EconomicCrisis.US

Deficit spending and government debt are reaching a level that could culminate in another economic crisis as big as the one that hit the United States last year, Minnesota’s Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty told CNSNews.com.

“One of the main things I’m very worried about is this administration and the Democratically-controlled Congress running on a pathway to bankruptcy,” Pawlenty said. “I mean, we have a reckless amount of deficit and debt in this country. The Obama administration and this Congress are exponentially growing that.”

The $787 billion stimulus package pushed by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats was supposed to salvage the tanking economy, but that measure – along with the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry pushed by the
Bush administration and supported by Obama – will boost the nation’s debt by $9 trillion to a total of $14.5 trillion by 2019, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
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The US economy faces a difficult time ahead as consumers stop spending and the fallout escalates from the collapse of the commercial real estate market, economist Nouriel Roubini told CNBC.

Repeating his prediction that the economy faces a threat of a “double-dip” recession and at best a slow-growth U-shaped recovery, Roubini said in a live interview that more banks will fail and residential real estate prices have more room to decline.

Additionally, non-government bonds will face pressure, the securitization market is all but dead, the credit markets are still frozen and consumers will continue to save more rather than spend and boost growth.
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Monday marks the one-year anniversary of a frightful day that changed economic history. On Sept. 7, 2008, the federal government stunned financial markets by announcing its takeover of two mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

That was just the beginning. In ensuing days, Bank of America took over Merrill Lynch; Lehman Brothers collapsed; credit markets froze up, and insurance giant AIG grabbed at an $85 billion federal rescue.

In a new series, “Financial Crisis: One Year and Counting,” NPR examines the wild events and the efforts of the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Congress to avert an economic catastrophe. The series will count up the costs of both the crisis and the cure. Preview stories in the series:
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The U.S. Federal Reserve asked a federal judge not to enforce her order that it reveal the names of the banks that have participated in its emergency lending programs and the sums they received, saying such disclosure would threaten the companies and the economy.

The central bank filed its request on Wednesday, two days after Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled in favor of Bloomberg News, which had sought information under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Preska said the Fed failed to show that revealing the names would stigmatize the banks and result in “imminent competitive harm.” The Fed asked the judge not to require disclosure while it readies an appeal.
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