Posted on 07/15/2010 6:25:36 AM PDT by blam
The U.S. Economy Is A Dead Horse And The American People Are Starting To Get Really Pissed Off And Frustrated
Thursday, July 15,2010
The economic frustration of the American people is reaching a fever pitch.
Millions of Americans can't seem to get a good job no matter what they do. Millions of others are working as hard as they can but find that they keep coming up short at the end of the month.
Record numbers of Americans are still going bankrupt. Record numbers of Americans are still losing their homes. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is a dead horse at this point. It just doesn't have any more to give. At this point the U.S. economy is like an aging rock star that requires larger and larger doses of drugs each night just to be able to perform.
The U.S. economy is addicted to "drugs" such as debt and government stimulus, and years ago those things really supercharged the U.S. economic system, but at this point they aren't provoking much of a response at all. In fact, the things that once "stimulated" the economy are now slowly killing it.
But the vast majority of the American people do not understand this. All they know is that the economy is broken and they want someone to "fix" it.
For most Americans, all we have ever known is tremendous prosperity. All our lives we have been taught that America is the richest and most prosperous nation on the planet, and that while there will always be times of "recession", things will always bounce back and be better than ever before.
But this time things aren't bouncing back.
And Americans are starting to become extremely frustrated.
A couple of quotes that appeared in a recent article in The New York Daily News really embodied the growing frustration that so many are feeling at this point....
"My husband and I are fortunate to be able to move in with my 81-year-old mother-in-law. But how sad is that? I apply for jobs and nothing happens," writes Gayle Hanson. "Who wants to hire a 59-year-old woman? My answer is nobody. [I] have years of experience, excellent references. And nothing to show for it."
"I am soon to be 57 and considered too old, too expensive, etc. I can't get an employer to hire me at any salary," writes Mike Stiller. "I am BOILING MAD."
But Gayle Hanson and Mike Stiller are far from alone.
Millions upon millions of Americans are "boiling mad" about the economy at this point.
The truth is that the United States has lost 10.5 million jobs since 2007. Many of those jobs have been shipped off to countries like China and India where labor is much cheaper and they are never coming back.
There just are not enough jobs for everyone in America at this point. The number of "chronically unemployed" has been rising at a frightening pace. In fact, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen to an all-time high.
If you have never been unemployed and unable to find a job, then you just don't know how soul crushing it can be. This is especially true when you have a family to support.
Right now, there are 9.2 million Americans that are unemployed but are not even receiving an unemployment insurance check. It is easy to tell those unemployed workers that they should "get a job", but as the chart below shows, the gap between the number of unemployed workers and the number of job openings has increased dramatically over the last couple of years....
But in this economy, even many of those who do have jobs are still struggling mightily. According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck. That was up significantly from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
And Americans are still losing their homes in record numbers. Banks repossessed an average of 4,000 south Florida properties a month in the first half of 2010, which was up 83 percent from the first half of 2009.
Meanwhile, demand for homes is dropping through the floor. The Mortgage Bankers Association announced on Wednesday that demand for loans to purchase U.S. homes sunk to a 13 year low last week, and refinancing demand also plummeted despite near record-low mortgage rates.
So considering all of these statistics, is it any wonder why so many Americans are so pessimistic?
According to a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg, 71% of Americans say that it still feels like the economy is in a recession.
But the truth is that we haven't seen anything yet.
Things are going to get much worse.
Already, Federal Reserve policymakers are discussing what steps they might take to stimulate economic activity "if the outlook were to worsen appreciably".
So can more economic stimulus help?
To a limited extent.
The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government will likely try to inject more debt and more "economic stimulus" into the system to try to shock the economy back to life.
But the more debt the U.S. government takes on the worse our long-term problems are going to get.
The reality is that the U.S. economic system is broken, and there is simply not any "quick fix" that is available that is going to get things back to normal.
So on an individual level, what should we all do?
Well, we all need to start becoming a lot less dependent on the system.
We should all consider how we can start our own businesses, grow our own food and trade within our own communities.
If the entire system is starting to break down, it is those who are the least dependent on the system that will have the best chance to prosper during the times ahead.
Henry Blodget
Jul. 15, 2010, 7:00 AM
In case you missed the Fed minutes yesterday, the Fed is now pulling a Wall Street: Cutting its estimates after the stock has already tanked.
The Fed's "central tendency" forecast for the economy's growth this year is now 3.0%-3.5% instead of the 3.2%-3.7% from the meeting in April.
Something tells us that at the next meeting those forecasts will be revised down again.
Which brings up the question of new stimulus.
Paul Krugman, Niall Ferguson, and others are now united (!) in their outrage about how Ben Bernanke is fiddling while Rome burns. Based on the minutes of the Fed meeting, it seems this message is getting through:
"FOMC members said the committee would “need to consider whether further policy stimulus might become appropriate if the outlook were to worsen appreciably”. (FT)"
What will that stimulus look like? The Fed can't cut interest rates much more, so it will probably be quantitative easing: The Fed buying up debt and, thus, pumping new cash into the system.
More quantitative easing also might actually reverse our slide toward deflation. The reason the traditional Fed medicine, low interest rates, hasn't triggered inflation (so far) is that no one wants to lend or borrow money anymore. But by directly buying up debt, the Fed will be blowing cash into the system. And, eventually, say the monetarists, that will trigger inflation.
Good article. And once again, we see another example of how socialism kills & destroys an economy as well as the lives of people. The f’ckn commie pig 0b0z0 & the socialist demoRAT party is too stupid to realize that their SPENDING policies & TAX policies are what is killing our country. There are too many stupid people that continue to vote these bastards into office election cycle after election cycle. Trying to fix the problems by voting the worst offenders out and replacing with only moderate versions just won’t work. We need a massive American Revolution II to rip the socialists & their evil programs completely out of our country’s fabric, and to start over fresh with the Constitution as our starting point.
If these people are mad, then they need to go to the polls in November and atone for their previous stupidity of voting for Obama and vote against every democrap.
I have a pretty good plan. See my tagline.
Free traitors will gloss over that one....
" The Bank of Japan just hiked its GDP growth forecast for the fiscal year ending April 2010 to 2.6% from 1.8%, for a 44% jump in growth. Japan's export economy continues to surprise."
Well, we all need to start becoming a lot less dependent on the system. We should all consider how we can start our own businesses, grow our own food and trade within our own communities. If the entire system is starting to break down, it is those who are the least dependent on the system that will have the best chance to prosper during the times ahead.Very good article. We got a phone call from a relative recently, and he has had to foreclose on one of his houses. He's a Realtor (not much going on there). Getting together in one's community and helping one another out sounds like a great idea. We've just recently provided the outside grotto. :)
“Who wants to hire a 59-year-old woman? My answer is nobody. [I] have years of experience, excellent references. And nothing to show for it.”
The collateral (and I think, intended) damage in this whole economic debacle is that the quality of goods and services in the US will decline, investment will disappear and trade will diminish, as qualified and experienced workers are deliberately ‘phased-out’ of the workforce.
Younger, less experienced, less qualified and less dedicated workers will take those jobs and ‘work’ under the socialist conviction that ‘redistribution’ of wealth is the ONLY fair arrangement and fixed wages/prices will redress all class differences.
In the end… this is the ideal model to guarantee decades of social discord and economic stagnation.
Thanks “O”!
I'm over 60 and will probably be working until the die I croak, thanks to the onerous economic situation that zero and the Dems have put this country in.
Doncha need a primer and powder to make the whole "investment plan" work correctly??
:-)
Well, yeah, but the plan varies according to ambient conditions .... when I ‘roll my own’ .....
;-)
You can see it in the response. The economic crisis has been many years in the making, accelerating with the Bush Clinton Bush administrations, reaching a head with Obama.
“free trade” throughout history has caused the ruin of free systems and actually became a force for instituting socialism.
Even at the time of the Civil War, freedom loving Americans knew that the free traitors who fomented the rebellion were after an open border with Mexico, and slave labor. They knew that greedy people could be easily swayed into selling out their country and countrymen for a wide open border where drugs, human trafficking and unfettered import of restricted goods could occur. They also knew that it would support continued use of slave labor and promote human trafficking to create it.
That is EXACTLY what has happened to our country. The open borders republicans are as responsible for this disaster as anyone, and that includes everybody in the Bush administrations. Human trafficking INTO America continues apace with a slave population in the hundreds of thousands thanks to “free trade” and “free movement of persons” in the CAFTA, NAFTA trade agreements.
These anti-America pro globalist republicans also include the two fake republican women running for office in California, Fiornia and Whitman.
If you continue to think its only the ‘dems’ then you are assuredly going to perpetuate the economic crisis until you ‘croak’.
I think nothing of the kind. I get flamed a lot because I hold the politicians from BOTH parties accountable for the mess we are in because NEITHER party is willing to step up and cutoff the flow of pork. The GOM and BP aren't the only ones who need a valve to stop the flow of money gushing; the Congress DESPERATELY needs one as well.
I just chose the Dems this morning because they are the current popular "whipping boy".
CPI inflation rate is 2%.....according to Bernanke’s 2006 predictions.......growth would moderate in 2007,2008.2009 to 2.8%, 2.6%, 2.4%-—and the inflation rate by 2010 would be under 1.5%-—with a BETTER economy! So why is inflation at 2% considering the economic meltdown since 2007 that Bernanke comp-letely missed?
Should we really be worried about “deflation”? NO! We could use a little LESS inflation now...or even some minor deflation...stop agreeing with the Keynesians on money or Republicans will suffer....
When Bernanke cut to zero, we saw gas prices creep up over a dollar a gallon in the past year after they had fallen to realistic levels again....those high gas prices because of Bernanke’s attempt to reflate the housing bubble (stupidly in vain)——is what has slowed the recovery......plus all those deficits crowding out private investment, etc
Meanwhile the Republicans are calling for a ZERO percent capital gains tax rate as quick fix......which is guaranteed to lose the Independent vote in the general election....always more tax cuts......as if every year and every situation is 1980 under Reagan and Volcker.....
....I’ve seized Beowulf’s computer......
How are the Republicans going to live down Dick Cheney’s ignorant -—let them eat cake-— statement that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter”....
So now we have Obama.......Did Reagan really PROVE that? Deficits DO matter when you’ve got BOOMERs ready to retire and no way to keep your promises to them......again
Republicans always seem to push some inappropriate ideology as if one size fits all in any economy and for every problem....
and are therefore no better than Democrats these days.....in the eyes of independents.....they need to win elections.....
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