Posted on 12/24/2010 11:49:08 AM PST by libh8er
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The economy is starting to fire on almost every cylinder these days but the one that matters most: Job creation.
Factories are busier. Incomes are rising. Autos are selling. The holiday shopping season is shaping up as the best in four years. Stock prices are surging.
And many analysts are raising their forecasts for the economy's growth. Goldman Sachs, for instance, just revised its gloomy prediction of a 2 percent increase in gross domestic product in 2011 to 2.7 percent and forecast 3.6 percent growth for 2012.
"The upward momentum has more traction this time," says James O'Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global.
If only every major pillar of the economy were faring so well.
Despite weeks of brighter economic news, employers still aren't hiring freely. The economy added a net total of just 39,000 jobs in November, the government said Friday.
That's far too few even to stabilize the unemployment rate, which rose from 9.6 percent in October to 9.8 percent last month. Unemployment is widely expected to stay above 9 percent through next year, in part because of the still-depressed real estate industry.
Job creation ultimately drives the economy, and it remains the most significant weak link.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Bernanke is inflating the markets in the hopes that folks owning equities in the market feel better about thewir lot in life and are now willing to borrow money to buy more chinese crap.
But the problem is that most folks don't feel richer because their homes have been deflating.
Without QE the market would fall. How far I have no idea but I do know that Bernanke will inflate the market bubble as long as has to. And commodities will continue to rise which at some point will lead to recession again. Bernanke thinks he can thread the needle that his predecessor Alan could not. I think he's fos.
However, I wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year. Especially those in uniform.
People without work will not think the economy is “better”, no matter how many times the media tells them. Extension of unemployment will not cover all of these, and thus the economy will not get “better”. A tax holiday of 4 years on all federal tax... now that would stimulate something.
This kind of AP BS article is along the lines of a “jobless” recovery wall street type jive. Coupled with the assault on tradtional values, across all party lines, and obama is toast, as is really any democrat. Conservatives need to place a leader, a real leader who will hold the line and have a plan. The global economy is not doing very well remember. It is US employment which will be the key.
Agreed, and especially when brokers are pitching T Bills to fixed investment clients who are scared. To which clients answer—what? Why should I?- the chinese are driving the earnings down.
What is the future without jobs sector recovery? But it is my belief this is intentional, and the substitute is...marxist dictatorship. Pray.
Spending their unemployment money, putting it on a credit card. Activity is not recovery. This is all false economy. Wait for yet another seasonal sales lie, to put pay to the overall glossing over of reality. The mall is not main street, or small town street or really anything real at all unless it’s made in China.
We have not hit bottom yet, that is certain. Not unlike the game of “kick the can down the road” or “musical chairs” like in Europe. Ireland’s debt is taken by Germany, and who took Spain’s? Who will be left standing when the music stops?
Gas is up to $3.15 in some areas of Wisconsin, with no sign of slowing down its surge upward. Increased energy and food prices will sap even more from the economy.
The problem with this recovery is that it seems that we are going up the same roller coaster that we did in 2008. The Muni bonds bubble and commercial real estate bubble still have to pop, and energy and food prices are surging again.
the “jobless recovery” is making steady gains as elitist financiers seize assets from the spoils of their orchestrated crash
Whoppers this big originate at Asspress, NYT, Wapo, LAT and Politico.
Agree. I view it as a spectrum, fascism/socialism all the way to marxism- in any case it is totalitarian the substituted “govt.” run by absolute jackasses.
At my shop all the new faces are fulltime. Having been a consultant all my life, I don’t knock consulting, which is not considered “permanent”. But many of us consultants have been in the same shop many years (almost 8 for me). Others here double my years. So it seems like “perm”. But for incomes over 100k nobody should complain imo.
Thanks to Obamacare (on top of all the other regulations) consulting is growing. That doesn’t mean jobs aren’t available. But a person who choses unemployment comp over consulting gets no respect from me.
Of the many gigs outside IT, I have not measured how many are “consulting/temp”. I suspect more are “perm” in non-IT.
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