Posted on 07/02/2009 8:42:19 AM PDT by FromLori
The recovery seemed so certain just a month ago. The American economy would be out of the recession before the end of the year. A number of arrows have pointed in that direction. The May unemployment figures were tame despite the ongoing human toll of rising job losses. Housing prices are not plunging at the same rate that they were earlier in the year. The revisions of the numbing GDP drop of the first quarter have improved the number slightly. The assumptions for deteriorating second quarter GDP is that it will be so much better than the first quarter that the American consumer will be less afraid to make even modest purchases. The auto sales figures for June appear to give some support to the idea that not all of the cash available for consumer spending has been put into mattresses.
Esteemed Harvard economist Martin Feldstein believes that the recovery is an illusion. He expects what professionals call a “W” shaped recession. The first dip is behind us. The second is yet to come, probably early next year. Friedman told Bloomberg that he thinks that the current brief recovery will be robust but that it cannot be sustained.
The latest employment numbers were worse than expected. The ADP report showed that 473,000 people lost jobs last month, much more than forecast. The way that the federal government figures compare to ADP’s should mean that the June unemployment statistics will reveal that well over 500,000 people lost jobs last month. The jobless rate could go to 9.7% or 9.8%, which is above projections.
The auto sales figures may have been encouraging to industry analysts and experts on consumer spending, but they only demonstrate that the industry’s domestic sales rate is recovering to 10 million units a year. That is not nearly enough to sustain any car company doing business in the US, even if it is better than the sales rate of 9.5 million from the first quarter. The companies in the car sector have to ask themselves whether they are in a witch’s brew of rising unemployment and a permanent change in auto buying habits. A population that used to keep cars for two years is now willing to keep them for four. It could be a change in behavior which, over the long term, would be more damaging to the industry than the recession has been. America could become a nation where people do not think their cars are “old” until they have 100,000 miles on them.
Economists and the Administration have to accept the fact that the consumer ‘s psychology may have been so profoundly affected by job loss and the falling value of real estate and other assets that his frugality could last for years. There has been some conversation from within the government that a second stimulus package may be needed. It is hard to imagine that the first $787 billion may not be enough to prime the pump of the economy, but, so far, almost no one believes that average citizens feel that the package has made them better off than they were a year ago.
This is where the economy stands today. It is teetering on the edge of the consumer’s comfort and gravity is still pulling it in the wrong direction. A second stage of the recession is coming because too many people think that the first stage is not over.
There are levels of stupid. At the bottom is “Progressive Stupid”.
*ahem*
It is getting worse.
I ran into a former neighbor, a straight shoot'n guy who got laid off three months ago after being with the same company for twenty plus years.
He's been with this outfit thru the good times - and survived many a recession - keeping his job.
His employer makes those huge containment vessels, usually stainless steel. The ones you see going down the freeway on a lowboy with a couple of pilot cars?
He was told there is no work any where in the pipeline. The lead time on some of those project can be three or four years.
In years past, his employer would take on projects that may have even lost money, just to keep their crew together....
Scary.
My husband is a project superintendent for a large commercial construction firm he has been with them a little over 36 years now and companies started delaying contracts when it looked likely he would be elected and then cancelled them when he was. In all those years we have never ever seen things this bad. We are blessed that he is still working and he will retire 1 April 2010.
I’ve seen those containment vessels. What gets contained in them?
But I don't know of any forum dealing with heavy commercial stuff.
But I suspect they're not happy.
Sarcasm tag omitted due to obviousness.
Some of the prices he quoted me for their products were staggering, but it has a useful life measured in multi decades.
Food? I would have guessed high pressure/high temperature chemicals ... but then I’ve only seen them going the other way down the highway ... as you said ... on a lowboy with pilot cars.
If cap and trade is passed will will see worse conditions than the Great Depression! Wait until millions figure out that not only they can’t afford their home but now they can’t sell it until it is energy compliant!
For Christmas, my wife is knitting me a scarf. I’m making her a cutting board out of oak board scraps I’ve had hanging around for years. That’s it.
We’re just common taxpayers. You can multiply us by millions.
Merry Christmas from Obamaville.
Inexperienced, uncaring administration that has no clue concerning economics - I don't look for a recovery until 0bama is just an unpleasant memory.
And thats when we will see the Obama governments true colors, for they will have no cash flow to fund government programs, no one to borrow from, with only an option of monetizing the economy ( printing more dollars).
No amount of Obama propaganda will gild this lily.
And in Nov. of 2010, conservatives must unite to elect people who will truly represent them, instead of the ideologue leftists and "progressive" Republicans who even now ruin the nation.
And unfortunately it will get nasty, for the conservative point of view has been popularly established as "inhumane." and "sick." worthy of mandated counseling and sensitivity training by stupid government mandates tied to corporate and municipal funding, that seeks a Utopia by denigrating freedom into the lockstep of "progressive" social action.
The Utopia will soon have no more money, and so it will come to take the personal wealth of Americans ( value added tax, and a tax on savings, and stock portfolios, confiscation of precious metals.)This the democrat left will do rather than abandon their Utopian dreams in abandonment of freedom,so that we can experience the tender mercies of the caring, multicultural, defined equal opportunity state, no longer a Republic, and the "good" defined by ideologues, not the people.
Your choice will be move to another country, or stay and fight these sickos tooth and nail.And we are very. very late to engage them properly or effectively.
Just Say-in. Good luck to everyone, we are just a few months from the beginning shite hitting the fan. And watch the censorship begin as the Obama Plan fails and the internet is deep packet surveilled for "domestic terrorists,"who are just ordinary Americans in opposition.
Take your family security and economic precautions now before October.
If this does not happen we are doomed as a country.
That is if there is anything left by then I think we will be in a depression.
Have already put in a huge garden and will can everything I can including venison.
My sixth sense warns me to prepare.
I truly believe that things are going to get really bad, worse than when Carter was in office.
All three of my children were quite young during that time. We just barely survived. I am afraid we might not survive the Obama presidency.
I truly believe he and his minions will attempt to set him up as 'President for life'.
Candor:
What is a “W”?
Thanks
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