Economic Crisis

“I’m worried you’re going to fail the country,” Erskine Bowles told the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or “supercommittee,” on Tuesday. Bowles, a Democrat, is the former White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton and co-chaired, with former Republican Senator Alan Simpson (Wyo.), President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

The supercommittee was created by the Budget Control Act of 2011 to craft a bill that would reduce future budget deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. Bowles was speaking at the supercommittee's last public hearing before its Nov. 23 deadline.

“I think that we face the most predictable economic crisis in history. I know that the fiscal path we are on here in Washington is not sustainable, and I know that each of you know it and you see it, because it is as clear as day,” Bowles said. more >>

Your immediate response may be, “What does Christianity have to do with economics?” In response, I would say: everything, if you think of economics as the system and means of production and exchange whereby people meet their own and each other’s essential needs.

Lest anyone presume otherwise, to think “Christianly” about these subjects does not imply that the Christian perspective must align with Republican, Democratic, or Libertarian political positions. Christian theology transcends all of these and to be fair, each may include-to one degree or another-aspects of Christian economic ideas and philosophy. However, as Christians our faith and worldview should inform our moral, political, and economic views, not vice versa.

To be sure, there is a debate raging in this country about the nature of economics and, more specifically, the role of government in promoting and/or achieving economic prosperity. more >>

MF Global, the firm headed by former U.S. Senator and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, has admitted to using client funds as it found itself in financial dire straits, said an anonymous federal official.

MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection Monday as a result of insufficient cash flow following multibillion-dollar bets on European debt. The meltdown took less than a week to unfold and is to date the biggest U.S. casualty of Europe’s ongoing debt crisis.

Corzine and a team of investment bankers worked furiously over the weekend to avert a shutdown by trying to line up potential buyers, but after one prominent buyer walked away from the table over a discrepancy of hundreds of millions of dollars, the fledging firm was left with no options other than to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday. more >>

The Republican nominee has yet to be formally announced. But the Democratic National Committee has already chosen its enemy: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

The DNC released a three-page memo on Friday saying that Romney has had a “rough couple of weeks” due to his “self-inflicted wounds” and inability to garner enthusiasm from the GOP base. He also “callously” stood with Wall Street over Main Street. The memo regards him as an “out of touch” candidate with policies that would harm middle-class Americans.

"To say that Mitt Romney flips around on his positions more than a weathervane would be an insult to weathervanes," DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse wrote. "As Mitt Romney clings to his status as a frontrunner of the GOP presidential field, even Republicans seem to be nervous about who Mitt Romney really is and what he actually believes." more >>

Only nine percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job in a New York Times/CBS News poll, a new low since the poll has been taken. Even members of Congress are not surprised at the results.

Congressional approval has dropped from 20 percent in June, before the debt ceiling debate. Concern that a failure to raise the nation's debt ceiling would cause economic upheaval consumed most of the news from Washington in July.

In early August, Congress and the president reached a last minute agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling. Congress' job approval dropped to 14 percent in a poll taken shortly before the agreement. It was 12 percent in mid-September. more >>

In a poll of small business owners, compliance with government regulations was mentioned most often as the most important problem they face.

The Oct. 3-6 poll, conducted by Gallup/Wells Fargo, asked 604 small business owners, “What do you think is the most important problem facing small business owners today?”

The most common answer (22 percent) cited compliance with government regulations, followed by consumer confidence (15 percent), lack of consumer demand (12 percent), lack of credit availability (10 percent), and poor leadership from the government or the president (9 percent). more >>