Obama: More Job Losses to Come

n a meeting with economic advisers on Monday, President Barack Obama stated that there would indeed be more job losses in the next few months. However, he claimed that this does not mean the economy is not recovering. There is “always a lag of several months between businesses starting to make profits again and investing again and them actually rehiring again,” he asserted.

Obama also said he's confident "that having moved the economy on the right track ... there's no reason why we're not going to be able to not only create jobs, but the kind of sustainable economic growth that everybody's looking for."

The White House has highlighted several indicators of economic stabilization over the past week. Among other things, administration officials have argued that the Democrats' controversial $787 billion economic stimulus program helped stave off a depression and spark 3.5% growth in the third quarter.

On Friday, the administration released a report claiming the program helped create or saved over 640,000 jobs.

Republicans questioned the validity of the White House report, saying it exaggerated the program's effectiveness. Each new job, critics charged, cost $248,000 to create.

The Commerce Department said construction spending rose unexpectedly in October by almost 1%. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were anticipating a 0.5% decline.

International Housing Affordability Survey Released

Dr. Shlomo Angel, of Princeton University and New York University, one of the world's leading experts in urban planning writes in the preface to this 5th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey that ...the current efforts to contain the pace of the outward expansion of cities for one reason or another are, at the very least, open to serious question. Referring to land use regulation, he continues: The more stringent the restrictions, the less is the housing market able to respond to increased demand, and the more likely house prices are to increase. And when residential land is very difficult to come by, housing becomes unaffordable., This report describes the economic connection between that "smart growth"/"urban consoldiation" policies (prescriptive land use policies) and the unprecedented house price escalation that has occured in recent years in some markets. Moreover, the consequences have expanded well beyond housing. Without prescriptive land use regulation, the housing bubble in the United States would have been less severe; without a severe housing bubble, the US mortgage meltdown would not have occurred and without the US mortgage meltdown, the international financial crisis might not have occurred. It will be important to reform land use policies to prevent similar damage from occuring in the future

Report:
http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

INITIAL MONDAY PRESS COVERAGE FROM “DOWN UNDER” NEWSPAPERS

SYDNEY
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/housing-severely-unaffordable/2009/01/25/1232818248039.html
PERTH
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/housing-prices-its-all-relative-20090125-7pgu.html
MELBOURNE
http://www.theage.com.au/national/housing-prices-its-all-relative-20090125-7pgu.html
AUCKLAND
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10553540