| December 18, 2009 | - President George W. Bush announced a $13.4 billion bailout for General Motors and Chrysler. The bailout, which will make use of funds authorized by Congress in October for the rescue of U.S. financial institutions, requires among other things that the automakers sell their fleets of private aircraft. “I've abandoned free-market principles,” said Bush, “to save the free-market system.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Breitbart
|
| May 8, 2009 | - After much bargaining with the largest banks in the United States,
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced the results of the Treasury's “stress tests,” studies that estimate how the banks will fare if the economic crisis deepens. Ten banks, said Geithner, including Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo, must collectively raise $75 billion in extra capital by November; the rest, however, are fine. Analysts questioned Geithner's conclusions, which assume a worst-case unemployment rate of 10.3 percent when the current rate is 8.9 percent, and which, after banks complained, ended up measuring bank-capital levels with standards more forgiving than expected; Bank of America's potential capital deficit, for example, was finally pegged at merely $33.9 billion instead of the $50 billion initially projected.
| Source 1:
The Wall Street Journal
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
New York Times
|
| April 15, 2009 | - The Consumer Price Index fell for the first time since 1955.
| Source 1:
Bloomberg
Source 2:
Guardian
|
| March 6, 2009 | - The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 651,000 jobs were lost in February (making it the third straight month in which more than 650,000 jobs have been lost) thus increasing the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, the highest level since 1983. The Obama Administration pointed to 60 new highway-paving jobs in Maryland as proof that the $787 billion stimulus package was succeeding. “That's how we're going to get the country back on its feet,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The White House hopes that the stimulus package will generate 3.5 million jobs; 4.4 million have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, and a total of 12.5 million people are unemployed, a number greater than the combined populations of Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming, Washington, D.C., and both Dakotas. Economists predicted that by the summer one in ten Americans would be out of work.
| Source 1:
The Labor Department
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
CNN.com
Source 5:
U.S. Census Bureau
|
| March 6, 2009 | - Fans of Phish, who reunited after a five-year hiatus to play three shows at Hampton Coliseum in Norfolk, Virginia, were dismayed to learn that vendors would not be allowed to sell their wares in the stadium's parking lot. “They won't let us set up anywhere,” said Sarah Rose, a 34-year-old who had hoped to sell her gems, jewelry, and handmade dresses. “I've been to, like, 100 shows, and I've never had this happen. This is a community.” Another would-be vendor who was told by police that he needed a permit said, “I'm just trying to make a living, feed my kids. It's a depression going on.”
| Source:
The Virginian Pilot
|
| March 5, 2009 | - February U.S. retail sales increased 0.7 percent, although if Wal-Mart sales were excluded, sales would have decreased by 4.1 percent. “Flat is the new up,” said one retail analyst. “If you're only doing a zero percent increase, congratulations. You're a winner.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 3, 2009 | - The U.S. gave a further $30 billion to insurer A.I.G. atop the $133 billion already doled out, and the Dow fell below 7,000 for the first time since October 1997.
| Source 1:
MarketWatch
Source 2:
The New York Times
|
| March 1, 2009 | - James Baker, Ronald Reagan's Treasury secretary, called on the Obama Administration to nationalize America's zombie banks.
| Source:
Financial Times
|
| February 28, 2009 | - Warren Buffet published his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. “The economy will be in shambles throughout 2009,” he wrote, “and, for that matter, probably well beyond.”
| Source:
Marktwatch
|
| February 27, 2009 | - It was announced that General Motors lost $30.9 billion last year; that U.S. GDP fell 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, exceeding the officially predicted 3.8 percent drop, and even the 5.5 percent drop economists had expected; and that the U.S. government will own up to 36 percent of Citigroup.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
MarketWatch
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
MarketWatch
Source 5:
MarketWatch
|
| February 26, 2009 | - The White House released a $3.6 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010, calling for a $630 billion health-care fund. “This budget,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio), “makes clear that the era of big government is back.”
| Source:
MarketWatch
|
| February 13, 2009 | - “Even if Kant, Plato and Aristotle were resurrected together with the late brilliant economist John Kenneth Galbraight [sic],” wrote Fidel Castro, “they would neither be capable of solving the more frequent and deeper antagonistic contradictions of the system.”
| Source:
Politico
|
| December 24, 2008 | - Hedge-fund manager and New York Yacht Club member Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, who lost more than a billion dollars in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, stayed late after work at his Manhattan office, slit his wrists with a box cutter, and bled to death at his desk.
| Source:
The Independent
|
| December 7, 2008 | - “This is a big problem,” said President-elect Barack Obama of the economy, “and it’s going to get worse.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| December 5, 2008 | - The Labor Department reported that 533,000 people lost their jobs in November, a further 621,000 people were forced into part-time employment, and 422,000 more simply dropped out of the labor force. The report, describing a situation far worse than economists expected, also recorded 24,000 layoffs by auto dealers.
| Source:
Marketwatch
|
| December 3, 2008 | - The Government Accountability Office released a 66-page audit critical of oversight of the bailout. “The interests of the government and taxpayers may not be adequately protected,” said the report. “Program objectives may not be achieved in an efficient and effective manner.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| December 3, 2008 | -
Zimbabwe, with unemployment at 90 percent and inflation at 23 million percent, said it would issue new $200 million notes. Police in Harare clashed with marching doctors and nurses who were protesting the 10,000 cases of cholera in the country; the Limpopo River was declared infected. “Defecating everywhere,” said one victim.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
BBC News
|
| December 1, 2008 | - The National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the U.S. economy is officially in recession.
| Source:
The Wall Street Journal
|
| November 19, 2008 | -
Retail prices fell to their lowest point since 1989, oil fell below $50 a barrel, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the Consumer Price Index fell by 1 percent in October--the sharpest drop in the 61 years the index has been tracked.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
UPI
|
| November 2, 2008 | - The Treasury Department declined a request for $10 billion from General Motors to help finance its possible merger with Chrysler, which would result in the elimination of thousands of jobs.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 27, 2008 | - The total number of U.S. banks seeking a cash injection from the government rose from nine to 24, and it was determined that home values declined by 9 percent in September.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 23, 2008 | - On the 79th anniversary of the stock market crash of 1929, the Dow fell 312.3 points, closing below 8400. Chrysler announced that it would cut 25 percent of its salaried jobs, OPEC said that it was cutting oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day, and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan declared that financial markets were engulfed in a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami” and admitted that he had “found a flaw” in his free-market ideology. “I don't know how significant or permanent it is,” he said of his mistake. “But I've been very distressed by that fact.”
| Source 1:
The New York Daily News
Source 2:
The New York Daily News
Source 3:
The New York Daily News
Source 4:
MSNBC
Source 5:
New York Times
|
| October 16, 2008 | - Governments around the world attempted to slow the global financial catastrophe.
| Source 1:
Der Spiegel
Source 2:
NYT
|
| October 16, 2008 | -
Switzerland bought $60 billion in bad debt from the largest Swiss bank, while the second-largest Swiss bank sought aid from the government of Qatar.
| Source:
WP
|
| October 15, 2008 | - Pawnshop profits were up as much as 50 percent over last year.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| October 9, 2008 | - “I'm not sure anyone is FDR this time,” said one historian of Wall Street. “I don't think either candidate has a clue what they're dealing with here.”
| Source:
Bloomberg
|
| October 6, 2008 | - After the bailout was signed into law, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 10,000 for the first time in five years. “Today,” said an income strategist, “is watching the sky fall.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 3, 2008 | - Employment decreased for the ninth consecutive month, with the U.S. economy losing 159,000 jobs in September.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 2, 2008 | - The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The legislation, which originated as a three-page proposal by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and grew to 451 pages after House and Senate negotiations, established the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to grant the Secretary of the Treasury up to $700 billion to buy troubled assets owned by financial institutions, to allow the Treasury to limit executive compensation and “golden parachutes” at those institutions, and to establish an oversight board to monitor the Treasury. The act also provides wooden arrow manufacturers an exemption from excise tax. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rushed the legislation to President George W. Bush, who signed it and promised that the United States would maintain “a leading role in the global economy.” “If I were dictator,” said Senator John McCain, who voted for the act, “which I always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit differently.” McCain also suggested the act be vetoed because it included so much pork. “No matter what the stakes are,” he said, “you've got to stop this.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
ABC News
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Think Progress
Source 5:
Think Progress
|
| September 25, 2008 | - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777 points in one day after the House of Representatives failed to pass a Wall Street bailout plan, first put forth by President George W. Bush, that would have granted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson up to $700 billion to buy, at any price, toxic mortgage-backed assets from financial firms. “It's not based on any particular data point,” said a Treasury spokeswoman of the $700 billion figure. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
| Source 1:
Wall Street Journal
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Forbes.com
|
| September 25, 2008 | - Senator John McCain announced that fixing the economy was more important than politicking, suspended his campaign, and attempted without success to postpone his first debate with Senator Barack Obama, although he continued to run campaign advertisements, including one that declared him the winner of the debate, and appeared on CBS with Katie Couric. McCain then joined congressional leaders, including Obama, at the White House to discuss the stimulus package. “I didn't see any sign,” said Representative Barney Frank, “of our Republican colleagues paying any attention to him whatsoever.” “All he has done,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of McCain, “is stand in front of the cameras.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
Politico
Source 5:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| September 25, 2008 | - “If money isn't loosened up,” said President Bush of the U.S. economy, “this sucker could go down.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| September 15, 2008 | - Stocks on Wall Street and other exchanges throughout the world dropped as brokerage Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, insurance giant AIG sought tens of billions of dollars in government loans, and investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| September 7, 2008 | - The Treasury Department seized control of mortgage and loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, firing the companies' chief executives and promising to provide as much as $200 billion to prevent insolvency.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 26, 2008 | -
Congress passed a $300 billion bailout for the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| July 25, 2008 | - The mortgage crisis was causing suicides.
| Source:
FOX News
|
| July 13, 2008 | - The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision seized the IndyMac Bank of California, worth an estimated 32 billion dollars, after the bank's closure in the wake of mortgage industry collapse.
| Source:
AFP
|
| July 13, 2008 | - The Bush Administration proposed a rescue package for ailing mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would allow the Treasury to buy billions of dollars of their stock and lend them billions more to meet their short-term funding needs. The two companies' total debt is estimated at $1.54 trillion.
| Source:
NYTimes
|
| July 2, 2008 | - The Dow Jones Industrial Average officially entered a bear market. The cost of oil surged, and shares of General Motors fell to their lowest price since 1954.
| Source:
Bloomberg.com
|
| June 27, 2008 | - In Australia, where inflation is at a 16-year-high, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry left his post to look after 115 endangered hairy-nosed wombats for five weeks. “I think,” said an opposition politician, “we all love the hairy-nosed wombat.”
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| June 24, 2008 | -
Ireland was expecting its first recession since 1983.
| Source:
RTE News
|
| January 27, 2008 | - Leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, attempted to dispel a global mood of pessimism. “People have to keep in mind, throughout history we have always had cycles,” said JPMorgan CEO James Dimon. “Corporation,” said PepsiCo chief Indra K. Nooyi, “has soul.” “The good news about our world today,” said former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, “is that idealism is the new realism and the reason for that is the interconnectedness.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| January 25, 2008 | - Jerome Kerviel, a 31-year-old arbitrager for the French bank Societe Generale recalled by many of his acquaintances as a mediocrity, was arrested in Paris for allegedly losing $7 billion of his employer's capital in fraudulent stock bets. Experts linked the bank's unwinding of Kerviel's trades to last week's precipitous drop in world markets. “Wouldn't it be embarrassing,” asked Barry L. Ritholtz, chief of the investment firm FusionIQ, “if the Fed had to make one of the biggest emergency rate cuts ever because of some rogue trader?”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| January 8, 2008 | -
Merrill Lynch reported that the United States had already entered a recession.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| December 27, 2007 | - For the first time since the 1800s the average Briton was earning more than the average American, even though the pound was at an all-time low against the euro.
| Source:
Reuters UK
|
| August 17, 2007 | - Jittery global markets brought on by the subprime mortgage crisis led the Federal Reserve to cut its discount rate on loans to banks by half a percentage point.
| Source:
AP via Forbes
|
| August 13, 2007 | - Losses among lenders to American debtors led to a one-day plunge of 387 points in the Dow Industrial Average. The Federal Reserve injected $62 billion into the market--its largest intervention since September 19, 2001--and its international counterparts followed suit. Hedge funds were in the red. “You have a better chance at making money on the craps table than in this market,” remarked one analyst.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| August 10, 2007 | -
Germany's leading regulator warned that the country risked tumbling into its worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
| Source:
Wall Street Journal
|
| June 8, 2007 | - In China, a spike in the price of pork tenderloin and bacon caused people to begin eating more fish.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 20, 2007 | -
Kuwait stopped pegging the dinar exclusively to the dollar, raising doubts that a Gulf currency union will take place by 2010.
| Source:
FT via Yahoo! News
|
| March 5, 2007 | -
Markets continued to decline.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 1, 2007 | - In a videoconference with Hong Kong investors, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said that America might sink into recession by year's end; a frenzied worldwide sell-off ensued. The Shanghai Composite lost 8.8 percent of its value in a day, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.3 percent, its worst drop since September 17, 2001. “Alan Greenspan really needs to sit down,” said one economist, “and be quiet.” Others marveled at the ability of “the Maestro” to cause upheavals even in retirement; Greenspan later held another videoconference, for which he charges fees of $150,000, and said that a recession was ”not probable.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
AP
Source 3:
NPR
|
| February 13, 2007 | -
Bank of America was offering a new credit card aimed at illegal immigrants.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| February 7, 2007 | -
Zimbabwe outlawed inflation.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| February 5, 2007 | - President George W. Bush asked for an additional $100 billion to fund the United States's wars through the end of the current fiscal year.
| Source:
Reuters via Boston Globe
|
| November 29, 2006 | -
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to the American people claiming that Jews have inordinate control over international finance, media, and culture.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 29, 2006 | - Revised fiscal estimates from the Department of Commerce showed that the economy was “gently slowing” and not in a “crash dive.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 16, 2006 | -
Economist
Milton Friedman died.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 2, 2006 | -
Corn
farmers in the Midwest were resisting bids for their ethanol plants by Wall Street firms.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 6, 2006 | - The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to a record 11,862, even though two thirds of its stocks are trading below their January 2000 values.
| Source:
ABC News Online
|
| September 26, 2006 | - It was reported that this year's increase in health insurance premiums, the smallest since 1999, was double the rate of inflation.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| September 25, 2006 | - U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt reduced the jail sentence of former Enron
CFO Andrew Fastow from ten years to six, citing the prolonged suffering of the Fastow family in his decision. “Prosecution is necessary, but persecution was not,” said the judge. “These factors call for mercy.”
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| August 23, 2006 | - Existing home sales hit a two-year low.
| Source:
Forbes
|
| August 8, 2006 | - The Federal Reserve allowed the U.S. interest rate to remain at 5.25 percent.
| Source:
Bloomberg.com
|
| August 1, 2006 | -
Lebanon's
stock exchange reopened.
| Source 1:
NY Times
Source 2:
BBC
|
| June 13, 2006 | - Analysts said that $2 trillion in wealth had been lost on the global stock market over the last month.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 31, 2006 | -
President George W. Bush named Goldman Sachs Group Chairman Henry Paulson Jr as the new Secretary of the Treasury.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| April 30, 2006 | -
John Kenneth Galbraith died.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| April 25, 2006 | - Due to extreme inflation, toilet paper in Harare, Zimbabwe, cost $145,750 per roll (or U.S. $0.69).
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| April 20, 2006 | -
Chinese President Hu Jintao visited with President Bush in Washington, D.C. A Falun Gong protester interrupted the welcoming ceremony; President Bush apologized to Hu, and also called on Hu to appreciate the value of the yuan.
| Source 1:
AP via Yahoo! News
Source 2:
BBC News
|
| April 18, 2006 | - The New York
Stock Exchange was considering a merger with the London Stock Exchange.
| Source:
Reuters UK
|
| March 21, 2006 | - A group of U.S. senators visited China to push for an increased valuation of the yuan; without such a change the Senate plans to vote for tariffs on Chinese imports. "We would like to get an idea from our Chinese hosts," said Senator Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), "what the future is going to be like."
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 31, 2005 | - U.S. financial giant Citigroup was attempting to purchase about 85 percent of the state-owned Guangdong Development Bank of China.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 11, 2005 | - In Canada a 10-year-old boy called for a boycott of McDonald’s until the United States pays back $4 billion in softwood tariffs.
| Source:
AFP
|
| November 5, 2005 | -
Wal-Mart released a study showing that Wal-Mart is good for the U.S. economy.
| Source:
Arkansas News Bureau
|
| October 24, 2005 | - President George W. Bush nominated his economic advisor Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 3, 2005 | - Senator Bill Frist was under investigation for insider trading.
| Source:
CNN Money
|
| September 1, 2005 | - The Louisiana National Guard patrolled the Superdome with machine guns as flood victims, locked behind metal barricades, shouted “we need more water.” Cigarettes in the Superdome sold for $10 a pack, and a brisk market in anti-diuretics, which allowed people to avoid the overflowing bathrooms, developed. “We are like animals,” said a woman.
| Source:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| June 28, 2005 | - The Association of British Insurers estimated that global warming will result in $27 billion worth of storm damage annually by 2080.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 30, 2005 | - Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's investment company, lost about $310 million by betting against the dollar.
| Source:
Bloomberg.com
|
| April 29, 2005 | - The Museum of Foreign Debt opened in Argentina. The museum includes a doll-sized play kitchen to represent the financial “recipes” of the International Monetary Fund. "Look,” said the museum's designer. “We open the freezer and the oven and there is no food.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 17, 2005 | - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 420 points; pharmaceutical stocks, however, continued to rise.
| Source:
AP
|
| April 15, 2005 | - The International Monetary Fund announced that sub-Saharan Africa's
economy had grown 5 percent last year, with inflation at its lowest in twenty-five years.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 3, 2005 | - In France, radical wine producers threw sticks of dynamite at a state agriculture office and demanded that the state take action to stop the depression in French wine prices.
| Source:
Wine International
|
| April 1, 2005 | - The European Union placed a 15 percent duty on American
trousers and sweet corn.
| Source:
Times Online
|
| April 1, 2005 | -
New York State legislators met their budget deadline for the first time in twenty-one years.
| Source:
New York Daily News
|
| March 25, 2005 | - President George W. Bush's approval rating was at 45 percent, the lowest of his presidency; only 32 percent of those polled thought that economic conditions were good or excellent.
| Source:
AP
|
| March 3, 2005 | -
Alan Greenspan called for the United States to replace the income tax with a consumption tax.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 2, 2005 | - The U.S. Mint planned to circulate $5 million in new buffalo nickels.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 23, 2004 | - The dollar fell to $1.3505 against the euro.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 3, 2004 | - The number of jobs created in November was half of what analysts expected.
| Source:
AP
|
| November 22, 2004 | - The dollar fell sharply against the Euro.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| November 22, 2004 | -
Inflation rose.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| November 21, 2004 | - Many credit card lenders were doubling and tripling their rates.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| October 18, 2004 | - An analysis of government data showed that the net worth of the median white household is 11 times greater than that of Hispanics and 14 times greater than blacks'.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 15, 2004 | - The federal government reached its $7.4 trillion debt ceiling and was forced to delay contributions to pension plans.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| August 31, 2004 | -
Consumer confidence was down.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 7, 2004 | -
Economic growth was slowing,
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| August 6, 2004 | - and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped to a new low for 2004.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 6, 2004 | - Berkshire Hathaway's second quarter earnings were down 42 percent.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 2, 2004 | - The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the layoff rate during the first three years of the Bush Administration was 8.7 percent (11.4 million people lost their jobs), the worst layoff rate since the early 1980s.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 1, 2004 | -
Finance experts warned that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government agency that insures company pensions, could be forced into a situation similar to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, which led to a $200 billion bailout, as a result of cascading pension defaults in the airline industry.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 31, 2004 | - The White House predicted that this year's federal budget deficit will be $445 billion.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 23, 2004 | - The Dow Jones industrial average fell below 10,000.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| March 30, 2004 | -
Treasury Secretary John Snow said that "outsourcing" of American jobs makes the American economy stronger.
| Source:
Cincinnati Enquirer
|
| March 16, 2004 | - The Congressional Budget Office published calculations showing that the federal budget deficit is largely a result of President Bush's
tax cuts and spending increases; the agency estimated that only 6 percent of the deficit was the result of economic weakness.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 14, 2004 | - The stock market was down.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| March 13, 2004 | - White House officials denied that the president was responsible for the record budget deficit.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 3, 2004 | - Swiss Re, the world's second largest reinsurance company, warned that the costs of climate change could be $150 billion a year before long, with insurers facing $30-40 billion in annual claims. "There is a danger," the company said in a report, "that human intervention will accelerate and intensify natural climate changes to such a point that it will become impossible to adapt our socio-economic system in time."
| Source:
Reuters
|
| March 2, 2004 | - Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, suggested cutting Social Security and Medicare to help pay for President Bush's massive tax cuts for the rich.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 24, 2004 | - A study of the stock portfolios of U.S. senators found that first-time senators beat the market by 20 percent on average; the portfolios of all senators averaged 12 percent better than the market.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 23, 2004 | -
President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors decided to move the official start date of the last recession from the generally accepted March 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2000, when Bill Clinton was still president.
| Source:
Business Week
|
| February 21, 2004 | - The president's chief economic advisor suggested that fast-food jobs might need to be reclassified. "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?"
| Source:
Newsday
|
| February 18, 2004 | - The Bush Administration began to back away from its predictions that the national economy, which has lost 2.5 million jobs since Bush took office, would add 2.6 million jobs this year.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 11, 2004 | - The chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers said that the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries is "a good thing" that is "probably a plus for the economy in the long run."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 9, 2004 | - The dollar continued to fall.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| February 8, 2004 | - The Group of 7 declared that "excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates are undesirable for economic growth."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 27, 2004 | - The Congressional Budget Office predicted a record $477 billion budget deficit this year; deficits over the next decade could reach more than $2 trillion if the president's tax cuts are extended.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 22, 2004 | - People at the Conservative Political Action Conference were grumbling that President Bush's fiscal policies, which have led to giant budget deficits, have been anything but conservative.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 10, 2004 | - The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy created only 1,000 new jobs in December.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 7, 2004 | - The International Monetary Fund published a report warning that the United States' budget and trade deficits threaten to destabilize the entire global economy; Bush Administration officials dismissed the report and said that lots of countries run huge budget deficits.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| December 30, 2003 | -
Britain's Office of National Statistics said that the country is worth $8.8 trillion.
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| December 8, 2003 | - President George W. Bush signed a $400 billion Medicare bill that will provide a prescription-drug benefit to elderly Americans; the bill permits private insurance companies to compete with Medicare, which many think will destroy the program, but bans policies that would cover gaps in the drug benefit on the theory that people with good prescription coverage take too many pills and drive up medical costs.
| Source:
Associated Press, New York Times
|
| November 21, 2003 | - Ten thousand people demonstrated in Miami against a meeting of trade officials who hope to set up a free-trade area among 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 19, 2003 | - The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace released a study concluding that Nafta has failed to create jobs for Mexico and has hurt thousands of rural Mexican farmers. The report also said that the net effect on U.S. jobs had been "minuscule."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 17, 2003 | - George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, described the Bush Administration's budget policies as "a form of looting."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 15, 2003 | - Former president Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize; Gunnar Berge, the chairman of the prize committee, confirmed that giving the prize to Carter was intended as a comment on George W. Bush's bellicose policies.
| |
| October 4, 2003 | - The U.S. economy managed to create 57,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported, the first such gain since January, although the increase did not keep pace with population growth, and the percentage of adults with jobs fell to its lowest point in 10 years.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 8, 2003 | -
President George W. Bush made a televised address to the nation and declared that Iraq was now the "central front" in the war on terrorism.
He called for national resolve and national sacrifice and said that he will ask Congress for $87 billion in emergency funds for the occupation.
It was noted that this new request, which comes on top of $79 billion already approved, will probably push the current budget deficit up to $600 billion. Howard Dean said the speech, which made no mention of Osama bin Laden, was "outrageous" and said it reminded him of Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War.
Senator Bob Graham observed that Bush now wants to spend more on Iraq this year than the federal government will spend on education.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 6, 2003 | - The Labor Department announced that 93,000 jobs were lost in August,
| Source:
Austin American-Statesman
|
| September 3, 2003 | - The Census Department reported that the number of poor people increased last year by 1.3 million.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 2, 2003 | -
President Bush, apparently worried about the fact that the American economy has lost almost 3 million jobs since he took office, promised to appoint a "manufacturing czar" who will watch out for blue-collar jobs.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 1, 2003 | - Elaine Chao, the secretary of labor, predicted that the job market, which has shrunk by 2.7 million jobs in the last three years, would soon improve.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 28, 2003 | - TheInternational Monetary Fund warned the United States that the deficit was reaching dangerous levels.
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 26, 2003 | - The Congressional Budget Office reported that the 2004 budget deficit will probably be more than $500 billion.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 1, 2003 | -
President Bush blamed the weakness of the economy on "the drumbeat to war," which he attributed in turn to the news media.
"Remember on our TV screens — I'm not suggesting which network did this — but it said, 'March to War,' every day from last summer until the spring," Bush said.
"'March to War, March to War.' That's not a very conducive environment for people to take risk, when they hear 'March to War' all the time."
| Source:
Undernews
|
| June 26, 2003 | - Joshua B.
Bolten, the president's nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget, told senators that the president was through with tax cuts for now, unless the economy for some reason fails to improve.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 19, 2003 | -
The Federal Reserve issued a warning about "the probability of an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 16, 2003 | - White House aides asked people listening to a speech by the president to take off their ties so that they would look like the regular folks who the president claims will be the primary beneficiaries of his latest tax cut for the wealthy.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 14, 2003 | -
President Bush revealed his new economic plan, the centerpiece of which is the repeal of most taxes on corporate dividends.
| |
| January 15, 2002 | -
Eugenio Domingo Solans, a board member of the European Central Bank, warned that eating more than 400 new euro notes could make you sick.
| |
| November 20, 2001 | - Thousands of dead fish killed by industrial waste in a lake in Bangladesh were being collected and eaten by poor people.
| |
| November 13, 2001 | -
Israeli legislators voted to lift parliamentary immunity from an Israeli Arab legislator so that he could be prosecuted for advocating Palestinian resistance to Israeli policies.
| |
| November 6, 2001 | - The economy officially shrank over the summer.
| |
| October 30, 2001 | -
Germany, for some reason, was not included in the study.
| |
| September 4, 2001 | - Faith in the “New Economy” unshaken, Federal Reserve bureaucrats gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for their annual symposium and told one another that the productivity miracle wrought by computer technology would rise again someday and provide strong economic growth with low inflation.
| |
| September 4, 2001 | - The Congressional Budget Office concluded that the federal budget surplus was pretty much gone.
| |
| September 4, 2001 | -
India decided to subsidize televisions for poor people in the hope that increased viewing would cut down on sex and thus the swelling population.
| |
| August 28, 2001 | - The Bush Administration announced that by next month the government surplus, excluding Social Security, will be closer to $600 million than the $122 billion it calculated back in April.
| |
| August 28, 2001 | -
President Bush hailed the disappearing surplus as “incredibly positive news,” because it will force the government to resist overspending. Two days earlier, the president asked Congress to grant an additional $39 billion to the military, the largest increase since Ronald Reagan's presidency.
| |
| August 28, 2001 | - The Federal Reserve Board cut interest rates for the seventh time this year, noting that the main threat to the economy is “economic weakness.”
| |
| July 31, 2001 | - The largest teachers union in the U.S. decided to offer $150,000 homicide insurance policies to the families of teachers killed on the job.
| |
| July 24, 2001 | - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the economy probably won't improve anytime soon.
| |
| July 3, 2001 | - The Bush Administration admitted that the federal budget surplus might just disappear.
| |
| June 26, 2001 | - Some California counties were paying poor people to move away.
| |
| May 29, 2001 | - The United States government reported that the economy grew less than 2 percent two months in a row.
| |
| May 29, 2001 | -
Congress passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut, thereby spending the projected federal budget surplus before it could even come into being.
| |
| May 22, 2001 | - A government report said that the fuel economy of new American cars was at its lowest level since 1980.
| |
| April 10, 2001 | - Wildlife in the New York area failed for some reason to notice three separate oil spills.
| |
| April 3, 2001 | - The United States withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change; Christie Whitman, the administrator of the EPA, announced that “we have no interest in implementing that treaty.” President Bush told German chancellor Gerhard Schröder that “We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America.” North Korea's dear leader Kim Jong Il sent a large floral wreath to the funeral of Chung Ju Yung, the founder of the Hyundai group, in a further display of goodwill toward the south by the ruler of the Hermit Kingdom.
| |
| February 20, 2001 | - Virginia's legislature apologized for the state's eugenics policies, including the sterilization of 7,450 people; the eugenics law, passed in 1924, was repealed in 1979.
| |
| February 13, 2001 | - A British hospital apologized to plastic-surgery patients for selling their surplus skin to the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency for chemical-weapons research.
| |
| January 23, 2001 | -
Iraq announced the donation of 100 million euros to help the poor people of America.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | - Experts theorized that poor people were fat because they spend too much time in front of the television
eating Big Macs and such.
| |
| January 2, 2001 | -
Fishermen in the Galápagos Islands were resisting new fishing limits, arguing for a strict policy of natural selection in Ecuador's conservation policies.
| |
| 0, 2000 | -
Britain,
France, Germany, and other European nations agreed to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to guarantee loans and to prop up banks, leading to a 936-point rally in the Dow.
| Source:
Europe Pledges Billions for Banks
|
| 0, 2000 | - Nobel Prizes were awarded to former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, and American economist Paul Krugman. “To be absolutely, totally honest,” said Krugman, “I thought this day might come someday.”
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
The New York Times
|
| December 26, 2000 | - A U.S. government report, “Global Trends 2015,” concluded that, in general, things were getting worse for most people; the global economy, the report admitted, “will not lift all boats.”
| |
| December 19, 2000 | - President-elect George W. Bush was worried about a slowing economy and called for a large tax cut.
| |
| December 19, 2000 | - After months of preventing Palestinians from entering Israel to work, thus destroying the economy of the Occupied Territories, the Israeli government “came to the conclusion,” in the words of the defense minister, “that it did not serve any productive purpose to have severe economic distress in the territories.”
| |
| December 0, 2000 | - The head of the International Monetary Fund warned that the world was on the “brink of systemic meltdown.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 31, 2000 | - “Economy-class syndrome” was blamed for the death of a British woman who had just made a twenty-hour flight to London from Australia; the syndrome, more properly known as deep-vein thrombosis, occurs when a long, cramped period of inactivity leads to a blood clot.
| |
| October 0, 2000 | - The world economy continued its collapse. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 22 percent over eight days, Wall Street lost $2.4 trillion in market value, and Iceland went bankrupt.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
Business Week
|
| September 5, 2000 | - An economics professor sued right-wing presidential candidate Pat Buchanan for plagiarism; Buchanan underwent a gall bladder operation and cancelled public appearances.
| |
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