Posted on 06/25/2011 10:30:58 AM PDT by Brilliant
...Housing remains critical, so I looked up one of the few people who saw the housing bust and financial crisis coming years before they happened: Gary Shilling, economist and author of “The Age of Deleveraging...”
“I’m predicting another recession next year,” he told me.
Not a double dip, he emphasized, because we’re already two years from the end of the last recession... So, he’s looking for a brand new cyclical recession beginning in 2012...
This time, however, the recovery has been “distinctly subpar,” in his words. “As of the first quarter, ..real GDP is barely above its peak in the fourth quarter of 2007, whereas earlier recoveries were well above their previous tops 13 quarters later,” he wrote in a recent edition of his newsletter, Insight...
He’s actually looking for another 20% drop in housing prices before we hit bottom in 2013...
Since housing prices nationally already have fallen by a third from their peak, that means that, if he’s right, they’ll end up a stomach-churning 45% off their early 2006 highs...
Lenders have foreclosed on 3.5 million American homes since 2007; Shilling expects millions of more foreclosures in the years ahead.
If this happens, “you know what that will do to consumer spending,” said Shilling. “That’s a recession — an easy forecast.”
And once housing markets hit bottom, it can take a decade for them to recover, as in Texas after the oil bust or Southern California after the end of the Cold War. That could mean subpar growth — average annual GDP gains of 2% — for years to come, he predicted...
The Obama administration’s own attempt to “fix” the housing market — the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) — was, in Shilling’s words, “a miserable failure...”
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
The bit I cracked up over was when one vet reported that as Germans prisoners headed for the rear in 1945 while hundreds of planes flew overhead, one German soldier pointed to them and sneered "Propaganda!".
If a recession ends when the GDP turns positive for two quarters, then strictly speaking we are out of the last recession.
But the GDP didn't grow because of an economic recovery. We paid for the growth by borrowing foreign $$$ to pay for what little we got. IMHO, we're not out of the recession until the GDP grows without borrowed foreign dollars.
It’s really Smoke and Chains.
Spin-doctoring is the world's oldest profession, and as I undertstand it, propaganda is well-known tool of war. Napolean said, "A dozen newspapers are more to be feared than all the bayonets in France" or something like that. I found reference to this in McLuhan's "Understanding Media" but lo, not a trace of it on Google.
Who you gonna believe....?
I found several references on Google right off searching on “Napeleon quote newspapers”.
What came up was: “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”
Think of all the people who know more about Reality shows than who is President of the Federal Reserve. You are right in saying people are feeling the pains of economics than ever before. When the Houston oil bust came about neighborhoods became vacant. People moved up north where the economy was thriving. It was easily notice since the Houston Freeways were wide open for the drive to and from work.
Today Houston is thriving, freeways are congested (notice many out of state license plates). Restaurants have wait times and jobs are plentiful. If you can relocate consider San Antonio or Houston. Come visit sometime you will see Houston and San Antonio is very open to newcomers.
That sums it up for me. I haven't had to change my lifestyle drastically, but have tweaked it downward. Hopefully, I won't need any more downward tweaks..
I thought most of them knew they were being lied to; they were short on supplies and food, and word had gotten out about the bombing of Germany.
That’s good that they’ve turned it around; my former boss retired and moved to the outskirts of Houston, and he likes it there.
Yeah, Bay Area real estate is just crazy. Combine difficult to overcome geographic limits with government-induced land shortages, and you’ve got quite the double whammy.
phrases not seen in the MSM since 2008:
homeless problem
recovery for Wall $treet but not Main Street
McJobs
Same here, but even so it’s just treading water while slowly paying down debt. The problem is that things need maintenance (cars, home), and that’s being deferred.
I know of someone that owns an auto repair shop that is having a tough go of it. You would think with people holding onto older cars longer, business would be better.
I believe most of them realized that by 1945, but you always had the die-hards. I have seen videos of German officers giving the Nazi salute to truckloads of prisoners AFTER the war ended.
A guy I worked with back in the 50s was stationed in Germany in '46 and was dating a local girl. While waiting for her and talking with her old man, the son comes down the stairs, and not seeing the soldier there, gave the old man the Nazi salute and said "Good evening, father." The old man nearly had a stroke and the kid almost wet his pants. Stupidity takes a long time to die out.
More like depression.
I think mechanics are being asked just to keep cars running; anything not necessary isn’t getting done.
We’re just getting into Summer Of Recovery II, nothing to worry about. The Sepia Savior will fix everything between golf outings.
I think each branch saw the writing on the wall in their own way; for the army it was Stalingrad, for the air force it was seeing fighters escort bombers all the way to the target, and for the navy it was when the U-boats attacked convoys which in turn launched their own planes.
These developments probably convinced the generals to kill Hitler.
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