News Cut: February 24, 2009 Archive

Bait and switch: The selling of the stimulus

Posted at 6:53 AM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Now that the economic stimulus has been passed, politicians are considering ways to make parts of it meaningless.

Taking money designed to help lower-income kids pay for college and using it for whatever the state's politicians want is hardly in the spirit of the stimulus bill, but that's what may happen, according to a story today from Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Post. Even as politicians are talking up the merits of the stimulus bill, they're considering diverting some of it to a budget deficit of their own making, at the expense of a solution to a problem.

It's easy to do. When the U.S. sends $1 for financial aid for kids, transfer $1 the state provides for financial aid for kids to something else. The net effect on a kid's ability to go to college: zip.

Kathy Ruby, director of financial aid at St. Olaf College in Northfield, is also the president of the Minnesota Association of Financial Aid Administrators. Her view is shared by the statewide group, she said.

"Certainly the state deficit creates a real challenge for our lawmakers. It's easy for me to say, but it seems clear to me that this is something that students clearly need, and this is something that Congress intended," said Ruby.

This approach to the program is in stark contrast to the picture Gov. Pawlenty painted at the National Governor's Association meeting with President Obama on Monday, in which he sounded like a governor in handcuffs. "The federal government has attached so many conditions, strings, limits on the use of the money that it's not going to allow us to be as creative or reform-minded or as flexible as we would have liked, and that's disappointing," he said.

The Pell Grant situation, though, recalls some past complaints about higher education by lawmakers. In the past, when the state would increase financial aid to students, colleges would raise tuition, negating the impact of the aid to the kids.

The Minnesota approach to diverting stimulus money is happening elsewhere, too.

In New York, Gov. David Paterson said he might divert money that was intended to help Medicaid recipients. "It does not have any direction. It is discretionary," he said.

North Carolina is also considering diverting state money replaced by the stimulus bill for Medicaid.

Should strings have been attached to all of the money, or should the feds just have given the money to the state to figure out how to spend?

(Photo: ZioDave on Flickr/cc)

update 917 am -

(h/t for video: Sara Meyer)

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Sun spots

Posted at 7:37 AM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

It was a gorgeous sunrise across the frozen tundra of flyover country this morning. Against the backdrop of a collapsing economy, we caught ourselves singing "the sun will come up tomorrow," before we recalled another famous sun-phrase: "Red sky in morning, sailor take warning."

Tonight, Barack Obama gives his speech to a joint session of Congress and we'll figure out which he's going with. I'll live blog it here at 8 p.m.

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The housing market basket case: It's us

Posted at 8:27 AM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

The resale price of homes is dropping faster in Minneapolis than in almost any other U.S. city.

The Case-Schiller housing price index has just been released for December and it shows a massive drop in the resale price of homes here -- 4.6 percent -- in one month. It is the largest single-month decline since Minneapolis was added to the index in 1989, and puts the region right up there with Phoenix on the list of basket-case cities.

The price of a home is now at spring 2002 levels.

It's hard to say what this means because at the same time, the sales of homes is increasing -- albeit slightly -- according to MPR's Jess Mador.

"I think we need at this point is a certain amount of patience," David Blitzer, the chairman of Standard & Poor's Index Committee told CNBC this morning. "Right away there's a lag in any numbers that come out a month, a month and a half... there's a lag in people getting going. Mortgage rates have come down. It's very difficult for people to qualify for loans. The banking system, now that the horse is out of the barn, has locked the barn up very tight. This is also the slow period. You gotta hang on 'til late in the second quarter in the summer before all the stars are aligned."

Only Phoenix (-5.1%) and Las Vegas (-4.8%) dropped more than Minneapolis in the month.

For the year, Minneapolis housing prices dropped 21.1% 18.4%, about the same as the entire country. The pace of the price drop is not changing much increasing slightly, however. In the last six months of the year, Minneapolis prices dropped a little more than 10%.

At 11, NPR's John Ydstie, will join Gary Eichten on Midday to answer questions about the economy. I'll live-blog it here.

Update 9:31 a.m. - In response to a question from a reader asking for a comparison between the current rapid drop in home prices compared to the rapid increase in home prices during the "boom years," I played with the spreadsheet and found these factoids:

The largest month-to-month increase in home prices was July 1997, when prices jumped 2.1% from June 1997.

Most month-to-month increases during the boom years were far less than 1 percent.

House prices have dropped my more than 1 percent in 12 of the last 15 months.

The highest one-year jump in housing prices here since the Case-Schiller index started was 12.2% (2001). There were only three years in which housing prices jumped by double digits (1999, 2000, and 2001).

The rate of increases in home prices started dropping in 2002.

Home prices have dropped for three straight years. Home prices increased for 17 straight years.

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Live-blogging: John Ydstie on Midday

Posted at 10:58 AM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

NPR's John Ydstie has been NPR's "roving national correspondent," but he covered the economy for a couple of decades. Maybe he can make sense of this mess and also answer some questions about the challenges of covering the economy without contributing to its collapse.

He's on with Gary Eichten on MPR's Midday and I'm live blogging the conversation. By the way, he's a Minneapolis native.

11:09 - The Dow is up 53.21 as Gary and John start their discussion. Let's see if the market is listening to the lads.

11:11 a.m. - John says he's flying back to Washington to cover the president's speech tonight. Obama, by the way, previewed his speech. In a sound bite during the 11 a.m. NPR news, he said he would be honest and convey the enormity of the problem. Ugh. Raise your hand if you don't understand how bad the economy is.

11:12 a.m. Ydstie says he thinks the experts "know what they're doing." As he's speaking, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is speaking to a Senate committee. He said if the stimulus stabilizes things, the recession could end this year. The market jumped, but now it's lost all of those gains.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q: "There's so much negativity from the Republicans," a caller says. Says the country is in "an economic war with each other."

A: What you're witnessing is the Republicans trying to figure out how to come back after November's election. They're going back to "core values." It's fraught with political risk. A new poll shows people back Obama. Meanwhile, consumer confidence is at record low levels.(This would be the part where I bring up the media's role in this. Are people reacting to the economy? Or are they reacting to the media's coverage of the economy? Are the two the same?)

>> It's a pledge break. If you follow me on Twitter, you know how I'd do this. Alas, it was rejected. (Disclaimer: It was a joke.)

11:26 a.m. Back to business.

Q: Should banks be nationalized?

A: "I'm not sure it's a good description. We've nationalized many banks over the years. They clean it up and sell it off back to the private sector." It might take longer to deal with a bank like Citi or Bank of America, but it's not impossible. There's nobody who thinks the government should take over the banks and run them forever. It's a tough political sell.

Aside -- Chicago Tribune: Nationalizing banks poses risk but other options look worse.

"If the banks don't start lending again, the stimulus will go to waste. Whatever it takes, is my view," he said.

Q: What if banks fail the "stress test."

A: Unless the feds find a bank is insolvent, not much will happen. If U.S. stock in Citi is converted to common stock, the government will own 80 percent. If banks fail the stress test, they'll try to convert some of that stock. "We can't afford to have zombie banks that aren't lending that the government is propping up."

Q: We're ignoring people who deal with behavior, that the emotional part of this is bigger than the qualitative part of this. Why aren't we hearing from psychologists?

A: Behavioral economists are gaining status as a result of this crisis. It's easier to quantify numbers than quantify emotions and the tendency is to crunch the numbers.

Q: Given the steady drumbeat of bad news. Is there a point when MPR and other media outlets overcover this?

A: John says he had the same question at a breakfast this morning. It's difficult because as a reporter you report what happens and if the market falls because investors don't have confidence, you have to do that. Maybe we should have a bank holiday and a media holiday.

(Bob aside: Look, this is the problem with answers like this. Nobody is suggesting the media not cover this. But the answer suggests that everything the media covers is in context and it simply isn't. Editors and reporters are not asking the question of what every economic story serves before throwing it on the air. If a company announces it's laying off 25 people, it gets on the air simply because every layoff story gets on the air. But consider the placement a few weeks ago of Traveler's financial results and its investment in schools. Hint: It wasn't on the front page.

So Ydstie answered the question, ignoring why behavioral economists are getting a bigger voice today. The media is dismissing the emotional part of the economy and prefers instead to just crunch the numbers. And he unwittingly, perhaps, answered this caller's question in the previous answer: "It's easier to crunch the numbers." That's true. But that's simply not good enough. I was similarly disappointed that the new Star Tribune columnist also dismissed the validity of the point.)

11:40 a.m. - Pledge break (here, kitty!)

11:44 a.m. - Tangent time: MPR's Tom Weber sends this link to a CNN.com on Minneapolis people handling the economy.

Q: Should the government buy out CEOs and banks and put someone in there who can run things properly?

A; Some people think so. The pool of people to run large financial institutions has gotten quite thin. A lot of people have already been dismissed and finding people -- untainted -- is difficult.

Q: Can Obama marshall elected representatives to work on Social Security and Medicare for real?

A: With 401Ks cut in half, people will depend more on Social Security. He'll try but it'll be like Nixon to China. It'll be easier for a Democrat than a Republican. But SS and Medicare are very different. Cost of health care is rising rapidly and those costs need to be controlled. There is a demographic issue with Social Security but there are multiple ways of solving that problem. The size of the Social Security problem is about 1 percent of GDP. The ability to solve it is much easier than for Medicare.

11:51 a.m. - Pledge break. Back after the top of the hour.

12:07 p.m. - We're back. Down in the comments section, join the "what should the media have known and when should they have known it" thread.

Q: What has to happen before people see a light at the end of the tunnel?

A: Getting the banking system stabilized. Ydstie says he thinks the Obama administration will come up with a plan soon because then the markets will grow as businesses think they can make some profit again (Tangent: Target's profit dropped a lot, but it made a ton of money.) Says if 401k's started to come back, that would help.

Q: Do you see a moratorium on the use of IRA funds without a penalty?

A: No.There is some help for college students in the economic stimulus package (Bob notes: You might want to read how that's getting neutered here.)

Q: What if the stimulus doesn't work?

A: They'll do another one. Until consumers and businesses start spending.

12:19 p.m. - Pledge break. Hearing that Gary Eichten was Ydstie's first editor when he worked at KCCM in Moorhead. Kate Smith is noting the number of people who've come through MPR's doors, "and then gone on to great broadcasting careers" somewhere else. Hmmmmm....

In another thread, Tom Sweeney writes:

1. People are drowning in econ crisis coverage but little (none?) of the information is actionable. What would John have me do in reaction to the reports? I was laid off last March 4 and am still looking.

2. Is the crisis likely to boost US productivity and global competitiveness by enabling companies to pay people way less and by causing employees to work way harder for the good fortune of having a paycheck? I'm a certifiable workaholic with sweet references and 25 years in publishing but have yet to land after declining a transfer to NYC.

>> I don't know if Gary will take either one of those questions. But #1 sounds familiar.

Q: People are framing "economic recovery" in the context of where we are a couple of years ago. That's the problem. We got away from real values, to speculative values.

A: "You make an interesting point. Scott Simon interviewed a demographer on Saturday and compared the situation to the Great Depression. When he looked at them, they were a 'reset' to the economy. We were living in a fantasy world. He suggested that instead of thinking of them as recessions/depressions, they are resets. The problem is unless you get the economy moving along again, you're going to have people losing their jobs and losing their homes. We can have a theoretical discussion about what the economy and values ought to be, but if you're about to lose your job or your home, you need something fast. You need a program that tries to keep you employed. The poison that got us into this is the medicine that will get us off our backs, and then we need to have a conversation about consuming less or saving more. The problem is that everyone is saving now."

Q: Why don't you correlate market action to government action? The market knows wasteful spending.

A: It's more about the banking system.

Q: Were banks forced to make bad loans?

A: No. We all think home ownership -- along with motherhood and apple pie -- is a good thing. But it's not a good thing if you can't afford the payment.

12:38 p.m. - Pledge break. None of the people joining/renewing appear to be listing News Cut as a reason. What's the matter with you people? There's a guy trying to eat here!

Q: Any relief for large student loans?

A: You're unlucky because your parents made more money and you had to take out the loan. If you had a home and had an "exotic loan," you may be able to get help under the housing plan. But for people who are "highly leveraged," you probably just want to take the $10 a week tax cut and put it toward debt retirement.

12:51 p.m. They're close to wrapping it up. the Dow is up 164.15. What does this mean? It means the Dow went up 110 points while Ydstie and Eichten were talking, and went down 30 when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was speaking earlier today. Perhaps we've unwittingly identified our way out of this mess.

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Things you don't see every day

Posted at 2:37 PM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

There are a lot of useless Post-It Note neurons floating around my head, but I'll be darned if one of them is about the last time someone testifying before Congress got a standing ovation.

The crew of US Airways Flight 1549 testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and pleaded for the reform of the airline industry. Their salaries have been cut and their pensions replaced.

Capt. Chesley Sullenberger said it has placed "pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation... I do not know a single professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps." And yet, as the flight schools from Mankato to North Dakota reveal, they do.

It might be a tough sell, as a drive through the neighborhoods of Eagan and Apple Valley might suggest. Airline pilots, generally speaking, do OK. The average senior captain earns $180,000, according to the Air Line Pilots Association. A first officer makes about $121,000.

If it's a situation the committee is interested in exploring, they might consider listening to the testimony of the non-major pilots and first officers or flight crews without seniority. Gross monthly starting pay at a regional carrier is around $1,500 a month.

For the first time, we also heard from Patrick Harten. He was the controller who was communicating with the US Airways' pilots on that January day when the plane ditched in the Hudson River.



"People do not survive landings on the Hudson River, and I thought it was his own death sentence.

"I believed at that moment," he added, "I was going to be the last person to talk to anyone on that plane alive."



Expect the crew to get another standing ovation tonight. They'll be in the gallery when President Obama speaks to a joint session of Congress.

(Photos: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

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Live-blogging the presidential address

Posted at 7:12 PM on February 24, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

We'd like to get your feedback and observations as the president speaks to a joint session of Congress about the economy. Afterwards, react to Gov. Bobby Jindal's response.

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