands Jimmy likes to sing about. Where a few super-rich families own just about everything. Where the vast majority of others have hardly anything at all.”