"Everything is going according to plan!"
Posted on 03/08/2010 7:31:26 AM PST by SeattleBruce
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- The fledgling economic recovery appears to be running out of gas.
The fuel for this or any other recovery has to come from the consumer. Purchases of goods and services by people like you and me account for about 70% of gross domestic product, so without our help a recovery could not last too long.
Guess what? This is exactly what seems to be happening. Retailers report that, for the most part, shoppers are few and far between.
The recent run of economic data is most compelling. Just about all of the reports paint a picture of an economy slowing -- and sharply, at that.
Here are just a few:
Both consumer confidence and sentiment have fallen unexpectedly.
After-tax personal incomes adjusted for inflation have flattened.
Sales of both new and existing homes took a surprising stumble.
Orders for most durable goods are down.
Manufacturing has slowed.
Jobless claims are up.
Fourth-quarter GDP growth came largely from a slower pace of inventory liquidation, not from an increase in consumer spending.
And, as a matter of fact, consumer spending weakened last quarter.
Understand that the changes in the data above were not insignificant:
Consumer confidence fell to a 27-year low.
New-home sales fell to record lows, and they are likely to fall even further, since mortgage applications are down to 13-year lows.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Yeah, economic reality.
Reality of Democrat destruction of America
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html
And with fuel prices crawling up again, I expect this wonderful news to continue.
Obama needs to be impeached. Quickly.
The consumer doesn’t have access to easy re-fi money that powered so much of the economy for the last 20 years or so. That source is gone, gone, gone, gone for as long as people are underwater and shedding second homes, keeping prices depressed. End of story.
Gun show yesterday had a large crowd, larger than I remember that small show having at this time of the year.
It doesn’t take a genius to see where this country has gotten to
and how it was taken there.
“The consumer doesn’t have access to easy re-fi money that powered so much of the economy for the last 20 years or so. That source is gone, gone, gone, gone for as long as people are underwater and shedding second homes, keeping prices depressed. End of story.”
Good point. Yet our dear leaders seem deaf and dumb to economics and economic reality.
"Everything is going according to plan!"
But they still worked “unexpectedly” in there...
You list the bad things about the economy and ignore the REALLY GOOD NEWS.
Guilty as charged! Somehow Scarry Reid's droolings about America, didn't rise up into my consciousness...:)
“But they still worked “unexpectedly” in there...”
That’s HUGH and SERIES...
What I’d like to see is unemployment figures in the Private Sector alone. My observation is the only people doing well are people employed in government or municipalities.
“What I’d like to see is unemployment figures in the Private Sector alone. My observation is the only people doing well are people employed in government or municipalities.”
Right...the socialists in the government and unions have declared war on the private sector - come hell or highwater. That is a SHAME, as this is the United States of America...economic civil war in America.
That doesn't make sense. How can a slower pace of inventory liquidation increase GDP? And if consumer spending didn't increase GDP, then who spent? Government?
Food prices seem to be going up rapidly as well.
That would be the tail-end of the Carter administration. The stage is set for history to repeat itself, in spades.
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