Posted on 08/19/2005 5:22:29 AM PDT by OESY
The paradox of the year is why so many Americans tell pollsters they feel bad about an economy that's been so good, with solid job growth and corporate profits, rising wages and home prices, and a huge decline in the budget deficit. Perhaps one reason is because the media keep saying the economy stinks.
That's the conclusion of... the Media Research Center, which finds that so far this year 62% of the news stories on the Big Three TV networks have portrayed the U.S. economy in negative fashion. The "negative full length TV news stories on the economy outnumbered positive stories by an overwhelming ratio of 4 to 1," the MRC reports.
...[A] CBS Evening News story on July 22 said that the economy is "very tenuous. It could fall apart at any moment. One piece of bad news, one additional terrorist attack, one negative corporate earnings, and it goes right down again." Contrast that funeral dirge with what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that same day: "The outlook is one of sustained economic growth."...
Media coverage of President Bush's tax cuts has been particularly slanted. During the 2003 tax-cut debate, three of every four major TV network news stories were negative. The favorite criticisms were liberal echoes that it would bust the budget and favor the rich. Earlier this year, a news story on National Public Radio announced that "as everyone knows, the primary cause of the budget deficit was the Bush tax cuts." No word yet on whom NPR is crediting with this year's revenue surge of $262 billion. Robert Rubin?
Given all of this doom-and-gloom reporting, maybe the surprise is that Americans are nonetheless behaving with their typical optimism, buying goods and services, bidding up the stock market, and creating new businesses....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I'm a headhunter. Keep some general knowledge about the industry...you've seen the big shops around town, for sure.
Guy next door works at Sussex. 4x10 days, he's a press-mechanic/maintenance. Interesting job.
Whether there's a national "bubble" depends on the definition of "bubble."
Since RE usually runs a point or two over inflation, and inflation is about 3-4% (depending on which index you use,) a national increase anything MORE than 7% is "a bubble."
I disagree. You have left out of your equation interest rates. According to you if inflation is running 17% then RE prices can go up 19% per year. The problem with that is that if inflation is at 17% you can bet your as* interest rates will be almost as high. Result, a monthly payment that is unaffordable to the greater majority of people.
Ant the upper mid west (il, wi, mn, mi, ...) And Texas, And urban areas in the lower midwest...
More Americans own homes today then at any time in history and the reason is simple, interest rates are at a historical low and when buying a house the monthly payment determines if it is plausible or not.
Well see how many still own when the interest rates on stupid ARM's goes up. People are buying houses they can not afford with almost no money down..
I notice all the dates youre mentioning are more than 20 years ago.. not the 'about 15' which started this whole thing..
Optimism and Prosperity
When Americans elected Herbert Hoover President in 1928, the mood of the general public was one of optimism and confidence in the United States economy. Most people believed that national prosperity would continue indefinitely. In his acceptance speech for the Republican party nomination for the presidency, Hoover had said:
"We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us."
Hoover was a very bright and able leader. But unfortunately, what he knew about economics left him mis-prepared for what was coming. Unemployment went from 3.2%, it's all-time low, to 9% in 1930, then 16% in 1932, and 24.6% by 1934 subsequently in the midst of the onslaught of the Great Depression, and a third of the population was officially under the poverty line, and a third were forced to file for bankruptcy.
People today who weren't there universally think it can't possibly happen again. Talk to those were there. They aren't so confident in these magical repeals of the laws of economics.
The survivors of the Great Depression typically display a great deal of personal frugality and are often scandalized by the progressively increasing waste of each of the succeeding generations that have followed them.
Thanks. Are those numbers inflation adjusted? 'Cause if they aren't, and given an average 4% per year rate of inflation, they show that adjusted for inflation wages have gone down.
Those things are items one does not need to live. When it comes to items people need, such as housing, medical, energy/fuel and even to an extent food, buying power has been diminished.
You cant be this obtuse. Factory employment incresed in many years after WWII. From 48 till 58 it increased untill the 58 recession took its toll. From 61-69 it increased, from 71 till 73 it increased untill the Arab oil embargo collapsed Americas industrial sector, from 75-78 it increased, from 82-87 factory employment increased and from 92-99 it increased every year.
Average is a meaningless stat, because those at the stop skew the entire scale, the more meningful stat is the medain wage people make.
There was a FR poster yesterday who said he paid cash for a home. He affirmed an earlier post about people investing their 401{k) funds into real estate.
HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!
Or it could be that 1/3 of Americans lack critical thinking and reasoning skills, and are unable to read even the simplest economic indicators for themselves, thereby forcing themselves to rely on an "explainer."
I do not believe they are inflation adjusted. 4% is higher than actual inflation (including food and energy) but your point is still well made. Overall wages are rising slower than prices.
Factory employment has DECLINED WORLDWIDE! Even China has seen the percentage of its workforce involved in manufacturing decline. Like it or not, you folks who idealize "smokestack America" (when Democrats ruled the world, btw) have got to wake up to the fact that we live in a white collar, service oriented world. The folks who bemoan the loss of the industrial economy are no different from those fogeys who lamented the loss of the "yeoman farmer" a century ago.
Go back and read it again please. This is for production or nonsupervisory workers. This completely excludes the "top" but does include the bottom.
And you're nothing but a brain dead "populist" jealous of other's success. ;-)
Just to let you know, my grandfathers were both members of the classic lunchpail carrying industrial proletariat. Both of them stressed to their kids the importance of educating themselves so they could GET OUT of the blue collar lower middle class. Multiply folks like my grandfathers by the thousands, and you can see why so many children of the row house dwelling, blue collar labor force of yesteryear would grow up to become corporate executives, bankers, attorneys, etc. Maybe this phenomenom is limited to the northeast, but I seriously doubt it.
I suspect you are confusing "manufacturing output" with "factory employment." Manufacturing output has increased almost every year since World War II, but manufacturing employment has not. Constant advances in technology and improvements in productivity have made it possible to manufacture more things with fewer workers over time.
Even China has seen a dramatic decline in factory employment in recent years, despite dramatic increases in factory output over that same period.
Actually it's even better than you say it is. 20% for 3 years will give you a total return of 72%.
""The reason why 1/3 of the population thinks it is a recession is because of their decline in buying power.""
Wrong, more americans on homes than shares of stock and home values have been going up...additionally, i saw where nominal incomes the past 12 months have risen 6.6%, well ahead of inflation...i do agree with gas prices however
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.