Stimulus

WASHINGTON - A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Obama’s economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000. A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees. Elsewhere, some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four, or even more times. The government has overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under the president’s $787 billion recovery program, according to an Associated Press review...

Retail sales fell sharply in Britain during the wettest April in a century, official data showed Wednesday, a piece of bad economic news which analysts say could help prod the Bank of England to approve more monetary stimulus. The Office for National Statistics said the volume of sales in April dropped 2.3 percent from March and 1.1 percent from a year earlier. Comparisons with last year were skewed by warm weather in 2011 and the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which had combined to boost spending, the agency said.

WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said yesterday that the central bank is prepared to provide additional stimulus if the economic lull persists. Delivering his twice-a-year economic report to Congress, Bernanke laid out three options the central bank would consider. One possibility, he said, was another round of Treasury bond buying. That would make the third such effort since 2009. The Fed chief's reassurances underscored the fragile state of the economy more than two years after economists said the recession had ended.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and other leaders of wealthy nations underscored an increasing consensus that their countries need to adopt growth measures alongside relentless budget cutbacks to work their way out of their debt troubles. It's a juggle that's much harder in real life than it is on paper. Their eight-paragraph statement from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., on Saturday seamlessly bridged both sides of the austerity versus growth debate and let each decide exactly what the new growth emphasis is going to mean.

BEIJING - China’s second-quarter growth accelerated on a stimulus-fed investment boom, the government reported yesterday, sparking a rise in Asian stocks on hopes the world’s third-largest economy could help to lead a global recovery. The economy grew by 7.9 percent from a year earlier, up from the first quarter’s 6.1 percent growth rate, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Analysts said full-year growth should easily reach the government’s 8 percent target. “This should give people confidence that China’s economy is on strong footing and that there are a lot better days ahead,’’...

WASHINGTON - At their most recent meeting, Federal Reserve officials expressed concerns that the weakening job market might hold back the recovery. But they were divided over whether the Fed should take additional steps to help the economy. The Fed agreed to end on schedule its program to boost the economy through the purchase of $600 billion in Treasury bonds. Some members said the Fed should be open to new stimulus measures if growth failed to pick up enough to “meaningfully’’ reduce the employment rate, according to minutes of the June 21-22 meeting,...

Amid speculation the Fed may adopt a new stimulus program, deep losses turned into small gains - preventing the Dow's longest losing streak since 1978. But there's plenty to worry about: a service-sector gauge rose in July at the weakest pace in 17 months, manufacturing has slowed, consumers cut spending in June, and concern is growing about Italy and Spain.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Standing outside a New Hampshire home being insulated for winter, Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday that after a slow start, states are on track to weatherize 600,000 homes by March 2012. By March 2010 — a year after the economic stimulus pumped new money into the decades-old federal Weatherization Assistance Program — fewer than 31,000 homes had been retrofitted. But Biden said the total has now jumped to 200,000, with 80,000 homes being retrofitted this summer alone.

WASHINGTON - Two years after the economic stimulus package, about one-third of the money authorized for an energy efficiency program has not been spent, a government audit found. The Energy Department's inspector general said yesterday state and local governments have left as much $879 million unspent from a $2.7 billion program intended to boost energy efficiency and create jobs. That is a big change from a year ago, when less than 10 percent of the grant money had been spent, but is far below what the Obama administration projected when the stimulus was...

WASHINGTON - Facing criticism for her handling of stimulus money, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said yesterday that she would not start any new border construction projects while the department reviewed how projects were selected. Napolitano has faced questions since the Associated Press reported last month that Homeland Security officials did not follow their internal priority lists when choosing which border checkpoints would get money for renovations. Under a process that is secretive and susceptible to political influence, officials planned to...

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve policy makers are open to further efforts to stimulate the US economy if growth falters or threats escalate. Minutes of the central bank's April 24-25 meeting released Wednesday stated that several members thought additional Fed support could be needed if the recovery lost momentum or if the risks to the economy became great enough. The minutes did not spell out what circumstances would trigger further efforts to lower interest rates to boost the economy.

After the financial crisis struck the global economy in 2008, the United States and Europe chose different paths to revive their economies. Europeans opted for austerity, cutting budgets, raising taxes, and keeping to tight monetary policies. US policy makers went in the opposite direction, driving short- and long-term interest rates to historic lows, approving an $800 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and spending increases, and running record deficits. Today, the eurozone - the 17 European countries using the euro currency - have slipped into recession while the US...

Asian stock markets rose Monday in holiday-thinned trade as sluggish U.S. growth figures boosted hopes for more measures from the Federal Reserve to help the world's No. 1 economy. South Korea's Kospi added 0.2 percent to 1,980.27 amid improving business sentiment among manufacturers. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.7 percent to 4,393.30 as rising commodities prices helped push up its mining sector. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.1 percent to 20,962.34. Benchmarks in New Zealand, and the Philippines also gained, while Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia fell.

TOKYO - Japan's central bank is set to ante up on stimulus measures as a rebound in the yen shows that the impact of a $123 billion expansion in asset buys in February is fading. All 14 economists in a Bloomberg News survey predict additional easing when the Bank of Japan releases new inflation forecasts on Friday. Most expect a rise ranging from $61.5 billion to $123 billion. One dynamic that may undermine stimulus efforts is Governor Masaaki Shirakawa's own comments, repeated in the United States last week, that monetary policy has only a limited role in...

FRANKFURT - Bank lending to consumers and businesses continued to grow very slowly in the eurozone in February, according to figures issued Wednesday, a sign that the so-called wall of money unleashed by the European Central Bank in recent months has not yet reached borrowers. The growth of loans to the private sector slowed to an annual rate of 1.1 percent, from 1.5 percent in January, the bank said in its monthly report on the eurozone money supply. The report, normally fairly routine, was closely watched for what it said about the impact of $1.3 trillion in low-interest...

Bank of England rate-setters were divided this month on the vote to inject another 50 billion pounds ($79 billion) into the British economy, with two members arguing that a bigger stimulus was needed, minutes to their last meeting showed Wednesday. The disclosure that two members of the Monetary Policy Committee were arguing for a larger injection stoked speculation that the Bank is not done with its controversial strategy of pumping more money into the ailing British economy. The pound fell by nearly half a percent following the release of the report.

PROVIDENCE - Governor Donald L. Carcieri’s administration has failed for months to spend $20 million meant to insulate poor people’s homes against the winter chill and put unemployed people to work during one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression. All the while, the Republican governor has criticized President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan as ineffective in creating jobs even though the state isn’t spending all the money it’s been given. Half the funding had arrived by July, but state officials say it will start flowing this week to agencies ready to spend...

Bank of England rate-setters were divided this month on the vote to inject another 50 billion pounds ($79 billion) into the British economy, with two members arguing that a bigger stimulus was needed, minutes to their last meeting showed Wednesday. The disclosure that two members of the Monetary Policy Committee were arguing for a larger injection stoked speculation that the Bank is not done with its controversial strategy of pumping more money into the ailing British economy. The pound fell by nearly half a percent following the release of the report.

FEWER THAN 123,000 Republican votes were cast in the Iowa caucuses. This number represents .04 percent of the nearly 310 million people in America, and probably an insignificant fraction of registered US Republicans. To have wasted so much attention on a relatively insignificant vote that has not proved to be a reliable predictor of the ultimate party candidate or US president is a misguided use of intellectual and monetary treasure, especially given the misrepresentations and malice fomented in the process just among Republicans themselves.

WASHINGTON – Newt Gingrich seized the TV airwaves in 2009 to bash President Obama's stimulus package, calling it "entirely a pork-barrel bill" that would do little to solve the recession. Later, in a separate web video, the former House speaker stepped back from his blanket criticism. He explained that he strongly supported spending $27 billion of stimulus funds to encourage doctors and hospitals to create electronic medical records for their patients. Left unsaid was that the Gingrich Group, his consulting business in Washington, received large payments from medical...