Recession ended in June 2009

[daenku32]

Recession ended in June 2009: NBER (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_usa_economy_nber;_ylt=AkcG1uE63WEXhZU4a5RBKGis0 NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNqN3NnY2dwBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTAwOTIwL 3VzX3VzYV9lY29ub215X25iZXIEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXI EY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMyBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX 3N0b3J5BHNsawNyZWNlc3Npb25lbmQ-)

Naturally this is based on cold calculations of some GDP related numbers..

But woohoo!

[lomiller]

I guess the stimulus didn't "fail" afterall...

[drkitten]

I guess the stimulus didn't "fail" afterall...

Only in the reality-based world.

On Planet Wingnut, the stimulus is the only reason the recession lasted beyond January, 2009.

Well, that and the fact that the President was an atheist Muslim Communist Reptoid from Dimension XIX.

[joobz]

On Planet Wingnut, the stimulus is the only reason the recession lasted beyond January, 2009.
Unfortunately, I fear that's where the elections are held this year.

[Weak Kitten]

Unfortunately, I fear that's where the elections are held this year.

I'm scared. How do I get out of this madhouse? Isn't there somewhere I can go to escape the wing-nuts and let them deal with the repercussions of their own actions?

I'm getting tired of paying for other people's mistakes.

[dudalb]

Problem is unemployment is the LAST thing to go down after a recession.
This will not help matters in the election for the Dems. It would not have helped the GOP either if they were in power. Unemployment is the yardstick by which the vast majority of voters judge the economy .

[Paranormal Inquirer]

Yeah, jobs are still a problem.

[theprestige]

So some line on some graph turned from "sharply down" to "moderately up" in June 2009? So what? People remember what it was like

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk in June 2009. It flatly sucked. It flatly sucks right now.

[Malerin]

Only in the reality-based world.

On Planet Wingnut, the stimulus is the only reason the recession lasted beyond January, 2009.

Well, that and the fact that the President was an atheist Muslim Communist Reptoid from Dimension XIX.

On planet Wingnut, the stimulus was supposed to cap unemployment at 8.5%
Oh wait, that was this world :rolleyes:

I, for one, am thrilled with Recovery Summertm, although we don't hear that term much anymore. Perhaps it has something to do with the recent rise in unemployment and anemic job growth that can't even keep up with the population? Or perhaps it's because GDP growth was revised downward to 1.6%?

So if you don't count unemployment (and really, it's just a minor thing) or GDP (another menaingless statistic) the stimulus has worked brilliantly!

[SpringHallConvert]

U.S. GDP statistics are as cooked as the books at Enron were.

Do you people actually believe this depression is over? If so, might I interest you in a bridge or two?

[gnome]

It depends on whether you define a recession based on the relative value of GDP over a period of time, or use some other definition. What's yours?

[Puppycow]

Some of the comments under that article are really horrible. Such as:
Good thing ever hipster and subspecies voted for this mutt. otherwise we'd still be in a recession.

[kuroyume0161]

It depends on whether you define a recession based on the relative value of GDP over a period of time, or use some other definition. What's yours?

Nearly 10% UNEMPLOYMENT (which is probably really 15-20% or a measely 40 MILLION people). Plus there are probably another 40-80 MILLION UNDEREMPLOYED (hey, like me).

Times are great Edited for civility.

[theprestige]

So some line on some graph turned from "sharply down" to "moderately up" in June 2009? So what? People remember what it was like

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk in June 2009. It flatly sucked. It flatly sucks right now.

Man, that turned out wrong. My apologies. I take full responsibility: Clearly I'm too old for this texting stuff.

Anyway, I think that no matter how technically true it is, pimping this factoid will backfire horribly on Democrats come November. The more people point at the NBER's graph or chart or whatever-it-is and say "see! Our plan worked!", the more Americans are going to think to themselves, "no it didn't".

They're going to wonder, if the recession's been over for a year and a half, why aren't banks lending? Why aren't houses selling? Why aren't employers employing? And why do we care what a bunch of out-of-touch academic smarty men think?

It won't help Democrats much that the President himself is a smarty-man academic who has yet to personally experience any effects of the recession at all. How many rounds of golf has he canceled due to the financial uncertainty his household faces? Oh, right: He's already played more golf than Bush played in his entire 8 years (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/24/barack-obama-golf-trips-a_n_550635.html).

I think, for most Americans, the recession isn't over until unemployment drops back below 7% or so. Anything higher than that, and no amount of insisting "but it looks good on paper!" will make you look like anything other than a gigantic douchebag.

[theprestige]

Some of the comments under that article are really horrible. Such as:

I don't see the problem; It's exactly what most of the posters here would be saying to each other, if only the Mods didn't make at least a half-hearted attempt at ruling this board with an iron fist.

Indeed, I'm sure that at least half this forum's membership regularly post exactly such things on other boards, when they get frustrated with the restraint imposed here.

Besides, what's a little political rhetoric between friends?

[theprestige]

It depends on whether you define a recession based on the relative value of GDP over a period of time, or use some other definition. What's yours?

Overall public perception of how much things suck financially.

[Malerin]

Man, that turned out wrong. My apologies. I take full responsibility: Clearly I'm too old for this texting stuff.

Anyway, I think that no matter how technically true it is, pimping this factoid will backfire horribly on Democrats come November. The more people point at the NBER's graph or chart or whatever-it-is and say "see! Our plan worked!", the more Americans are going to think to themselves, "no it didn't".

They're going to wonder, if the recession's been over for a year and a half, why aren't banks lending? Why aren't houses selling? Why aren't employers employing? And why do we care what a bunch of out-of-touch academic smarty men think?

It won't help Democrats much that the President himself is a smarty-man academic who has yet to personally experience any effects of the recession at all. How many rounds of golf has he canceled due to the financial uncertainty his household faces? Oh, right: He's already played more golf than Bush played in his entire 8 years (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/24/barack-obama-golf-trips-a_n_550635.html).

I think, for most Americans, the recession isn't over until unemployment drops back below 7% or so. Anything higher than that, and no amount of insisting "but it looks good on paper!" will make you look like anything other than a gigantic douchebag.

This ^^

[lionking]

A lot of people busily re-defining "recession" here.

It has nothing to do with unemployment.

[daenku32]

On planet Wingnut, the stimulus was supposed to cap unemployment at 8.5%
Oh wait, that was this world :rolleyes:

I, for one, am thrilled with Recovery Summertm, although we don't hear that term much anymore. Perhaps it has something to do with the recent rise in unemployment and anemic job growth that can't even keep up with the population? Or perhaps it's because GDP growth was revised downward to 1.6%?

So if you don't count unemployment (and really, it's just a minor thing) or GDP (another menaingless statistic) the stimulus has worked brilliantly!

Source for the 8.5% number?

The only one I'm aware is from January '09, before the stimulus bill was even written up and they were only talking about what it should do. Certainly before the hundreds of compromises they did to make the stimulus weaker.

But I must say I'm impressed in your (or someone's) ability to predict with 100% accuracy the baseline 6 months out, yet somehow mess up the calculation of stimulus' impact on the baseline.

And as pointed out, definition of recession is only about the GDP rates. That's not to stay things aren't bad.

[kuroyume0161]

A lot of people busily re-defining "recession" here.

It has nothing to do with unemployment.

Hmmmm. Unemployment/underemployment is a 'side-effect' of a recession/depression. 'Nothing to do with' is incorrect. There is plenty of money out there (esp. now after all of those stimuluses [sic]). Not much of it is leaving the wealthy, banks, corporations for the benefit of local governments and citizens. Unemployment/underemployment also feeds the recession as it lowers the amount of money being spent on goods by consumers who cannot afford them.

[timhau]

Hmmmm. Unemployment/underemployment is a 'side-effect' of a recession/depression. 'Nothing to do with' is incorrect.

The definition of recession has nothing to do with unemployment.

[Malerin]

Source for the 8.5% number?

The only one I'm aware is from January '09, before the stimulus bill was even written up and they were only talking about what it should do. Certainly before the hundreds of compromises they did to make the stimulus weaker.

But I must say I'm impressed in your (or someone's) ability to predict with 100% accuracy the baseline 6 months out, yet somehow mess up the calculation of stimulus' impact on the baseline.

And as pointed out, definition of recession is only about the GDP rates. That's not to stay things aren't bad.


Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%...


[I]The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in the Obama Administration.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1910208,00.html

[KoihimeNakamura]

we also didnt' get that, but to echo a point:

The recession can be over, but there's always a lag before unemployment is affected. Also, as unemployment only counts job seekers, when jobs become available, and more people look..
...
well, unemployment won't exactly go *down*

[kuroyume0161]

The definition of recession has nothing to do with unemployment.

But unemployment is part of a recession and fuels it. Don't get pedantic with me! :p

[TraneWreck]

Yeah, theprestige and Malerin are right on this one.

That stimulus bill was Obama's "Mission Accomplished" moment. It was too small to completely work, as Krugman and others pointed out at the time, and the administration engaged in the same rosy thinking distortions that the Bush administration did in the run up to the crisis.

In fairness, the reason unemployment was much higher than they anticipated was because the crisis was much worse than people thought when the 8.5% number was floated. It's something like learning there was another well in the gulf leaking the whole time that no one knew about.

However, it's still the administration's fault for making bold declarations before good information was available then dancing around like the crisis was over once they passed the bill. It was a failure on a lot of levels, which are mostly not Obama's fault. There's only so much he could do with the senate, but it is his fault for trying to pretend like the war was over long before such a claim was prudent. Hell, they were so pleased with the bill that they didn't bother to bail out the states like they did Wall Street, meaning state-level cutbacks basically negated the effect of the stimulus. The stimulus was necessary to keep things at zero, but essentially there was no net effect.

But this is what happens when you try to bend the facts to support your position rather than tailoring your effort to the facts as they actually exist. One of the reasons I was most excited about Obama was the hope that fantasy governance would end. He's done a lot of things I really respect and admire in possibly the toughest political environment since the 60's, but he's been a huge disappointment on many other topics, this being one of them.

[joobz]

Yeah, theprestige and Malerin are right on this one.

That stimulus bill was Obama's "Mission Accomplished" moment. It was too small to completely work, as Krugman and others pointed out at the time, and the administration engaged in the same rosy thinking distortions that the Bush administration did in the run up to the crisis.

In fairness, the reason unemployment was much higher than they anticipated was because the crisis was much worse than people thought when the 8.5% number was floated. It's something like learning there was another well in the gulf leaking the whole time that no one knew about.

However, it's still the administration's fault for making bold declarations before good information was available then dancing around like the crisis was over once they passed the bill. It was a failure on a lot of levels, which are mostly not Obama's fault. There's only so much he could do with the senate, but it is his fault for trying to pretend like the war was over long before such a claim was prudent. Hell, they were so pleased with the bill that they didn't bother to bail out the states like they did Wall Street, meaning state-level cutbacks basically negated the effect of the stimulus. The stimulus was necessary to keep things at zero, but essentially there was no net effect.

But this is what happens when you try to bend the facts to support your position rather than tailoring your effort to the facts as they actually exist. One of the reasons I was most excited about Obama was the hope that fantasy governance would end. He's done a lot of things I really respect and admire in possibly the toughest political environment since the 60's, but he's been a huge disappointment on many other topics, this being one of them.
This is a measured, accurate statement. I agree.

[SumDood]

...He's already played more golf than Bush played in his entire 8 years (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/24/barack-obama-golf-trips-a_n_550635.html).

Yeah, but to be fair, I'll just point out that Bush gave up the game in 2003.

[kuroyume0161]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/reference/word-definitions/recession-definition.html

http://econ.economicshelp.org/2008/09/definition-of-recession.html (http://econ.economicshelp.org/2008/09/definition-of-recession.html)

http://recession.org/definition

Yes, the hard-line, unfeeling, exacting definition of 'recession' does not include unemployment (among many other factors and resulting effects it also ignores). But note that there is no such thing as a recession or depression without a rise in unemployment. And we will be feeling this unemployment/underemployment for years after the academics have declared the recession over (in June 2009 according to them).

There is currently no (zero) guarantee that anything will remain stable let alone start improving. If the last twenty years are any indicator then things will continue to reach new plateaus of 'worse' as economies around the world falter and populations continue to increase. Kids, you're welcome for the hell of the future. Enjoy! ;P

Stop being naive. And you call yourselves realists and skeptics.

[dudalb]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/reference/word-definitions/recession-definition.html

http://econ.economicshelp.org/2008/09/definition-of-recession.html (http://econ.economicshelp.org/2008/09/definition-of-recession.html)

http://recession.org/definition

Yes, the hard-line, unfeeling, exacting definition of 'recession' does not include unemployment (among many other factors and resulting effects it also ignores). But note that there is no such thing as a recession or depression without a rise in unemployment. And we will be feeling this unemployment/underemployment for years after the academics have declared the recession over (in June 2009 according to them).

There is currently no (zero) guarantee that anything will remain stable let alone start improving. If the last twenty years are any indicator then things will continue to reach new plateaus of 'worse' as economies around the world falter and populations continue to increase. Kids, you're welcome for the hell of the future. Enjoy! ;P

Stop being naive. And you call yourselves realists and skeptics.

I see someone is going through a "F--- The Establishment" and a "Cool Existential Despair" stage all at once.

[KoihimeNakamura]

I think you're misconstruing us saying 'the recession is over' for 'everything is rosy'

[daenku32]

Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%...


[I]The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in the Obama Administration.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1910208,00.html
So you realize that the number is based on hypothetical bill that didn't actually exist? That the "below 8%" was a benchmark they were shooting for when determining how big the eventual stimulus should be.

What we and them got in March--two months after this figure was announced--the stimulus was vastly different, as was the baseline as well. The stimulus we received was not what the White House or at lot of economists were hoping for.

To say that the March stimulus failed to do what Obama had promised, is to assume the bill Obama signed was the one he wanted in the first place.

[kuroyume0161]

I see someone is going through a "F--- The Establishment" and a "Cool Existential Despair" stage all at once.

Well, I've always been a FTE type. Not really getting the CED reference. Do you really trust the government and big business to look after your well-being? (see every war, Katrina, BP, 9/11, Lobbyists, Golden parachutes, Exxon, Enron, Bush, Reagan, McCarthy, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.). You are fodder for others to step on as they ascend to 'glory'. This is the real world - few are happy and wealthy. The middle class in the US is vanishing. There is actual data to back that up. But ignore it, please. ;)

And there was no aristocracy in France in the late 18th Century - the starving peasants just imagined they were being starved to death while the posh few partied to extremes not seen since decadent Rome. There's no data to back that up either, I suppose...

[daenku32]

...when the 8.5% number was floated. It's something like learning there was another well in the gulf leaking the whole time that no one knew about.

However, it's still the administration's fault for making bold declarations before good information was available then dancing around like the crisis was over once they passed the bill. ..

I know you put these two events on different paragraphs, but people are still going to think it happened around the same time.

[dudalb]

Well, I've always been a FTE type. Not really getting the CED reference. Do you really trust the government and big business to look after your well-being? (see every war, Katrina, BP, 9/11, Lobbyists, Golden parachutes, Exxon, Enron, Bush, Reagan, McCarthy, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.). You are fodder for others to step on as they ascend to 'glory'. This is the real world - few are happy and wealthy. The middle class in the US is vanishing. There is actual data to back that up. But ignore it, please. ;)

And there was no aristocracy in France in the late 18th Century - the starving peasants just imagined they were being starved to death while the posh few partied to extremes not seen since decadent Rome. There's no data to back that up either, I suppose...



And your solution is............

[themusicteacher]

I see the economic illiterates are out in force. This is why too much information can be a bad thing to the highly uneducated masses and then you give them an open forum (the internet) to say whatever the hell they want. Not a good combination.

1. The recession was a lot worse than anyone really thought it would be or would care to admit
2. The GOP blocked any additional stimulus efforts and economists debate that if it had been bigger, things would be better by now (but we know how good they are at predictions).
3. Now that they've been bailed out and are sitting on large piles of cash, are these companies hiring? Not a chance. You can accuse them of being cautious but the bottom line is that they came with their hand out (how capitalistic is that?) and now are giving a big middle finger to those who gave them help: the taxpayer. Who's the villain now?
5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.
6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.
7. Given all of the above, how well do you think we'd have fared had we done nothing? If you think we'd be back to 2005's "normal," (this is the "the market is self-regulating and will fix itself" line of argument) you're not just delusional and dishonest, you're stupid. Even the Great I Am W thought we needed stimulus and he enacted a rather large one that people conveniently forget about when laying this at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Not to mention he started two unfunded wars that are still ongoing, gave tax cuts to millionaires (that worked well to grow the fake economy, though) and generally f'ed the place up. Certainly there is a lot of culpability to go around but at least be honest about it.

[TraneWreck]

I know you put these two events on different paragraphs, but people are still going to think it happened around the same time.

Sure, but there were a lot of claims made before and after the bill passed.

For me, one consistent source of frustration with the Obama administration is that they never express their ideals. With health care, for example, we never learned what sort of bill Obama wanted, just what he thought he could pass. They do this, I'm guessing, so that they can take credit for whatever emerges.

They did the same thing with the stimulus. Romer was clear that the bill needed to be at least $1.2 trillion, Krugman wanted one even larger than that, but we never heard Obama articulate what he thought was necessary. Thus, when the 8.5% number was floated, we didn't have Obama saying, "based on the information we have access to, we need a bill of at least $1.2 trilion to keep unemployment below 8%."

Instead, he started out at 700-800 billion because he thought it was more politically viable. So now we're left to wonder how that happened. Did he really think that $800 billion would be sufficient? They said they could keep unemployment under 8%, then they get worse numbers, but still offer a bill based on the earlier numbers...it's hard to defend them on this one.

I can't say whether this is savvy politics. If it is, it certainly hasn't resulted in popularity, but as a negotiating ploy it's terrible. He begins every discussion by conceding about half of what he needs. Or maybe he really though his proposal was sufficient, it's impossible to tell. The fact remains that for whatever reason we ended up with a stimulus bill that was grossly inadequate compared to the severity of the recession, and it was structured in such a way that state-level cuts basically undermined the entire project.

THe fact that they celebrated so overtly after the stimulus was passed, boldly declaring that it could all be fazed out before 2011, leads me to believe that they made a colossal error. Many people warned them (including members of the administration, like Romer) that their bill was inadequate, so I find the "who could have predicted the levvies would break" argument about the crisis being worse than anticipated a little hard to swallow.

[daenku32]

So what they should have done in their report is leave the y-axis blank on page 5.
"The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thompson.com%2Fimages%2Fthomp son%2Fnclb%2Fopenresources%2Fobamaeconplanjan9.pdf&rct=j&q=%22The%20Job%20Impact%20of%20the%20American%20Re covery%20and%20Reinvestment%20Plan%22&ei=n-OYTLWhE4KnnQes-sQl&usg=AFQjCNGXyQ4Lt-vjp2rDWGmkYWwzyVW8Kw&sig2=UC1k8Iv8qYfa-tMOjxJPlg&cad=rja)

[dudalb]

I see the economic illiterates are out in force. This is why too much information can be a bad thing to the highly uneducated masses and then you give them an open forum (the internet) to say whatever the hell they want. Not a good combination.

1. The recession was a lot worse than anyone really thought it would be or would care to admit
2. The GOP blocked any additional stimulus efforts and economists debate that if it had been bigger, things would be better by now (but we know how good they are at predictions).
3. Now that they've been bailed out and are sitting on large piles of cash, are these companies hiring? Not a chance. You can accuse them of being cautious but the bottom line is that they came with their hand out (how capitalistic is that?) and now are giving a big middle finger to those who gave them help: the taxpayer. Who's the villain now?
5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.
6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.
7. Given all of the above, how well do you think we'd have fared had we done nothing? If you think we'd be back to 2005's "normal," (this is the "the market is self-regulating and will fix itself" line of argument) you're not just delusional and dishonest, you're stupid. Even the Great I Am W thought we needed stimulus and he enacted a rather large one that people conveniently forget about when laying this at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Not to mention he started two unfunded wars that are still ongoing, gave tax cuts to millionaires (that worked well to grow the fake economy, though) and generally f'ed the place up. Certainly there is a lot of culpability to go around but at least be honest about it.

I don't disagree with what you say about Bush,but the first paragraph is scary in what it implies;That Democracy cannot work, and we need some kind of intellectual elite to run things.

[TraneWreck]

1. The recession was a lot worse than anyone really thought it would be or would care to admit
2. The GOP blocked any additional stimulus efforts and economists debate that if it had been bigger, things would be better by now (but we know how good they are at predictions).
3. Now that they've been bailed out and are sitting on large piles of cash, are these companies hiring? Not a chance. You can accuse them of being cautious but the bottom line is that they came with their hand out (how capitalistic is that?) and now are giving a big middle finger to those who gave them help: the taxpayer. Who's the villain now?
5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.
6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.
7. Given all of the above, how well do you think we'd have fared had we done nothing? If you think we'd be back to 2005's "normal," (this is the "the market is self-regulating and will fix itself" line of argument) you're not just delusional and dishonest, you're stupid. Even the Great I Am W thought we needed stimulus and he enacted a rather large one that people conveniently forget about when laying this at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Not to mention he started two unfunded wars that are still ongoing, gave tax cuts to millionaires (that worked well to grow the fake economy, though) and generally f'ed the place up. Certainly there is a lot of culpability to go around but at least be honest about it.

I agree with most of what you wrote, my criticisms of Obama in this thread being tame next to my opinions of the Senate "moderates" and various insane libertarian based political movements. In a more reasonable world, when it was discovered that the crisis was more severe, new stimulus could have been passed to correct the initial flaw. In this climate, however, there was only one shot at it, and we missed. It's not Obama's fault that everything rested on that one chance.

But the bolded isn't technically correct.

Bush passed the first rounds of bailouts of the financial sector. Most of that money, as well as the money allocated in the bailouts during Obama's term, has been paid back. That was never intended as stimulus. In a sense, it would allow for increased lending and that could be stimulative, but it's rather indirect which is why the ARRA was needed.

But you are absolutely correct that the source of this problem resides in the horrifically mismanaged period from 2001-2009.

[A Christian Sceptic]

And your solution is............

not needed to think the solution we were given and the promises we were given are not working or have worked.

I've seen this tactic alot lately - that you can't be critical nor have an opinion of something unless you have a solution. Is it sort of like a reverse ad hominem?

Maybe if kuroyume0161 was in a position of power and influence having a solution might be important. It might also be neat to hear what his solutions are - but he does not need one for his arguments to be made.

[A Christian Sceptic]

I see the economic illiterates are out in force. This is why too much information can be a bad thing to the highly uneducated masses and then you give them an open forum (the internet) to say whatever the hell they want. Not a good combination.


On behalf of all the uneducated (or was it unwashed) masses ...
Please draw us stick figures instead of using all these words.

Thanks.

[A Christian Sceptic]

Instead, he started out at 700-800 billion because he thought it was more politically viable. So now we're left to wonder how that happened. Did he really think that $800 billion would be sufficient? They said they could keep unemployment under 8%, then they get worse numbers, but still offer a bill based on the earlier numbers...it's hard to defend them on this one.

Maybe $800 billion is all the special interest groups needed?

[dudalb]

On behalf of all the uneducated (or was it unwashed) masses ...
Please draw us stick figures instead of using all these words.

Thanks.

We agree on that.......
I agree that ignorance of economics is a major problem, but this kind of "The Proles are too stupid to understand it" rhetoric won't improve matters.

[gnome]

I don't see how broadening the term "recession" to mean something other than its definition helps. If you want to talk about something other than GDP growth (like unemployment), go ahead. Why appropriate a different term?

To me it's like claiming that the fire's still burning because you haven't rebuilt the house yet.

[A Christian Sceptic]

Didn't the stock market and such surge upwards during the Great Depression? What were people saying at the time - that the recession was over?

[TraneWreck]

Didn't the stock market and such surge upwards during the Great Depression? What were people saying at the time - that the recession was over?

It recovered quite rapidly during FDR's first term. He then caved under political pressure in the run-up to the '36 election and imposed austerity measures to balance the budget. This led to a second, deeper dip, and we didn't recover until WWII.

Here's a graph of the GDP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_GDP_10-60.jpg

[drkitten]

Didn't the stock market and such surge upwards during the Great Depression? What were people saying at the time - that the recession was over?

It fluctuated. You can track down historical stock prices if you like. But the stock market isn't the sole, or even the best, determinant of whether or not the economy is in recession; the stock market tends to be a strongly leading indicator (just as unemployment is a lagging indicator).

The single best indicator of a recession, if you had to pick one, is probably the GDP growth. The "conventional" working definition of a recession, for example, is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth (although the NBER uses a more complex and informative basket of indicators to make the "official" decision). For the Great Depression, we saw a classic "double-dip" recession; GDP dropped dramatically between 1930-4, started to climb sharply in 1935-6, and then fell again in 1937-8 when the 1936 election-year politics forced FDR to withdraw the stimulus packages that he had been using since his ascention in 1933. (Not coincidentally, that's more or less the pattern that we're seeing today; Obama's stimulus seems to have worked -- we were seeing positive GDP growth from mid-2009 to late 2010 -- until Republican obstructionism stalled any further stimulus funding, to the point where a double-dip recession appears to be rather likely.)

[drkitten]

It recovered quite rapidly during FDR's first term. He then caved under political pressure in the run-up to the '36 election and imposed austerity measures to balance the budget. This led to a second, deeper dip, and we didn't recover until WWII.

According to the data I have (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp29-41.jpg), the '37 dip was not as deep as the '29-33 dip. That data was for the GDP, but the stock market (http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia19201940.html) is similar.

In direct answer to ACS, yes, you could have made a tidy profit -- nearly a 4-bagger -- investing heavily in January 1933 and selling in January 1937. That doesn't mean that the Depression was over, though....

[kuroyume0161]

And your solution is............

Make laws and enforce them so that these things are not allowed. Keep the powerful from becoming absolutely powerful (they are currently reaching that point once again). But we always quibble about who is justified and deserving of hoarding the wealth ("no one" is my answer). We will never learn ("The poor will always be with us."). Need not be true but with the inequalities of our society they will continue until extinction. Next sentients, please. :cool:

[TraneWreck]

According to the data I have (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp29-41.jpg), the '37 dip was not as deep as the '29-33 dip. That data was for the GDP, but the stock market (http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia19201940.html) is similar.

In direct answer to ACS, yes, you could have made a tidy profit -- nearly a 4-bagger -- investing heavily in January 1933 and selling in January 1937. That doesn't mean that the Depression was over, though....

You're right. The second dip wasn't as bad.

[BenBurch]

I see someone is going through a "F--- The Establishment" and a "Cool Existential Despair" stage all at once.

lol

[kuroyume0161]

Edited for civility.

[BenBurch]

Edited for response to modded post.

[theprestige]

A lot of people busily re-defining "recession" here.
Not me. I'm pointing out that the definition of "recession" is different from the perception of "recession", and that people who perceive themselves to be in a recession will probably have very little patience for people who insist that they're not technically in a recession.

But speaking of redefining "recession", more on that in a moment.

I think you're misconstruing us saying 'the recession is over' for 'everything is rosy'

I can't speak for dudalb, but personally I'm not misconstruing what you're saying at all. I'm construing that "the recession is over" isn't nearly as meaningful a statement as some might think, due in large part to the fact that everything is not rosy.

And speaking of everything not being rosy, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the middling indicator really is the best metric of recession.

Far be it for me to disagree with the smarty men who have chosen this or that particular line on this or that particular chart, as their formal definition, but it seems to me that a better definition of "recession" would take into account the damage done during the downward slide, and the amount of recovery that's still needed to get from the bottom of the hole back to something substantially better.

Maybe measuring the first precipitous drop in the leading indicator to the final upward surge of the trailing indicator would give us a much better picture of the entire process of collapse and recovery, from that sickening moment when we first felt the bottom fall away, to that point when we finally felt like we had solid ground under our feet again.

Such a measure would certainly better align with how we feel about recession, and understandably so. I think for most Americans, the recession won't be over until some substantial amount of recovery has taken place. And that hasn't really happened yet.

So to me, "the recession is over" may be technically correct--and, pace LibraryLady, economically literate--but it's also practically meaningless.

Doesn't it leave you with a bad taste in your mouth to be saying "the recession ended a year ago!" just as Congress has found it needful to extend unemployment benefits--again?

[kuroyume0161]

Not even a big smilie got the point across? Geez....

[gnome]

@theprestige-- I understand, but I think you're looking for a different word.

To extend my metaphor--I see the confusion... contemplate a house fire.

When the actual burning stops, someone might say "Ok, the fire's out"... but someone who lived there would say "I'm still suffering from this house fire"--to them the event is still occurring even if the actual fire is out.

It's good to remember that ending the recession isn't the entire problem, but there are better ways to promote that than to redefine "recession" to be less precise. Better to point out how narrow the definition is, and establish a broader term. Or find one to bring out.

malaise?

[drkitten]

Not me. I'm pointing out that the definition of "recession" is different from the perception of "recession", and that people who perceive themselves to be in a recession will probably have very little patience for people who insist that they're not technically in a recession.

Shrug. People are dumb.

The flood is technically over when the water levels go down; not when you finally clear the mud out of your basement. You stop being unemployed when you get a new job, not when you've replenished your savings and paid off all the accumulated bills. The party's over when the guests leave, not when they recover from their hangovers the following morning. For that matter, as soon as the surgeon stitches you up and sets his tools down, you're no longer "in surgery," but "in post-op," even if you still feel like hell and require several weeks of rehab.

Far be it for me to disagree with the smarty men who have chosen this or that particular line on this or that particular chart, as their formal definition, but it seems to me that a better definition of "recession" would take into account the damage done during the downward slide, and the amount of recovery that's still needed to get from the bottom of the hole back to something substantially better.

"Better" to what purpose? The "smarty men" separate the recession from the recovery for the same reason the medical types separate surgery from post-op; it's a different phase with different procedures, needs, and risks.

And, frankly, the economy is already "substantially better" in almost all ways except for unemployment -- which is almost always a lagging indicator -- than it was at the trough of the recession. We're no longer at "the bottom of the hole" (for which I am decidedly grateful, I assure you). But if you waited until everything recovered to pre-recession levels,.... well, the economy would pretty much be in eternal recession. The NASDAQ hit its all time high in early 2000, which means that we would still technically be in the "recovery" from the dot.com crash. The Great Depression of the 1930s would have lasted to 1955 and beyond if we had to wait until the DJIA recovered all the ground it lost in 1929.

There are some people who never recovered from the Great Depression. There are some people who will never recover from the Great Recession. (If you were in a marginal industry and 58 years old, for example, you might just have experienced the last fully-employed day of your life.) But that's precisely why economists have an economic definition of "recession" and not a psychological one.

[gnome]

Didn't the stock market and such surge upwards during the Great Depression? What were people saying at the time - that the recession was over?

They might have said the stock market crash was over.

[Malerin]

Warren Buffett tells CNBC that by his own "common sense" definition, the United States is "still in a recession."

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/video/2010/09/23/buffett_were_still_in_a_recession.html

[BeAChooser]

It recovered quite rapidly during FDR's first term.

But who says it wouldn't have recovered anyway? Many economist now believe that Hoover's and FDR's programs only managed to turn what would have been a normal recession into a deep depression, and then prolong that depression for a decade. For example:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123353276749137485.html ”How Government Prolonged the Depression”

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx “FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate”

http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=430 “Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War”

[BeAChooser]

5. Most economists (except your run-of-the-mill Chicago school fundy) agree that the stimulus saved millions of jobs and kept us from going into a deeper hole.

LOL!

Just curious. If that's true, how do you explain this chart?

https://www.americancentury.com/images/WMUchart-weekOf-Aug02-10-2.gif

Can it be any clearer that the Stimulus didn't work? We recovered from all those other recessions noted in the chart, some deeper than the one we were in at the time the stimulus and other nonsense was proposed and passed, and obviously did so much, much faster than the current recovery. Without much in the way of stimulus either. How do you explain that?

As http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=548288 notes

We have fewer jobs today than we did a year ago. And since Obama took office, we've lost about 4 million of them. Unemployment stands at 9.6% — higher than it was in June 2009, when the "recovery" began. This is what $700 billion in bailouts, $862 billion in "stimulus," $1.4 trillion in new money printed by the Fed and $2.9 trillion in federal deficits in just two years get you. Nothing.

:D

6. With the size and scope of the recession, getting back to 5 or 6% unemployment will take a lot longer than a few years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that, you can excuse yourself from an honest debate.

LOL! Speaking of intellectual honesty … let's see how you respond to the above and the following facts? Many economists are now saying that we probably won't see unemployment below 9% through 2012. Even the CBO is saying it will likely still be over 8%. And that's assuming Obama changes his ways. Meanwhile, what's unemployment currently doing? Going back up. Yet here's what unemployment did over the period of time in all those other recessions mentioned in the above linked chart where by now we were already well on the road to a full recovery:

http://0.tqn.com/d/uspolitics/1/0/R/P/unemployment_rate_annotated.jpg

As you can see, in case after case, there were very rapid declines in unemployment after recessions. In particular note what happened after the 1981-82 recession, where unemployment actually exceeded the peak seen *so far* in the current recession. It was below 7% in a year and a half (a drop of nearly 4%). A drop of 4 percent here would take us back down to your 6% range. It dropped another percent or so in the following year and half. Yet here we are being told to expect unemployment to stay above 9 percent for 3 years after the so called recovery began. :rolleyes:

[lomiller]

LOL!

Just curious. If that's true, how do you explain this chart?

https://www.americancentury.com/images/WMUchart-weekOf-Aug02-10-2.gif


It apparently shows you can't read even when you have pictures to help. The line stops going down and starts going up right at the 15 - 18 month mark That's Apr -June 2009 when the stimulus money starts to flow.

[joobz]

We have fewer jobs today than we did a year ago. And since Obama took office, we've lost about 4 million of them. Unemployment stands at 9.6% — higher than it was in June 2009, when the "recovery" began. This is what $700 billion in bailouts, $862 billion in "stimulus," $1.4 trillion in new money printed by the Fed and $2.9 trillion in federal deficits in just two years get you. Nothing.

Wow, you just quoted a source that was complaining that Tarp was a failure?

Yikes. Not much for reality are they?

[BeAChooser]

It apparently shows you can't read even when you have pictures to help. The line stops going down and starts going up right at the 15 - 18 month mark That's Apr -June 2009 when the stimulus money starts to flow.

LOL! Is that all you see in that chart, lomiller? :rolleyes:

Since you apparently want to ignore it's content, you might as well ignore this one, too:

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/images/wmuchart-weekof-aug02-10-1_000.gif

It shows the cumulative percentage change in non-farm employment. Look how distinctly different the current recession is behaving compared to all the others. And note what was happening at the very end of the data in June 2010. Unemployment was increasing again. Oh my. :D

Oh … and by the way … the government was pumping money and uncertainty into this recession long before the Apr-June 2009 timeframe. Did you forget that? :)

[BeAChooser]

Wow, you just quoted a source that was complaining that Tarp was a failure?

Yikes. Not much for reality are they?

LOL! So you think TARP was a success? Let's see what some others think.

Like the Inspector General for the program …

http://247wallst.com/2010/01/31/inspector-general-calls-much-of-tarp-a-failure/


January 31, 2010

The Office of The Special Inspector General for The Troubled Asset Relief Program said in a quarterly report that the program may have saved the banking system but that it has so far failed to reach all of its other goals.

Key highlights of the report:

‘Many of TARP’s stated goals, however, have simply not been met. Despite the fact that the explicit goal of the Capital Purchase Program (“CPP”) was to increase financing to U.S. businesses and consumers, lending continues to decrease, month after month, and the TARP program designed specifically to address small-business lending — announced in March 2009 — has still not been implemented by Treasury. Notwithstanding the fact that preserving homeownership and promoting jobs were explicit purposes of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (“EESA”), the statute that created TARP, nearly 16 months later, home foreclosures remain at record levels, the TARP foreclosure prevention program has only permanently modified a small fraction of eligible mortgages, and unemployment is the highest it has been in a generation."


http://washingtonindependent.com/27205/the-failure-of-tarp


As the economy continues to sink, the Wall Street Journal today documents an increasingly obvious fact: Most of the big banks that got a total of $148 billion in taxpayer money didn’t use it to make loans. Instead, lending activity at 10 of the 13 banks that received funds under the Troubled Assets Relief Program actually declined by 1.4 percent in the last quarter, the Journal reports.

… snip …

From the Journal:


“It has failed,” said Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at Duke University’s business school. “Basically we have dropped a huge amount of money … and we have nothing to show for what we actually wanted to happen.”



And hot off the presses …

http://www.property-casualty.com/News/2010/9/Pages/New-Report-Casts-Doubt-On-Governments-AIG-Investment-TARP.aspx


9/16/2010

… snip …

The Congressional Oversight Panel’s September report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—called “Assessing the TARP on the Eve of Its Expiration”— also carries other distressing news.

It acknowledges that the program provided “critical support” to the financial markets at a time when market confidence was in freefall, but it states the program has been far less effective in meeting its other statutory goals, such as supporting home values, retirement savings, and economic growth.


Wow! What a success. Why that is almost as big a success as … well … the stimulus. :) And of course, it was such a success that Obama had to step in and pledge to overhaul TARP. Although it isn't clear that ever happened. :D

And say we agreed that TARP was a success (not that I am doing any such thing). Well then, who should get credit for that? Not Obama. Afterall, it was put together under Bush. Right? :D

No, joobz … here is the reality of TARP:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-TARP-Was-a-Taxpayer-Failure-But-a-Political-Class-Success&id=4826368


- Several months prior to the onset of the TARP payments, the Associated Press reported that many of the big financial institutions that received government bailout money had made big contributions to each political party's Presidential convention. Four of these companies alone, AIG, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Freddie Mac donated a combined $3.1 million. Note that three of these four, the exception being Goldman Sachs, turned out to be in the most dire financial straits when the the bailout money became available.

- The Center For Responsive Politics posted an interesting article on its website on February 4, 2009 which listed out how much money each financial institution received from the TARP fund and how much money those companies had spent in lobbyist expenses and campaign contributions, contributions that were made to the very same people in Congress who would decide how much taxpayer bailout money those companies would receive. According to the website, "members of Congress were able to specify to some extent where the money should go, and they have lobbied regulators to urge them to inject funds into specific banks and financial institutions including those in their own districts." In other words, taxpayer money was not distributed on need and merits but on political considerations.

… snip …

Fraud, lack of respect for the free market to take care of the strong businesses and punish the weak ones, a new source of campaign funding for politicians, and a potential source of free money, courtesy of the American taxpayer, were the reasons for TARP's existence, not the saving of the world's banking system.


Now THAT is the harsh reality.

:D

[lomiller]

LOL! Is that all you see in that chart, lomiller? :rolleyes:

Since you apparently want to ignore it's content, you might as well ignore this one, too:

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/images/wmuchart-weekof-aug02-10-1_000.gif



At least understanding this one requires a little (as in very little) knowledge other then what is explicitly in the graphic. It’s sad when complete ignorance of a subject is actuality a step up in post quality.

Employment is a lagging indicator. It normally follows recovery by 6-12 months. Surprise surprise, when you work back 6-12 months for the turnaround in employment it takes you right to when the stimulus money started to flow.

[TraneWreck]

At least understanding this one requires a little (as in very little) knowledge other then what is explicitly in the graphic. It’s sad when complete ignorance of a subject is actuality a step up in post quality.

Employment is a lagging indicator. It normally follows recovery by 6-12 months. Surprise surprise, when you work back 6-12 months for the turnaround in employment it takes you right to when the stimulus money started to flow.

It should also be pointed out that THIS recession was quite different from other post-depression recessions in a number of key characteristics.

First, BAC's graph shows how much worse it was. Hurricane Katrina affected New Orleans in a much different way than past floods. The recovery will obviously not match what came before.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, this recession was spurned by a fiscal crisis that led to a liquidity trap. Interest rates were at the zero bound, so the economy could not recovery through the lowering of rates, as it did in those past recessions.

Not only does the graph NOT support BAC's argument, as you've shown, but this recession so differs from the other ones on that chart that such a bald comparison really isn't very illustrative of the major issues.

And yet it still proves the effectiveness of stimulus.

[lomiller]

Interest rates were at the zero bound, so the economy could not recovery through the lowering of rates, as it did in those past recessions.


This is a very important point. Another important consideration is that the ripples in the global banking industry were still being felt in mid 2010, particularly in Europe. The possibility of a double dip has been a hot topic since the recession started and with the stimulus running out right around the time the EU crisis was peaking it almost came to pass. Any less stimulus or liquidity injection and it probably would have.

[BeAChooser]

Employment is a lagging indicator. It normally follows recovery by 6-12 months. Surprise surprise, when you work back 6-12 months for the turnaround in employment it takes you right to when the stimulus money started to flow.

But why did all the other recessions show much greater employment (and GDP) growth long before that 6-12 month time period, and without much in the way of stimulus?

That's the question you are obviously desperate to ignore, lomiller.

:D

[BeAChooser]

And yet it still proves the effectiveness of stimulus.

LOL! The denial from you folks as to the reality of the situation and the facts is just incredible.

Fortunately, I don't think the folks who will be kicking democrats to the street in November share the same delusions.

Because the rest of us can actually see what a chart like that says.

And what it says is *socialists go home*.

:D

[lomiller]

But why did all the other recessions show much greater employment (and GDP) growth long before that 6-12 month time period,

That gets us back to your inability to read a graph. Even with the poor graphics (for this purpose) you linked to it’s clear that GDP starts to grow much sooner then employment.

[TraneWreck]

I'm sure it's pure coincidence that the countries that weathered the recession the best were also those that used the most stimulus with respect to the size of their economies or had floating currencies they were able to devalue:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/ever-expanding-government/

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/?p=40588

[BeAChooser]

I'm sure it's pure coincidence that the countries that weathered the recession the best were also those that used the most stimulus with respect to the size of their economies or had floating currencies they were able to devalue:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/ever-expanding-government/


LOL! Did you ever consider the possibility that Germany's current good economic performance has more to do with EXPECTATIONS of what the future holds, than just the amount of money thrown into stimulus? Afterall, your own source says that the Obama administration threw just as much stimulus at our economy as the Germans threw at theirs. So why didn't our economy do what theirs did? What's the difference between us? Well, for one, they didn't raise taxes. We've heard about nothing but raising taxes from the Obama administration. And more important, Obama and company have saddled us with massive new government debt, with no end in sight in it's growth. In fact, come 2020, yearly deficits are expected (assuming even the best assumptions) to be over a trillion dollars a year and rising. Whereas the German goverment announced an austerity program to go with their stimulus. By 2014 they are planning deep spending cuts. Cuts to welfare. Cuts to federal employment. Not bigger and bigger government, not more and more people on the welfare rolls, like Obama and democrats have talked about and desired. And business has responded accordingly in each case. :D

[joobz]

LOL! Did you ever consider the possibility that Germany's current good economic performance has more to do with EXPECTATIONS of what the future holds, than just the amount of money thrown into stimulus?
I fully agree. Expectations and positive outlook has a major impact on the confidence in the market. It is one of the reasons why I think ideological pundits who continually spew cherry picked nonsense in order to have "their side" win elections are partially responsible for lackluster recovery. I mean, what kind of sick, america hating individual would continually report negative, cherry picked news about america with smilies?

[TraneWreck]

LOL! Did you ever consider the possibility that Germany's current good economic performance has more to do with EXPECTATIONS of what the future holds, than just the amount of money thrown into stimulus? Afterall, your own source says that the Obama administration threw just as much stimulus at our economy as the Germans threw at theirs. So why didn't our economy do what theirs did? What's the difference between us? Well, for one, they didn't raise taxes. We've heard about nothing but raising taxes from the Obama administration. And more important, Obama and company have saddled us with massive new government debt, with no end in sight in it's growth. In fact, come 2020, yearly deficits are expected (assuming even the best assumptions) to be over a trillion dollars a year and rising. Whereas the German goverment announced an austerity program to go with their stimulus. By 2014 they are planning deep spending cuts. Cuts to welfare. Cuts to federal employment. Not bigger and bigger government, not more and more people on the welfare rolls, like Obama and democrats have talked about and desired. And business has responded accordingly in each case. :D

Clearly you didn't read the article or the links within.

Your post was just a garbled mess of incorrect and incoherent claims. Obama didn't raise taxes, he cut them.

As for expectataions, compare Ireland and Spain. One engaged in austerity eagerly, one didn't, guess which one has the better looking long term numbers and willing investors?

Germany is behaving in a completely Keynesian manner. The crisis hit and they engaged in government spending, when the crisis is over, they're going to engage in cutbacks. This is exactly what Keynes said should happen, this is exactly what we should do.

Our crisis is deeper than Germany's, largely because we can't abandon the struggling states like Germany has abandoned the struggling European nations (both the states and the EU are unified by a currency. Countries like Sweden and Israel with floating currencies weathered the storm by devaluing. Greece and Alabama can't do this. America takes care of Alabama, Germany ignores Greece). But German austerity is as much of a myth as American stimulus (state cut-backs led to zero net stimulus).

[BeAChooser]

Obama didn't raise taxes, he cut them.

What a shame for you that most voters don't believe that either. :D

[TraneWreck]

What a shame for you that most voters don't believe that either. :D

Believe is not a relevant word.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jan/28/barack-obama/tax-cut-95-percent-stimulus-made-it-so/

[themusicteacher]

What a shame for you that most voters don't believe that either. :D

What, no smarmy "LOL"? Just because he didn't lower their rate to zero doesn't mean they didn't get a cut.

[BeAChooser]

What, no smarmy "LOL"?

Still curious how you explain this chart:

https://www.americancentury.com/imag...Aug02-10-2.gif

And I'm still waiting for your "intellectually honest" response to my observations about the rate that unemployment dropped in one recession after another, and in particular the 1981-82 recession.

:D

[lomiller]

Still curious how you explain this chart:

https://www.americancentury.com/imag...Aug02-10-2.gif



this one is explained by you not knowing how to hyperlink

[BeAChooser]

this one is explained by you not knowing how to hyperlink

You're just sooooooooooooo clever. I'll be sure to point that out the next time you accidently post a faulty link. :D

https://www.americancentury.com/images/WMUchart-weekOf-Aug02-10-2.gif

[lomiller]

I'll be sure to point that out the next time you accidently post a faulty link.

zoooom right over your head...


It wasn't the bad link it was that you asked what people thought it meant rather then saying what you think it signifies

[lomiller]

https://www.americancentury.com/images/WMUchart-weekOf-Aug02-10-2.gif

I've already commented on this. Is shows the economy declining sharply then turning around in the middle of 2009 right when stimulus money and cash for clunkers kicks in.

Now, per my post above what exactly do you think it means that the economy sucked until Republicans were voted out of the White House and turned around once democrats passed a stimulus bill?

[BeAChooser]

Now, per my post above what exactly do you think it means that the economy sucked until Republicans were voted out of the White House and turned around once democrats passed a stimulus bill?

LOL!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/tax-hikes-cometh


Let’s examine what the 111th Congress has accomplished so far. There was a $1 trillion stimulus bill that failed to jumpstart the economy. There was a $1 trillion health care overhaul that the public did not want. There was a financial bill that gave huge amounts of power to unelected regulators. And now, for their final trick, the Democrats who run Congress have decided to leave Washington without doing anything to prevent the largest tax increase in history. God only knows what they are planning for an encore.

[BeAChooser]

http://heritageforamerica.org/2010/09/release-heritage-action-launches-campaign-to-save-876000-jobs/


SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

The largest tax increase in American history is just 70 days away. Unless Congress acts to prevent all of those tax increases, 876,000 jobs could be lost. … snip …

According to new research by The Heritage Foundation, allowing taxes to increase on small businesses, families and investments will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and empower the government to seize more than $511 billion directly from the American people.

[TraneWreck]

LOL!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/tax-hikes-cometh

How does an unsupported, factually incorrect opinion piece negate the actual data?

[lomiller]

How does an unsupported, factually incorrect opinion piece negate the actual data?

Ironically BaC provided the very data he's trying dodge. Not only that he provided it, insisted we comment, then tried to change the subject when I did!

[TraneWreck]

Ironically BaC provided the very data he's trying dodge. Not only that he provided it, insisted we comment, then tried to change the subject when I did!

But he did use a lot of "LOL"s, so he's got that going for him.

[joobz]

Ironically BaC provided the very data he's trying dodge. Not only that he provided it, insisted we comment, then tried to change the subject when I did!
There's such a thing as burying someone in evidence. Lawyers will do it as an attempt to win an argument. I do not think it is BaC's goal for anyone to actually read his sources.

[Dorian Gray]

They're totally different from my credible sources, such as doriangrayisalwaysright.com

[rwguinn]

Yeah, right--the recession ended a year ago.
Meanwhile, 800 jobs lost in New Orleans (Well-paying, high-tech) this month, with 600 more to likely follow, coupled with 60 (6%) from Piper, 700 From Cessna, and 350 from (http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=181b62fb-b3d4-473e-af91-931e349f4e4c&Dynamic=1&Range=NOW&FromDate=9%2F27%2F2010&ToDate=09%2F30%2F2010&Category=%2Findex.cfm) Hawker-Beech, Aerospace is pretty dead. Looks like recovery to me...

The company completed laying off about 800 shuttle program employees this month, leaving about 600 whose futures are tenuous.
Lockheed Martin said most of those remaining are working on a component for the Constellation program -- which Congress wants to get rid of -- and providing launch and landing services for the soon-to-be-discontinued shuttle program.


http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9IIEGPG0.htm

[dudalb]

Yeah, right--the recession ended a year ago.
Meanwhile, 800 jobs lost in New Orleans (Well-paying, high-tech) this month, with 600 more to likely follow, coupled with 60 (6%) from Piper, 700 From Cessna, and 350 from (http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=181b62fb-b3d4-473e-af91-931e349f4e4c&Dynamic=1&Range=NOW&FromDate=9%2F27%2F2010&ToDate=09%2F30%2F2010&Category=%2Findex.cfm) Hawker-Beech, Aerospace is pretty dead. Looks like recovery to me...



http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9IIEGPG0.htm

Without getting into a discussion of whether the Recession is over or not.....

The Space Shuttle jobs would have gone recession or not recession with the drawing down of the Shuttle Program.
Same thing happened to the Aero Space industry in the early 70's with the termination of the Apollo program.
Aerospace has always been sort of a boom or bust industry.
You can make a case for the Light Aviation jobs beind a by prodcut of the recession..though.

[dudalb]

I think we are hung up on the difference between the technical academic definition of Recession and the popular use of the term.

[NoZed Avenger]

Deleted because I thought there was a discussion when I posted it, but then I read the rest of the thread.

[rwguinn]

Without getting into a discussion of whether the Recession is over or not.....

The Space Shuttle jobs would have gone recession or not recession with the drawing down of the Shuttle Program.
Same thing happened to the Aero Space industry in the early 70's with the termination of the Apollo program.
Aerospace has always been sort of a boom or bust industry.
You can make a case for the Light Aviation jobs beind a by prodcut of the recession..though.
GA is suffering due to the recession, indeed. It didn't help with the congresscritters getting all bent out of shape over the "Big 3" guys flying into DC for the hearings on corporate jets. That hurt.
Generally, if business is booming, corporations are flying GA (Biz-jets) to get things done. If it's bad, they fly commercial.
All the GA jobs eliminated over the past 2 years have been biz-jet relater. Piper was (is) doing a light jet, Cessna and Hawker-Beech the same
Only one doing much good is Gulfstream--and the G650 is long-range plus they had a lot of orders prior to the fit hitting the shan...

[kuroyume0161]

Whatever. Keep singing loudly to avoid the reality of the situation. I don't care how academics define anything:

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111012/recovery-looks-like-recession?mod=family-love_money

Some of you sound like holocaust deniers. The recession, which is nearly (and may still collapse further into) a depression, actually exists and sounds like it may be here for nearly a decade if not longer. As usual, I was wrong when I warned of the situation that was unfolding two years ago only to be hushed and scoffed at. For my next prediction.... ;)

Just to add: a good indicator of how dire the situation is: Walmart, a multi-billion dollar, multi-national, mega-force super company is now curtailing employee hours due to distended sales figures. Full timers are now working under 40 hours per week and part timers (like me - yes, an E/M designer with years of experience and a computer programmer of two decades can only find work at Walmart) are getting less than 33 hours/week, sometimes 20 or less. This isn't enough income to afford to live on a park bench. You might wake up eventually.

[drkitten]

Some of you sound like holocaust deniers. The recession, which is nearly (and may still collapse further into) a depression, actually exists and sounds like it may be here for nearly a decade if not longer.

Only if you don't know (and don't care) what "recession" means.

When the firemen put their hoses away and drive back to the station, the fire is out. That's not the same as your house being rebuilt.

[Just thinking]

The latest monthly employment numbers were also not very good. Although the U3 number was stagnant at 9.6% --- not a good thing in and of itself --- the U6 number (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) took a big jump from 16.7% to 17.1%. Many who are employed are severely underemployed, which makes me suspect of this 800,000+ private jobs claim. Over the span in which they have been tallied, given the large percentage of temporary/part-time jobs, just how many of those jobs were taken by someone who was laid off after a few months and then re-hired at another temp job soon afterword? Thus having added two job counts from just one person.

[kuroyume0161]

Only if you don't know (and don't care) what "recession" means.

When the firemen put their hoses away and drive back to the station, the fire is out. That's not the same as your house being rebuilt.

Okay then. What do we call it when unemployment (of a population of over 300,000,000!!!!) is estimated at 9.6% *(with good information that it is much higher) and another 10 to 20% is underemployed (moi included), housing sucks, industry sucks, business sucks, businesses are vacant (and this is both from anecdotal and gathered evidence), poverty levels are on the increase, a record number of people are on food stamps, wages haven't increased while cost of living has nearly doubled, the world sucks, and we need to blow up the planet!? ;D

It is assuredly not 'recovery' by any measure (except for the rose-tinted-glass-wearing, bloated fat-cats who are already rich and don't care).

[drkitten]

Okay then. What do we call it when unemployment (of a population of nearly 400,000,000!!!!) is estimated at 9.6% *(with good information that it is much higher) and another 10 to 20% is underemployed (moi included), housing sucks, industry sucks, business sucks, businesses are vacant (and this is both from anecdotal and gathered evidence), poverty levels are on the increase, the world sucks, and we need to blow up the planet!?

An L-shaped recovery.

[kuroyume0161]

An L-shaped recovery.

Please explain 'L-shaped recovery'? (I'm not an economist - duh). :D *

Why did you remove the part about food stamps?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/08/05/food_stamp_use_hit_record_408m_in_may/

That is factual information and not me ranting and raving.

* Ah, thanks Google. We'll see if stagnation continues or we simply have a continued erosion of people's economic situations (which isn't a flat-line but a downward traversal). Some estimates are that flat-line stagnation will equal continued downward traversal since the leveling out from current numbers has to be reconciled with increases in population over the next few years.

[Just thinking]

... the part about food stamps ...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/08/05/food_stamp_use_hit_record_408m_in_may/

From your link ... "The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday."


Can you imagine what Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress would be saying if these stats were occurring under a Republican administration. Instead, she just smiles and gleams "It's the best bang for the buck".

[drkitten]

Please explain 'L-shaped recovery'? (I'm not an economist - duh). :D *

Why did you remove the part about food stamps?

Because it wasn't particularly relevant to answer your question.

No one here is denying that things suck, and I don't think anyone here is minimizing your personal pain. I still have a job, and not a day goes by that I don't find myself thinking "there but for the Grace of God go I."

But rhetoric and rants aren't really helpful to the process of getting the economy back on its feet, or the process of turning the L-shaped recovery in to a U-shaped one (yes, there's a whole alphabet soup of them). And one of the things that is helpful is figuring out what the current situation is. Are we in a recession ("things are getting worse"), or are we in a stagnation ("things just aren't getting any better")? Because there are different things that need to be addressed at different stages.

[Just thinking]

Are we in a recession ("things are getting worse"), or are we in a stagnation ("things just aren't getting any better")? Because there are different things that need to be addressed at different stages.

Or, perhaps different sectors of the economy are behaving differently. I'm not disagreeing with you, it's just that some aspects can be regarded as still contracting while some are stagnant (at poor levels) and some are growing. To lump it all together (while technically/mathematically doable) in a way to put a smiley on the overall economy, it doesn't offset the aspects that are still hurting, which are not negligible.

[daenku32]

Now because these kind of reports come out so greatly delayed, this time next year they may release a report stating that we double-dipped this summer, and that we are currently in recession as well.

[BeAChooser]

But rhetoric and rants aren't really helpful to the process of getting the economy back on its feet, or the process of turning the L-shaped recovery in to a U-shaped one (yes, there's a whole alphabet soup of them).

Maybe a better question to ask is what made this an L-shaped recovery (has recovery really started happening yet, by the way?) in the first place? Because that might point to a solution. :D

[joobz]

Maybe a better question to ask is what made this an L-shaped recovery (has recovery really started happening yet, by the way?) in the first place? Because that might point to a solution. :D

I see it by looking at our most recent career fair on campus.
two years ago, practically no company was hiring. The number of companies at the career fair was down by ~40 % and those who were there weren't generally resumes. Students graduated with only ~ half having jobs.

Last year, more companies came, and about 80-90% of our graduates had job offers by the time they graduated in may.

This year, our job fair was packed to the rafters. Students had 2-4 interviews on average (for both internships AND jobs). I expect a number of them to have offers by the end of this semester, well before they actually graduate.


So, yes. I do see recovery.

[timhau]

That's no good, that's a fact-based argument. Try argument by LOL, and add a big green smiley to the end.

[lomiller]

Maybe a better question to ask is what made this an L-shaped recovery (has recovery really started happening yet, by the way?) in the first place? Because that might point to a solution. :D

The countries experiencing more of a U shape recover have a few things in common. The first is that their banking systems are stronger either because they didn’t crash as hard or received more help then the US system.


The second is that they were both willing and able to increase spend the money required to stimulate their economies. IOW they were more fiscal responsible between 2002-2008 and spent in 2009-2010 instead of spending between 2002-2008 and then trying to cut back 2009-2010. Despite the deficits the US was running under Bush it could still afford enough fiscal stimulus to promote a recovery, unfortunately dogmatic political opposition to sound policy has stifled any growth.

[Francesca R]

Maybe a better question to ask is what made this an L-shaped recovery [ . . . ] in the first place?I think the most likely candidates are a severe housing bust and a financial sector crisis.

Because that might point to a solution. Read Reinhart & Rogoff's writing on the matter perhaps.

[BeAChooser]

I think the most likely candidates are a severe housing bust and a financial sector crisis.

Ah, but yourself why both occurred. Dig a little deeper then democrats normally do. :D

[drkitten]

Maybe a better question to ask is what made this an L-shaped recovery (has recovery really started happening yet, by the way?) in the first place? Because that might point to a solution. :D

Insufficient stimulus size.

The countries that had a large (in proportion to their economy) stimulus tended to experience a V-shaped recovery.

The countries that had a moderate (in proportion to their economy) stimulus tended to experience an L-shaped one.

The countries that had no stimulus or that had austerity measures forced upon them are still in active decline (i.e. still in recession).

Of course, since the USA was ground zero for most of the structural problems leading up to the recovery (most notably the housing bubble, the CDO mess, and the lack of lending standards), economists also pointed out that the recession would hit the US more severely than many other places, and so the stimulus would need to be concomittantly larger.

This isn't news -- the reality-influenced section of the economics profession pointed this out in late 2008, and pointed out that the planned stimulus was too small and would result in at best an L-shaped recovery.

[BeAChooser]

The countries experiencing more of a U shape recover have a few things in common. The first is that their banking systems are stronger either because they didn’t crash as hard or received more help then the US system. The second is that they were both willing and able to increase spend the money required to stimulate their economies.

I presume Germany is one of the countries you mean?

Let's take a closer look and see if you are painting a complete picture.

These articles have a different view than you for the cause of their recovery …

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE67U19520100831


Aug 31, 2010

German unemployment fell in August to its lowest since November 2008

… snip ...

Exports have driven the rebound but consumer morale, long seen as Germany's weak point, is also increasingly upbeat.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-31/german-unemployment-drops-for-14th-month-as-rising-exports-bolster-economy.html


German unemployment declined for a 14th month in August after surging exports and investment fuelled record economic growth in the second quarter.

… snip …

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet is tomorrow set to approve a second package of spending cuts and revenue-raising measures to tackle the budget gap


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/broken-europe/hope-germanys-secret-to-recovery/article1659177/


Aug. 01, 2010

… snip …

While the rest of Europe is just beginning to crawl out of crisis and into the first tentative rays of growth and recovery, Germany is positively booming. Export sales are up dramatically, spurred especially by Chinese sales

… snip …

Germany did something different. While its neighbouring countries spent hundreds of billions bailing out banks, financing infrastructure and stimulating the economy (they just described Bush and Obama's approach, by the way :D), Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative-liberal coalition government also took a very large, unique gamble by spending huge sums of money bailing out its work force.

In a system known as kurzarbeit, or “short-time work,” the German government pays up to two-thirds of the salary of employees who would otherwise be laid off, as long as they remain employed. The employer is expected to cover any hours actually worked and to keep up their pension and benefit payments.

… snip …

For Germany, it has been a huge gamble, for if the economic downturn lasts beyond 2010, the cost of having millions of private-sector employees effectively on the state payroll will become unaffordable and counterproductive, triggering an even worse crisis.


Now before going on, I would point out that the US has also recovered from many, many recessions that were no more severe than what Germany experienced in just as fast a manner without kurzarbeit … simply by doing nothing, so it's not entirely provable that kurzarbeit did anything that wouldn't have happened anyway had Germany done nothing.

And here's one more article …

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2010/08/german-employmentposner.html


All these countries [including Germany] except Australia had before the economic crisis a higher personal savings rate than the United States. And all without exception derived a much higher fraction of their national income from exports than the United States. Because of our very low personal savings rate, and the (related) fact that most savings were in the form of home equity and (directly or indirectly) common stock, the crash of 2008 ushered in a protracted period of stagnant consumption spending as frightened American consumers increased their personal savings rate from 1.7 percent three years ago to 6.4 percent today. Producers and distributors in the third quarter of 2008 and in 2009 could foresee a sustained period of subpar demand, and so laid off many workers and have been slow to rehire them, anticipating that demand for goods and services will not increase substantially for some time.

In other advanced economies, higher personal savings and greater reliance on export earnings created expectations of more rapid economic recovery. Consumers would have less incentive to increase their savings further and thus reduce consumption; so businessmen could expect demand to revive sooner than in the United States. They could also expect their export markets to rebound soon, knowing that major importers of technologically advanced manufactured goods, such as China, India, and Brazil and other Latin American countries, had been hit less hard by the economic crisis. The quicker a solid economic recovery is expected to occur, the less prone employers are to lay off workers, because laying off and rehiring are costly, and the costs may well exceed a short period in which employees are not busy because demand for the employer’s product is weak.


Oh and by the way …

http://www.bt.com.bn/business-world/2010/10/01/german-unemployment-lowest-1992


October 1, 2010

GERMANY'S unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in more than 18 years in September … snip … The fall was the 15th drop in a row and took the adjusted jobless rate down to 7.5 per cent from 7.6 per cent in August. That was also the lowest level since April 1992, according to Bundesbank figures.



Imagine that. In Germany, the LOWEST the unemployment rate has been in the last 18 years is 7.5%. Between 2000 and 2006, it averaged OVER 10% unemployment. Here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/GermanyUnemploymentRate.svg/795px-GermanyUnemploymentRate.svg.png . Now looking at that chart, you might wonder what happened in the early 1970s when unemployment rates in Germany suddenly began to skyrocket. Well the answer is simple. Up until that time the Social Democratic Party (SPD) … i.e., socialists … did not control the country. From 1949 to 1966, the SPD was only an outsider … the opposition party. Then in 1966 it became part of a winning coalition led by the Christian Democratic Union Party. Then in 1969, the SPD won the majority of seats itself and dominated the government until 1982. That was time enough to establish Germany as a social welfare state with unemployment steadily climbing to over 8% and rising. And you can see from the chart, after the other parties took over, they managed to get the unemployment growth stopped and it started to drop ... back down to well under 8% by 1992. Then the SPD began to regain their strength. They took complete control in 1998, by which time unemployment was over 10% and held it until 2005 ... with unemployment still over 10% ... when their hold began to weaken. As their hold weakened, the unemployment rate has dropped. In the current government they are now the minor party of a three party coalition with their support now down to less than 25% in national polls. So maybe that's the real reason for Germany's current 18 year low in unemployment rate and economic recovery. Different thinking than the sort of thinking promoted by US democrats/progressives/socialists/communists. :D

Now just for contrast, in the US the highest the unemployment rate reached during the post war period was slightly over 10.8% for the briefest of times in late 1982. Here: http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2008/10/30/saupload_unemployment.jpg . Most of the time it was well below Germany's 7.5% . In fact, during a republican controlled congress in the late 90s, it fell to 4%. Here: http://perotcharts.com/images/indicators/indicators05-640.png . In fact, as you can see from that chart, then even with George Bush Jr, who you folks so despise, in the Whitehouse, the unemployment rate in the US barely climbed above 6% after a recession and the economic turmoil following 9/11. Then, during the time when Republicans controlled Congress, it fell steadily … below 5% for two years of Bush Jr's term. It only started going up when democrats took over both houses of Congress at the end of his term.

I think there's a lesson in all the above, but those who vote for democrats just seem completely deaf to it. Deaf to history in general. :D

[Francesca R]

Ah, but yourself why both occurred. Dig a little deeper then democrats normally do. That means you agree?

[drkitten]

I presume Germany is one of the countries you mean?

Let's take a closer look and see if you are painting a complete picture.

These articles have a different view than you for the cause of their recovery

Yes. As usual, you're cherry-picking linkspam because it tells lies that comforts you.



I think there's a lesson in all the above,

There is indeed. BAC tells lies.

But that's a lesson we all learned quite some time ago.

[BeAChooser]

Quote:
I think there's a lesson in all the above,

There is indeed. BAC tells lies.

But that's a lesson we all learned quite some time ago.

Specifically, what in my post was a lie?

Back your claim, otherwise one can conclude it was nothing more than a baseless personal attack inspired by your inability to actually refute the content of my post.

[drkitten]

Specifically, what in my post was a lie?

As usual, specifically every word in it. I think the inter-word spaces were not necessarily untrue, but given your track record I wouldn't go bail for their truthfulness, either.

[lomiller]

Specifically, what in my post was a lie?


Specifically? How about the fact that you reference a German austerity program. In fact government spending in Germany has increased at a significantly faster rate then the US. You also spam a lot of false hypotheticals regarding “why Germany has had high unemployment for the last 20 years” Perhaps you should ask yourself what major change Germany underwent 20 years ago...

As drkitten points out, however, nothing in your post reflects realty.

[TraneWreck]

Perhaps you should ask yourself what major change Germany underwent 20 years ago...


I know that one. They discovered Hasselhoff.

[lomiller]

I know that one. They discovered Hasselhoff.

Certain doom for any economy!

[BeAChooser]

As drkitten points out, however, nothing in your post reflects realty.

So you claiming all those links I supplied on unemployment changes over time in Germany and the US aren't reality?

So you are claiming that the SDP (sorry, I dyslexically abbreviated it SPD in the my post) didn't come to power when I said and go in and out of power as I noted?

So you are claiming that all those European sources I supplied that indicate Germany didn't do what you claim it did are just wrong?

So you are claiming that all those European news sources and financial news sources that I supplied that say strong export growth is what drove Germany's recover are wrong?

And what did you supply to prove what you claim? One article from a far left, obama supporting blog? :rolleyes:

Perhaps you've just been misleading readers by making them think that Germany's "stimulus" efforts were the similar to what Obama and democrats pushed through in the US, when all along they weren't? My articles would suggest they weren't. My articles (and I could post many more) suggest they tried something entirely different than the "stimulus" of Obama and company.

And I've simply pointed out that logically it's no more than a guess on their part that what they did try is the real source of their recovery. Like I noted, since we've seen recoveries after deep recessions that were just as rapid as Germany has seen, in case after case where no massive stimulus and nothing equivalent to kurzarbeit was tried, how can they or you be certain that kurzarbeit (their version of *stimulus*) was the real cause of Germany's recovery? Maybe it would have happened anyway, as long as they didn't do what the US (under Bush and Obama) and so many other struggling European countries decided to do? :D

[angrysoba]

Ironically BaC provided the very data he's trying dodge. Not only that he provided it, insisted we comment, then tried to change the subject when I did!

I'm glad someone else has noticed BaC's MO.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6443283&postcount=579

[BeAChooser]

I'm glad someone else has noticed BaC's MO.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=6443283&postcount=579

I hope EVERYONE takes a close look at the thread that post you linked comes from, angrysoba. Because then they will learn your "MO", that you debate like a Truther. :D

[NewtonTrino]

I like the idea of spending some money on infrastructure. All of you should pony up and start paying your fair share in taxes like I do.

[Dorian Gray]

I hope EVERYONE takes a close look at the thread that post you linked comes from, angrysoba. Because then they will learn your "MO", that you debate like a Truther. :DNope, unfortunately for you what I noticed was that angrysoba is right. You change subjects like spent ammunition clips for BB guns, not realizing you're hemorrhaging from self-inflicted wounds - hard to do with BBs, but you are an expert at failure.

[BeAChooser]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143714/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-Mid-October.aspx


Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.0% in Mid-October

[kuroyume0161]

I like the idea of spending some money on infrastructure. All of you should pony up and start paying your fair share in taxes like I do.

I have always paid my taxes, usually my unfair share. :)

Yes, our infrastructure, especially bridges, levies, and dams, is becoming (if not already) outdated. It was constructed to be replaced in 50 years and some of it is beyond that. Some of it is in failure mode, such as that bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007. Much of it gets failing marks for integrity. New roads, bridges, dams, levies, pipes (as in the numerous mains breaks recently), buildings, railways not only increase employment but improve safety and reduce injuries and fatalities from failures.

The U.S. is slowly reaching for that Second World status...