Obama's Half Trillion Dollar 2-Year Economic Plan

US $500 billion seems to be the ball park figure being thrown around for President-elect Barack Obama's economic plan that he wants enacted by the end of January, sources say.

The 2 year plan aims at creating or saving around 2.5 million US jobs, and looks to invest in technologies, transport and energy saving seems that will "pay for themselves" in the long term.

Some Democratic lawmakers put the figure as high as $700 billion, but others say that's unlikely.

"We have to make sure that the stimulus is significant enough that it really gives a jolt to the economy, that it is putting people back to work, that it is making investments, that it is restoring some confidence in the business community that, in fact, their products and services are going to have customers," Obama said Monday as he announced his economic team.

Declining repeatedly to estimate the cost of the plan, Obama said, "It's going to be costly."

Via: AP

Citi Bank: What Don't the Banks Want Us To Know?

Reuters writer Joseph A. Giannone says US banks have a serious credibility problem and may be hiding massive losses from an allreaddy stressed out public.

Evy Hambro, Economist: Possible End In Sight For Global Economic Crisis

A UK economist specialising in China says that the economic stimulus package implemented by the Chinese government earlier this year could have positive impacts on world growth and save the global economy from a deep recession.

"I do think we are starting to see the green shoots of recovery and also confidence coming back with regards to people's outlook for the Chinese economy," BlackRock portfolio manager Evy Hambro said during a teleconference

Mr Hambro said industrialisation of the world's emerging nations was still taking place and would continue to be a "significant" driver of commodity demand over the next 10 to 15 years.
"We believe we're going through a short-term dip in what is at the end of the day a very long-term trend," Mr Hambro said.

"Demand at the end of the day will recover.
"These are not luxury goods these are essential goods people need to run their lives and you can't live without oil, you can't live without energy and many metals."

Via: SMH

Christina D. Romer: Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers Head

Christina D. Romer, seen in 1994. President-elect Barack Obama chief economic advisor.

Barack Obama has chosen Christina Romer, an economics professor at University of Califonia, Berkele to be his chief of the all important White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Christina Romer seems to be an excellent choice for the post. Her biography says that she is an expert in "the effects of fiscal policy; identification of monetary shocks; the determinants of American macroeconomic policy; changes in short-run fluctuations over the 20th century; causes of the Great Depression."

Romer seems ideally suited to the challanged the US economy and global economic system faces in the midst of one of the worst financial and economic challenges of the modern era.

Christina Romner UCLA, Berkely Curriculum Vitae :

Christina Romer is the Class of 1957-Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics. She joined the Berkeley faculty in 1988 and was promoted to full professor in 1993. Professor Romer is co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee.

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of California, Berkeley. She has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.

She has served as vice president and a member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association. Prior to her appointment at Berkeley, she was an assistant professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University from 1985-1988. She received her Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1985.

Romer's most recent economics paper at UCLA focuses on governments tax policies and their macroeconomic effects in fiscal shocks. She will no doubt be vital in creating the new Obama tax plan that will see tax increases for the top 5% of earners and tax cuts for the majority of US workers.

Change.Gov : Barack Obama First Internet Address to US.

President-elect Barack Obama first ever weekly internet-radio address to the American people.

US President-elect Barack Obama has outlined his plans for America in an unprecedented address using YouTube, outside of the traditional use of the radio waves for a weekly Democratic party address to the nation.

In the video uploaded to YouTube late on Friday the 22nd of November, Obama outlined his plans for the creation of 2.5 million jobs by January 2011, exactly two years after he is expected to take office as President.

We'll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy," Obama said in his weekly Internet/radio address.

His announcement came two days after government data showed that new jobless claims had surged to a 16-year high, in a new sign that the world's largest economy appeared to be sliding into a deep recession, press reported.

Obama is also expected to officially announce his entire cabinet within the week. Obama is set to introduce Senator Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, and as we predicted Timothy Geithner as Secretary of Treasury.

Obama has also launched a website set to keep Americans up to speed with the President-elects administration, Change.gov.

Full 'weekly' Barack Obama Internet and radio address:

Cyber War Between US-China?

Could there be a cyber cold war between the United States and China brewing?

The AP reports that the Chinese government has fired back at a U.S. congressional panel report that alleges the Chinese government of computer espionage attacks against US interests.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang released a statement from Beijing that rejected the panel findings.

From the AP:

The commission "deliberately slanders and attacks China" and always sees it in a bad light, Qin said. "It attempts to mislead public opinion and the general public as well as set obstacles for Sino-U.S. cooperation in extensive fields."

The panel of six Democrats and six Republicans said China's massive military modernization and its "impressive but disturbing" space and computer warfare capabilities "suggest China is intent on expanding its sphere of control even at the expense of its Asian neighbors and the United States."

As We Predicted: Timothy Geithner Will Be Obama Treasury Secretary

Current New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner is set to be named US Treasury Secretary Monday, giving markets a much needed boost of confidence.

As we predicted earlier this month, Timothy Geithner will almost certainly become the all important Treasury Secretary in a Obama Whitehouse this January, reports say.

Despite the media focusing much of its attention on other likely candidates, it seemed very likely indeed that Tim Geithner was going to be selected for Treasury given his inside knowledge and experience with managing financial and economic crisis, and his Obama like affinity with international issues, pragmatism, age, family and general world view.

NBC news reported sources Friday afternoon New York Time that Timothy Geithner (pronounced GITE-ner) would be tapped by Obama for the position. Stocks on the NYSE soured with the news and gave a boost of confidence to an otherwise depressed financial market.

Major indices were up more than 6 percent, Reuters-Thompson reported. The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 8,000.

Via Reuters

NBC News said Obama was expected to announce Geithner and other members of his economic team on Monday to try to calm U.S. financial markets that have sunk like a stone all week before Friday's surge.

"A fantastic choice to help lead the financial markets out of the wilderness," said Chris Rupkey, economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York. He called Geithner a "crisis manager par excellence" who would hit the ground running.

If confirmed by the Senate, Geithner would be at the helm of efforts to stem the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.