Is the Economy on the Rebound?

[Composed Thinker]

Is the economy on the rebound? Or is it just a temporary bump?

Also, will there be a financial mess when 2004's tax season rolls around?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I think it is very temporary

[Composed Thinker]

2. Why do you say that?

[Brian Sweat]

61. Because the government will release revised number in a couple

month's showing that economy is not doing as well as they want us to think. This is how the BFEE works. The are constantly releasing numbers that show the economy improving and then revising them later when no one is paying attention.

[sweetheart]

3. runnin on fumes

Wall street has lost all credibility worldwide by the lies of dot com and this face has not been recovered despite what a bunch of lying statisticians can do with econometrics to pretend.

expect a dollar collapse as the credit worthiness of america is eroded further by bad policy... no lies change the fact.

[Composed Thinker]

4. Care to be more specific?

[sweetheart]

19. OK

The system of equity financing that "fuels" wall street along with the investment bank hype (aka cnbc, wsj, etc..) is left over from the dot com hegemony and the entire ponzi scam has proven to be, in a global sense, a criminal fraud.

This fallout from the fraud cannot re-start business as usual. Sure, your corner shop may trade more milk today and those numbers ARE real, but the ponzi numbers on the "big board" are not.

The scam is based on how the computerization of paper orders has impacted the street in a mechanism called "order flow" which brokerages use to show interest and "recovery" in a market... just that order flow itself is a scheme of infinite intermediaries. This mechanism is based on the american principal of not working for a living, rather clicking mouse buttons to make orders leave your screen for someone else's thus adding value (chuckle chuckle). So all the order flow mafia have been waiting for the dot com scam to blow over and they're at it again banging their pans and wares about the street to the tune of "RECOVERY"... but nothing has changed at all.... its a scam.

The problem is that the whole developed (and undeveloped) world has caught on to the scam... seen its weakness, and retooled to circumvent this weakness. The result is a destabilizing deficit and increasingly a devalued dollar.

It is no one person's fault, but when the whole of wall street is proven the world over to be criminal, the game is up. American economics are globally questionable at best... and at worse, a system of theft and graft designed to monopolize and steal all wealth in any nation state... and if the financial guys can't steal it, then the army is called in to do the job.

The only way that the scheme had a prayer of working was when there was some modicum of global acceptance that it might be benign... but as has been proven that american business truly is a nationalist enterprise to do the empire thing to the detriment of all other people on the planet... its a non-starter... and as american industry needs cooperation and integration with the rest of the world to truly reclaim economic "growth"... it cannot happen while hitler is in office.... so they create false jobless statistics instead.

Nobody believes the numbers anymore... we all know its lies.

Likely the source of those numbers is that global monopolist "reuters" who wants you to trust that it only tells the truth and gets to the bottom of the truth as the only news media business in real finance. That is why they failed to tell the truth during the dot com collapse and such... they are not independent and not honest... and so, no news media, no independence, all lies and well... geeez... as a savvy investor... i'm for euro's, gold, oil and property. America is going south. Get your savings in to something solid before it sinks.

[Beetwasher]

23. Well, he asked for it!

Good job! ;-) Couldn't have said it better.

[BeatleBoot]

30. But Fox News said there's a rebound...

so it must be true...

And Rush Limbaugh, boy, if he weren't in rehab, he would have said so too.

Why can't we all just listen to the experts on cable and am radio and just ignore the real world we face each day?

:hurts:

[bearfartinthewoods]

68. please.....must we now be "blessed" with what rush would say??

come on...we have a 30 day window of no rush. can't we just enjoy it?

[Composed Thinker]

56. So do you think this "rebound" will stick?

Or is it a minor bump up before a long way down?

[sweetheart]

78. the physics of momentum

wall street is incredibly corrupt, and despite the noble efforts of eliot spitzer handing out traffic fines, nothing has changed except some greenbacks (pinkbacks, or whatever the new ones) have changed hands... but its not a change.

The whole mission of the street is to use propaganda in concert with mass-hypnosis and greed to create a false projection of "our" economy... and though they continue to put talking heads on bloomburg and such with whatever forcasts... the missing link is missing.

The american empire-propaganda machine is brittle. It will not bend and change or adapt... rather in a sadly darwinian sense, it makes american economics doomed for extinction... why? Well, if 5% of the world's popultion use 25% of its energy resources in the american economic model, what happens when the other 95% try to copy the american dream using free trade and the repuke rhetoric?... ? WAR.

Increasingly war technology no longer is the determinant of success, rather as the british figured out with their own colony rebellions during the collapse of their own empire... terrorism is a poor mans technology in legitimate war.

So the whole ponzi scam is up, by the very fact that america has produced an unsustainable oxymoron of imperialist "free trade democracy". As China and india further evolve their economies, the american cut of energy consumption and waste production will either stop or we'll get nuked... fact on the ground. We're stealing the energy and polluting the public park (earth). Push will eventually lead to shove, and because america is brittle and not realistic, it will take a serious collapse.

Hopefully this will occurr without war... and that likelihood i look to... so rather than see america nuked, the alternative is imperial overstrech.. and that has already reached its apogee... the treasury is already bankrupt, and never will america have the global comparative wealth to re-assert the empire it has already lost. I just hope the currency collapse is not RADICAL... as it could very well happen that way... 1 dollar per yen. the nonviolent collapse will simply be the global degredation of american investment credit worthiness that the dollar and all american paper is as worthless as a bush promise.

Look to the eurozone to become the world's 21st century bastion of liberalism... and expect america to get crushed in the market-discount wars of cheap labour with china and india... where all knowledge jobs are exported by the discounted currencies of these places... and the only macroeconomic fix is to discount america's currency that american labout stands on equal footing with indian and chinese labour 1 dollar = 1 rupee = 1 yuan = 1 yen. So no, the empire is collapsing... methinks the disintegration of austria-hungary is the closest historical parallel... and the collapse of athens the most media-usable in bankrupting the treasury for the pelaponessian (sp) wars.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

60. In addition to the rest of the comments, the real estate market is also..

...getting set to burst a balloon. IMHO, real estate is greatly overvalued and we are already seeing 70% of the homes sold in the state of Washington go for less than what the owners paid for it.

Additionally, interest rates are going up, and that will also slow home sales.

A crash in the real estate market at this point in time would be disastrous for the housing industry.

[hatrack]

71. Had an interesting conversation with a mortgage broker last weekend

Anecdotal as hell, but intriguing.

We were chatting at a wedding, and got to talking about his business, and conditions in the real estate market. His business is off 50-60% or more in the last two months, and refi has just about dried up. His take was that just about everybody who was going to refinance has already done so, and refinancing was the bulk of his business for the first half of this year.

Most of the realtors he knows have taken second or third jobs to try and keep up with the bills. One woman, who works for a major local real estate agency has 22 properties (in one of the tonier areas of this Midwestern city) that she hasn't been able to move for shit.

The other really interesting thing he said was that he's seeing next to no market for houses costing less than $150K. No one is buying "starter" homes. He said that some people are seriously scared, a lot of people are worried, and hardly anybody is buying anything.

[sweetheart]

79. small farmers do not starve like city folk do

Myself real estate is a small farm holding where if things get really bad, i can always resort to some hard gardening to make my dinner table full.

The collapse facing america is unprecedented historically, and american people have never known the level of poverty that will come with the empire collapse.... better to be holed up on a 5 acre farm in the catskills than hungry without work or home in NYC. I really don't care what my farm is worth. It is something beyond monetary value in this regard.

Also, real estate is global, so if you really are pursueing it as an investment, then buy in the booming emerging market economies where foregniers can own land... as never will the exchange rates be so friendly as today.

[Clete]

5. Considering my stock portfolio

is a third less in value than when Clinton left office, I don't consider it much of a rebound. Remember the Dow went as high as 11,000 the last year of Clinton's office.

[BeatleBoot]

6. It must be because

my company is laying off 15% of its workforce.

And my retirement is down 35%.

Love those Bushies!

[Composed Thinker]

7. What company?

[BeatleBoot]

25. Here you go...

Would you like my credit card numbers, too?

[sirshack]

8. I think it is....

Based on my own situation, situations of those I know, finance publications, portfolio performance, etc etc etc I think it's coming back. My own workplace, as small as it is, has had some pretty brisk hiring lately (well, brisk for us). My mother left her previous job and had several interviews and basically her choice of new positions, and a few friends I know have moved up into newer, higher-paying positions in the last couple of months (one a journalist, another an internet-oriented trade associate). I work a second job on the weekends for beer money (it's also a family friend whom I help out), and we've hired three new permanent staff there. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I know a lot of people who have either moved up in their current jobs or have found new careers or positions altogether. I only know one person who's been laid off in the past six months, and he was back working about 6 weeks later.

[Robbien]

9. According to Al Martin

The Feds are pouring money into the market trying to make it as positive as possible right now. There is even a Federal mandate out that the media is being asked not to report any negative numbers. He said even though it is being reported that unemployment numbers are down, he got the real numbers from the Census Bureau and they show that in reality, fewer people have jobs today.

I heard all this on ieamericaradio this afternoon.

[Composed Thinker]

11. How credible is Al Martin? And...

will unemployment continue to rise?

[Robbien]

16. With free trade policies the way they are right now,

why would a large corporation hire expensive US workers when there is a giant pool of low wage workers overseas? Yes, I believe unemployment will continue to grow here.

Al Martin has a subscription only financial website, where I believe it has a large subscription base. So some feel he is credible.

Plus, have you listened to CNBC lately? It almost sounds as peppy as Faux News.

[Brian Sweat]

62. About as credible as most Rush, Culter or O'Reilly

Which is to say, not at all.

[Beetwasher]

10. Doubtfully

It's mostly smoke and mirrors.

Improved stock market based on increased corporate earnings due to layoffs.

Increase in GDP solely because of defense spending.

Notice that the latest consumer spending report was worse than expected. Without jobs (where are they?) no one will spend and there ain't no jobs forthcoming anytime soon. The slight uptick in hiring we supposedly had recently can be chalked up to the beginning of hiring of temps for Xmas, if there really was an uptick.

I suspect most of this talk of "recovery" is hype and propoganda much of the sort we've been hearing all along, w/ no results. It's not like the admin. doesn't partake in that sort of thing, is it? But, I could be wrong. Paul Krugman seems to agree w/ me though and I'll take his word for it.

[Composed Thinker]

12. 57,000 more jobs were created last month, but...

will that continue?

[Beetwasher]

14. Those numbers are suspect

I believe that they were puzzling because of the UE numbers which didn't change (6.2% I believe) and I think they didn't add up w/ numbers of first time filers too. I saw an article on it when those numbers came out that pointed out the discrepancy. But like I said, even if we take that 57K figure at face value, it's holiday season. If you DIDN'T see any improvement then things would obviously be incredibly bad. I sure as hell hope there is a turn around and I'm wrong. There's lots of people who are in bad shape, but I trust nothing the bastards in charge tell me, I look for my own independent verification and the "recovery" looks hollow to me.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

18. Most of those jobs were low paying!!!!

Big Deal!!!

[Beetwasher]

21. Right. They were most likely low paying temp. holiday jobs like

counter clerks and sales staff that pay very little. No insurance or benefits either usually.

[lindashaw]

48. At least half of those were temp jobs, Monster, Inc. said.

[Composed Thinker]

59. And how long will they last?

[Brian Sweat]

63. Wrong question. The real question is, "will that number stand?"

The Bush administration has been constantly issueing bogus economic numbers to create the impression that the economy is doing better than it really is. Then, when no one is paying attention, they revise the numbers. My bet is that about three weeks there will be a story about how that 57,000 jobs created number was changed to 13,000 jobs lost.

[Mari333]

65. flipping burgers and wal mart greeters !

thats the new jobs...5 bucks an hour and no health care, no benefits.
New jobs shining the shoes of the wealthy tourists here in the summer...flippin burgers thru the winter, if you can get the job .

[ldf]

47. bush* and company

started talking us into this recession during the run up to the election in 2000. it was what they wanted, and they knew that they, and their friends, could make a lot of money while everyone else lost.

now they think they can talk their way out of it.

where i work, we finally got a raise for the first time in three years. that was great, until we were notified they were cutting the amount of medical they were paying, and that the employee medical expenses were doubling. bottom line, no raise.

smoke and mirrors. one hand giveth, and the other taketh away.

[JNelson6563]

67. According to Palast

Out of the $3.5 trillion worth of stocks and bonds out there, the top 1% bracket owns $2.9, leaving $.6 trillion for the remaining 99% of us.

I agree the recovery is hype and propaganda and take little comfort in the "market's" progress. It is no reflection of the overall picture.

There is no real recovery until the real UE numbers get better-not the fake ones they issue each week and quietly revise next week. Case in point: two weeks ago the numbers came out at 399,000. Party on Wall St. we broke the 400,000 mark! Mmm hmm. The following week, oopsie! The actual # was 405,000. That fake numbers drove markets around the world. The very wealthy among us were delighted.

I wonder what last week's real #'s were. We'll find out this morning.

Julie

[alcuno]

13. The markets have clearly rebounded

But I still have not seen any improvement in the employment numbers. The recession officially ended in November 2001 yet the nation has been leaking jobs like a giant sieve.

In order for the administration to create 1 net job by the end of their term, there will need to be nearly 250,000 more jobs created each month. Starting now. I see no indication of anything like that happening.

[Yupster]

54. Jobs being created, but

thousands more are moving overseas every month.

[denverbill]

15. No. Still hemorrhaging jobs.

Personally, I don't see hardly any bright spots.

Federal govt setting records for deficits, puts a LOT of inflationary pressure on the dollar. Massive trade imbalances put more pressure on the dollar. Eventually, inflation is going to force the fed to increase interest rates. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. And the fed is STILL worried about deflation.

We are still hemorrhaging jobs. IT being outsourced overseas. States laying off workers to balance budgets. Companies forcing workers to pay more for health care costs. Energy costs eating up more and more disposable income.

The only remotely positive thing I'm seeing is the stock market, with the NASDAQ still at less than 1/2 it's all time high and the Dow still 30% off it's all time high. The Dow high in 2002 was 10600, in 2001 was 11300, and 2000 was 11700. Right now it's 9800. That's not much of a bright spot.

[AP]

17. A lot of big corps are benefitting from lower taxes and from

a shift of what money the gov't does have into their pockets.

That can create the appearance of a recovery. Howerver, the sooner people the debtholders realize that we won't be able to pay it back, the sooner there will be a problem.

I think the ceiling that the debtholders are looking for is, sort of, what's the tolerance of the American people to accept a lie? I think the fact that CA'ians just bought into the idea that Arnold is governor material might have convinced the debtholders that America can be suckered into anything, like, getting rid of SS, accepting a total shift of the income tax burden to the middle class, that less is more, etc. etc.

[TrogL]

20. they've lowered the bar so far

that a kid buying bubble gum would cause a "rebound".

[OneTwentyoNine]

22. Absolutely!! If you listen to Bush,Rush,Whoring Media....

Improving my ass,the only time the numbers look better is when more and more people fall off of unemployment,receive no more checks and are not counted as unemployed anymore.

Boeing is going to lay off more,Cessna announced more layoffs that will take effect just before Christmas--thats with the 60 day notice.

Its going to be one pimped up bunch of BS in 04 as the Whoring press try and cram it down everyones throats that Bush's tax cuts are working and the economy is improving. BS,I'll believe it when I see it.

David

[ScreamingMeemie]

24. As a real estate appraiser, watching all the jobs dry up because

no one is buying and no one is refinancing(at least not on the level that they were), I would have to say no. And no amount of credit card offers is going to make me run out and give anyone false hope, so they can stop sending them to me.

[salin]

26. One of the biggest 'threats' is not being addressed

DEBT.

Federal debt. Our growing deficits are increasingly held by foreign government via treasuries. If these buyers start getting tentative - what happens with all of that debt we need to finance? The fact that bushetal have had to try to convince China, to devalue slightly its yuan, to try to improve our condition on the Trade Deficit side (also growing at a fast pace), indicates just one degree to which our country is increasingly reliant upon foreign government and foreign investors to keep things afloat at home. Strikes me that this is not good.

Corporate Debt. The debts accured by mega mergers over the past 20 years have left more and more share of corporate revenues have to be devoted to debt service. This means there is less to invest. Also if the solution to increasing 'revenues' (not the same of profits) is to buy another company (and accumulate more debt) there is less emphasis on that old fashioned idea of boosting productivity.
If companies were to start defaulting, or if there were several more big collapses, then the size of debt obligations could have a direct impact on banks (who hold the debt). THis is one of those ugly little aspects of the megamerger mania that we got a glimpse of in the Enron Implosion, but folks have wanted to forget about and sweep under the rug and PRAY this never happens as the ripples would be huge.

Individual Consumer Debt. Recent reports of the rise of consumer debt - which was already high pre-recession - indicate the conundrum of the need for consumers to fuel the recovery through consumption, but slower increases in salaries and increased numbers of unemployed meant to do so many consumers had to go further and further in debt. The rate of foreclosures during this adminstration have (at least in two seperate quarters) been at record highs not seen since the Hoover administration. Also related have been several points of time hitting record numbers of filed personal bankruptcies. If there continues to be a jobless (or at times jobloss) recovery, it is very possible that all of these numbers (levels of household debt, numbers of home foreclosures, and numbers of filed personal bankruptcies) will again increase. I do not know at what point (nor how close or far away this is) is a "tipping" point where foreclosures impact the housing market (are we still in a real estate 'bubble'?), and foreclosures and bankruptcies start to have an impact on local lending institutions.

There has been very little (any???) policy discussions on what the debt problems in this country really are, how they currently impact the economy, and how serious the problem is if a) the situation is not turned around or b) might become if the problems escalate.

[Cascadian]

27. It's a fake, jobless recovery.

A lot of people have just stopped looking altogether. Part of it is because people who are working are doing it for less and working more.

I am not surprised if they are cooking the books too.


John

[Composed Thinker]

57. But will the slight jump in employment continue?

[bearfartinthewoods]

76. just stopped looking altogether

i keep hearing this phrase and i have to admit i don't get it.

how does one stop looking for work? i mean what do you do to eat
etc without a job? and how do you get a job if you stop looking?

[Mari333]

28. Gee ask my mom

she just filed bankruptcy at 77 years old...its meds or food! I pay for her house taxes, my sister with 5 kids just lost her job, the 10% Senior citizen discount has been abolished at the store here, Im now eating 2 eggs a day and thats all I eat to save money, and I might have to sell my house because the township here is trying to force us to pay 12,000 per house to clean up the deficit in the county here...add to that the cops pull people over for not wearing seat belts and fine them daily to gain revenue for the city..
the economy getting better and we have a 6 trillion dollar deficit and 70 million babyboomers about to retire as a "war" decides to be a sinkhole of tax money in Iraq????/
add to that the millions of jobs going overseas for cheap labour now that the top 1% have their tax cut..
Its hell on earth in the USA.
Edit to add: On top of that, my son in the National Guard who opened a great restaurant which WAS doing well is now told he wont be discharged when his time was up, and will lose his business because they want to deploy him...
I hate this country. I really do.
www.costofwar.com

[A_Tra]

31. Well ...

My portfolio is way up, and Im looking for Dow 10,000 by years end.

Q3 GDP growth of 4-6% isnt all defense spending.

And when were working over 3% real growth in the economy can take place and companies will begin to invest and hire again.

Many things looked good from the September numbers, and hopefully those trends will continue.

57,000 jobs isnt enough, we need a few months over 110,000 to really show a signifigant trend.

[moondust]

52. Invest and hire?

Oh, you mean in China.

[Yupster]

55. We don't have a $ 6 trillion defecit

things aren't 1/10th that bad.

[jab105]

64. We do have a $6 trillion TOTAL debt........

the deficit for this year is about $400 billion if you dont include the S/S that we are using (you know, that money that is supposed to be in a "lockbox" for those soon to be retiring baby boomers)...if you include S/S, then the deficit for the year is $600+ billion...

However, our national debt is over $6.8 TRILLION dollars!!

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

[leftofthedial]

29. dead cats don't bounce

no jobs

no consumers

no buying

no mamufacturing

no jobs

[A_Tra]

32. ...

^^^
Consumer spending and new housing starts are what is driving this recovery.

[Beetwasher]

36. Consumer Spending? It was below expectations and very bad

in the latest report.

New housing, ok. But let's talk record bankruptcies and foreclosure too then...Oh, and how 'bout that debt? Plunging dollar, trade deficits and foreign investors pulling out in truckloads from US investment...Go ahead though, throw all your money in the stock market. That's the ticket! A faith based economy! Good luck!

[andym]

33. it may be

If this is a strong recovery, we'll see employment pick up
in about 6 months. Employment is considererd a lagging
indicator.

If it does pick up, Bush will be very difficult to defeat,
barring results from a big scandal.

Also, a terrorist attack will work in ihs favor, IMHO. As long as he
"convinces" that he is moving heaven and earth to prevent further
attacks. His predictable righteous indignation will boost him at least 20 points in the polls.

Questions we should ask:
Who is the strongest candidate (if any) to face Bush in light of
1) economic recovery?
OR
2) economic recovery + terrorist attack?

[snippy]

34. The economy has improved but no one knows whether it is sustainable.

The improvement in the economy so far has been the result of incredible government stimulus of a size and scope never seen before. That stimulus includes near record low short term interest rates set by the Fed, 40 or 50 year low longer term interest rates influenced by the Fed, a huge increase in the money supply of well over $400 billion since the first of the year, record deficit spending by the federal government this year and next, a decline in the dollar of around 20%, and the Bush tax cuts. None of this stimulus can be repeated and most can not be sustained for too many more months. Bush is hoping that it will last long enough for him to win in 2004, and it might.

The annuallized rate of GDP growth in the third quarter probably was close to 6%. In the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of next year it is likely to be at least 3%. In the second quarter of next year people will receive larger tax refunds because of the tax cut so growth may be even better then. However, these growth rates will not be high enough to create a lot of jobs so unemployment likely will decline only 3 or 4 tenths of a percent.

[ozone_man]

35. GDP is 2/3 consumer spending.

But consumer spending has been artificially pumped by cutting interest rates to historic lows to spark refinancing mortgages. So, the consumer has been living off home equity for that past couple of years, in addition to the tax cuts.

This will soon come to an end, and cause GDP to go negative, pushing us into depression. We really can't borrow anymore, since we have to pay interest on the deficit, and a ballooning deficit would eventually bankrupt the country. So, IMO, we're cooked.

[A_Tra]

38. ^^We

Have far surpassed the point where we are going to dip into another recession.

We're looking at Q4 GDP somewhere around 4%

Bussiness cycles trump even the worst economic policy.

We dont really pay interest on the deficit, it gets pushed onto the national debt at the end of the year.

And many would argue, that since government controls the money supply, it can carry a huge debt indefinitely.

[Beetwasher]

39. Why do you post in sound bytes and talking points?

Did you even bother reading all the issues discussed in this thread? Fer crying out loud read the whole damn thread before you post nonsense like that, it's been refuted by many thoughtful posts already. Yeesh.

[RummyTheDummy]

51. Why does he post sound bites?

Because he's a you know what. Isn't it obvious? I can smell em from a mile away. Just like the guy who started this thread. Don't let the post count fool you. I looked up this guys other posts and lot of one word replies building post counts. Look at his posts from the beginning of this thread. Lots of "why do you say that?" and "will it continue?" posts.

[htuttle]

77. Thick with them lately

Some days it seems that 1/4 of the threads in GD have that special 'spin'...

[salin]

41. We don't pay interest on the deficit?

No, but we pay interest on the cumulative debt. Krugman suggests that it is about to become the biggest single item in the budget. Haven't seen the numbers to swear to that - but it is growing in magnitude - and we DO pay serious interest on the debt.

[snippy]

43. We pay interest on both the deficit and the debt. And we borrow the money

The deficit is just the current fiscal years addition to the debt. In other words, the deficit is part of the debt but the debt is not part of the deficit.

The Treasury Department sells 4 week, 13 week and 26 week T-bills every Monday and Tuesday. These are to finance the deficit typically. This is in addition to monthly and quarterly refunding auctions of longer term debt. All of it bears interest from the day it is issued. To pay that interest the government borrows more money.

[ozone_man]

44. OK, so if the government borrows more money

to pay the interest, eventually we reach a situation (hyperinflation) like in Germany after WWI, right? Better have a little gold or a few shares in some gold miners as a hedge IMO.

[snippy]

46. The huge increase in the money supply is also related to that.

I trade in and out of some gold stocks, but I doubt that hyperinflation will occur. I do think the Fed will be fighting inflation in the not too distant future though.

[snippy]

42. That is a problem with sustaining the growth.

Refinancing provides only a one time stimulus.

[paulk]

37. September retail numbers were down

don't have the link, but it was posted in LBN this morning.

Is the stock market an indicater of anything anymore? I own a retail business. I know a lot of other people who own retail businesses and nobody is exactly thriving these days. One woman I know just had her worst six week run since she's been in business (eight years). She's had to let three of her four employees go. They had a story on the local news the other day about how rising energy costs were forcing restaurants to lay people off.

I think the fourth quarter and x-mas shopping season are going to say a lot more about where the economy is going than any "bump" we may have had this summer.

[librechik]

40. only if you ignore debts

consumer and Federal--if you take those gigantic cannon balls off the chain, the convicts almost feel carefree!

[knight_of_the_star]

45. Probably another "jobless recovery"

Until unemployment drops Bush can have the biggest boom in terms of the market and corporate profits and it won't do him any damn good.

[snippy]

69. Unemployment likely will decline slightly but the democrats should

emphasize two points over the next 12 months. The first is the rate of "labor underutilization" (sometimes called underemployment), the second is the pathetic record of job creation under republican presidents.

The labor underutilization includes discouraged workers no longer looking for a job and workers employed part-time but who want full-time work. The labor underutilization rate for September of 2003 was 9.3%.

This includes:

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force, plus all marginally attached workers.

Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

Concerning the pathetic record of job creation under republican presidents, they are always, always, always bad for job creation. Since the 1920's, the annual rate of job creation under republican presidents has always been lower than under democratic presidents.

Since the depression, no republican president has had a better rate of job creation than any democratic president. The highest rate of job growth under a republican was 2.2% per year during Nixon's time in office. The lowest rate of job growth under a democrat was 2.3% per year during Kennedy's time in office. Bush has a -0.7% annual rate which is the first negative number since the depression.

Since WWII ended, a total of 57.51 million jobs were created during the terms of democratic presidents which is an average of 2.054 million jobs per year. During the terms of republican presidents a total of 31.11 million jobs were created which is an average of 1.003 million jobs per year.

I find the consistency of the better job creation numbers under democratic presidents persuasive. The DNC should make sure that every American is familiar with this information.

[lindashaw]

49. Corporations will make some profit, because they have

saved so much labor costs by going overseas. But that profit will only go so far. In order to start creating jobs, job creation has to be well over the GDP, and that isn't happening, nor will it happen in the short run.

This county would have to go on a HUGE jobs creation program, and we can't do that because we're broke. We can't even fund the mandates we've handed to the states. Really, states are at the point of bankruptcy.

People vote with their pocketbooks. Add in the body bags that keep coming, and the costs of the war that will keep coming in. $87 billion wasn't the end of that, you know.

We're going into the winter with a gas shortage. We haven't fixed the electric grid. Do you know what happens to your budget when you have only $10 left at the end of the month, and your car breaks down?

Hmmmm.....

[Darranar]

50. No, it is not...

and the reason for it is clear:

UNEMPLOYMENT

What we're seeing now is cards stacked up.

[rustydog]

53. The economy simply cannot rebound with millions of people

out of work and no jobs on the horizon.

The stock market has improved, that only means the super rich are feeling a little more confident in their hundreds of billions of dollars in the market.

Companies are still down-sizing and improving their bottom line, which on paper shows an improvement in the market.

temporary Christmas season help will be hired shortly and the Administration will be jacking-off over the increase of employed Americans, neglecting to state all of them will be fired on 1-1-04.

Deficit spending is still in full swing. Bush*s 1st tax cut hasn't taken full effect yet and he wants to enact another.
there is no way the economy will handle this. No, it is not rebounding, not in the way NORMAL hard-working Americans will recognize.

[dreissig]

58. Been Down So Long ...

Been down so long, it looks like up to me. The corporations increase profits by throwing people out of work and exporting jobs to India. How long is that going to continue before there's a political backlash?

[SahaleArm]

66. No, look at the forward P/E of stocks fueling this runup.

Intel - INTC > 40
Cisco - CSCO > 36
EBay - EBAY > 75
Amazon - AMZN > 114
Genentech - DNA > 70

Growth based outsourcing and off-shoring of jobs will last only 2-3 quarters. The market is simply over priced, the Nasdaq is up 40% on the year and the Dow is up 12%. The tech bubble is back, at least this time the fall will be much smaller.

[TKP]

70. Economic Recovery

I worked for the Federal Reserve in Atlanta for 15 years doing economic analysis before being transfered to the Fed here in SF. Many of the comments I have read here are not based upon sound economic models. Suffice it to say I don't have time to answer all of them.

There has been an significant increase in company profits over the last two quarters, expecially in manufactuing and technology. For instance, IBM just reported they plan on adding 10,000 new jobs in 2004. Other companies are now preparing for similar announcements. And they are doing this based upon what is considered to be a slow and steady growth. Should those projections increase, they will hire more. It is very typical for companies to want to see a trend in profits, not only in their own company but in other companies which are industry leaders, before they consider new hires. So that company profits have superceded any new hires is par for the course.

As unemployment goes (at least by the numbers), this was not a bad recession. With 6% unemployment, that means 94% of people have jobs (I use these round numbers. I realize there's more involved). In most economic models, you would need unemployment to be around 20%-25% or worse before it would cause a major impact on the economy. In other words, 90% of the working population can sustain the 10% out of work for long periods of time without adversely affecting the economy.

Word is that our board (SF) will be recommending that the Fed maintain the current rate for borrowing at the discount window in the next meeting. It is my understanding that New York will be doing the same, and I say that because the New York Fed carries more weight than the other 11 regional reserves. That allows large corporations to budget long-term and maintains confidence on Wall Street. All the key factors for an economic recovery are in place.

The key for our Party to have political victory is to focus on the working class Americans and reminding them of the economic success of the 90's while ensuring them that we are serious about national defense and ridding the world of terrorism. But, I must be honest. Barring an economic disaster or a huge fax paus in foreign affairs, Bush & Co. will be hard to beat. Perhaps focusing on recovering one of the houses of Congress (as the Republicans did by taking back Congress one house at a time) will get our foot back in the door and we can better dictate policy.

[snippy]

73. If you work for the Fed, you must sweep the floors or this is a typo.

"In most economic models, you would need unemployment to be around 20%-25% or worse before it would cause a major impact on the economy."

This is just the most egregious falsehood in your post. There are several more.

[TKP]

74. snippy

I already stated that I perform economic analysis. I see no reason for you to respond in such a manner.

I am privy to a lot of information I cannot display on a message board. Suffice it to say there are many safetynets in place for higher unemployment figures than we as Americans are used to seeing (i.e. in case of national disasters) and have been in place for many, many years. The Fed is constanly revisiting and restructuring economic models for any number of possible occurances.

Remember the Cold War? I assure you the Fed had and still has models for actions if their had been an attack on our country.

If the reason for your post has to do with not wanting to hear that all the tools for a recovery are in place, then that is *your* problem.

[snippy]

75. Each of your posts contains overwhelming evidence

that you do not perform economic analysis. As any simpleton easily can tell, I am very aware of the "tools"(?) for a recovery which are in place. Kindly provide a citation to an economist, living or dead, who provides support for any of your statements concerning the economy or economic analysis.

[rasputin1952]

72. Since I am not an economist...

I will avoid the actuary side of this query, and stick to the personal experience & observations I have made.

1. I got laid off, not a good sign of 'recovery'.

2. The Euro may very well replace the dollar, as the prefernce for exchange; definately not a sign of 'recovery'.

3. The debt is enormous and growing; nobody sees this as 'recovery'.

4. The upsurge in the GDP is based on military sales, nothing else.

5. Real Estate market is going to burst soon, (overpriced houses?).

6. No one is really monitoring the stock market, thieves are brazen.

7. Indusrty in US is moving offshore at an increasing rate.

8. We are becoming a 'service society', and a service society cannot maintain itself, we need industry.


Just my 2 cents. Like I said, i am not an economist, but you don't need expertise in economics to realize that everything is going South; just as you don't need a medical degree to realize you are sick.

:grr: bush really sucks ass....these guys have no idea what they are doing.

re:puke:licans