Research Zeitgeist: Pork Still on the Menu in Washington
After the euphoria of President Barack Obama’s historic inauguration it has not taken long for lofty ideals to fall to earth with a thud. First came Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner’s the-dog-ate-my-homework-level excuse for dodging his taxes. Hardly the promised higher standard of accountability. Then comes President’s Obama’s undoubtedly necessary economic stimulus plan, loaded up with a disappointingly generous portion of pork, as pointed out by The Washington Post, among others:
Helping hire, equip and pay police, a $4 billion item under the bill, might be a good idea, but writing checks to individual households for the same amount would do more to stimulate the economy. Ditto for $16 billion in Pell Grants for college students, $2.1 billion for Head Start and $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. All of those ideas may have merit, but why do they belong in an emergency measure aimed to kick-start the economy?
The argument about whether the stimulus plan is too big or too small become almost moot when such extraneous measures are included.
Still, even this cannot take away from the majesty of an Inauguration more than two centuries in the making.
The year has gotten off to a bleak financial start with bearish posts on Research Recap drawing the most attention.
Top of the heap so far are Fitch Ratings‘ list of the top risks to credit quality for 2009, Oxford Analytica’s warning that the US is unprepared to cope with double-digit unemployment, and Standard & Poor’s update on the steady flow of corporate debt defaults so far this year. Today, S&P reports a further 4 defaults in the last week, bring the year’s total to date to 12. Of the four most recent defaults, two are media and entertainment companies, Nevada-based gaming company Black Gaming LLC and television broadcaster Young Broadcasting Inc. (NASDAQ:YBTVA). The remaining two are consumer products companies, tomato producer and marketer EuroFresh Inc. and mattress manufacturer Simmons Co.
Also very popular was our Research Roundup on the demise of the financial supermarket, Citigroup: Bowing to the Inevitable,
Research Recap Quote of the Week:
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. – President Barack Obama, (HT St Paul 1 Corinthians XIII)
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