Economic experts may believe the recession is over, but try telling that to the public.
Seventy-four percent of Americans believe the economy is still in a recession, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. Only 25 percent think the downturn is over.
If we are not still in a recession, then the word “recession” is meaningless to the general public and should no longer be used. Record numbers of foreclosures, staggering unemployment, bankrupt banks and credit unions, stagnant wages, and job insecurity are a “recession” to most Americans. Perhaps policy wonks and Wall Street fat cats can look around them and say “the recession is over”, but they are doing so on the tax payer’s dime. They are the ones that got bailed out with our money and against our will. The government Trillion dollar spending spree is certain to lead us back into stagflation (if we aren’t already there) and Obama is tied with Carter for worst President. See ya at the polls in November.
I will believe the recession is over when I see new jobs…..MANY new jobs…..meaning new employers…..come into the San Joaquin Valley, and to Los Banos in particular. That isn’t happening now, and I don’t think it’ll happen a year from now…..or even five years from now.
And yes, there WILL be a revolution at the polls in November; count on it!
What this poll indicates is that 99% of the people polled were not economists. It probably also indicates much of the success of the gloom and doom pronouncements of the media, politicians and blogs.
I did a quick review of my portfolio records, looking particularly at the Vanguard Total Stock Index. The close before 12/1/2007 was $35.76. By 1/1/2008 it had fallen to $35.36. It fell each quarter through the 1st quarter of 2009. Since then it has been rising each quarter. The index fund seems to track pretty closely what the real economists are saying.
Has it returned to pre-recession levels? No. It closed Friday at $28.51. But the quarterly trend has been up beginning with the 3rd quarter of 2008.
Jobs are always a trailing indicator–i.e., recovery from a recession occurs before employment increases. Essentially, the recovery triggers hiring.
Returning to the same failed policies pre-2008 will not help. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
The 2008-9 recession was not quite as bad as the Great Depression, but it is the worst we have seen since then.
The “crash” was in 1929. After some very week stimulus, there was a slight recovery. And then the long stretch of a depressed economy–sort of a double dip depression. What finally ended the Great Depression was the most massive government spending in history and a debt that soared far beyond the total GDP of the country. The government spending vastly increased production and employment. The program? World War II. The production? Guns, tanks, airplanes, ships, bombs and ammunition. The employment? Besides the factory workers producing the tools of destruction and death, there were some 16 million men and women “employed” in the U.S. military. We are still servicing the debt.
Let’s pray that isn’t the solution to the current economic difficulties.
the public is just dumb didn’t you hear what John Kerry said? http://www.indyposted.com/113067/john-kerry-its-the-voters-stupid/
I think we have sort of bottomed out. The question for me centers on whether the economic level of the past was realistic to begin with. I am wondering if the current rate of the economy is closer to what was sustainable all along, regardless of Wall Street shenanigans and easy-money home mortgages.
#5
The US is and has been spending money on war materials for over 8 years now. The Great Recession is happening despite that. In addition to having a military presence around the globe and a huge navy, we are currently involved in two simultaneous regional conflicts (exceeding the anticipated and planned for two [i]nearly[/i] simultaneous regional conflicts) that require massive spending to maintain. At the same time, we spent billions of dollars on TARP and economic stimulous.
The unemployment rate is [i]increasing[/i], not decreasing. The stock market is merely reflecting the infusion of government money, not any actual economic recovery. If there were a recovery in progress, the unemployment rate would not be increasing. Even as a lagging indicator in a recovery, the jobless rate should not be accelerating. As more and more folks join the ranks of the unemployed, tax receipts will continue to decline, foreclosures will continue to increase, businesses will continue to go under because consumer confidence is low and folks just aren’t buying. Everyone is cooking their books…government included…and I have zero confidence that the numbers being published have any relationship to reality. The market stopped being “investment” and started being “gambling” when the numbers stopped being legitimate. There are still a lot of folks and institutions willing to sit down at the roulette wheel, but the FED and the Treasurey Department have the game rigged right now. I think what we are seeing as an uptick in the market is just a “dead cat bounce” with Federal intervention added to the mix. Just as the housing market collapsed again when the $8K mortgage subsidies ended, I believe that the rest of the economy is headed back down.
Picking up on this theme there is a new ad coming out called “Mourning in America.” It is a riff on the famous “Morning in America” ad from the 1984 presidential campaign. For a look at both ads see the LA Times article here – http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/obama-mourning-in-america-ronald-reagan-morning-in-america.html
The spending on the military the past 8 years, even including the two “regional wars” simply does not come close to reaching the levels in World War II.
Employment is what economists call a “trailing indicator;” that is, it does not decrease until after a recession begins and does not increase until after a recession ends. I would also note that my experience is that the “crash” always is much faster than the recovery. Incidentally, private sector unemployment is not accelerating. Some weeks it is up, other weeks it is down. That is normal.
If the stock market is merely reflecting government money, that means the stimulus is working–investors are returning to the markets. In this morning news I read that Caterpillar is leading the gainers on the market. Why would that be? Could it, perhaps, mean that stimulus money going into construction of various types is resulting in improved sales for Caterpillar?
Anyone who [b]knows[/b] what the markets [b]will[/b] do is a charlatan. My guess it will continue to be volatile. We may head into another recession–particularly if the Republicans manage to implement their “Promise to America.” If that plan is implemented, the deficits [b]will[/b] grow–even if the slow recovery continues.
#10
What part does consumer confidence play in recovery? I don’t believe what you are saying and 75% of the population is right there with me.
You said yourself that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. Folks are tired of doing Obamanomics for the last two years and having an increase in unemployment. It IS time to try something different and step one is removing the progressives of both parties from power. They have just about destroyed our country. For the record, the Bush administration was RINO and oversaw a massive increase in government and national debt, so I am pleased to see establishment RINOs going down in flames during the primaries. Obamanomics has basically been a continuation or Bushenomics just as the Obama war is a continuation of the Bush doctrine. Last I checked, Guantanamo is still open for business, the Patriot Act is still in force, new Internet eavesdropping is being pushed, there are still “No Fly” lists, we are still fighting in Iraq, and we have even more troops in Afghanistan. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
It’s time to clean house and remove all the progressives from both parties. Conservatives have started the process in our primaries. I hope that the Left will wake up and do the same to purge the radicals/progressives from their ranks. The Alinsky crowd are nihilists and are determined to destroy our nation.
#11, Consumer confidence does indeed play a part. Now, ask yourself, what does all the media, political and blog negativism about recovery do to consumer confidence? Does it increase consumer confidence, and thus contribute to a stronger economy? Or does it decrease consumer confidence, and thus weaken recovery?
The “Pledge to America” is, in point of fact, returning to the pre-recession policies. If you strip out all of the wailing and groaning and the political fluff, you end up with a net [b]increase[/b] in the deficit. At some point in time voters should figure out that “cut taxes and spending to reduce the debt” is the politicians’ snake oil. And that goes for Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Party.
The “Pledge” promises to keep all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts in place and add some new tax cuts. That will not balance the budget. It proposes making Social Security, Medicare and defense spending sacrosanct. (Actually, the “Pledge” proposes increasing defense spending–Star Wars Revisited; it also proposes increases in “border security,” which is pretty much a bottomless pit of wasteful spending.) Now it proposes to pay for all of this by cuts in “everything else.” If you eliminate [b]everything[/b] else–national parks, NIH, Departments of Commerce, State, Treasury, IRS, Congress, the Executive branch, the courts, federal prison, you still have not even balanced the budget.
Yes, Obama has compromised on some issues–something that neither the Republicans nor the Tea Party appear to be willing to do. And it should be noted that some of the dissatisfaction with Obama comes, not from Republicans and Tea Party folks, but from Democrats who do not think he has gone far enough.
And, the last I heard, the Tea Party has not come out for closing
Guantanamo, repealing the Patriot Act or lowering national security by hamstringing law enforcement.
My experience is that people who run for any public office on a platform of reducing the power of that office rarely, if ever, deliver on that promise, just as those who run on cutting “waste” and other spending rarely, if ever, deliver on that promise. Nor do those who run on a platform of making government smaller ever deliver. Ronald Reagan is a prime example.
“Private sector unemployment is not accelerating.” The numbers are deceptive there, Septuagenarian. I know of several people who have been laid off and have been able to get new work, but the job may not last very long because the customer keeps slashing projects. (They have also had to take wage cuts, in some cases.) I know of a small business that has twice in the last few months cut every employee down to 30 hours/week, trying to ride out the storm amidst customer funding cuts hitting every few months.
The statistics show private sector employment trends slowly upward. One factor that is depressing employment is due to government employees (at all levels) are being laid off–something that should, I would think, warm the cockles of conservative hearts: you know, smaller government with fewer police, firemen and the like.
Anecdotal reports hardly cut it. Good grief, I knew people who were laid off when the economy was booming!
Employment in manufacturing–which has been declining since 1998–is showing an increase this year.
I reiterate what I said previously: We need well-paying permanent jobs here in the San Joaquin Valley, and in particular, Merced County, where the unemployment rate is around 20%. This county is one of the poorest in Calfornia, yet we are part of the breadbasket of America. I see unemployment every day here in Los Banos. No new investment, no new employers…..unless they’re fast foot franchises paying minimum wage…..and high taxes.
We’re not looking for government handouts, but we ARE looking for a hand UP. The Tea Party movement here is VERY strong…..and people are fed up with both political parties. Our congressman is in trouble with the voters, our senators are in a life and death struggle for their jobs, and the same goes for Nancy Pelosi. And ‘Governor Moonbeam’ wants to be governor again. Now he’s telling us that “we have to live within our means,” and that means decreased funding for our schools and social services.
Change is coming in November; of that, we can all be certain.
Actually, I don’t give a whit whether the jobs are government or non-government, Septuagenarian. Government jobs are mostly down due to census jobs ending, as even current reports state. Studies show that part-time workers are increasing because people have lost full-time jobs and are not finding full-time work. My point simply is that the picture is much worse than it appears on the surface.
NW Bob’s neighbor is out of work. So we are in a recession. NW Bob, his wife, Dallas Alice, and their kids are all employed. So we are not in a depression. Never mind the Bureau of Labor and statistics.
Cheers,
NW Bob
I’m not interested in what the Bureau of Labor and Statistics has to say; what we want in this county is RESULTS, and so far, all I’ve heard is promises. One can’t live on empty promises; it takes PAYCHECKS to do that. I’m sick of politicians and their promises.