The light at the end of the tunnel is a train people. Once the sugar high euphoria wears off this Govt stimulus, we are going to crash hard. They don’t know how to exit out of the alphabet soup of government spending (TALF, TARP, etc) that is barely propping up the financial industry. We are bankrupting the world’s governments just so we don’t have to fully face this economic downturn.

Face the music, America is bankrupt.

I met a commercial realtor who actually told me things were going to get much worse and told me to hold off on a lease until the collapse comes…

This has to be ultimate buy signal.

Do you know if this commercial realtor was bullish in 2006/2007

To Kary’s point, I’d like to play a little game:

For all the Bulls out there, give me the positive news that makes you believe that things are improving, and I’ll tell you how its bogus.

Rising equity markets

Touche-

The massive, unprecedented amount of layoffs simply could not continue forever (I believe 660/mo was the most). The idea that only 200k lost jobs is a good thing is truly laughable. Show me postitive numbers before we can claim recovery.

As for the unemployment numbers that ‘decreased’…this was simply due to the number of people whose benefits expired.

RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 36 – Personally I view that more as “not as bad” news, rather than “good” news. 250,000 jobs lost in a single month definitely still qualifies as bad news in my book. Job gains would be good news.

Thinking about this further, I think they’re saying that you need a gain of 250k just to maintain unemployment levels. So Tim, quit being so bullish! ;-)

Seriously, assuming that’s the case, that shows how many people dropped out last month for the unemployment rate to drop .1%.

How are the declining levels of job losses (to about 250k last month from about 800k earlier) not good news?

Is it because there simply aren’t that many jobs left? :-D

Suddenly, it’s pretty quiet around here…

I don’t think it’s that easy to come up with some bogus positive data, let alone reliable and comprehensive positive data. Lots of spin in the media though.

Your commercial contact is gold when they give you the straight scoop.

Quick story: I met a commercial realtor who actually told me things were going to get much worse and told me to hold off on a lease until the collapse comes…I almost fell out of my chair in shock…but now I have a commercial realtor for life. Honesty does pay.

RE: Jonness @ 20 –

I think someone has a case of the “Mondays”.

Actually he wrote that on Sunday, and I thought it made a lot of sense. I’d just question whether the so-called two party system serves corporations or visa-versa, or whether it’s just one big system.

I think someone has a case of the “Mondays”.

For all the Bulls out there, give me the positive news that makes you believe that things are improving, and I’ll tell you how its bogus.

The recession being ‘over’ is a matter of semantics. A blip in GDP increase does not mean the hard times are over.

As for ‘unbias’ economists, I would point everyone to 1) college econ professors (ie. Robert Schiller); 2) long-short hedge fund managers (whom 70% say we will test March lows again); 3) independant analysts (see Peter Schiff; David Frye on SeekingAlpha.com; and most importantly 4) Ben Bernanke….Big Ben will never come out and say things are terrible, but if you think about it…he’ll ring the bell when times are improving by RAISING RATES to fight inflation.

Granted, everyone probably has a slight bias, but I’d take this group of people’s opinion over the Chief Strategist at any company or investment bank.

Most unbias economists know that we haven’t turned the corner. .

I guess 90% of economists are biased. ;-)

http://www.techweb.com/article/showArticle?articleID=219100597&section=News

If you think the current economic downturn is anything like the GD you are a laughably ignorant student of history. But I mean this recession does look really bad if you were to, say, pad your statistics in order to support your beliefs. Why stop with 20% unemployment? Hell, add in the kind of underemployed and it shoots to 27%! Add in high school kids and its up to 30%!

And your parting shot is a cruel manifestation of your razor sharp wit. You sir, have wounded me. I shall crawl back to my den in Never Never Land (bought in 2007 with a no money down ARM). There, I will rue the unforgiving deity that has taken my sweet, sweet Paula Abdul from me!

The stock market is up and that’s bringing optimism, esp. related to 401Ks. Stocks are up if only because corporations are pulling back in their attempt to stay profitable in the smaller consumer market. The relative grimness of the economy hasn’t changed much though, and most signs point to a worsening.

Yes…unemployment numbers are going up and up…..with no end…..

Sometimes I think there’s a good portion of America that believes as long as 50% of us have half way decent jobs and the other 50% live in homeless shelters [kind of like India and China]…the economy is booming, break out the champaign and let’s gut Medicare to pay for free health care plans….

Hi Chris

I’m glad you don’t think 16%+ unemployment [includes severely underemployed], but add giveups and college grads [now its like 20%+] is as bad as GD I….your optimism ignores the horrifying unemploment statistics, but agrees with MSM. Too bad MSM has been wrong all along predicting the bubble and its predictions of economic recoveries that never happenned are proof its subpar.

But its like Disneyland, sometimes opitimism makes you forget the reality outside the gates.

Enjoy your American Idol.

An unbiased economist is almost as rare as an unbiased real estate agent.

As far as the course of the economy, a year ago we really were headed to oblivion, and the poo hadn’t quite hit the fan yet…
A year later, markets seem to have stabilized, at least temporarily. But the Government is still spending like a drunken sailor, and at some point that day of reckoning will come where we can’t keep borrowing our way out of messes. This is not an anti Obama rant. He’s got his hands full, he inherited a mess, and I think he truly wants to make things better for the American people.
But he’s a politician, and cutting government expenditures right now would not only be unpopular, it would have negative short term consequences on the economy. Very few politicians, Republican or Democrat, will act in the best interests of their constituents if it means losing popularity.

I think we are mindless robots who serve the better good of corporations we mostly know nothing about. Nothing more, and nothing less. While your argument makes sense, I fail to see how anything has changed from the way it was in the past. Corporations donate their money to get their people in office, and then they reap the benefits of victorious elections and lobbying.

We as Americans like to think there is some greater purpose or justice in all of this. But in actuality, there isn’t. We toil our lives away to have a little nicer car or house than the next guy. The more we toil, the less of ourselves we actually get to experience. Fortunately, we are simple creatures; thus, we are content to abandon our true selves and strive to live in a nicer house and drive a nicer car than average. Then we grow old, wear diapers, and eventually rot back into the ground. If we’re really fortunate, we meet a compatible robot to share this joy with along the way.

The two-party election system is absolutely brilliant and serves the needs of corporations in the best possible manner. How could anybody not be in awe of such a system? Especially since we have the media available to enforce the needs of the system. It’s as perfect as perfect gets.

the economy is cyclical. We’ll start coming out by the spring. Should be a long while before prices get back to were they were. Love how people here were predicting the great depression and 100,000 median home prices. The crowing of the bears after the bubble burst was as silly as that of the bulls before the bubble burst.

To each his own. I learned a great deal from the deflation theorists and appreciate every word they said, just as I appreciate the words of the inflationists. Although, just prior to the latest runup, I predicted a strong bear market rally and a subsequent inflation-driven W was the most likely outcome (technically it’s not a W without a significant period of time between dips), I think insulting those who previously called for a depression is short-sighted on your part.

Your above prediction is nothing more than the mainstream consensus based on the current available data and adds absolutely nothing to thought pool. Excuse me if I fail to respect that. Thus, I’ll continue to learn from both inflationists and deflationists while watching this mess unfold and make up my own mind–separate from what the government desires to brainwash me to believe.

People refuse to see that we are just a band aid away from what was a complete financial break down. They want to believe that solutions have been put in place when it was just a temporary stop gap measure.

Is the government really going to run GM? No! The idiots in charge will take over. Will there be another billion dollars or trillion dollars thrown around? No. Will banks recover the losses they are taking or are about to take through foreclosure? No. The idiots in charge are doing business the same way they have been for decades.

The only thing the government is taking control of is health care and every body is upset about that. These other programs are temporary give aways to our American Corporations. The idea is that increased tax revenue will pay for it. I don’t see any Corporate executive giving speeches about how things will be different. It’s all more of the same.

Warren Buffet did tell us he was buying bank stock so that was good, and he did make a billion dollars with Chinese steel, so things must be OK for him. For the rest of us the Geico premiums will keep going up.

I think soon we will have a panic among the doom and gloom folks when they realize that they have missed the bottom.

I agree we are better now than last year, but I dont think anyone will be panicking on “missing the bottom” – not for real estate or cars. Maybe for the stock market (though we could get a double dip).

The truth is that we are more stable than we were a year ago – period. Are things great? No. But they are demonstrably better and looking, very, very gradually, up.

Most unbias economists know that we haven’t turned the corner……………

who are these unbiased economists?

You are probably considering these economists as unbiased since they hold views which you yourself want to believe in. How do you know that the economists who think we have turned the corner or are close to turning the corner are biased? You think Krugman is biased?

“An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight…. The truly wise person is colorblind.”
– Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Most unbias economists know that we haven’t turned the corner. Simply put, you’re either getting better or your getting worse: while the freefall has ended, there is still no stability in the marketplace. Without govt intervention, things would fall apart (eventually the govt has to get out, but they will be too intertwined to do that without collapse for many, many years). As others have noted, commercial real estate and high end housing has yet to falter…they must (and will) fall before we can really start to improve and see improvment.

By the way, no one talks about this, but we have 2 HUGE problems on our plates….1) tax revenues have fallen off a cliff (thus municipalities and states will be defaulting on a massive scale within 3 years); 2) the social security bubble is the 800 lb gorilla that may be the biggest problem of all for our govt….the US simply won’t have the money to provide for the baby boomers.

Great posts from both you. Completely agree.

4) on a different course.

Had we not had a huge stimulus, the pain who be much worse right now. That said, all the stimulus does is make the suffering last longer. Either way, we have to unwind from the massive amount of debt with nothing behind it.

Personally, I would have rather seen the full collapse so people like many of us would want to invest capital. As is, my family will continue to rent until 1) the market gets some stability, (not even close to that now) or 2) we buy a house from a bank that can write it off as bad debt.

I feel heartened by the fact that there is at least a wide recognition that many of the financial behaviour of the last several decades are imprudent. I am actually more optimistic about the future today than I was a couple years ago.

That said, I believe this depression has barely even begun, and that MUCH greater drops in asset prices and a much increased unemployment rate lie ahead.

Just look at Japan in 1991. Asset prices had already fallen considerably from 1989 but they still had a multi-decade odyssey of financial contraction to face (which has yet to end).

http://www.physorg.com/news168528849.html

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1304-BLATANT-Monetization-Uncovered.html

““It’s quite possible, though not certain, that retrospectively, we’ll say that the recession ended in July or August, maybe September,” Krugman said in a separate interview in the Malaysian capital. “My guess is that we’ve bottomed out now, that August was probably the trough month.””
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXgtL5wHZN8k

But that’s what I would have voted for. Don’t believe it? Wait and see!

Isn’t the big question: “How is the economy doing now, compared to when Lehman Brothers failed?”

A year ago was before the bad news hit in September. It wasn’t like things suddenly changed in September, but Americans simply had more news, or more awareness. So I sort of like the question if it’s answered based on what you knew a year ago.

I think it was October, 2007 that the mortgage news hit. September 2008 that the economic news hit. Will we make it through August without more major bad news? November? What else is going on that Americans aren’t really focusing on right now?