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Our population is over 300 million. Our real unemployment rate is over 50%!!!
Posted on 04/08/2008 11:25:08 AM PDT by kellynla
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Some members of the Federal Reserve are worried about the possibility of a "severe and protracted downturn" in the U.S. economy, according to the minutes of the central bank's latest minutes released Tuesday.
The minutes show that some Fed policymakers are concerned that the problems in the "housing sector had deepened and that considerable uncertainty surrounded the outlook for housing."
The Fed cut its key federal funds rate by three-quarters of a point at the March 18 meeting, its sixth rate cut since September. The Fed has been cutting rates in an effort to keep the U.S. economy from falling into recession following the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market and resulting credit crunch.
But Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress last week that a "recession is possible," although he said he believed the economy is still growing slowly.
Despite the growing belief that the economy is already in recession, the presidents of the Dallas and Philadelphia Federal Reserve Banks voted against cutting rates as aggressively, a rare amount of dissent on the central bank.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Bad news sells. Media MO.
Bad news helps make more bad news by creating panic. Economic reality - Human behavior.
Some politicians will themselves quickly jump on the bandwagon of any theme, even to the detriment of national security or our nations economic development, as long as it benefits them.
Yes, you’re right. The Democrats even though in control of Congress more or less, will attempt to portray this as a presidential issue so they can exploit it in the Nov 2008 elections.
Same thing they have been doing print more money, that is not worth paying interest on.
http://www.bls.gov/CPI/ (Of course this is not as credible as “shadowstats.com”)
They are, but today it is called HUD housing and fema trailers.
if the economy turns worse, who knows...we may all be living with dads and moms and sistes and brothers and inlaws...like they used to in the "old" days..
Exactly. LOL.
If unemployment rates need to be adjusted upward to reflect the number of "discouraged workers" out there, then they should also be adjusted downward to reflect all the workers out there who are collecting unemployment checks even though they are perfectly capable of finding a job even in a lousy job market.
I'm sure many of us know people who are "unemployed" right now but who will somehow -- magically! -- find a job right around the time their unemployment benefits expire.
No - it requires me to review what I have spent on various items each month for the past several years.
It isn’t creative math that leads to that number it is real world empirical data.
That's exactly right.
Maybe some of you out there have noticed that we've been mired in a "housing crisis" for as long as I can remember. When the housing market is strong, the "housing crisis" involves all those people who can't afford to buy a home. When the housing market collapses, the "housing crisis" affects all those people whose homes are declining in value.
Why doesn't anyone point out that "Crisis" #1 is solved when "Crisis" #2 hits, and vice versa?
1. There's still a grocery store.
2. There's still a gas pump.
3. You aren't stealing your groceries and your gasoline . . . you're paying for them.
Not really. Hand the bank 2 years of federal tax returns and it's no longer a "stated income" loan.
I guess you haven’t heard about the millions that do live in cardboard shacks, old campers, old trailers, vans and the like. Yes, the media doesn’t speak about them much these days. Just a couple of weeks ago there was a thread on FR about the ones in Orange County.
On any given night in America, anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless, according to estimates of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
On any given night in America, anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless, according to estimates of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
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Our population is over 300 million. Our real unemployment rate is over 50%!!!
I dunno. Being in the banking sector I kind of get to see first hand what’s going on in terms of widespread layoffs. And, no, it’s not all the subprime lending folks that are out of work. In fact, none of the people I know that lost jobs are even in residential lending. We are talking commercial bankers who were making loans with very low default rates, minimal risk and, believe it or not, good profitability records. We are also talking about the support staff that goes along with making and servicing those loans.
There are certain sectors that are seriously hurting, much of which is the fault of crappy management. But the people hurting are still paying the price, and the income we are not getting means we aren’t spending as much. And that leads to additional pain in other sectors over time.
Funny thing is, if I wanted to I could actually get a job making residential mortgages tomorrow, and that’s the beast that triggered this whole mess.
Your in-laws must be related to my ex-in-laws. They said the same thing when we moved. Funny thing is, that time we were furthest away from them, with the least direct contact, was our happiest time together.
When we relocated again, and they spent more time visiting because they liked our new location, our marriage went down the tubes pretty quickly. While not the sole issue, it sure was a contributing factor.
(Sorry for the threadjack.)
Words have meaning.
So does the phrase “arbitrary definitions”.
Of course, when a recession is unlikely, we think RAISING TAXES is the answer.
And of course, if we're in the middle of a recession, RAISING TAXES is the answer.
There is nothing RAISING TAXES can't fix.
That looks to be a pretty fair way of putting it. I wonder how many government statisticians the taxpayers could get off their backs that way?
Fair enough. Can I then eliminate government parasite jobs as a real job
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