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Old 12-21-2007, 06:35 PM   #241
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dude, are you saying there is no impending recession on the horizon?

the housing bubble may be larger than the dot com bust.
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Old 12-21-2007, 07:50 PM   #242
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Originally Posted by Mavdog
dude, are you saying there is no impending recession on the horizon?

the housing bubble may be larger than the dot com bust.
There is always an impending recession, you just have to wait long enough. They've been forcasting one for a year now I believe, and talking down this economy for 8.

I'm just trying to find the numbers that are showing how bad everything is, they keep coming in just fine.

I'm not seeing a recession in my business (electronics) and they are usually pretty predictive.
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Old 12-21-2007, 08:00 PM   #243
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Engram has a post on this impending doom...And as usual he does it better than I.

http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/...ct-future.html
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I'm increasingly struck by the fact that "news" stories about the state of the U.S. economy largely consist of some reporter's predictions about the dire situation that awaits us -- as if people have accurately predicted the future before, so we should pay close attention to their predictions now.

Here, for example, is part of a new story at MSNBC about a big drop in jobless claims:

The government will release the November employment report on Friday. It is expected to show that the jobless rate edged up to 4.8 percent, from 4.7 percent in October.

Overall economic growth is expected to slow to a barely discernible 1.5 percent in the current October-December period and weaken even further in the first quarter of 2008.

Analysts said growth rates this low raise the threat of a possible recession.


All of this may turn out to be true, but my point is that no one really has the slightest idea if it will. They are just making it up, as they always do, and it is one of reasons why Americans have failed to appreciate their fabulous economy for last 4 years. The future has been continuously bleak since 2003 despite the fact that, in the past 4 years, we've witnessed an American economy that has performed spectacularly well and that was unsurpassed by any major industrialized nation on earth.

As I noted in an earlier post, in the second quarter of this year, analysts looked ahead to what would happen in the third quarter with respect to GDP growth:

Most economists expect the economy to slow in the third quarter, which ends Sunday. The median forecast by economists surveyed by MarketWatch for third-quarter GDP is 2.3%, followed by a further slowdown to 1.5% growth in the fourth quarter.


They expected 2.3% growth in the third quarter, but here is what actually happened:

U.S. economic growth fastest in four years

GDP for third quarter steamed ahead at revised 4.9 percent rate

WASHINGTON - The economy barreled ahead in the summer, growing at a 4.9 percent pace.


If you double the prediction, you still come in below the actual figure. My point is that no one can predict the future, but just about every story I read sticks with the 1.5% growth forecast for the fourth quarter anyway (as if that prediction is actually meaningful).

A slew of economic news came out yesterday. Analysts had expectations about what these reports would show. Were they right or wrong? Let's start with factory orders:

Factory Orders Up Unexpectedly

WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories unexpectedly rose in October although much of the gain reflected higher energy prices.

The Commerce Department reported that orders advanced by 0.5 percent in October, far better than the flat reading that had been expected. However, much of the strength came from a big jump in the cost of petroleum and other energy prices, which pumped up orders at oil refineries and chemical plants. The orders figures are not adjusted for changes in prices.


If you always expect the worst, good news is unexpected. Bad news rarely is. Let's now take a look at a private sector jobs report:

US jobs report eases fears of sharp slowdown

Employment in the private sector rose almost four times faster than expected last month, according to an estimate from ADP, the payroll services firm, soothing fears that the credit crisis is about to cause a sharp economic slowdown.


Faster than expected? You don't say. That's just a polite way of saying that, yet again, negative expectations were wrong. Next, let's consider productivity:

Productivity lift for US economy

US worker productivity was at its strongest in four years in the three months to October, official data shows.
The US Labor Department said that productivity, or output per hour of work, rose at an annualised pace of 6.3% in the third quarter.
...
The jump in productivity was higher than economists were expecting.


Higher than economists were expecting? Get out. Who would have ever thought that possible?

You have to look at the past to evaluate the strength of the American economy. Looking forward, things have been terribly bleak for 4 straight years. Looking back, we've enjoyed the greatest economy on earth. And, no, there is no debate about that. If you disagree, you simply have not investigated the matter for yourself. Instead, you've allowed mainstream media reporters to do your thinking for you (never do that), or you, yourself, have suffered financially, and you've generalized your personal circumstances to the larger economy. By contrast, I've examined all of the relevant statistics and gauged the strength of the American economy across time (e.g., over the last 25 years) and across place (e.g., in comparison to the nations of the G7). When you do that, you get a big surprise because you discover that the bleak future we've suffered through for the last 4 years ended up being a fabulous past 4 years.

Attach great weight to economic statistics from the past (because those numbers are sound), but attach very little weight to dire predictions about the future. If you are not convinced that you should follow this recipe, just look at the next two predictions. The first is a survey of Chief Financial Officers:

Survey finds CFOs are gloomy about economy

Optimism about the economic outlook has dropped among chief financial officers in Europe and the US, as concerns rise over the turmoil in credit markets, according to the quarterly CFO global business outlook survey.

The survey of 1,275 CFOs globally found pessimists outstripped optimists in the US by eight to one, the biggest margin since the survey began in 2001.


Oh no. That sounds bad. CFOs know what they are talking about, after all. The next is a survey of top corporate executives:

Corporate Leaders Upbeat on Economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The country's top corporate executives foresee pretty good business prospects even as the economy gets squeezed by a housing collapse, a credit crunch, Wall Street turmoil and high energy prices.

A survey by the Business Roundtable, released Tuesday, showed that most executives expect sales, capital investment and hiring to remain at current levels or even improve in the coming months.

While the economy's problems have caused consumer confidence to tank, the survey's results suggest that corporate executives' assessment is that the business climate remains generally healthy despite all the strains.


You see? No one knows. Even so, the media reports good news about the economy as being a temporary deviation from negative expectations -- nothing more than a short postponement of the inevitable economic disaster. Ignore all of that and base your opinion about the strength of the American economy on where it has been for the last 4 years, not where some pessimist thinks it will go in the next quarter or two.

Economic growth in the fourth quarter of this year may very well be low. Or it may be moderate, and it might even be high. We'll just have to wait and see. Even if it is low, it may or may not mean anything. GDP growth was a mere 0.6% in the first quarter of 2007, but that was followed by two quarters of absolutely smashing growth (3.8%, then 4.9%). Although we don't know what the future holds (and this applies to Iraq and the global climate as well), we do know that (a) reporters are always happy to tell you how bad George Bush's economy is and (b) in truth, the economy has been phenomenally impressive for 4 years in a row (following the 2001 recession caused by the dot-com crash and the attacks of 9/11).

Let the evidence influence your opinion about the American economy. The evidence lies in the past. What the future holds is anyone's guess, so don't be hysterical about that.
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Old 12-21-2007, 08:03 PM   #244
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mavdog
dude, are you saying there is no impending recession on the horizon?

the housing bubble may be larger than the dot com bust.
I don't see it to be honest. First it's individuals in their homes, not their 401K's that are undergoing this. And secondly I expect the housing WILL if you hold onto it long enough recover.

I would be interested however in where your comparison of the dot.com to the housing.com burst being larger?

I guess I just don't see it.

I did read somewhere recently that much of the sub-prime loans were being made by banks as a response to the guvment pushing home ownership to folks who really couldn't afford them. Anyone else read any of that?

If not, why would banks make such bad loans? They are taking the risk?
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Old 12-22-2007, 01:54 PM   #245
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What to make of the reduction in foreclosures? Possibly a christmas sabbatical? An interesting site no matter as it seems to track this deal.

http://www.realtytrac.com/ContentMan...97&accnt=64847
[quote]IRVINE, Calif. – Dec. 19, 2007 – RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its November 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 201,950 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported during the month, down 10 percent from the previous month but still up nearly 68 percent from November 2006. The national foreclosure rate for the month was one foreclosure filing for every 617 households.[/qoute]
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Old 12-22-2007, 05:32 PM   #246
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
There is always an impending recession, you just have to wait long enough. They've been forcasting one for a year now I believe, and talking down this economy for 8.

I'm just trying to find the numbers that are showing how bad everything is, they keep coming in just fine.

I'm not seeing a recession in my business (electronics) and they are usually pretty predictive.
sure enough, if one continually predicts a recession eventually they'll be right.

two major pillars of domestic industry, auto manufacturing and housing, are in certain contraction. the cheap dollar is keeping the export market fairly robust, but an international contraction and that segment get's hit hard.

domestic investment peaked and is trending down.

government procurement (see above commentary on "priming the pump") is one of the few demand stimulators, up over 10%.

corporate profits are trending down, personal income is positive primarily due to increases in farm payrolls. factory utilization is trending down.

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I don't see it to be honest. First it's individuals in their homes, not their 401K's that are undergoing this. And secondly I expect the housing WILL if you hold onto it long enough recover.

I would be interested however in where your comparison of the dot.com to the housing.com burst being larger?

I guess I just don't see it.
the housing industry represents a bit less than 1/3 of the economy. the abilty to keep liquidity to the credit market, ie make home loans available, is critical to limiting the affects. so far the dollars have been out there, but if there is severe price deflation of the homes that will stop. lenders will not be so quick to lend on an asset they can't fairly value.

Quote:
I did read somewhere recently that much of the sub-prime loans were being made by banks as a response to the guvment pushing home ownership to folks who really couldn't afford them. Anyone else read any of that?
the banks didn't make these loans, there were a whole new group of non-bank lenders who made the loans. these were not regulated (countrywide for instance), and they would bundle the mortgages into cmbs (colateralized mortgage backed securities) that were then sold to investors, amny of which were banks.

it was wall street that bought these investments, based on the investment rating that the agencies placed. what went wrong is the ratings were too optimistic, the default risk was much, much higher than originally thought, and the owners of these securities now find themselves under water due to these new, realistic values.

billions and billions of dollars in equity at these banks and investment houses has been wiped out. with the resultant decline in home values, billions and billions of dollars in homeowner's equity has been wiped out.

poof. gone.

Quote:
If not, why would banks make such bad loans? They are taking the risk?
these non-bank lenders have been portrayed as not caring about the risk, they weren't going to own the debt so all they were after is getting the signatures on the note.

the criticism is these lenders got the homeowner into the loan by using low "introductory rates" with promises to the borrower that when the real interest rates kicked in they could just refinance with the higher home value...but that didn't happen when the credit tightened and the home stopped appreciating.

so who is to blame? it's the borrower who didn't do their homework and understand the down side of taking out the loan under the terms they agreed to, and to the rating agencies who seemed to fall into the same overly optimistic trap the homeowners did, that there wasn't any downside to these mortgages.

so there are calls for more regulation, esp to the mortgage firms like countrywide. perhaps more involvement by fnma and frmc by raising the maximum amount they lend.

how do you regulate overexuberance?

by letting the market punish those who fall victim.
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Old 12-22-2007, 05:34 PM   #247
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dude1394
What to make of the reduction in foreclosures? Possibly a christmas sabbatical? An interesting site no matter as it seems to track this deal.

http://www.realtytrac.com/ContentMan...97&accnt=64847
IRVINE, Calif. – Dec. 19, 2007 – RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its November 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 201,950 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported during the month, down 10 percent from the previous month but still up nearly 68 percent from November 2006. The national foreclosure rate for the month was one foreclosure filing for every 617 households.

Last edited by Mavdog; 12-22-2007 at 05:34 PM.
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Old 12-22-2007, 05:59 PM   #248
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Oh I understand that there is a lot of foreclosures, not to discount that, but the question is more forward looking than backwards I think. Especially if we are predicting some sort of dot.com like meltdown.

EDIT: I'll take a look at your other posting on this when I can take in some of the details.
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Old 01-06-2008, 03:57 PM   #249
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Interesting post by Engram discussing the recent performance of the UK economy. He includes additional commentary on the medias coverage of course. But it is interesting to see the UK versus EU performances.
http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/...s-economy.html

Quote:
I've long been interested in the astronomical disconnect between the anemic state of the American economy as portrayed by mainstream media reporters and its factual status as the strongest economy on earth. My interest in this bizarre phenomenon is not based on a strong belief that George Bush's economic policies are superior to the policies advocated by the Democrats (that is a separate issue and a separate debate). My point is simply that reporters are dead wrong to believe that our economy is weak relative to its past performance or relative to the performance of the European socialist welfare states (like France and Germany and Italy).

In all my prior comparisons involving the advanced industrialized nations of Europe, one European country has stood out as being more economically competitive than the others. That country is the United Kingdom. Why might that be? The answer is that the UK converted to an economic model much like the one that applies in the US. The story is summarized in a book that a reader drew to my attention some time ago. The book, published in 2004 and edited by David Card, Richard Blundell and Richard B. Freeman, is called "Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980-2000." Here is a little of what they have to say:
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Old 02-13-2008, 03:18 PM   #250
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hmmmmmm.....

for some reason nobody has been posting on this thread in the last few weeks



anyway, as I have pointed out at least SEVERAL times, I think this thread is a load of hooey. But I felt a need to put the following somewhere....... I couldn't resist, and just took a look at my long term investments (which I generally try to ignore, since I have no illusions about my ability to time the markets).

Ouch!! down 5% this year, already.

But, I have to say, such a short time horizon doesn't tell you much. So I looked at the Dow from February 13, 2001 (10,903) and yesterday, February 12, 2008 (12,379)

ouch again.

that implies a DJIA stock return of a little over 1.8% /year. I'm not EXACTLY sure what the averages over the last several decades, or the last 100 years, or whatever, have been..... but I'm pretty sure stocks have generally done better than this !!!!

By contrast average inflation over the same period has been about 2.8%, so we have lost 1% /year in real terms during the Bush years.

Kabooom indeed.
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Old 02-13-2008, 04:07 PM   #251
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mcsluggo
hmmmmmm.....

for some reason nobody has been posting on this thread in the last few weeks



anyway, as I have pointed out at least SEVERAL times, I think this thread is a load of hooey. But I felt a need to put the following somewhere....... I couldn't resist, and just took a look at my long term investments (which I generally try to ignore, since I have no illusions about my ability to time the markets).

Ouch!! down 5% this year, already.

But, I have to say, such a short time horizon doesn't tell you much. So I looked at the Dow from February 13, 2001 (10,903) and yesterday, February 12, 2008 (12,379)



ouch again.

that implies a DJIA stock return of a little over 1.8% /year. I'm not EXACTLY sure what the averages over the last several decades, or the last 100 years, or whatever, have been..... but I'm pretty sure stocks have generally done better than this !!!!

By contrast average inflation over the same period has been about 2.8%, so we have lost 1% /year in real terms during the Bush years.

Kabooom indeed.
didn't we climb out of a big hole just after your start point?
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Old 02-14-2008, 09:23 AM   #252
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I don't remember (my start point was chosen to break the time period into even years, and easy to calculate annual returns).

but in any case, there have been numereous "ups" during the bush era. Unfortunately they haven't managed to overshadow the "downs" sufficiently, as they are supposed to.
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Old 02-26-2008, 04:39 PM   #253
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For what it's worth.....
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Is Bush to Blame for the Economy?
By Dean Baker
The American Prospect

Monday 25 February 2008

In fairness, Bush, like all presidents, does not deserve all the blame (or credit) for the economy's performance under his watch. But he turned a blind eye to the mounting evidence of an economic crisis.

Last summer, President Bush told the American people that "the American economy is the envy of the world." He continued, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong.... Job creation is strong. Real after-tax wages are on the rise. Inflation is low." None of this was exactly true then, but it is certainly not true now. When President Bush signed the stimulus package he finally acknowledged what the rest of us already knew: The economy is in real trouble. The collapse of the housing bubble is throwing the economy into a recession, and quite possibly a very severe recession. For most workers this means that the economic situation is about to go from bad to worse.

There has been a myth spread by folks like The New York Times that the economy had been performing very well under President Bush, but that he wasn't getting proper credit because of public anger over Iraq. While pleasing to the ears of Bush supporters, this is a myth without foundation.

At the most basic level, contrary to the myth, growth has actually been very weak under President Bush. Here is the ranking of growth by presidential administrations since 1960:

Kennedy-Johnson: 5.2%
Clinton: 3.6%
Reagan: 3.4%
Carter: 3.4%
Nixon-Ford: 2.7%
Bush II: 2.6%
Bush I: 1.9%

President Bush only manages to beat out his father, and even this distinction may not hold when the final numbers are in. These data only run through the third quarter of 2007. If we fall into a recession and Bush ends his term with five quarters of near-zero growth, then Bush II could even fall behind Bush I in the growth category.

But growth is only a small part of the story. As has been widely publicized, the Bush-era deficits reversed the effects of the deficit reduction from the Clinton years. We will almost certainly end the Bush years with a higher debt-to-gross domestic product ratio than we had at the start of the Clinton presidency. That is not a disaster, but the next administration will not have the luxury of allowing the debt to increase in the same way.

Perhaps more important, the ratio of foreign debt to GDP has soared in the Bush years. By the end of the Bush presidency, we will likely have added more than $1.5 trillion (more than 10 percent of GDP) to our foreign indebtedness. This is the result of the massive trade deficits of the Bush years.

Growth and debt are, of course, abstractions for most people. What matters to the vast majority of families is what they take home in their paychecks, their job security, their health care, and their pensions. On these fronts, the Bush legacy is also one of miserable failure. Going into this year, the average hourly wage was about 3 percent higher than it was when Bush took office in 2001. This modest growth is entirely attributable to the wage momentum coming out of the late 1990s boom. Adjusted for inflation, wages have been flat since 2003. In recent months they have headed downward as energy- and food-price increases outstripped wage growth. Wage growth may still end up positive for the Bush years as a whole, but the gain will be so small that most workers will not notice it.

Job growth has been abysmal in the Bush years, averaging less than 900,000 jobs a year, compared to more than 2.5 million jobs a year during the Clinton administration. As a result, millions of young and middle-aged people have simply stopped looking for work and dropped out of the labor market.

Health-care coverage has become increasingly precarious as millions of people have lost coverage and tens of millions of workers find that they must pay much more for their health care, either in premiums, co-payments, or deductibles. Similarly, pension coverage (including 401(k) type plans) was falling sharply even before the onset of the recession. My colleague found that the percentage of workers in "good jobs" - jobs that pay at least $17 an hour, provide health insurance and pension coverage - had fallen by 2.3 percentage points under President Bush, and that was before the recession. Needless to say, job prospects for workers will look much worse by the end of the president's term.

In fairness, Bush, like all presidents, does not deserve all the blame (or credit) for the economy's performance under his watch. By the time that President Bush took office in 2001, recession was already in the cards given the collapse of the stock market bubble. The economy would have faced rough sledding regardless of who was in office. Similarly, the country was facing a large and growing trade deficit in 2001 because of an overvalued dollar.

But President Bush did not take any steps to seriously counteract these real economic problems. His strategy was to give out tax breaks that heavily favored the richest people in the country. He also gave business, including the energy companies, the defense contractors, the drug companies, the insurance companies, and the financial industry, everything they wanted from the government, at the public's expense.

However, the massive handouts to the rich and the corporate lobbies didn't produce growth. For this, President Bush needed the housing bubble. The unprecedented run-up in house prices produced a record construction boom. More important, the $8 trillion housing bubble led to a consumption boom as people eagerly borrowed against their new housing wealth, sending the saving rate to zero.

While President Bush likes to pretend that the crash of the housing-market bubble is a surprise event, like a hurricane, for which we could not have possibly prepared, the reality is that it was an entirely predictable event, which was in fact predicted. President Bush's decision to ignore the growth of the housing bubble and the madness in the mortgage market was one of the most disastrous economic mistakes in the country's history.

The meltdown of the housing market has already led to record rates of foreclosures and multibillion-dollar write-downs at the country's leading financial institutions. But this is just the beginning. The current double-digit rate of house-price decline will destroy between $2 trillion and $4 trillion in additional housing wealth over the course of the year. In short, it looks like President Bush will go out with a real bang.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.
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Old 06-01-2008, 12:42 PM   #254
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And yet...still no recession yet.

Dang it.
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Old 06-01-2008, 03:09 PM   #255
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In fact, home sales increased in April...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
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Old 06-01-2008, 03:20 PM   #256
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Hey purple I had a hard time following your post. Was that job creation percentage or gdp percentage??? I have to quibble a little bit about declaring job growth above what it takes to get to less than 5% as indicative of GDP growth.

I don't believe the gdp percentage is correct, job percentage, I'm not so sure it's an apples to apples deal since ~5% was pretty much historically declared full employment.

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Old 06-01-2008, 05:07 PM   #257
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And yet...still no recession yet.

Dang it.
One year from now I wouldn't be surprised to see the government admit that there was a recession by revising the inflation data for the last time. the data we have right now will be revised two times, by the way. And usually they correct it in one direction only...
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Old 06-01-2008, 05:10 PM   #258
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Originally Posted by Arne
One year from now I wouldn't be surprised to see the government admit that there was a recession by revising the inflation data for the last time. the data we have right now will be revised two times, by the way. And usually they correct it in one direction only...
Maybe..but they've already corrected it once, upwards.
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Old 06-01-2008, 05:14 PM   #259
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Originally Posted by jefelump
In fact, home sales increased in April...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
Well, if they revise this data in the same way they revised the data for March, then nothing changed because the increase will be gone after the revision...

And to my point about inflation. Inflation meassurement in the US is highly criticised in Europe, since they do phony stuff like measuring the increase in speed of a computer as a falling price even though it seems obvious that little is gained by this speed increase, since the software challenges the hardware more and more every year. Just think about the new Microsoft Office... There's no way you could handle that program with a computer from 1995 or so...

Governments will always lie about inflation, that's just the way it is.
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Old 06-01-2008, 05:25 PM   #260
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I don't really understand your point. The way they measure inflation is the way they measure inflation. It's pretty openly discussed and calculated. Where is the "lying" comeing from? You can go to the bls site and get all kinds of numbers.

We were talking about recession and whether the gdp was going up or not, I'm not quite sure how inflation effects that number?
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Old 06-01-2008, 06:21 PM   #261
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Originally Posted by dude1394
I don't really understand your point. The way they measure inflation is the way they measure inflation. It's pretty openly discussed and calculated. Where is the "lying" comeing from? You can go to the bls site and get all kinds of numbers.

We were talking about recession and whether the gdp was going up or not, I'm not quite sure how inflation effects that number?
The econmic term recession can be used when real GDP growth is negative for two quarters. "Real" means: adjusted for inflation.

Otherwise government could just print trillions of dollars and say that there is GDP growth, since the numbers go up...
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Old 06-01-2008, 07:47 PM   #262
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Originally Posted by Arne
The econmic term recession can be used when real GDP growth is negative for two quarters. "Real" means: adjusted for inflation.

Otherwise government could just print trillions of dollars and say that there is GDP growth, since the numbers go up...
Either all GDP growth is adjusted for inflation or it isn't. Which is it? There is a very accepted and tehcnical definition for GDP and for a recession. We aren't in one.

So if the guvment normally adjusts for inflation then okay, they will and we'll see a recession (doubt it however as I don't expect both months to be revised down) or we will not.

Now if you are saying the guvment SHOULD adjust for inflation but doesn't that's another argument alltogether and is irrelevant to whether the US is in an accepted recession or not.
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Old 06-01-2008, 08:22 PM   #263
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from Arne:
Inflation meassurement in the US is highly criticised in Europe
As many things in Europe are highly criticized in the US. I guess we're all sharing the love...
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Old 06-01-2008, 09:15 PM   #264
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I wonder if our unemployment rate (~5%) is also criticized in the EU (8.4%) as well.

Quote:
According to the Eurostat, EU's statistical agency, the jobless rate in the 12-nation single currency union stayed at 8.4% in January, unchanged from the month before, despite analysts' prediction of 0.2% rise.
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Old 06-02-2008, 02:02 AM   #265
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Originally Posted by jefelump
As many things in Europe are highly criticized in the US. I guess we're all sharing the love...
Thanks for listening to the arguement, instead of just posting some pointless shit... Oh wait...
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Old 06-02-2008, 02:06 AM   #266
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Originally Posted by dude1394
I wonder if our unemployment rate (~5%) is also criticized in the EU (8.4%) as well.
Well, in the midst of the housing crisis/credit crunch your government reported that there were jobs being created in the financial sector... Anyways, I don't care. It's your government and you can believe it all you want.
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Old 06-02-2008, 02:22 AM   #267
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Originally Posted by dude1394
Either all GDP growth is adjusted for inflation or it isn't. Which is it? There is a very accepted and tehcnical definition for GDP and for a recession. We aren't in one.

So if the guvment normally adjusts for inflation then okay, they will and we'll see a recession (doubt it however as I don't expect both months to be revised down) or we will not.

Now if you are saying the guvment SHOULD adjust for inflation but doesn't that's another argument alltogether and is irrelevant to whether the US is in an accepted recession or not.
Government has to adjust for inflation. They do it. But they will always first give you some phony numbers that they then adjust a year from now when nobody cares anymore. and the whole method in which they determine the consumer price index is pretty stupid, as well, since they take increases in quality as a price-decrease, unlike other nations do.
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Old 06-02-2008, 07:00 AM   #268
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Well, in the midst of the housing crisis/credit crunch your government reported that there were jobs being created in the financial sector... Anyways, I don't care. It's your government and you can believe it all you want.
Believe what dude? Are you saying that all of the financial institutions in the world is in some sort of conspiracy? Do you not think that if the guvment were blowing smoke up buffets' ass that he wouldn't be spouting off about it all over the place????

Sheesh...it's data, it's either valid or not, but I don't see forbes, wsj or the european guvments yacking about that it's fudged books.

So there were jobs created in the financial sector, that's after about three months ago when there were big layoffs. This economy creates and deletes entire industries.
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Old 06-02-2008, 07:06 AM   #269
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Originally Posted by Arne
Government has to adjust for inflation. They do it. But they will always first give you some phony numbers that they then adjust a year from now when nobody cares anymore. and the whole method in which they determine the consumer price index is pretty stupid, as well, since they take increases in quality as a price-decrease, unlike other nations do.
So then all of the previous estimates were ALSO adjusted for inflation as well. So the running index is still valid, is it not?

Show me the "phony" numbers? If you want to quibble about how they do the CPI fine, I can see that as it's an index made up to try and measure something that's pretty much immeasurable.

I mean if the price of sugar goes up 20% because of a fire in boliiva or something, does that mean inflation is 20%? No...but it makes sense to ME, to discount volatile goods so that it doesn't skew the underlying inflation rate. What they are trying to measure is the upward pressure on wages in the economy.

Now it would seem to me that food/gas might be a part of it but that's not the way they've been doing it for years, so not one's throwing out "phony" numbers here.

Let's take your example of a faster CPU for example. Now at the moment that might be outdated as cpu's are pretty damn fast. But for quite a long time an increase in cpu power meant a......increase in productivity, it was probably significant. Now if you are talking about chatting on a message board, yeah, but doing "financial work" a quicker machine will actually improve your productivity.

Not to mention programmers, scientists, etc. Also not to mention what other industries will gain from a more responsive system. I don't know if it should be included, but at least in the past it had real impacts to the economy.
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Old 09-16-2008, 09:54 PM   #270
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Get ready for four years of the greatest economic expansion in US history. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Hurricanes Jump-Start Hiring in October

Nov 5, 9:09 AM (ET)

By LEIGH STROPE

WASHINGTON (AP) - Employers aggressively hired new workers in October, adding 337,000 people to their payrolls after a sluggish summer, but the unemployment rate rose fractionally to 5.5 percent.

The pace of hiring was the fastest in six months, nearly double what economists had forecast, the Labor Department reported Friday, saying cleanup efforts from hurricanes that struck Florida and much of the Southeast helped jump-start the labor market.

But the overall, seasonally adjusted jobless rate actually rose by 0.1 percentage point from the 5.4 percent rate of September because more people renewed their job searches, expanding the pool of available workers.

The jobs report was good news for President Bush as he prepares for a second term. A generally weak job market plagued his re-election campaign, offering a political target to his Democratic challenger, John Kerry.

Economists had expected October payrolls to grow by about 175,000 with the jobless rate holding steady at 5.4 percent. Employers have added about 2.2 million jobs since August 2003.

Hiring in construction helped spur last month's job growth, with employment in that sector rising by a net 71,000 jobs.

"Some of this unusually large gain reflected rebuilding and cleanup activity in the Southeast following the four hurricanes that struck the U.S. in August and September," said Kathleen Utgoff, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the past year, construction employment has grown by about 16,000 per month.

New jobs in professional and business services also helped strengthen overall job growth last month, with hiring expanding by 97,000. Temporary employment services were responsible for about half of that, giving ammunition to Bush critics who argue that much of the recent job growth is occurring in lower-paying work that typically doesn't offer heath insurance and other benefits.

October's job growth was the highest since March, when employers added 353,000 positions. Since that time, the pace had slowed, especially in June and July. But hiring has picked up since, growing by a revised 198,000 in August and 139,000 in September. Both figures were higher than originally reported by the Labor Department.

Manufacturing was the only major sector to lose jobs last month, with employment falling by a net 5,000. That followed a decline of 14,000 in September.

Some of the report showed a jobs market still struggling. The number of people who held more than one job rose by 519,000 to 8 million. The average time for the unemployed to find a job was 19.6 weeks, the same as in September.

The jobless rate for blacks jumped to 10.7 percent last month, up from 10.3 percent in September. The rate for Hispanics fell to 6.7 percent from 7.1 percent from the previous month, while the rate for teenagers grew to 17.2 percent from 16.6 percent. The rate for whites held at 4.7 percent.

But the economy is back on track, growing at a 3.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter, up from a 3.3 percent pace in the prior period.

Analysts think Federal Reserve policy-makers will continue to move rates from extraordinarily low levels to more normal levels to make sure inflation doesn't become a threat to the economy down the road.

The Fed is expected to boost short-term interest rates for a fourth time this year when it meets next week, pushing up a key rate from 1.75 percent to 2 percent.
LOL ?
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Old 09-17-2008, 05:38 AM   #271
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LOL ?
Yes, lol. It's called the broken window theory and it is completely stupid. Renewing the wealth the country once had by using resources that could've been used for real standart of living increases is seen as the cure to the economy. Tell kindergarden kids that smashing windows is a good thing because it will help make the economy grow and look how they react, that's all you need to know.
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Old 09-19-2008, 12:13 PM   #272
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Yes, lol. It's called the broken window theory and it is completely stupid. Renewing the wealth the country once had by using resources that could've been used for real standart of living increases is seen as the cure to the economy. Tell kindergarden kids that smashing windows is a good thing because it will help make the economy grow and look how they react, that's all you need to know.
I was referring to the thread title and "Get ready for four years of the greatest economic expansion in US history. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!" mostly. I thought about this thread in light of recent developements and the discussion here. I have to tell you your analysis of the situation in this and other threads has been pretty much spot on. I´ve never been motivated enough to discuss political and economic topics with most of the people on this board since they won´t move an inch from their mostly extreme positions anyways. But it´s allways interesting what you (and some other posters) have to say.
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Old 09-19-2008, 12:29 PM   #273
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Small government, limiting powers.. real conservative, yeah?

--

Gov't rushing to finish huge financial rescue plan
Friday September 19, 12:24 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writers
Bush administration wants hundreds of billions, new powers ASAP to attack financial crisis

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration sketched out a multi-faceted effort on Friday to confront the worst U.S. financial crisis in decades, outlining a program that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars to buy up bad mortgages and other toxic debt that has unhinged Wall Street.

President Bush, flanked by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, acknowledged that the program will put a "significant amount of taxpayers' money on the line."

The administration is asking Congress to give it sweeping new powers to execute the plan. Paulson said it "needs to be big enough to make a real difference and get to the heart of the problem."

Rest of it: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080919/financial_meltdown.html
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Old 09-19-2008, 12:31 PM   #274
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All the more reason to vote McCain. No more bail outs.
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Old 09-19-2008, 12:37 PM   #275
rabbitproof
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I have to admit that is a strong point for McCain and in that area, I fall strongly on the McCain side (let the market do what it do). I also like McCain's comments regarding the Federal Reserve and how it should stick to managing our currency but unfortunately for McCain, most of the other cards are leaning the other way for me (international policy, social issues, ludicrous VP pick).

I also can't honestly say I trust a Republican to say what they would do right now.. the article "Conservative for Obama", which I posted in the Hussa thread, does a good job of explaining why.
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Last edited by rabbitproof; 09-19-2008 at 01:16 PM.
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Old 06-15-2012, 08:26 PM   #276
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one of the worst threads in interwebs history
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