“Budgets? We don’t need no stinking budgets” – What’s really important – ‘Twinkies Buyer Says Cakes Could Return by Summer’

NEW YORK (AP) – ‘Hostess is moving ahead with plans to sell its Twinkies, and one of the new owners says the spongy cream-filled snacks could be back on shelves by summer’.

‘The bankrupt company had earlier picked a $410 million joint offer from Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management (APO) as the “stalking horse” bid to set the floor for an auction’.

‘In a document filed in U.S. bankruptcy court on Monday, however, Hostess Brands said the auction would not be held because no other qualified bids were submitted for the cakes, which include Ding Dongs and Ho Hos’.

‘In a statement, Metropoulos & Co. CEO and founder Dean Metropoulos said the firm was looking forward to having “America’s favorite snacks back on the shelf by this summer.”
From : http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/03/12/hostess-no-bids-twinkies-apollo-metropoulos/

 

‘Murray’s budget plan calls for $1 trillion in new taxes over 10 years’

Now as all the screaming from the Republicans begins,
remember this :

‘There are a lot of tax increases in Simpson-Bowles. $2.6
trillion over 10 years, to be exact’.
@ :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/04/11
-shocking-true-facts-about-simpson-bowles/

And……

‘SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: “I had $800 billion on the table of
new revenue out of reforming our tax code”.
@ : http://www.cnbc.com/id/100529762

So a Trillion dollars over 10 years isn’t too high or too
low.

– – – – – – –

‘Murray’s plan would raise $1 trillion in new taxes over the
next decade by targeting upper-income Americans and tax
breaks for corporations’.

‘It seeks to cut spending by roughly the same amount in order
to shrink — but not eliminate — the current $1.1 trillion
annual deficit’.

‘The plan also includes $100 billion in stimulus spending on
roads and other infrastructure, according to details released
by Senate Democrats’.
From :
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020543442_murraybudge
txml.html?prmid=4939

Paul Ryan’s “If you’re poor, it’s gonna suck to be you” Budget – ‘Statement by Robert Greenstein, President, On Chairman Ryan’s Budget Plan’

You all know how the Republicans warn us that President Obama is turning us into Greece?

Greece will look like Eden if Paul Ryan and the Republicans got their way.

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities :

Increase Defense Spending –
‘The Ryan budget effectively cancels the “sequestration” cuts in defense for all years starting in 2014 — while cutting non-defense programs substantially below sequestration levels’.

‘If one starts from post-sequestration funding levels, as Ryan’s budget documents do, his budget increases defense funding by about $550 billion over ten years while cutting non-defense discretionary programs by about $700 billion’.

Cut Spending For The Poorest And Most Vunerable Americans –

‘More generally, the document contains a stunning — and deeply disturbing — figure’.

‘It shows that the budget would cut mandatory programs other than Social Security, health care programs, civil service pensions, farm programs, and interest payments by about $800 billion over ten years, relative to current law’.

‘This figure is alarming, since 70 percent of the spending in this budget category goes for programs for the needy and disadvantaged. Programs in the category, from which the $800 billion in cuts would come, include’:

¦’Pell Grants’
¦’SNAP’
¦’The Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) for the aged and disabled poor’
¦’School lunches and other child nutrition programs’
¦’The Earned Income Tax Credit and the low-income component of the Child Tax Credit’
¦’Temporary Assistance for Needy Families’
‘A Display of Courage’?

‘Chairman Ryan has at times received praise for having the courage to propose these policies. In reality, this budget reflects more of a lack of courage than an abundance of it’.

‘Is it courageous to propose tax cuts but not identify a single tax expenditure to rein in’?

‘Is it courageous to target your deepest cuts on the poorest Americans, who vote in lower numbers and provide little in campaign contributions’?

‘Is it courageous to camouflage hundreds of billions in cuts for the poor and disadvantaged in broad budget categories without identifying the programmatic cuts, so that analysts, journalists, and other policymakers can’t identify the specific cuts and assess their impacts’?
From : http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3920

Blog Running – “Honey, I Shrunk the Wealth Effect.”

‘The Dow keeps hitting all-time highs and home prices are rising’.

‘But many Americans do not feel any richer. That could be bad news for the economy’.

“Consumers may be skeptical about their wealth,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, in a research note’.

‘In the past, consumers have spent more when stocks and the value of their homes were climbing — even if they don’t plan to cash out on those investments any time soon’.

‘Economists call this the “wealth effect,” but there are concerns that the impact on consumer spending isn’t as pronounced as it used to be’.

“Wealth effects appear to have shrunk since the 2007-2008 financial crisis” say Credit Suisse economists Neal Soss and Henry Mo, in a recent paper they call “Honey, I Shrunk the Wealth Effect.”

‘Just a few years ago, economists estimated that for every $1 gain in stock market wealth, consumers spent about three cents more over a two-year period’.

‘Rising home prices were thought to pack even more bang for their buck, with each dollar increase leading to about eight cents more in spending’.

‘If those relationships still hold true, the wealth effect alone could add one full percentage point to GDP growth this year, said Deutsche Bank’s chief U.S. economist Joe LaVorgna, who believes the wealth effect is “as strong as it has always been.”

‘Mo said some consumers may spend more thanks to the housing recovery. But he suspects the boost from housing wealth will not be strong enough to offset the payroll tax hike that went into effect earlier this year’.

‘If Mo is right, this is not good news for the Federal Reserve, which has been pumping money into the economy to try to stimulate growth … and wealth’.

‘As Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has said often, one of the goals of its many stimulus measures is to help average consumers’.

“The point here is not to create what you’d call a faux wealth effect,” Bernanke said in a Senate hearing two weeks ago. “The point here is to stimulate the economy, create some forward momentum in growth and employment, and that in turn shows up in earnings, and that creates a genuine increase in wealth.”

‘So if the wealth effect is diminishing, that could mean the Fed will need to continue its stimulus even longer than previously expected. Soss and Mo wrote that the Fed may have to “engineer even larger bull markets in house prices and stock prices for any given desired pick-up in economic growth.”

‘And in case you forgot, it was excesses in the stock and housing markets that helped lead to the last two recessions in the first place’.
From : http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealth-effect-might-shrinking-100500840.html?l=1