Posted on 06/16/2013 11:40:11 AM PDT by lbryce
For more than a decade, the economy has failed to grow the way it once did. Unemployment has not stayed this high, this long, since the 1930s.
But could the New Normal, as this long economic slog has been called, be growing old?
That is the surprising new view of a number of economists in academia and on Wall Street, who are now predicting something the United States has not experienced in years: healthier, more lasting growth.
The improving outlook is one reason the stock market has risen so sharply this year, even if street-level evidence for a turnaround, like strong job growth and income gains, has been scant so far.
A prominent convert to this emerging belief is Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University near Washington and author of “The Great Stagnation,” a 2011 best seller, who has gone from doomsayer to a decidedly more optimistic perspective.
He is not predicting an imminent resurgence. Like most academic economists, Mr. Cowen focuses on the next quarter-century rather than the next quarter. But new technologies like artificial intelligence and online education, increased domestic energy production and slowing growth in the cost of health care have prompted Mr. Cowen to reappraise the country’s prospects.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I’ve toyed with getting a real estate license over the years. Seems folks would take advantage of this.
If you go out and look for jobs for six months or so, don’t find anything, it’s fairly easy to get discouraged.
If you’ve had a decent job, it’s tough to go back to work for half the salary. It’s just demoralizing.
You don’t necessarily have to be a dead-beat to feel that way.
If millions of people are getting by somehow without working and if many of them are not even signing up for good job training classes, maybe it is really true that we’ve been transformed .... into a country where more and more people just depend on government to support them?
(Leaving those folks with genuine disabilities or emergency situations aside, why are we paying all these other people to sit on their butts watching Oprah and Judge Judy and Lost in Space reruns all day?)
5th year of “recovery summer” and food stamps are up 56% in 5 years.
some recovery.
It is indeed discouraging to be offered nothing, or only half your former wage.
I understand that.
I’d like to see everyone in this position look around for opportunities in alternative careers.
Real estate is mostly commission-based work. This means you don’t have the guarantee of a wage. But, and this is a big deal, there is also no limit on how much $$ you can make.
There’s an old saying that 20 percent of the realty folks make 80 percent of the sales. Well, that means that there are a whole lot of people who make a ton of money in real estate (takes hard work, to be sure). And there are also many other people who make some money in real estate, often (although not always) just about as much as they really wanted anyway (not everybody wants to get rich, or is really prepared to put out the work to do it... and that’s perfectly okay too....).
Anyway, it is surprising how successful (and happy) many people wind up in real estate. Not everybody likes it. But we look around and real estate is one of the largest sectors of employment, and it keeps this ranking year in and year out, too. Meaning, it really works for a lot of good people. I can’t begin to tell you how many, many folks who are either unhappy or laid off from computer, electronics, and other jobs... try real estate .... and like it, do well with it. Even some “cubicle geek nerds” do very well in real estate, despite their reputation for having poor social skills. Turns out, they have good enough skills at least to start selling houses to other “geek nerds” and they can then move on from there. So, stereotypes are difficult, not always accurate.
There’s lots of opportunity out there for people to get job training classes, including some very good ones like ours, and some people are still doing this. But many people now are no longer doing this. Something’s being
“transformed” out of existence ... as many former American workers are no longer interested in bouncing back successfully (as they would have maybe 10 or 20 years ago).
ps: added quick note...
my service station says they have a terrible time finding good workers, they pay fairly decently for mechanical work and a person could stay on there as long as they wanted, too, as the customers keep bringing their cars in for repairs. Problem is that the people they hire and either not reliable or else fail to display basic courtesy to customers. There’s another shop nearby which offered to train somebody “from scratch” to become a certified mechanic and BMW specialist. They couldn’t find any takers.
Something really does seem to be “transformed” nowadays?
There is the mistake. When the government artificially tries to stimulate the economy with low interest rates and an inflation of the money supply, as soon as those change, the economy will start to slow back down.
Strange actually...
That's what happens when you cross the line from freedom to slavery.
Slaves don't want to work. That's why the whips come out.
“Even Pessimists Feel Optimistic About the American Economy (What Drug Has the NYT Been On?)” It’s hubris pure and simple.
Yes, but do you see any whips yet?
America's Socialist in Chief wants it this way. It is part of "transforming America" into a third world socialist state.
I agree.
We’re somewhere in the gray area yet; neither slave nor free.
We’re at the point where people question whether an investment in their future is worth it. At what point do you say I can’t risk putting time and effort into something that might be taken away at a whim?
The whips come out when too many people start to think that way.
yes indeed
but the very same people who will wield the whips are the ones in office right now who are destroying the American economy and all our jobs, creating the conditions where you say they’ll bring out the whips on us
That is their goal. They want slaves. Free people are too hard to control.
Besides, they enjoy using the whip. It builds their self-esteem and they love nothing more than administering a good, old beat down.
Agreed. They enjoy inflicting suffering on the rest of us
Disagree.
There is no big growth out there. We’ll poke along at 2-3%. That said— there’s no downside to the US economy right now worth worrying about.
Here’s why.
U.S. Oil Production Rose At Record Rate In 2012: BP
“On the supply side, the most noticeable phenomenon remains the American shale revolution,” BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said in a statement. “In 2012, the U.S. recorded the largest oil and natural gas production increases in the world and saw the largest gain in oil production in history.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/us-oil-production-2012_n_3426755.html
US oil output in 2012: Largest 1-year gain in US history
Mark J. Perry | June 12, 2013, 4:31 pm
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/us-oil-output-in-2012-largest-one-year-gain-in-us-history/
The chart above shows the record-setting increase in US oil output last year, which registered a 790,000 barrel per day increase in 2012, the largest single-year gain in US history. Welcome to “Saudi America’s” shale revolution.
The biggest phenomenon last year, by far, was the impact of the growing shale revolution in the U.S., Dudley said. Oil production growth in the U.S. — by more than a million barrels per day to 8.9 million — was the largest in the country’s history, BP noted.
........................
All current evidence suggests that US oil production will increase this year and over the next several years by similar amounts.
US oil companies that for decades —have been pouring their investments into overseas oil patches are all coming home and pouring billions of dollars into US projects all over the USA.
Big diversified companies that depend on low natural gas prices are setting up shop in the USA again because of lower natural gas prices in the USA relative to other countries.
As to fiat money...so say the fed prints out several trillion worth of fiat money...on the other hand the oil industry has just created an extra 75-150 trillion dollars worth of oil backing the US dollar ex nihilo—from nothing.
This was all going to happen no matter who was elected president in 2012.
If Romney were elected he would have done a little to help the process along. Obama is doing every thing he can to throttle the oil boom while positioning himself to take credit for it. (He won’t be able throttle the oil boom—mostly because its taking place on private property.)The greenies have started to talk about adopting to climate change rather than trying to bring down CO2 levels.
Bottom Line.
The USA ain’t going down economically anytime soon. In fact the USA will be returning to an economy not seen since the 1960’s—later in the decade. (meanwhile the longer term moral and political decline continues apace—but that’s another story.)
Even if we were to agree about the “economy,” we’ve lost MILLIONS of American jobs in these past 3 or 4 years.
Aside from limited sectors, there is NO upturn (indeed, it appears that the jobs pool continues to contract).
That is the aspect of the “economy” I am watching most closely. That the energy industry has discovered new resources (and is allowed, somehow, to develop them in a couple of regions where the federal administration hasn’t yet figured out how to stop them), is wonderful. Same for one or two other sectors or areas. We get a few tens of thousands of new jobs, here and there, and I applaud the business leaders who are able to achieve this.
Meanwhile, the administration is successfully driving down a great deal of the rest of the economy, especially insofar as jobs for American workers are concerned.
And just wait until “Obamacare” finishes “phasing in!!!”
Just saying, it is never a totally up or totally down picture. But, overall... I’d sure hate to be looking for employment today! My Lord, what agony .... and on such a massive scale...
SUMMER OF RECOVERY 6.0
LLS
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