Sunday Times (UK)/Irwin Stelzer: 'China and the Fed will tame Obama spending'

[Jackeens]

China and the Fed will tame Obama spending

Barack Obama might finally have met his match. Two matches, in fact. No, some new Republican opponent has not emerged to threaten this enormously popular president with a difficult campaign for re-election.

No, Republicans in Congress have not produced a coherent alternative to the president’s deficit spending programmes, or his plan to move the boundary between the public and private sectors to the left. And no, the economic data do not suggest that the president’s stimulus package has failed.

Indeed, the housing market is showing signs of bottoming out. Pending house sales (deals signed but not yet completed) rose 6.7% in April, the biggest jump in more than seven years. Consumer confidence, personal disposable income and construction spending are all up, and monthly job losses have halved. Builders are more active. The index of manufacturing activity is rising. As Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress last week: “We continue to expect overall economic activity to bottom out, and then to turn up later this year.” Finally, the banks are raising new capital ($85 billion in the past month alone) so they can repay the government bail-out loans.

More: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article6446187.ece

[Captain Hilts]

1. They didn't give a damn the past eight years, did they?

This crap drives me nuts.

[MarjorieG]

2. Exactly. Lovers of Greenspan, gov't spending with no bang for the buck, except for artillery.