Little signs that things are starting to improve

[nadinbrzezinski]

going to costco to get stuff I found a few things...

1.- The unemployment rate is over 10% in my county, which is much higher than the 6 and change of a year ago... (DUH) but it actually WENT DOWN this week... yes JOBS WERE ACTUALLY CREATED, as in 900 jobs of POSITIVE GROWTH. That is the local PBS station.

2.- Again for the state of California... yes it is high, over 12% but again, we seem to have hit dirt... (hope to whoever this trend continues... a few jobs here a few jobs there and you get things moving in the right direction)

Oh and costco... the parking lot was full and the place was CROWDED. It's been a while I had to play a game of shopping cart dodge ball in that place.

Mind you we all noticed when things started to get bad... perhaps those are easier to notice, but these days I am also looking for signs of life... and so far I am starting to see signs that things are slowly getting out of the bottom.

Of course take this with a grain of salt... as the recovery will be spotty at best, especially in the beginning.

[doc03]

1. At Krogers today they were handing out

notices for job interviews to all their customers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Those are good signs

Now when hubby comes home and tells me they are handling more packages I will be very happy. We knew things started to go sour when those packages went down (USPS)

[doc03]

3. A good first indicator of economic recovery is

steel production, it is up to 60.8% of capacity from a low of 40% earlier this year.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. That is good.

[barb162]

16. Yeah, but are these full time jobs with benefits? n/t

[angryfirelord]

20. Patience and Fortitude my friend

:)

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. YES

[doc03]

5. I've noticed Chicken Little economic gloom and

doom threads get much better response on DU.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. They always do

I posted them on the way down... but I am a student of the economy and history... I know the process.

We were THIS close to a depression... and as I like to tell people... I'd rather have this deep recession than a depression. I fear some hope for one... for ideological reasons.

As if this was a capitalist system (using Smith's definition here, not the myth) that can finally fail and crash. It did that a long time ago and it became something else.

[eridani]

13. I'm predicting that this is going to level off and people will just get used to the "new normal"

There won't be anywhere near enough jobs created to offset the losses, just as there were not in the last "jobless" recovery. Sure, it's better than a deep depression, but I wonder just how low we can go before people get fed up enough to change things.

[notesdev]

7. It's because they're correct

I'll have to respectfully disagree with drawing a conclusion from anecdotal reports, when the macro situation is god-awful and not improving at all, and the PTB adamantly refuse to address the fundamental reasons why we are in this mess to begin with (widespread financial fraud).

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Actually the macro situation is showing some signs of life as well

I will respectfully disagree as well.

As to the fraud, yes, they need to be regulated, broken down, you know the drill... but we are seeing signs at the macro level that unemployment claims are going down...

And as I said, in my area we had the FIRST positive number in a year and a half, as in ACTUAL positive growth.

You realize recovery starts slow?

[doc03]

9. No you are wrong we need to hope the US econmic

system totally fails, you know how well things were for the working people in the USSR. :sarcasm:

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. LOL

[notesdev]

15. I've been watching forward indicators for the Christmas retail season

and they are absolutely terrible... consumer imports are dropping like a rock, which portends a very bad Christmas season.

I'm afraid I see no good reason for any "green shoots" that are not directly attributable to the unsustainable practice of raw printing of money by the Fed.

[inna]

18. exactly. +1, nt

[DesertFlower]

11. i'm on the Pier 1 mailing list.

the other day i got an e-mail saying that they were hiring.

[ipaint]

12. Holidays coming up?

I always have an uptick in my tiny business after school starts. I sell handcrafted supplies to artists and crafters and people are busy making stuff to sell and give as gifts. Grocery stores where I am are running sales on baking items, flour,etc. and stores are hiring some temp help for christmas.

I honestly don't see how the economy can recover for the working classes when wages will never be high enough to replace the massive credit handed out that created the phony robust economy during the housing bubble. Seems like common sense to think those jobs created to meet that artificial consumer demand aren't coming back.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. No, these were not fryes seasonal jobs

these were in the medical sciences, technical full time, benefit jobs.

Why that caught my attention in more ways than one.

Now I guess I'd better rend my clothes and cry since we are starting to see a few good signs.

[ipaint]

25. You must have missed when I said working classes.

Continue on rending your clothes and crying.

[fasttense]

14. A reduction in the unemployment rate does not mean jobs have been created.

It simply means the rate of employment terminations has slowed. It simply means employers are not firing as many people as they once were. True certain sectors of the economy can create jobs while still having a huge unemployment rate but that does NOT mean you have created an overall plus in the job market.

[Thickasabrick]

19. Do you know how many jobs needs to be created just to keep up

with population growth? I read that number somewhere awhile ago and I can't find it for the life of me.

[NMDemDist2]

29. it's 250,000 IIRC n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. This is the kicker, for the COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

they showed POSITIVE GROWTH (that is more than just replacement jobs) for the first time in 18 months.

You understand what that means right?

[IrateCitizen]

27. It means they still have an awful long way to go...

... to catch up with the losses that occurred over those 18 months.

[barb162]

17. I've noticed restaurants are less and less full. n/t

[northernlights]

24. in my neck of the woods there are a few jobs

I just got one after a very long stint of unemployment and with $14.00 left in my checking. However...these jobs are coming at a cost somewhere else, so they aren't really new. They as much as admitted it in a little group meeting the other day. They moved out here because the demographics showed they could get a highly educated workforce cheap. (He stopped short of the word cheap and danced around for a while, lol.) I used to earn 6 figures in high tech marketing communications. Now I earn $11.80 in a call center.

So,um, yeah. Right. Things are looking up. :eyes: I'm sure I'll be able to replace my ancient car real soon.

Seriously, they gave us some scary news. This is finance industry and they are expecting another serious hit following the next alt-a mortgage adjustments.

They also gave us some good news. They discovered that India is a really dangerous place with nukes and a hated, nuke-armed next door neighbor. Half their employees walked out to join a demonstration one day, just down the road from their back office facility. The demonstration turned into a riot and many of the employees didn't bother to return. So the back office operations will be coming back to the US.

[IrateCitizen]

26. This all works out if you avoid basic mathematics and logic

Before the crash, consumer spending represented somewhere around 70% of the US economy.

This was accompanied by a NEGATIVE savings rate -- people actually spending more money than they earn.

Since the crash, Americans have begun to save like they haven't in the past 25-30 years.

So, if 10% of the workforce is unemployed (if you actually count those who stopped looking for work or who are "underemployed," it's probably more like 18-20%), and people are choosing to SAVE rather than SPEND, and the economy relies upon SPENDING to keep going as it was before, just how on earth is a "recovery" going to take place????

[HamdenRice]

30. You need to check your math

Let's say we are looking at one consumer who has a budget of $5,000 per year for pure consumption.

If he finances that consumption with a credit card balance of $5,000, then something like 10% of that, or $500, will go to interest, penalties and other credit card fees. His contribution to national consumption will be $4,500. Because he has to pay his credit card bill, he is irrationally channeling $5,000 of income through a credit card, incurring those interest costs.

If, because of the financial panic and recession, he pays off his credit card debt and begins saving, then yes, there will be a period of lack of consumption demand.

But if eventually he has $5,000 in savings and begins consuming again with current income, then his contribution to national conumption will be $5,000, not $4,500, and with the income on savings, it could rise.

[IrateCitizen]

33. I think we're operating under very different assumptions here

Yours seems to be one in which the drop in demand is a relatively short one, and once people have a nominal amount of savings in the bank, then they will resume consumption at close to previous levels. You also talked about "income on savings," which, unless someone has that money in investments making 6-7% per year, really doesn't exist, because any "income" from interest is eaten up by inflation -- and then some.

I think we're in the midst of a significant shift, not a temporary blip. People aren't in the position where they can really stop saving now, because the old security measures that encouraged people to spend are gone. Pensions are largely non-existent outside the public sector, and 401ks can't be counted upon as retirement anymore. Uncertainty around employment has people hunkering down, and actually making sure that they have money stored away to last them through significant periods of unemployment or underemployment. Finally, all of these assume that people have jobs -- when the real unemployment rate (if you count ALL unemployed as well as seriously underemployed) is closer to 20% than 10%.

This lack of consumption demand will manifest itself in the workplace, leading to a higher level of constant unemployment, which will only encourage the trends I spoke of in the last paragraph.

[Pharlo]

28. I got called back to work last week,

but I don't know if it will be a permanent thing or if it's a temporary blip due to the 'Cash for Clunkers' program. Hopefully, it's the former, because other than a seven week stint in May/June, I've been 'temporarily' unemployed since February. (If you're wondering, skilled labor in a small plastics manufacturing facility.)

[SlowDownFast]

31. 1927-1933 Chart of Pompous Prognosticators

1927-1933 Chart of Pompous Prognosticators

(not directed at you, Nadin)




Chart locations are an approximate indication only

1. "We will not have any more crashes in our time."
- John Maynard Keynes in 1927

2. "I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool's paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future."
- E. H. H. Simmons, President, New York Stock Exchange, January 12, 1928

"There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity."
- Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928

3. "No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment...and the highest record of years of prosperity. In the foreign field there is peace, the goodwill which comes from mutual understanding."
- Calvin Coolidge December 4, 1928

4. "There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash."
- Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist , New York Times, Sept. 5, 1929

5. "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."
- Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929

"This crash is not going to have much effect on business."
- Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929

"There will be no repetition of the break of yesterday... I have no fear of another comparable decline."
- Arthur W. Loasby (President of the Equitable Trust Company), quoted in NYT, Friday, October 25, 1929

"We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices."
- Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

6. "This is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan... that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years."
- R. W. McNeel, market analyst, as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929

"Buying of sound, seasoned issues now will not be regretted"
- E. A. Pearce market letter quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929

"Some pretty intelligent people are now buying stocks... Unless we are to have a panic -- which no one seriously believes, stocks have hit bottom."
- R. W. McNeal, financial analyst in October 1929

7. "The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services...America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin."
- Stuart Chase (American economist and author), NY Herald Tribune, November 1, 1929

"Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street."
- The Times of London, November 2, 1929

"The Wall Street crash doesn't mean that there will be any general or serious business depression... For six years American business has been diverting a substantial part of its attention, its energies and its resources on the speculative game... Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over. Business has come home again, back to its job, providentially unscathed, sound in wind and limb, financially stronger than ever before."
- Business Week, November 2, 1929

"...despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression such as would entail prolonged further liquidation..."
- Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929

8. "... a serious depression seems improbable; recovery of business next spring, with further improvement in the fall."
- HES, November 10, 1929

"The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most."
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, November 14, 1929

"In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect."
- Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929

"Financial storm definitely passed."
- Bernard Baruch, cablegram to Winston Churchill, November 15, 1929

9. "I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism... I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress."
- Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury December 31, 1929

"I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence."
- Herbert Hoover, December 1929

"<1930 will be> a splendid employment year."
- U.S. Dept. of Labor, New Year's Forecast, December 1929

10. "For the immediate future, at least, the outlook (stocks) is bright."
- Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in Economics, in early 1930

11. "...there are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over..."
- Harvard Economic Society (HES) Jan 18, 1930

12. "There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about."
- Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930

13. "The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity."
- Julius Barnes, head of Hoover's National Business Survey Conference, Mar 16, 1930

"... the outlook continues favorable..."
- HES Mar 29, 1930

14. "... the outlook is favorable..."
- HES Apr 19, 1930

15. "While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst -- and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us."
- Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, May 1, 1930

"...by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent..."
- HES May 17, 1930

"Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over."
- Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930

16. "... irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery..."
- HES June 28, 1930

17. "... the present depression has about spent its force..."
- HES, Aug 30, 1930

18. "We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression."
- HES Nov 15, 1930

19. "Stabilization at levels is clearly possible."
- HES Oct 31, 1931

20. "All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S."
- President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933

[abelenkpe]

32. I like 20

So when every loophole was closed and it was made clear that no one would be able to avoid paying taxes on their assets the economy finally began to improve?

So let's stop offshoring, dark pools, off balance balance sheets, etc. Return the the tax rate under Reagan.....

[Art_from_Ark]

34. I think that #20 is an urban legend.

That might have been the original intent, but all of the evidence that I have gathered says that the threat of sealing all lockboxes and requiring an IRS agent to be present when they were opened was never carried out, at least, not on a massive scale. It is interesting that a Google search of the quote turns up a multitude of websites which ascribe it to "President F.D.Roosevelt, 1933", indicating that these web sites merely copied it verbatim from some other web site.