CNBC EMEA Head of News
Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian might like what he sees in President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs package but not Marc Faber, the author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report, who is not happy about the President’s plan.
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Axel Griesch | ASFM | Getty Images Dr. Marc Faber |
The package is “another complete failure of Keynesian economics and corrupt interventions,” Faber told CNBC.com on Friday morning.
Other economists have welcomed the plan as it attempts to boost employment.
Faber's major problem is that governments around the world should be attempting to cut spending, not spend more.
“This all amid talk of deficit reductions,” said Faber. The package is a “complete joke.”
On Thursday Nomura raised its third-quarter growth estimate for the US economy to 2.6 percent while Goldman Sachs’ chief economist Jan Hatzius told CNBC on Thursday that he may have been too bearish.
Hatzius said growth “now actually looks like it might come in a little stronger than” the 1 percent he had previously predicted.
“The bond and stock markets seem to have a different view,” said Faber.
Vegetable Gardens Are Booming in a Fallow Economy
Garden plots are dug into the green hills, laid out in fuller force than people have seen in years. People call them sturdy patches of protection in uncertain times.
“You see a lot more people turning up ground,” said Wanda Hamilton, 61, a lifelong gardener who sells her surplus vegetables at the farmers’ market in West Liberty, a small town in the Appalachian foothills. “It’s the economy. You just can’t afford to shop at the store anymore.”
It is not just eastern Kentucky. Vegetable gardening has been on the rise across the country, according to Bruce Butterfield, research director at the National Gardening Association, driven by rising food prices and a growing contingent of health-conscious consumers. Garden-store retailers have reported increased sales over the past two years, he said, and many community gardens have waiting lists.