There's now a 50/50 chance of a douple dip recession

[Joanne98]

There's now a 50/50
The esteemed Robert Shiller, the man behind the Case-Shiller housing index, is giving probably one of the most dire double-dip recession warnings we've heard yet.

MarketWatch:

The Yale University professor and author of the best-selling book "Irrational Exuberance" pinned the probability of a double-dip recession at more than a 50-50.

Shiller pointed to the nation's stubbornly-high unemployment as a root cause of lingering economic woes. And with the Federal Reserve running out of bullets to fight a second recession, he urged Congress to join the battle and focus on putting people back to work.

"Beyond the Fed, I'd like to see the government take a renewed stimulus package focused on creating jobs on activities that involve a lot of people," Shiller said. Listen to Shiller interview.

...

"The Fed's latest statement shows they're on this, but I'm not so sure Congress is on this," said Shiller. "There is significant likelihood of if the government doesn't do something. I'm worried is not going to self-correct."



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-shiller-theres-now-more-than-a-50-chance-of-a-double-dip-2010-8#ixzz0wPO4tjL5

[Aramchek]

1. we know you'd like that, but luckily we've got the right man in charge

[xchrom]

2. what? -- and who is this 'we'? nt

[girl gone mad]

11. "we know you'd like that"?

What a sleazy thing to say.

Joanne is someone who consistently lobbies for policy which would improve the economic circumstance of working Americans.

Unfortunately, the man in charge has surrounded himself with cronies, crooks and failures like Summers, Rubin and Geithner.

If he would have instead listened to the Joannes of the world, the nation would be in better shape today.

[earthside]

3. There is no law ...

... of the universe that says the only, absolute way to determine whether or not the economy is in recession is by charting GDP.

It is just as reasonable to make that determination based on employment, household income, real product manufacturing, tax revenues, etc., any number of other factors.

It is my opinion that this "double dip" talk" is just silly -- we've never got out the recession in order to "double dip" back into it in the first place.

If Pres. Obama and Timmy G. had adopted this attitude then I think they would have more seriously considered actions that were more innovative to turn the economy around. Instead they decided that this was just a bit worse than usual traditional downturn in the business cycle and have mostly used remedies from the 1930s.

So, unfortunately, we're just going to muddle along ... with Washington and Wall Street fighting the last economic war ... until something really major breaks and we're all forced then to consider radical changes.

[Warpy]

4. Only for the stock market

and with more mainstream economists predicting first a fall in commodities as that bubble pops and then a fall in the stock market as the newly poor commodities suckers panic, it seems destined to happen about the way it played out in 2008.

For the rest of the economy, it's just been the same continuous slow slide, slowed a little bit by the first stimulus package but with the trend always downward toward the drain.

Maybe another hard kick to the investor wallet will garner some high level support for real reforms. The institutional investors will be counting the spoils and planning the next bubble markets, so they won't want changes, no matter what happens. The determining factor between who wins will be the press, whether it keeps pretending the stock market is the whole economy or it finally realizes no business can survive without customers, even its own.

[pscot]

5. I don't think we ever really pulled out

of recession. A total of 183,000 manufacturing jobs created so far this year? Twenty-two million out of work and another 9 million working part time? Home construction dead in the water?And the prospect of a GOP controlled House after November. There has been nothing like this in living memory.

[Crazy Dave]

7. Most of those created manufacturing jobs are overseas

The government actually does count American based companies with factories overseas in their jobs and growth numbers. If Dell or HP builds two factories abroad and hires 2,000 new workers, it's considered American business growth. That's where the majority of these growth and so called jobs created numbers are coming from.

[Kat45]

8. Are you serious?

I can see it being called "business growth," but not growth in employment. Yes, the businesses are growing, but no, employment is not growing. Aren't the employment number supposed to be employment IN this country?

[Crazy Dave]

9. They're not used for the official unemployment stats...

But they can and are used for good PR and the administration's spin.

Where do you think most of the stimulus money that GM and Chrysler went?

Building plants overseas. The main priority of the stimulus was not for the two automakers to create or keep American jobs although part of it was for PR purposes. The main purpose and agreement with the government was to become profitable again and that's what GM and Chrysler are doing by investing in growing markets like China and India, not in the US.

I heard on NPR a couple of months ago that there's more American made parts like brakes, starters and other hardware in a Hyundai built in the US than in any GM car or truck in production this year.

[Crazy Dave]

6. What "double dip"?

It's just the same one. A double dip would be if things had gotten better over the past two years. Counting the census and BP workers as jobs created and now gone doesn't count.

[westerebus]

10. Mr.Shiller misspoke.

What he meant to say was: there is a 50-50 chance of a recovery, however, judging by the lack of gratitude shown to the leadership of the party and the shortage of drug testing within the party, the recovery remains questionable.

You may go back to regular scheduled programing in one, two...

[pokercat999]

12. Chance of double dip?

50% chance the recession will continue for the next decade or two or three

50% chance we'll move into a full blown depression within the next 16 months

This predicting business is easy, whoopee, just make it up as you go. Oh yeah, I forgot the DOW will climb back to 5700 by the middle of 2015, September 2015 at the latest.

[Selatius]

13. Perhaps more than ever we need to return to the days of the WPA.

The WPA and the PWA and countless other work programs established by FDR during the Great Depression put back to work millions of Americans who would have otherwise starved. It was the right approach because the major problem then, as now, was lack of aggregate demand. People won't buy if they don't have cash coming to them. Public works programs worked because they injected money directly into the pockets of working people, and they spent that money.