Posted on 07/30/2015 3:34:09 AM PDT by expat_panama
To understand the economy, you've got to resort to psychology. Throughout the recovery, forecasters — including those at the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund — have repeatedly overestimated the economy's strength. They've predicted faster economic growth than has occurred.
The main reason for the errors, I have argued, is that the forecasters have underestimated the influence of the financial crisis and Great Recession on people's confidence. Lower confidence reduced Americans' willingness to spend. My argument has applied to the United States. Some new figures now suggest that the same phenomenon operates globally.
The figures come from the Pew Research Center, which interviewed 45,435 adults in 40 countries about their economic outlook. Almost seven years after Lehman's collapse, attitudes remain remarkably downbeat.
[snip]
What we have is a global funk. It's a hangover from the financial crisis and Great Recession, not gloom so much as worry and restraint. Because the economic damage — lost jobs, lower profits, foreclosed mortgages, depressed trade — exceeded anything experienced since the Great Depression, people now prepare for the unknown more than before. In practice, they save more and spend less.
The shifting psychology confounds economic models, based (as most are) on earlier business cycles. Instead of a vigorous recovery, we get the opposite.
[snip]
The Pew data convince me that this vicious circle, long at work in the United States, has its international counterpart.
Of course, countries' feeble confidence also reflects local circumstances. Only 13% of Brazilians rate their economy good; the causes surely include high inflation and a host of scandals that have rocked the country.
By contrast, confidence in China remains high (90% rate the economy good), even though growth has recently slowed. One possible explanation is that the Chinese still give more weight to past experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work...thump...socialism does not work..
Well it's a lovely morning w/ stock indexes peaking back up over their moving averages while gold'n'silver hang on at $1,087.05 and $14.72. Sure, futures have stocks going off -0.20% and metals -0.27% but this has been moving up'n'down and today's "claims day":
8:30 AM Initial Claims
8:30 AM Continuing Claims
8:30 AM GDP-Adv.
8:30 AM Chain Deflator-Adv.
10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories
We, as a world, have spent our future. That’s what has happened and nobody is willing to stop spending to allow the situation to rectify.
Maybe not w/ you & me but look how much happier the Chinese are than the Japanese.
Could also have something to do with entirely fake unemployment and inflation numbers... Important things like food and energy are much more expensive while income is the same or lower... And then there’s healthcare which is also much more expensive for the people who actually pay their way. And then there’s taxes... Endless taxes...
No, forget all that, its all in my mind... Be happy... And poor...
...and that WILDLY out of control government spending the world over is called “austerity.”
In China everything the people read, even on the internet, is controlled by propagandists. Therefore, they see their economy through rose colored propaganda. They have a favorable view as there is nothing on which to base any other view.
It’s like the lottery. People buy lottery tickets because they have seen interviews with lottery winners. But do just a 30 second interview with all the losers, run them continuously 24/7 and for most big lotteries they would run almost a decade. People still buy lottery tickets, because they have almost no competing information describing the whole picture.
The freer the information, the more negative the view respondents will have about the economy. Too much money printed. Too much crony capitalism. Too much debt. That’s almost universal and world-wide.
Communism... thump... communism... thump...
Diagnosing the World’s economic malaise. It’s pretty easy to diagonse, for too many years governments around the world have been spending more than they take in, in taxes. That will definitely cause a malaise.
People simply can't afford the standard of living they've come to expect.
Taxation is a perfect example of this. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone sees taxpayer-funded entitlements as a God-given right. That's how you end up with a country that is $18 trillion in debt.
GloBULLism and secret “Free Trade” agreements that “displace” US workers onto welfare does not work.
Factories are very important because it gets your less inclined peoples ( < 100 IQ ) to actually create wealth! Shipping, warehousing and retailing does not create wealth.
There are only there ways to create wealth; mine it, make it or grow it. The "make it" is manufacturing....
The adult stewardship of and accountability for what was earned to be passed on to future generations ain't no more.
Pick an area, any area, better today then decades ago?
Adults would, when in a hole, stop digging.
Just not so today. And the monies spent delivered what?
Words are not actions and actions are not results.
And, remember, you never get the time back!
The number of people in the U.S. who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing in the manufacturing sector is dwarfed by those who lost their jobs to automation.
The myth is automated factories don’t support employment. First of all, the robo factory still need sustenance and maintenance and in a national emergency, i.e. war, we can convert that factory to munitions or some other strategic use.
I think you’re looking at this based on a reality that hasn’t existed in decades. When was the last time the U.S. government ever needed to convert factories to mass-produce munitions, or take control of entire subsectors of the transportation industry to deliver ammunition supplies?
OK the purpose of off shoring is to avoid paying wages to American workers. Off shoring is a pain in the ass, you have to deal with complex transportation and corruption. So what is the point of off shoring a robo factory to the turd word then? Answer there is no reason at all.
Free Traitors better hope there is not another major world war because you guys are going to pay for this traitorous policy with perhaps your neck.
If we get in a shooting war with China/Russia then Free Trade dies that day, a good thing to come of something horrible.
The U.S. will never do that again. Nor will any other modern nation. For one thing, nobody can afford it. Secondly, it will be politically impossible to do this (I have no doubt in my mind that politicians will be assassinated in large numbers if the U.S. government ever tries to institute a draft again). And warfare has become just as automated as anything else in life.
Any "shooting war with China/Russia" is likely to last hours or days, which means the whole idea of converting factories for other uses is silly.
You had better hope so.
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