The land of free enterprise has decided to engage in one of the biggest nationalization transactions in history.  It is the government takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  

The fall in housing values caused their balance sheets to look horrible.  The mortgage industry's practice of selling a mortgage as soon as the new homeowner signed the papers caused a lack of concern over whether the loan would be repaid.

But consider our trade deficit.  But for our record trade deficit we would have up to 3% more national growth, if I recall Professor Morici's estimates accurately.  We would have much lower unemployment.  Again, Morici estimated last Friday that our unemployment rate is 7.7% - not 6.1% - if you figure in those who have stopped looking for work.

We are blessed with many solutions to our problems, but we actually undertake few thus far. These elections can help, but probably more at the Congressional level in terms of trade and the economy. 

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Economic Populist
written by unlawflcombatnt2 , September 08, 2008

Morici is right about the true unemployment being higher. If the government lists not employed workers as "not-in-labor-force," it removes them from the number of workers counted as "unemployed." This results in a lower total number for official unemployment, and a lower unemployment %. A better measure is to take the total number of employed workers, and divide it by the total number of working age people in this country. Using this number shows how truly bad our employment situation is, and how much worse it's gotten since George-the-terrible stole his 1st election.

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