Hollywood elite have turned their backs on Obama after supporting him before he was elected in 2008. Actor Matt Damon is the first to cite Obama’s dealings with Wall Street as the main reason for the backlash in support.
“I think he’s rolled over to Wall Street completely,” Damon told the Independent.
“The economy has huge problems. We still have all these banks that are too big to fail. They’re bigger and making more money than ever.”
America is not broke. According to a recent blog post by Michael Moore. “America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.”
There is good news for sustainable economic growth in the US post 2008 financial crisis. Employment rates have passed through the inflexion point and recent reports on production and spending point to an accelerated momentum in the economy.
Its weakness remains “the state and local government. It continues to lay off people vowing to budget pressure” Sung Won Sohn, Smith School of Business and Economics.
And what do we have to account for the improvements?
Home real estate prices slid again in December, pushing a leading price index
within a whisper of its lowest level since the housing crash began, data released Tuesday showed.
Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 large metropolitan areas fell 1 percent in December from November,
although the drop shrank to 0.4 percent when the data was adjusted for seasonal variations.
The only city in the index that posted a monthly gain on an unadjusted basis was Washington.
Regulators last month closed banks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Colorado, bringing to seven the number of closures in 2011.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over the banks,
the largest by far being United Western Bank, based in Denver, with $2.05 billion in assets.
Also seized were the Bank of Asheville, based in Asheville, N.C., with $195.1 million in assets;
the CommunitySouth Bank and Trust, based in Easley, S.C., with $440.6 million in assets;
So what’s happened in the US property market since the mortgage-based derivatives meltdown in 2008?
An even smaller percentage of Americans own their own homes today than at any time since 1998
when homeownership sat at a low 66.5 percent.
Back in 2004, homeownership reached 69 percent, an all-time high.
The home ownership gap between white and minority households is creeping up to 30 percent – the highest it’s ever been –
President Obama will travel to Arizona on Wednesday to attend a memorial service in Tucson,
a White House official said Monday.
The president will also visit the family of Ms. Giffords and other victims, the official said,
and likely deliver his first expansive public remarks since the shooting rampage,
according to this – quietly placed – item from the New York Times.
