The Recovery Thread

[antagon]

good to see your stupor has you rolling on the floor laughing. that you cant support your arguments and insults with a simple explanation only reflects the extent that your contention is comedy in itself.

'the "booze" is our massive debt', you said. quite different from the diversified picture you paint now, passing more wind in reiterating my contentions than may have been needed to support your own point.

refusal to support your claim and regurgitation of my own along with your partisan garbage makes no clearer a picture as your original post.

personally, i think we've had an intervention, the highlights of which are bordering on the limits of what i would care for the government to intervene in the national economy. hopefully our economy could make it through the summer and demonstrate that it could make it home on its own recognizance after your night out drinking.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

It is likely that the bottom in the economy was either in the second or third quarter. This thread is for evidence that the economy is recovering.

I believe that the economy is going to rebound, albeit it is going to be choppy, and there is a high probability of a double dip.

Having said that, there is evidence that the economy will soon start growing if it is not already.

First piece of evidence presented: Yesterday on their conference call, the CEO of Google said that the worst of the recession is behind us and that the businesses they serve - which is a wide swath of the economy - appear to be picking up.

Second piece of evidence: Many semiconductor companies in their quarterly earnings releases have said they are seeing an increase in shipments, and that end demand for computers and electronics appears to be rising.

Look at the date of this post.....octoboer 2009, 8 months ago.

Guess we haven't hit bottom yet as unemployment is flat, the stock market is down, and our debt is growing at astronomical rates.

 

[Toro]

Look at the date of this post.....octoboer 2009, 8 months ago.

Guess we haven't hit bottom yet as unemployment is flat, the stock market is down, and our debt is growing at astronomical rates.

GDP in the third quarter was +2.2%, +5.6% in the fourth quarter, and +3.0% in the first quarter. It has been the strongest recovery out of a recession since 1983.

 

[Toro]

Anyone who thinks our economy is "recovering" is suffering from delusions. We are staggering forward, ready to fall on our faces any second. We are like drunks stumbling away from the bar stool after yet another night of heavy, heavy drinking. The"booze" is our massive debt and the coffee (stimulus) the gov't is pouring down our throats will only make us a wide-awake drunk - not a sober one. What we really need is an intervention.........

are you drunk, zander?

your statement that our massive debt is what is intoxicating the economy is not accurate. while that is a problem of its own, deflation, unemployment and fear effecting demand in the microeconomy around me seems more plausible. aggregate trends show this to be the case nationwide... worldwide.

having labeled so many delusional, maybe you can vindicate yourself from that label and explain the mechanism whereby the national debt is affecting an economic drag.

maybe you cant.

Maybe I can, but I am not your college professor, look it up yourself.

You've already made a complete ass of yourself with your inane comments regarding Austrian economic theory, now you cannot see how government debt at 90% of GDP and climbing is a drain on the economy?

It is never simply one thing that crashes an economy, it is a combination of events and policies. We have deflation, high unemployment, the social mood is negative, govt debt is at 90% of GDP and climbing, we have two wars to fund, and we have an inexperienced, anti-business, incompetent President, and unfunded mandates to pay for. In short, we need a major intervention..........Clear enough?

The national debt is not causing a drag.

The way it causes a drag is if increases in aggregate interest payments offset increases in aggregate demand. But that is not happening. If it were happening, you would see interest rates rising, but interest rates have fallen. Aggregate demand is rising. The debt may be a drag in the future - I'm certain it will be in fact - but it is not now.

 

[Zander]

good to see your stupor has you rolling on the floor laughing. that you cant support your arguments and insults with a simple explanation only reflects the extent that your contention is comedy in itself.

'the "booze" is our massive debt', you said. quite different from the diversified picture you paint now, passing more wind in reiterating my contentions than may have been needed to support your own point.

refusal to support your claim and regurgitation of my own along with your partisan garbage makes no clearer a picture as your original post.

personally, i think we've had an intervention, the highlights of which are bordering on the limits of what i would care for the government to intervene in the national economy. hopefully our economy could make it through the summer and demonstrate that it could make it home on its own recognizance after your night out drinking.

Any 6th grader can tell you why government borrowing on a massive scale can be a drag on the economy. Surely you possess the intellectual horsepower to operate GOOGLE if you are unfamiliar with the concept?

Stop trolling, it makes you look stupid.

.

 

[Toro]

Any 6th grader can tell you why government borrowing on a massive scale can be a drag on the economy. Surely you possess the intellectual horsepower to operate GOOGLE if you are unfamiliar with the concept?

Stop trolling, it makes you look stupid.

.

Zander

Explain how.

We are in a massive debt deflation, deleveraging with enormous excess capacity in the economy. How is it a drag when government debt replaces private debt that is being destroyed?

 

[Zander]

are you drunk, zander?

your statement that our massive debt is what is intoxicating the economy is not accurate. while that is a problem of its own, deflation, unemployment and fear effecting demand in the microeconomy around me seems more plausible. aggregate trends show this to be the case nationwide... worldwide.

having labeled so many delusional, maybe you can vindicate yourself from that label and explain the mechanism whereby the national debt is affecting an economic drag.

maybe you cant.

Maybe I can, but I am not your college professor, look it up yourself.

You've already made a complete ass of yourself with your inane comments regarding Austrian economic theory, now you cannot see how government debt at 90% of GDP and climbing is a drain on the economy?

It is never simply one thing that crashes an economy, it is a combination of events and policies. We have deflation, high unemployment, the social mood is negative, govt debt is at 90% of GDP and climbing, we have two wars to fund, and we have an inexperienced, anti-business, incompetent President, and unfunded mandates to pay for. In short, we need a major intervention..........Clear enough?

The national debt is not causing a drag.

The way it causes a drag is if increases in aggregate interest payments offset increases in aggregate demand. But that is not happening. If it were happening, you would see interest rates rising, but interest rates have fallen. Aggregate demand is rising. The debt may be a drag in the future - I'm certain it will be in fact - but it is not now.

You speak as if ECONOMICS were a science.

Governmental debt and massive borrowing needs can put a huge damper on available credit to the private sector, especially in times like these where we have a fearful social mood, high unemployment, a burst asset bubble, and artificially low interest rates. It's just a matter of time. Watching this economy is like watching a train wreck in slow motion..........Best of luck!

 

[antagon]

good to see your stupor has you rolling on the floor laughing. that you cant support your arguments and insults with a simple explanation only reflects the extent that your contention is comedy in itself.

'the "booze" is our massive debt', you said. quite different from the diversified picture you paint now, passing more wind in reiterating my contentions than may have been needed to support your own point.

refusal to support your claim and regurgitation of my own along with your partisan garbage makes no clearer a picture as your original post.

personally, i think we've had an intervention, the highlights of which are bordering on the limits of what i would care for the government to intervene in the national economy. hopefully our economy could make it through the summer and demonstrate that it could make it home on its own recognizance after your night out drinking.

Any 6th grader can tell you why government borrowing on a massive scale can be a drag on the economy. Surely you possess the intellectual horsepower to operate GOOGLE if you are unfamiliar with the concept?

Stop trolling, it makes you look stupid.

.

to be more frank, zander, i'm calling your bullshit, not trying to get an education...certainly not from yourself.

i could explain how i think our debt could impact our economy, but in light of that, i won't criticize everyone or the president on the basis that it is playing a lead role. i'm arguing that at present its not the case.

you persist in not backing your claims; that i look stupid to you is typical of such folks like yourself and neubarth who think everyone not joining them in left field is an idiot. i'm honored.

 

[Madeline]

It does seem as if something is happening. The Cleveland area led the state in job growth last quarter, with a significant uptick in manufacturing. I guess to some degree, the matter of whether the economy has improved is a question of which economic indicators you rely on.

Manfacturing, home sales improve in Cleveland region, Fed's Beige Book survey finds | cleveland.com

 

[Toro]

Governmental debt and massive borrowing needs can put a huge damper on available credit to the private sector, especially in times like these where we have a fearful social mood, high unemployment, a burst asset bubble, and artificially low interest rates. It's just a matter of time. Watching this economy is like watching a train wreck in slow motion..........Best of luck!

I highlighted the important words in your post.

"Crowding out" can occur when capacity is tight and there is significant demand for credit. When government is competing against the private sector, then government borrowing drives up interest rates. But when demand collapses, this does not happen. It does not happen when there is excess capacity in the economy. When credit collapses, government borrowing replaces the demand that has collapsed for credit. Total debt outstanding from all sources - including government borrowing - has fallen since the credit crisis began. That's why interest rates are low. That's what happens when you have a collapse of a credit bubble.

There is no question that at some point in the future, we are going to have slash government borrowing. We are going to have to cut entitlements and reform government programs such as social security. We have to. The math doesn't work. But government borrowing is not causing a drag on economic growth now. It will 3, 5, 10 years out.

 

[Toro]

Good news, hiring is picking up.

In a recent survey of company chief financial officers that Duke's Mr. Graham conducted with CFO Magazine, he found that companies expect capital spending to increase by 9% over the next year, compared with 1.5% when he asked the question in December. They expect employment to grow by 0.7%, compared with the 1.4% drop they expected six months ago.

U.S. Firms Build Up Record Cash Piles - WSJ.com

And railcar utilization is high.

Rail Roads Are Running Out Of Spare Cars

Bad news, retail sales fell in May.

Econoday Report: Retail Sales*June*11,*2010

This is how I expect the recovery to progress, choppy, with good news interspersed by bad news.

 

[william the wie]

Is it just me or is this two or more threads trying to be one?

Internal factors show recovery.

The whole freaking world is blowing up out there.

Yeah but look at all those full trucks and trains.

Yeah but the EU is flirting with meltdown and so is the Far East and when they blow we're going to be in a world of hurt.

How is it recovery when more people are either losing or giving up their houses? OK there are whole web sites reconstructing the numbers that DC doctors but damn those numbers look good.

That's what I am reading on here.

 

[Zander]

good to see your stupor has you rolling on the floor laughing. that you cant support your arguments and insults with a simple explanation only reflects the extent that your contention is comedy in itself.

'the "booze" is our massive debt', you said. quite different from the diversified picture you paint now, passing more wind in reiterating my contentions than may have been needed to support your own point.

refusal to support your claim and regurgitation of my own along with your partisan garbage makes no clearer a picture as your original post.

personally, i think we've had an intervention, the highlights of which are bordering on the limits of what i would care for the government to intervene in the national economy. hopefully our economy could make it through the summer and demonstrate that it could make it home on its own recognizance after your night out drinking.

Any 6th grader can tell you why government borrowing on a massive scale can be a drag on the economy. Surely you possess the intellectual horsepower to operate GOOGLE if you are unfamiliar with the concept?

Stop trolling, it makes you look stupid.

.

to be more frank, zander, i'm calling your bullshit, not trying to get an education...certainly not from yourself.

i could explain how i think our debt could impact our economy, but in light of that, i won't criticize everyone or the president on the basis that it is playing a lead role. i'm arguing that at present its not the case.

you persist in not backing your claims; that i look stupid to you is typical of such folks like yourself and neubarth who think everyone not joining them in left field is an idiot. i'm honored.

To be frank, you're a pompous ass.

You even write like an ass ...

"certainly not from yourself"

Get a life......seriously. You're a dilettante and a bore.

 

[Zander]

Is it just me or is this two or more threads trying to be one?

Internal factors show recovery.

The whole freaking world is blowing up out there.

Yeah but look at all those full trucks and trains.

Yeah but the EU is flirting with meltdown and so is the Far East and when they blow we're going to be in a world of hurt.

How is it recovery when more people are either losing or giving up their houses? OK there are whole web sites reconstructing the numbers that DC doctors but damn those numbers look good.

That's what I am reading on here.

What we are witnessing is a meltdown. Some people are like Frogs in Boiling water, blissfully unaware that the water is starting to boil.......

 

[antagon]

sure zander. you set the bar for ass: "Any 6th grader..", "delusional" and "frogs in boiling water" are the conclusions of your meltdown theory clearly conceived from the pages of the neubarthian school of ekonomix.

 

[william the wie]

sure zander. you set the bar for ass: "Any 6th grader..", "delusional" and "frogs in boiling water" are the conclusions of your meltdown theory clearly conceived from the pages of the neubarthian school of ekonomix.

As to your criticisms of Zander I am Switzerland. But sustainable recovery has only two possible sources innovation and net exports.

As to innovation DARPA style prizes work extremely well as witness this discussion on the former DARPAnet. According to the X prize foundation investments to win such prizes exceed prize money by about 40 times. There is no evidence of anywhere near such a large multiplier from bailouts and stimulus nor is the impact as lasting. The Royal Navy's prize for a clock good enough to tell latitude is still paying dividends today more than 250 years after the prize was won. How many jobs today are still being spawned by the WPA, NRA or other stimuli of the 1930s?

Net exports is another way of saying insourcing jobs. Net exports is exports - imports and it equals total savings in the economy: personal, corporate and governmental; minus replacement investment for depreciated capital goods. The Obama administration is attempting to do this with the deficit reduction commission but it hasn't done anything so far mainly due to the fact that trying to run a budget surplus during a downturn is not politically possible without first stimulating innovation.

Without at least one of the above and preferably both recovery is dependent on economic improvement in the countries we import from and export to and most of them are not improving at the moment. Therefore the recovery as currently constituted is not sustainable.

 

[Mad Scientist]

How is it recovery when more people are either losing or giving up their houses? OK there are whole web sites reconstructing the numbers that DC doctors but damn those numbers look good. That's what I am reading on here.

I see you didn't get the memo. It's called a "Jobless Recovery".

 

[rdean]

Pickup Sales Provide Clues On Economic Health

NEW YORK (AP) -- If you want a hint about the economic recovery, follow that truck.

Pickups are a kind of rugged indicator of the nation's financial health. When times are good, contractors buy more of them to carry tools around for landscaping and lumber to build homes. Weekend haulers also gravitate to them even though cars get better mileage.

And lately sales have started shifting into a higher gear. Americans bought 151,000 pickups last month, 19 percent more than a year ago. Sales of full-size pickups, especially popular among contractors and builders, grew even faster.

 

[antagon]

sure zander. you set the bar for ass: "Any 6th grader..", "delusional" and "frogs in boiling water" are the conclusions of your meltdown theory clearly conceived from the pages of the neubarthian school of ekonomix.

As to your criticisms of Zander I am Switzerland. But sustainable recovery has only two possible sources innovation and net exports.

As to innovation DARPA style prizes work extremely well as witness this discussion on the former DARPAnet. According to the X prize foundation investments to win such prizes exceed prize money by about 40 times. There is no evidence of anywhere near such a large multiplier from bailouts and stimulus nor is the impact as lasting. The Royal Navy's prize for a clock good enough to tell latitude is still paying dividends today more than 250 years after the prize was won. How many jobs today are still being spawned by the WPA, NRA or other stimuli of the 1930s?

Net exports is another way of saying insourcing jobs. Net exports is exports - imports and it equals total savings in the economy: personal, corporate and governmental; minus replacement investment for depreciated capital goods. The Obama administration is attempting to do this with the deficit reduction commission but it hasn't done anything so far mainly due to the fact that trying to run a budget surplus during a downturn is not politically possible without first stimulating innovation.

Without at least one of the above and preferably both recovery is dependent on economic improvement in the countries we import from and export to and most of them are not improving at the moment. Therefore the recovery as currently constituted is not sustainable.

i cant downplay the role that innovation plays in the US economy, but i would not go as fast as saying that that is a reliable key to a recovery. the consumption nature of our economy is the chief component which i have seen as being crippled, and it seems to me that people just dont have the same money, credit and confidence that they had in 2006. returning that economic activity will be recovery in and of itself out here in the US.

back to innovation, i expressed here that it seems like we may be experiencing a swell in innovation at present. it requires a solid expansion, i believe, for these innovations to make their transition out of the research sector and into practical application. this is core to the drain of innovation (and innovators) from the develop to the developed, and the same will be the case for the depressed economy and the vibrant. the investment is not there. for those who have their investment act together, they will seize the high ground like apple, grabbing massive marketshare in a recovering consumer base.

 

[william the wie]

i cant downplay the role that innovation plays in the US economy, but i would not go as fast as saying that that is a reliable key to a recovery. the consumption nature of our economy is the chief component which i have seen as being crippled, and it seems to me that people just dont have the same money, credit and confidence that they had in 2006. returning that economic activity will be recovery in and of itself out here in the US.

back to innovation, i expressed here that it seems like we may be experiencing a swell in innovation at present. it requires a solid expansion, i believe, for these innovations to make their transition out of the research sector and into practical application. this is core to the drain of innovation (and innovators) from the develop to the developed, and the same will be the case for the depressed economy and the vibrant. the investment is not there. for those who have their investment act together, they will seize the high ground like apple, grabbing massive marketshare in a recovering consumer base.

Consumption is dependent on production and job growth. Given the pace of automation net job growth requires a lot of investment in innovation. Since investment requires savings I think the focus is on the wrong area.