[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Buggy', ' '). . . The hand has been played, the game is rigged, and September of 2010 will go down in history as the month the Great Recession was officially laid to rest. Look for unemployment to drop to 9% or below, for the DOW to break 11,500, for the housing market to rebound, for lending to expand, the GDP to grow at 5.8% and for pigs the money to [start] fly[ing]. Yessir, it’s gonna be a grand ol’ time.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'T')he recession was over a year ago.

[efarmer]

You had me all excited Buggy, I was drooling on the keyboard and I felt my breath quicken as I read until the air was whistling out of my nostrils so loud my ears began to ring.

Then I got to the part about pigs flying. I have made a hog out of myself while eating honey roasted peanuts on airliners in my day, but I know for sure that pigs can't fly.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'T')he recession was over a year ago.

[Pops]

Q: Why doesn't the committee accept the two-quarter definition?

A: The committee's procedure for identifying turning points differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways. First, we do not identify economic activity solely with real GDP, but use a range of indicators. Second, we place considerable emphasis on monthly indicators in arriving at a monthly chronology. Third, we consider the depth of the decline in economic activity. Recall that our definition includes the phrase, "a significant decline in activity. Fourth, in examining the behavior of domestic production, we consider not only the conventional product-side GDP estimates, but also the conceptually equivalent income-side GDI estimates. The differences between these two sets of estimates were particularly evident in 2007 and 2008.

FAQ

[Lore]

The U.S. Economic Conundrum

As it stands right now, there is no real end to the current recession, or at least what will feel like recession to most, for several reasons. For all the machinations by the media bobble heads, it’s not all that hard to figure out.

1) The last 30 years has seen real wages adjusted for inflation stagnate for the majority of American workers and consumers. This, while the top 1% has seen their wages increase by 300%. There are simply not enough wealthy at the top to help spend our way out of real recession.

2) The wealth affect of the last 30 years realized by the consumer is all but gone.

A) The migration in most households where now both spouses are working is almost complete. There are no additional incomes to expand household wealth unless we start to embrace old Mormon values.

B) The largest asset of the last several decades, the family home, has seen its value depreciate. The average person can no longer use their home as the proverbial ATM.

C) Credit has all but dried up. Many people and small businesses cannot now qualify to get a loan or to extend purchasing power and thereby debt to credit cards, or any other unsecured line of credit.

3) Globalization has led to outsourcing of unskilled as well as many skilled jobs depressing any real wage growth or job creation. Obviously lower wages result in less spending power and less tax revenue while driving those below the poverty line to seek even more government assistance. The upside is short term deflation, while sovereign debt continues to expand.

We need 330 thousand new private sector jobs a month to be created for the next 5 years just to put us back to a 6% level of unemployment.

4) GDP has become unbalanced shifting from an economy based on goods and services towards one specifically based on service and retail. The banking sector alone has grown to almost 25% of GDP. Value is mostly now based on faith and not tangible assets.

Since 70% of the economy is dependent on the consumer and they are not, or cannot now spend their way to prosperity, it is little wonder that big business is sitting on almost 2 trillion dollars in capital of which it is unwilling to invest in a demand weak economy.

What I think is tragically amusing is how large corporations are still trying to push expensive durable goods made elsewhere to consumers with ravaged pocketbooks and no prospects other then to make what will amount to a subsistence level living.

You may question, who will be able to afford to buy the Chevy Volt of the future?

[Plantagenet]

If we aren't in a (weak) recovery now, then why did Obama and Biden go around boasting about this being "RECOVERY SUMMER"?



Surely you don't think Obama and Biden and the crack economic team they've assembled at the White House are wrong when they boast about "green shoots" and GDP growing (when its actually going back down again) all the jobs they've created or saved (when millions of jobs have been lost and the number of unemployed and underemployed is at ca. 22%) and how they are responsible for the great recovery we have having in what they boastfully call "recovery summer"?

[dinopello]

We just had a new haircut place open that is hiring...

It's a bargain !


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')espite its chic appearance, Urban Halo isn’t geared toward the high-end customer, says Noufal, who expects most of his customers to follow him to the new store. Haircuts at the salon start at $65.

[Buggy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'L')ore, nice summary.

[Buggy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('efarmer', 'Y')ou had me all excited Buggy, I was drooling on the keyboard and I felt my breath quicken as I read until the air was whistling out of my nostrils so loud my ears began to ring.

Then I got to the part about pigs flying. I have made a hog out of myself while eating honey roasted peanuts on airliners in my day, but I know for sure that pigs can't fly.

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')espite its chic appearance, Urban Halo isn’t geared toward the high-end customer, says Noufal, who expects most of his customers to follow him to the new store. Haircuts at the salon start at $65.

[Plantagenet]

The official group that sets the beginnings and end dates for recession has determined that the recession ended 15 months ago---in June 2009.

What the US is dealing with now is not a recession...but an extremely weak, jobless recovery. The recession ended in June 2009

Obama's foolish economic policies of raising taxes on dividends and capital gains and increasing taxes on small business and increasing regulations on business through Obamacare rules and the various bailout programs and threatening "tax and cap" bills and creating huge deficits have all worked to weaken the private sector in the US and inhibit job creation, creating the very weak recovery we are in and raising the risk of a double dip recession.

[efarmer]

Well Plant, the man took a corpse and made it into a marionette.
It failed to meet with Lazarus caliber work without doubt.
America is too mad to be told how screwed they are lest they hurt themselves worse.
So do we tell them someone stole their future and we need to go kill them to get it back or that we are going to start over and rebuild something from a set of plans next?

I saw Bush and you see Obama as the symbol of all of the ignorance and hubris and abandonment of principle and logic that plagues the nation and the world. But they are men, and more temporary than the convergence of issues that are being faced and subjected to our treasured approach, and that is to pin it all on a small identifiable object and offer it up for atonement.

This is indistinguishable from the ancient practice of making burnt offerings for good hunting or weather.

[ian807]

Presidents since Carter have been mere puppets. They serve to distract the people from the real issues, and the puppet masters themselves.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', ' ')increasing taxes on small business

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', ' ')increasing taxes on small business

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', ' ')increasing taxes on small business

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', ' ')increasing taxes on small business