http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080307/economy.html?.v=7 Getting bad out there. Let's see when we get signs of the upturn. Job cuts are up, unemployment is down. You gotta understand how that works out... Earlier this year, Bernanke and Bush were saying the effects of the mortgage difficulty could be contained to the housing sector. Never believe your fed chairman when things get bad, because he has to be upbeat, so he will lie, as will the president. They don't say what they really think, "man, it REALLY looks BAD out there". The markets would sell of and they'd be skewered. So, they lie. Some areas of the country are real bad, some not so bad. Cali, Fla., Ohio and Mich. are bad for foreclosures. Anybody see good news out there? Houston economy is good if you're in the oil patch. Housing market is sub par, but still reasonably good.
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/279 Watch the video, interesting. M3 money supply growing at 15% annual rate, GDP growing at 2%, that's inflationary and hostile to the value of the dollar. Combine it with the federal budget deficit going back up to around 400 billion this fiscal year, and a massive current account deficit, and now you know why the dollar is still setting all time lows. Anything we import will have to go up in price to compensate for the weak dollar. Although M3 is no longer reported by the govt., I read you can get all the govt. reports and economists can calculate M3 with all the other numbers, put in X for the M3, and solve for X. No calculus, just accounting knowledge and arithmetic. I don't have the accounting knowledge. Now they know all the central bankers and smart boys on Wall St. can calculate the number, so they will do the right thing. Mom and pop don't know how to calculate the number, what do you think their chances are against Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, etc.? Do you think Goldman and Merrill plan to lose money for the house in their trading accounts? I don't. It's all gross mismanagement of both fiscal and monetary policy by the republican congress and white house since 2001. They got a balanced budget and strong dollar from Clinton. The govt. knew about the pending housing debacle in 2006, they knew they'd have to irresponsibly juice the M3 to try and prevent a deflationary recession (aka a "depression", what happened in 1929, very hard to control), so they picked inflation. That is why they stopped reporting M3, in the most cowardly fiscal action I've seen in govt. in my lifetime. I am beyond disgust and revulsion with this band of idiots who take care of their big business buddies while letting the regular people suffer drops in our standard of living! :angryfire
Well I work for a construction company and since we usually only do negoitiated jobs we haven't felt much a slow down or economy crunch till now. Friday we found out that every Footlocker he had on the books to start in the next 4 months has been pushed (delayed until informed). This is tough as these are our smaller jobs but because they only take 1-2 weeks they are quick turnovers and Footlocker is one of those clients that pay perfectly ontime! The reason given was economy. These jobs being pushed are very scary because that is over 30 jobs that we will not be doing in the next 4 or so months. You can imagine that it is a decent hit to a company. I believe we will be fine but there is a chance that certain PM's that only do footlockers could be layed off. Luckily for me I think (hope) I will be ok becuase I work actually more with the Pottery Barn, West Elm, Victorias Secret, and Sephora accounts. We will see.
And you guys are surprised? If you would actually listen to what RP says at the Fed meetings you would have known this for a long time: Here is the recent taping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gldETRlhiXk watch this as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EZeNulOz9E
Two very good pieces about 5 min each. Ron Paul is the most honest politician in Washington that I know of, at least on the economy. He sounds like the stock market letter writer that I subscribe to, who advised buying gold in 2001, good call. I'm a show me kind of guy, so I waited to see what would happen, and I bought gold in 2003 (not enough, in hindsight). By 2003 I could see the deficits mounting and poor policies, and I figured there was not much downside risk to holding gold until Bush left office. I never imagined gold would go up to nearly $1,000 an ounce. Folks will be wearing stainless steel wedding bands soon! Dow Industrials hit a new low on Friday for the move down since Nov. Not good action in the stock market.
What we need is another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. Besides a pre-emptive war that's throwing billions down the drain, our president cut taxes and ran up debt, and has generally mismanaged every possible area of his job. W. could actually be a worse president than Carter was, he defintely has done more long term damage to the country. And the republicans cheered him on, gave him everything he wanted, while the democrats were to spineless to stand up to ole Cowboy W, after 911 because of his popularity. And us, the public, deserve some blame also, for not paying attention to what the hell was going on.
I am starting to believe that there is no recession, I went to a few restaurants this weekend and they where packed to capacity. I know its getting bad out there, but I cant tell.
Here are the March headlines: Job losses: Worst in 5 years Consumer confidence lowest on record New recession worry: Bank failures Economists: Market turmoil is top threat
