When they need to get reelected....it gets done..

It is the time of the year, election time. Every two year, or four years it is time to reelected or remove people from there spot on capital hill. So when it comes to reelection time all the Congress members are trying to push bill through and making decisions faster so it looks like they will get things done when the are in office. According to an article called "Washington's housing fix taking shape" the Senate is working round clock to create a bill to help the bad housing market. The article states that the bill will include boost in funding for protection against foreclosures, help promote buying in areas where there are vacant lots, and give tax breaks to business. I think that this is very good because now Congress is really looking at the problems that the economy is having on all the areas of the our daily life. They need to start helping the people that are reelection them more and not so much on the big companies that are paying for them to back them and helping them get reelected.
According to the article there are a number of things that this bill is going to help they include:

• Modernize the FHA
• Help for troubled borrowers trying to refinance
• Tax credits for buying troubled properties
• New property tax deduction
• Bigger tax break for home builders
• Money to aid areas hit by foreclosures
• More money for consumer counseling
• Greater transparency for borrowers

I hope that Congress can get to work and make this bill pass because it is something that our economy greatly needs to stay out of a recession.

The information for this post was from CNNMoney.com called "Washington's housing fix taking shape" written by Jeanne Sahadi at http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/02/news/economy/housing_bipartisan_draft/index.htm?cnn=yes.

Who's college am I paying for?

When you are getting gas at a gas station do you everything "who is getting rich from my $40 purchase of gas ever week?" You may think that the gas stations are the ones that are making money from charging you $3 a gallon but in an article call "Who gets rich off $3 gas - who doesn't" the truth is that the crude oil makes that largest part of the $3 a gallon, it makes about $2.07. According to the article that money goes to oil companies like Chevron, BP, and Marathon or national oil companies that are controlled by other countries like Mexico and Saudi Arabia. In the article there are other people that get a small amount of money from the gas and that includes the oil traders, gas stations, taxes, transportation, and refining. I think that this is wrong and maybe should not have such a depends on oil and we need to find other forms of gas that we make our cars go. I also think that we should not be giving all this money to companies that are not even in the United States and we need to focus on ways that we can bring money in the United States economy.

This article is from CNNMoney.com titled "Who gets rich off $3 gas - who doesn't" written by Steve Hargreaves and the picture is from the same article.

Money....When is it coming?

When is the government going to start to send out our tax rebates that they are promising us? In an article in CNNMoney.com the IRS states that is will start sending out the 130 million rebate payments on May 2. All of this is in hope that it will boost the economy. The article states that the IRS hopes to get 25% of the checks out in the first three weeks and to have all of the checks out by July 11. According to the article it take the IRS about two weeks to process your tax returns, and then on top of that you will get you rebate in the mail too.
This information came from an article on CNNMoney.com written by Jeanne Sahadi called "Special tax rebates will begin May 2: IRS" at http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/17/pf/taxes/rebates_payment_schedule/index.htm.

Wheels make the world go round....

In an article written about the 3 major car industrials: GM, Ford, and Toyota, the stocks of cars have fall in the first two months of the new year. This big companies will be cutting shifts and also cutting the number of cars that they will produce in the second quarter. The cars that are not being sold by all od these companies are the larger trucks and SUV which have drop three percent in Feb. According to the article GM has dropped sales by 13 percent and Ford has dropped seven percent. I think that a large number of these drop in sales have been caused by the talk of there being a recession and by the large drop in the housing market.
According to the article written by Dee-Ann Durbin, both GM and Toyota are cutting the number of cars that they are producing in the second quarter. I hope that with this it will cut down the number of jobs that will be lost. Ford has stated in the article that it will be going from two shift in the summer to only one shift to match the lower demand for cars in North America.
I hope that the Untied States will be able to work out of this recession so that the people will not have to be laid off for long because that will most likey hurt our economy even more that what it has already.
The article I use was called "GM, Ford, Toyota US Sales Fall in Feb.;US Sales Tumble at GM, Ford, Slip at Toyota in February, GM and Ford Cut Production" by Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Auto Writer at http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080303/auto_sales.html.

Money.....Money...

According to an article "U.S. home sales, goods order feed recession fears" the sale of single families home in the United States have drop to a 13 year low in January and along with other problem with the U.S. people not wanting to buy goods all of this is fueling the recession fears. In a report given in front of Congress by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke he talks about how the U.S. economy needs to have more interest rates cuts. The article states that the housing market is still dropping and if the housing market continues to weaken than the economy as a whole will continue to get weak and force into a recession.
I think that we need to work on the housing market and get that up and in a stronger state and then start working on the economy as a whole. You need to work on one thing at a time and make the economy stronger so that we can become a wealthier nation.
The article I got this information from was called "U.S. home sales, goods order feed recession fears" from http://news.moneycentral.msn.com.

Signs

Why are people not spending money? According to an article published on CNNMoney.com job growth has not changed, housing economy is in a hole. All of this is signs of economy trouble, and with this many economist see us falling into a recession, this is according to the National Association of Business Economics. Over 45% of economists are now predicting that we will be in a recession this year.
The GDP this year will be at the weakest it has been in 5 years. All of these forecasts are in line with the forecasts from the Federal Reserve this past week. There are many things that this country is trying to do to get the economy back on track so that we can start to become a power country. I hope that this will get the country back on track and more money in the economy.
I got this information from CNNMoeny.com called “Recession more likely this year - survey
Business economists see growing evidence that the country has toppled into a recession” from http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/25/news/economy/economists_recession.ap/index.htm.

One problem can lead to another…

What is one thing that every American wants to own? A home. But there are many problems that are not allowing some Americans to own their own home. According to the Associated Press there is a handful of states that are that are working on ways to get many investment banks and big lenders caught for more than just bad business decisions and bad mortgage troubles. With these bad judgments from these mortgage companies they can be the ones that are causing the problems in the economy right now. I think that there are many companies that need to change their way so that they can stop causing the poor market now.
In the article they are looking for ways to change the way that many cities and states pursuit bad lenders. The lenders have written $625 billion in subprime mortgages in the 2005, this is a big problem because most of that money will never come back because the people that received the money cannot pay the money back but they were approved for it. I am just hoping that this does not make the economy problem even worse. I am hoping that the right people will fix this problem and the economy will become better.
I got the information from this article from the Associated Press title “Wall Street faces fury over subprime” from http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20080218&id=8204803.

Up..Up... and Away!!!

Finally the market is moving up after Congress raised the retail sales. This comes even with us being unwilling to spend money but the DOW was up almost 180 points, which is a good thing after weeks of the market dropping. All of this information came from an article in the the Defiance Crescent News online. Many of these problems can be caused by the failing housing mortage and us the buyers not willing to spend our money to buy things. I am hoping that the government plan we help the economy grow and I want the United States to get out of this recession so we can start paying back some of the debts that we have built up.
For most of the stocks they have all rose, but they not stay up we will have to keep checking to make sure that they stay up and keep growing. I am glad that the stocks are rising and that the market is growing and finally making money. Many of the companies are now making money, which can only say that we are willing to spend money again.
This information from this article came from The Associated Press titled "Stocks End Higher on Upbeat Sales Data" at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WALL_STREET?SITE=OHDEF&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT#, written by Joe Bel Bruno.

Recession....Recession

On Monday the President signed a $170 billion economic stimulus package that was passed by Congress last week. The President is hoping that this package will send American tax rebate checks by May in hope that this will prevent a recession or make it a very brief recession. The package also gives more tax break to business, veterans, and senior citizens. The best thing was that Congress got this bill through all the talk and debate in less than four weeks, which President Bush is very happy about. This bill will pay taxpayer between $600 to $1,200 and there also we are a $300 per child tax credit. The main reason for this bill is to put money in to the taxpayers’ hands and hope that they will spend it to help pull the market out of the recession.
I believe that this is a good plan but the only problem is, will the taxpayer take the money and spend it on will they just save it and not spend it. I hope that this extra money that we as taxpayer our getting this year will allow us to spend it and put some money back into the economy and help it grow and grow so we can get pulled out of this recession and not let it last a long time.
I got my information from an article published on CNNMoney.com called “Bush to Sign Stimulus Package Wednesday” at http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/11/news/economy/bush_stimulus/index.htm.

Super Money

“Super Tuesday” vote day, who do you want Clinton, Obama, or McCain. It is time to make a decision about what direction that we want this country to go in for the next four years. CNNMoney.com states “that the Senate is debating changes to the bipartisan bill that was proposed by President Bush. It was approved by the House last month. The legislation wants to get money in the hands of consumers and give businesses benefits for creating new jobs. I think that this bill is a great idea if it will help the the economy grow and help with the spending issues that the nation is facing now.
In the time of economy problems the Republicans and Democrats have been working together. The House will be voting on this bill this week and President Bush is most likely going to sign the bill on Feb. 15th. The IRS will then ship out the rebate checks to the taxpayers. I hope that this will start an economy surge so that we can get this nation back on top. We need to start pushing the nation’s lawmakers to work on this economy problem that we are having now. So the more that they are willing to give us money to spend and get the money flowing in the economy the better.
This information came from CNNMoney.com; the article is called “Vote near in Senate showdown over economy” at http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/06/news/economy/stimulus_senatevote/index.htm?postversion=2008020610.