[jpk]

One thing to look out for is rising gas prices. Energy (and food) prices are not included in the official government CPI data, but have a MAJOR impact on the economy when they rise. Gas is back around $3/gallon and that hurts the price of a trip to Las Vegas by air or car. The spill in the Gulf isn't going to help things.

The lower cost of hotels on the strip is great, but if the money that is saved is offset by a higher airfare it doesn't help free up any money for additional consumer discretionary purchases.

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by Chichappens

Olecpt...do you think lenders will end up making the same mistakes again when the Recession climate clears up and approving loans when they know that most can not afford?

You didn't ask me, but that won't stop me from chiming in. :-)

This topic may well become quite a battle and extremely political. Members of both parties going all the way back to the 1st Clinton administration (and GWB continued the policy) wanted banks and other mortgage originators to extend credit even farther down the economic ladder than they were doing at the time.

Add in some re-writes of regulations and you have liar loans & the alphabet soup of MBSs, CDOs, CDO-squareds, synthetic derivatives, etc.

While there has been tremendous pressure to implement regulations governing wall street and to a lesser extent main street, there is still tremendous political pressure from certain members of Congress and the Senate to ensure that lenders fully lend to poor neighborhoods and especially to people of color, as a tactic to increase home ownership rates among their poor constituencies.

Anyone who thinks about it for more than 30 seconds sees the inherent policy contradiction between (1) tightening lending criteria to ensure people who take out loans have a good chance of paying them back, and (2) ensuring that people at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder have access to credit to buy houses, liar-loans or no liar-loans.

It is a tough policy question. There will be a fight. For example Rep. Maxine Waters (D-, Ca) is on the record saying that Fannie and Freddie, now that the worst is behind us, must be encouraged or forced (take your pick) to buy loans from the poor sections of Los Angeles that she represents.

She doesn't need to worry about any fallout from publicly calling for more liar loans, as her congressional seat is considered one of the safest in the country.

[Willy702]

This whole thread is mostly politically charged BS. To answer the original question I think the recession will be over in LV before the end of the year. Remember recession requires a drop from previous periods, that's all. Without a doubt things in LV are improving as we speak. They are in no way close to what was seen in 2007, but that isn't how you define recessions.

So funny how people just throw around hyperinflation in random spots having never studied the economic history of the world. If hyperinflation comes to the world's largest economy with the world's most robust international trade patterns that would be absolutely incredible. I mean its utterly impossible.

[eventusstultorummagister]

At this point, the best anyone can hope for is a "U" shaped recovery. If the Feds decide to raise interest rates or raises taxes (both of which are likely) then we would face the risk of a "W" shaped or "double-dip" recession.

A healthy economy would require 2-3% GDP growth and 150,000 new jobs each month however, most agree that the economy will not grow more than 1% for the next couple of years.

Bearing in mind that Vegas is the first to suffer and the last in line to recover, I don't forsee any significant improvement until 2014.

[shane34lv]

Vegas is going to take a long time to recover, probably longer than the rest of the country. Why you ask? Well it's simple, the town has a ridiculous excess of hotel rooms and the ill conceived idiotic condo manhattan type city center places that are sitting empty. Vegas' only 2 real industries are tourism and construction, tourism depends on people having disposable income, which in a time of the worst recession in the countries history is hard to come by. Construction is the real killer however, that's where most of the unemployment stems from here, and i doubt you'll be seeing any new construction projects in this city for a looooooong time. Basically vegas needs to diversify their economy somehow by drawing tech businesses somehow, all in all i think this city is in for a very hard time for the next decade. Most of my friends have left for greener pastures, and who can blame them.

[jfkIII]

Originally Posted by shane34lv

Vegas is going to take a long time to recover, probably longer than the rest of the country. Why you ask? Well it's simple, the town has a ridiculous excess of hotel rooms and the ill conceived idiotic condo manhattan type city center places that are sitting empty...

And places sitting empty are advertisements for 'do not come here'. Maybe the new slogan should be "What happens in Vegas...already happened!"

[MadManofBethesda]

Originally Posted by eventusstultorummagister

At this point, the best anyone can hope for is a "U" shaped recovery. If the Feds decide to raise interest rates or raises taxes (both of which are likely) then we would face the risk of a "W" shaped or "double-dip" recession.

Based on the immediate 50% recovery off of the low last year, I think a "U" is already off the table. While I agree that a double-dip "W" is certainly a possibility (especially if Greece is just the beginning of a domino effect in Europe, similar to the Asian currency crisis in 97-98), I am of the opinion that the recovery will more than likely be similiar to a square root symbol, and that we will be flat from here on out for quite some time.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

You didn't ask me, but that won't stop me from chiming in. :-)

This topic may well become quite a battle and extremely political. Members of both parties going all the way back to the 1st Clinton administration (and GWB continued the policy) wanted banks and other mortgage originators to extend credit even farther down the economic ladder than they were doing at the time.

Add in some re-writes of regulations and you have liar loans & the alphabet soup of MBSs, CDOs, CDO-squareds, synthetic derivatives, etc.

While there has been tremendous pressure to implement regulations governing wall street and to a lesser extent main street, there is still tremendous political pressure from certain members of Congress and the Senate to ensure that lenders fully lend to poor neighborhoods and especially to people of color, as a tactic to increase home ownership rates among their poor constituencies.

Anyone who thinks about it for more than 30 seconds sees the inherent policy contradiction between (1) tightening lending criteria to ensure people who take out loans have a good chance of paying them back, and (2) ensuring that people at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder have access to credit to buy houses, liar-loans or no liar-loans.

It is a tough policy question. There will be a fight. For example Rep. Maxine Waters (D-, Ca) is on the record saying that Fannie and Freddie, now that the worst is behind us, must be encouraged or forced (take your pick) to buy loans from the poor sections of Los Angeles that she represents.

She doesn't need to worry about any fallout from publicly calling for more liar loans, as her congressional seat is considered one of the safest in the country.

Famed conservative talking point with only a little truth in fact.

In general the poor neighborhoods in Las Vegas did much better than the middle class ones. It was basically those places built between 2004 and 2007 and originally sold for 100K to 300K that took the brunt of it.

Low end neighborhoods are virtually never new and under 100K.

[MomMom]

Or even a O shaped recovery..what goes around, happens again and keeps going?

Or is that what goes around comes around again recovery?


Or is it the never ending vicious cycle recovery?

lol...

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Famed conservative talking point with only a little truth in fact. ...

Nice try to smear my statement & smear me by extension, but you swung & you missed. My post is neither false nor misleading. You'll note that I point to strong political pressures among both liberals & conservatives, among Democrats & Republicans.

The rest of your post is orthogonal to my points.