Recovery?

UNT90 · October 2, 2009

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091002/ap_on_...c_fi/us_economy

The mid-terms are going to be quite interesting.

meangreendork · October 3, 2009

Didn't we already have a discussion about posts like this?

UNTflyer · October 3, 2009

Headline says "Despite Recovery..."

What recovery? The GDP was down again for 2Q-2009 (making it 4 straight quarters of negative growth) and payrolls have dropped for 21 straight months.

We've lost 4.1 million jobs since inauguration day, which is 150% of the 2.6 million jobs created in the 8 years of the Bush administration, but we're in a recovery!

It's really quite sad how in the tank the media is for our current President. And remember, I'm a guy who believes that government has very little to do with economics other than to suck money out of it, so I do not blame Obama or Bush for job losses. It's just funny how transparently the media treats Presidents of the two parties.

Rudy · October 3, 2009

Saw something on CNN today that unemployment is at its highest since '83. Thought things were supposed to be getting better by now?

meangreendork · October 3, 2009

Are you really so naive that you'd think it'd improve that much in just what, 8 months?

And this is just aimed at you - because UNTFlyer has it right - very little of what economies do has much to with a standing president. That sort of thing takes a year or two really sink in. Aside from things like adjusting the fed interest rate, most economic changes are in small increments and happen over a long span of time. In case you didn't know - economies are very closely related to psychology, both in how mindsets and actions affect them, and that you always want both to be stable, engage in gradual change, and that massive changes (up or down) usually result in a massive change in the opposite direction.

Let's put this into perspective - Dickey really fouled up our program. Took him just a few years to rip up what he had in 2004 and turn it into what we had in 2006. Ideally, we expected Dodge to turn it around in 1-2 years. We're expecting to toss Dodge out this season or next season if things don't go well. A football team has what, 50-some-odd players, a handful of coaches, another handful of staff, as well as external factors like fan support, alumni donation base, etc. Each one of these has to play its role to improve a team.

Multiply that by a few thousand, add an exponential amount of external factors (other countries and their economies) and that's about what it'll take to fix the US economy. Things on the inside have to improve, and they are. At least the fall is slowing down and the last month or so has seen at least some turnaround. That's good internally, but a lot of what happens in our own borders has a lot to do with what goes on outside of them. I don't know if you're aware of this, but a good part of the reason why our markets failed is because markets we're attached to did the same. They've gotta get their crap in order with us, otherwise it's like fixing the hard drive of a computer while trying to run it on a surge-happy power supply with an iffy CPU fan.

UNT90 · October 3, 2009

In case you didn't know - economies are very closely related to psychology, both in how mindsets and actions affect them, and that you always want both to be stable, engage in gradual change, and that massive changes (up or down) usually result in a massive change in the opposite direction.

Consumer confidence is where the government leadership comes into play. If there is no confidence in government leadership, especially if there is a fear of increased taxation, consumer will save their money and not spend, causing a trickle up effect that keeps you in a recession. That is what scares me about this current situation. You can't increase taxes in a bad economy.

CMJ · October 3, 2009

On my micro level - things seem to be getting better. Our company had 2 rounds of layoffs within 10 months(last May and then this March), and were still scuffling into May. My department had lost probably over a third of it's employees in the last couple of years, and we were very concerned since things didn't seem to be getting any better even with the smaller staff. All our hours were being cut - and most of us already weren't working full time because of the workload.

Then around the beginning of July things started to pick up....and the last few weeks we've even had some overtime and other incentives to try and get us to stay over because we've had some massive weeks.

It's just been one quarter, and really only a few weeks of positive growth, but I feel a lot better. We even hired acouple of people around a month ago.

Rudy · October 3, 2009

Kit, not sure who your rant was aimed at. If it was aimed at me, my post was a sarcastic response to the unrealistic claim that some far on the far left made that simply by electing Obama that everyone would have a 2 bedroom house, a car, and a steady job and everything would be hunky dory shortly after the inaguration.

KingDL1 · October 3, 2009

Headline says "Despite Recovery..."
What recovery? The GDP was down again for 2Q-2009 (making it 4 straight quarters of negative growth) and payrolls have dropped for 21 straight months.
We've lost 4.1 million jobs since inauguration day, which is 150% of the 2.6 million jobs created in the 8 years of the Bush administration, but we're in a recovery!
It's really quite sad how in the tank the media is for our current President. And remember, I'm a guy who believes that government has very little to do with economics other than to suck money out of it, so I do not blame Obama or Bush for job losses. It's just funny how transparently the media treats Presidents of the two parties.

Come on flyer you know Obama has saved 16 million jobs.

meangreendork · October 4, 2009

Kit, not sure who your rant was aimed at. If it was aimed at me, my post was a sarcastic response to the unrealistic claim that some far on the far left made that simply by electing Obama that everyone would have a 2 bedroom house, a car, and a steady job and everything would be hunky dory shortly after the inaguration.

Sarcasm fail, kid.

Plus, if you read those claims, they were about as bassackwards as the ones the Republican and the other assorted party representatives spouted off. Besides, those weren't worth reading anyways if they were actually serious.

Rudy · October 4, 2009

Sarcasm fail, kid.
Plus, if you read those claims, they were about as bassackwards as the ones the Republican and the other assorted party representatives spouted off. Besides, those weren't worth reading anyways if they were actually serious.

Kid? Did I just get younger? SWEET! I think its ludicrous that some actually believed that just by electing obama, they would automatically get a car in their driveway. lol

UNTflyer · October 4, 2009

Kid? Did I just get younger? SWEET! I think its ludicrous that some actually believed that just by electing obama, they would automatically get a car in their driveway. lol

P36x8rTb3jI

BeanCounterGrad'03 · October 4, 2009

I think its ludicrous that some actually believed that just by electing obama, they would automatically get a car in their driveway. lol

Me too. They're idiots.

What's just as ludicrous is that some actually believed we could invade Iraq, blow s*** up, and sprinkle magic freedom and democracy dust on everything and we'd be safe from terrorists.

(Is this enough to get this thread locked? <_< )