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I think that the initial shock of the credit crisis has worn off. When that happened, confidence plummeted probably below where it should be. Now, although the economy is still in recession (in my view), it does seem to have stabilized and that has caused consumer confidence to come back from the lows of last Fall. That does not mean that people are not still worried but they feel better than they did.
Which means exactly what? That I'm all of a sudden emotionally more comfortable with the idea of engaging in superfluous spending just because? This is the kind of non-sense that drives the cattle to the slaughter. People have an inherent tendency to humanize their surroundings, and they do the same for the economy. But there's nothing there to humanize. Incomes drive the fight here and the reality of the matter is that in aggregate incomes continue to fall, underemployment continues to become the steady state, and leveraging is only hindered by the fact we're already tapped out. I don't see any "improvement", real or psychosomatic. I don't subscribe to the FIRE economy and debt-based GDP anyways, so I'll continue to "emotionally" refrain from pointless consumption-subsidy of imported crap.
I am wondering if it is truely a sign that the recession is over, or that people are just tired of cutting back? Or is it that people do not want their lives driven by the "fear" of the economy? Some states have not been hit as hard as others and I wonder what states are seeing an overall increase in spending? And is that speding purely retail or is it at stores such as Lowes and Home Depot? Just wondering where the data is coming from........
i doubt if too many people believe that the recession is over. the next GDP will be out may 29th, so that should be interesting. it will be available on the BEA website, as well as state by state statistics. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) - bea.gov Home Page
This guy is not one of "the media." He's one of a panel of respected economists (Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Analysis) and a professor of economics. This is the same group that declared that a recession had started in Dec 2007, despite continued positive GDP growth at the time. Hell, even Krugman says he expects GDP growth this year.
I just love how people take folks like Roubini as saviors, but anything that dares to point out fact and draw a different conclusion is derided. I bet had he come out with an article that predicted doom, gloom, and the end of society as we know it, you guys would all singing the article's praises.
How about the consumer confidence jump reported today? What do those dumb consumers know anyway....must be pure rubbish.
Neil,
Although I usually agree with your posts. I think you are wrong here. This recession is not improving anytime soon. More and more people are losing their homes, the banks can't even keep up with everyone, unemployment will be in the double digits real soon, lots of companies are and will be filing for bankruptcy, etc. We are a long way from recovery IMO, years out. The word recovery should not even be brought up right now because its so far away.
The media isn't preaching doom and gloom every day to be biased, they are preaching it because there isn't anything else to talk about!
For those of you who are willing to consider facts, even if they disagree with your preconceived notions.
"Jobless claims have peaked, says a member of the bureau charged with declaring when US recessions begin and end. And in every recession since 1974, the peak in jobless claims has come within weeks of the bottom."
"The source is Robert J. Gordon, an acclaimed macroeconomist and professor at Northwestern University. It's surprising to learn he thinks the recession is over, because he is one of seven members of the elite Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Analysis. These are the people who decide officially, for the record books, when recessions begin and end -- usually many months after the fact, when the decision is really obvious. I'm unaware of any previous case in which a member of this committee has stepped forward and declared the end of a recession in real time."
U6 is already near 16% and that's an official number from the BLS.
How in the world can we loss 500K jobs PER MONTH and still hoover around the 8% the BLS tells us ?
Actually we have averaged 600K job losses and I don't see anything slowing that number down. Umployment %'s are already down double digits in some states. The national average will probably hit double digits in June.
OK...so everyone from the Federal Reserve to a slew of economists all say that things are turning and will move positive in the next 6 months. All the current data is suggesting that's true, including the index of LEI, consumer confidence, the direction of the employment numbers, CPI, PPI, Dow, NASDAQ, etc.
I guess all this is just being fed to us to keep us quiet while the real depression and the end of the world is coming. All these economists are stupid? They're all dupes?
The real truth is you don't know any more than I do. You choose to believe the perma-bears because it fits your idea of how things are....fine. I choose to take a more optimitic view, but based on real data. This reminds me of the liberals who hope against hope that the US will lose the war in Iraq to prove their political point.
We'll see in a year who was the fool. I'll be happy to come back here and admit if I'm wrong...will you be man enough to do the same?
neil0311..did you know that last month the BLS modified the birth/death rate to add 100+ new jobs to the totals ? Usually the birth/death rate adjustment is about 100K but last month it was over 200K with no explanation.
And I don't think those temporary census workers should have been counted as new jobs..those are temporary jobs.
What I see is U6 at 16%, banks doing shady accounting, commercial real estate starting to falter, residential real estate continue to deflate, the dollar losing value, the Fed buying more and more Treasuries because foreign investment is receding, no regulations put in place so predatory lending stops, continued bailout requests from other sectors (truckers, newspapers), and the biggest one of all....those derivatives (financial weapons of mass destruction) are still out there.
Wait and look at things in six months to see if they're improving.
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