Posted on 01/25/2016 5:44:17 PM PST by SkyPilot
We have not seen global economic activity fall off this rapidly since the great recession of 2008. Manufacturing activity is imploding all over the planet, global trade is slowing down at a pace that is extremely alarming, and the Baltic Dry Index just hit another brand new all-time record low. If the "real economy" consists of people making, selling and shipping stuff, then it is in incredibly bad shape. Here in the United States, the dismal economic numbers continue to stun all of the experts. For example, on Monday we learned that the Texas general business activity index just hit a six year low...
Economic activity in Texas keeps getting worse.
The general business activity index out Monday from the Dallas Federal Reserve for January was -34.6, a six-year low and much worse than economists had expected.
The forecast for the monthly index was -14, following a December reading of -21.6 (revised from -20.1) that was also worse than expected.
One could perhaps argue that this is to be expected in Texas because of the collapse in the price of oil.
But what about the very unusual things that we are seeing in other areas of the country? In Erwin, Tennessee, a rail terminal that had been continuously operating for 135 years was just permanently shut down, and hundreds of workers now find themselves without a job...
The last coal train to leave Erwin rolled slowly out of town just after at 3 p.m. Thursday, less than eight hours after CSX Transportation employees heard the news that rocked all of Unicoi County.
"Its a hard pill to swallow," county Mayor Greg Lynch said. "Of course, we heard rumors that something was coming down. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine they would just shut down..."
(Excerpt) Read more at theeconomiccollapseblog.com ...
Well...at least this isn’t “unexpected”.
They’ve been hiding the reality of the situation for 7 years, it couldn’t last forever.
Reality is always “unexpected” to those in the pretend math econ world.
Especially so to certain Nobel Prize winners.
It is even worse out there than these examples.
But instead of dealing with reality, there are a lot of irrational optimists that insist that things will start bouncing back any day now. For instance, CNBC is reporting that Goldman Sachs is forecasting that the S&P 500 will end up finishing the year back at 2,100...
Yeah, right.
The big banks are also shedding thousands of employees.
That is a very ominous sign.
winner
Hmm two things are in common with the recession of 2008 and the slowing economy now. Can’t wait till the Muslim traitor in office is gone.
We are finding out now just how much the energy sector was carrying the overall economy.
Well, yea, experts!
Exactly who has the job of coming up with all these expectations? I would like to know how they keep from being fired since everything always seems to be different than expected. I do not ever recall hearing that things were “as expected”. I have noticed that when Democrats are in office it is usually reported as “better than expected” and when Republicans are in office its reported as “worse than expected”.
Gee, how unexpected. Surprising. Unforseen. Who woulda thunk it?
Succinct and exactly correct!
Wasn’t there a stock market crash in 1937 that was almost as bad as the one in ‘29? And it came after four years of New Deal tinkering.
More likely we heading into a deflationary depression.
I don’t think we’re finding out how much the energy sector was carrying the economy; we’re finding out how much the financial sector has infiltrated the entire economy, because the financial sector is being gored by the energy sector going insolvent.
Otherwise, decreasing energy prices would be recognized as good for the economy rather than bad.
Highland Industrial Park in East Camden, AR is one of the largest facilities for storing unused rail cars. They are currently full to capacity.
DUH
It’s killing my business.
What did they expect would happen. The American middle class is gone.
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