April's Tab + Tip

April will be the first edition of a new monthly feature. Every month I will give a brief overview of this month's "bill" in terms of both the economic costs of this recession and the Obama Administration.

Economic Bill:

• 13.9% of household income is spent just making payments on household debt (4th Quarter 2008)



• Industrial production and capacity utilization are below 2002 levels as of March 2009



• 1.89% of all commercial bank loans are being charged off (read: noncollectable) for 4th Quarter 2008



• Unemployment was 8.5% nationally in March of 2009, this is 5.1 million jobs lost in the last 5 months!



• GDP was down 6.1% (annualized estimate) in the first quarter of 2009, following a 6.3% (annualized) decrease in the 4th quarter of 2008



• Just for reference, our economy was ~$13 trillion a year prior to the recession, so in two quarters economic output has dropped by ~$1.3 trillion!

Economic Tip: Brace yourself for more bad news and a long, slow recovery (see The Economic Outlook).

Obama's Bill:

(A picture is worth a thousand words)

Total Tab: $3.69 trillion+$0.787 trillion+$0.410 trillion-$0.0001 trillion= $4.8869 Trillion

Total Bill: $4.8869 Trillion in planned spending through 2010 and $1.3 Trillion economic losses so far = Over $5 Trillion is total cost!

Tip for April: To top it all off both spending and economic losses are likely to keep rising. I encourage you to think about $4.8869 Trillion of your dollars when you go to the polls in 4 years!