No, I’m not talking about some podunk burg that I visited over the weekend. I speak of the “recession” that the media has been declaring “looming” for, oh, about three years now.
A funny thing happened to the economy on its way to recession: It’s taken a detour.
That, at least, is the view of a growing number of economists — including some who not long ago were saying a recession was all but inevitable. They note that stock and credit markets have steadily improved since the Federal Reserve intervened to keep Bear Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy in early March, while a series of economic reports have been stronger than expected.
Economists also cite swift policy responses, including a sharp reduction in interest rates by the Fed — to 2% from 5.25% last September — and the distribution of fiscal-stimulus checks to millions of Americans, as factors possibly easing the downturn.
“A couple months ago it seemed like we were on the abyss,” said Jay Bryson, global economist with Wachovia Corp., referring to the seizing up of credit markets and the collapse of Bear Stearns. “Things have changed….The numbers we’ve seen recently haven’t been as bad as we were led to believe just a few months ago.”
Wachovia now puts the odds of recession at 45%, down from 90% in April, and expects growth in gross domestic product of 0.6% at an annual rate in the first and second quarters of this year, followed by 1.2% growth in the third and fourth quarters. While he doesn’t expect a recession, he says growth will be very weak through next year.
I may have to eat one of my shoes here in the not too distant future if one of these Chicken Little “economic experts” actually makes mention of the fact that even with a record number of people getting foreclosed on (not because they lost their job, but because they were well employed and spent their way to the poor house), and record home and transportation fuel prices (which are still low when compared to the cost of crude oil), and the idiotic, Democrat initiated, governmental policies in regards to making fuel out of food (which, in turn, is killing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people around the world), that the Bush/Cheney/Greenspan/Bernake made economy, created by greatly cutting taxes and eliminating swaths of odious regulations, only stubbed its toe on the way to make more people more prosperous than any economy in the last century.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Nice new clothes, Emperor.
You don’t have to believe me, I’m a self-acknowledged Economics idiot, having almost flunked that course in college.
You don’t even have to believe Warren Buffet, who makes billions of dollars for himself and those who choose to invest with him, by knowing the economy.
You might give a listen to conservative blogger Brick Oven Bill, though. He is an actual Economist, who works for actual Banks, directing their investments.
He says that the indices which Bernanke et al have used (and you have adopted as gospel) are not accurate anymore, because several factors which used to be included, factors which tend to show inflation’s effects quickly, are deliberately left out.
Yes, Phil, the “books” you are depending on have been “cooked” by the Feddle gummint. Surprised? Don’t be. The GOP doesn’t want you to realize that it’s MFWICs are as powerless as everyone else to control the direction of our economy when said direction is affected so much by energy prices, and said energy prices are controlled offshore by hostile folks.
Brick Oven Bill says real inflation is currently running around 12-15% here, and the gummint is printing $13 Billion a WEEK in fiat money that is unsupported by any increase in the GDP, be it cooked or raw.
Real numbers like that pretty much put the lie to the claim that the economy is growing by ANY amount. The deficit, which MUST be calculated against the dollar value of the GDP to determine actual growth, totally wipes out any such growth number, and we have negative actual growth (recession).
So, the latest thing by the (D)onks is to declare victory on the economy and go home. Yep, yesterday they declared that we actually DID have a small recession, but it’s over, so nothing to see here, you can all go home and resume your normal economic life.
But we can’t do that, and you know it. Our normal economic lives have just been torn asunder by the actual inflation, the cost of primary goods we must buy to stay alive.
Look at your checkbook, Phil. After increasing your budget to purchase things like fuel, food and energy, you don’t have the same amount as you used to have to spend on savings, bullets or anything else.
Now you can take this long comment and print it out (my suggestion) and keep reading it until it soaks in, or you can toss it out. I suggest printing it though, for as big as it is, it will at least cover you up, and those “new clothes” you’ve been sold don’t do that, Emperor.
Gospel, no. But they built us up to a place where even the aforementioned major problems had difficulty touching us. As for the printing of monies, would you rather 50% inflation, or 12%? The feeding of cash to the banks has stopped a run on banking that would have given us something worse than a “recession”.
As for Buffet, as I’ve said before at your place, even he has admitted that he is just “lucky”, and he also notes that his “luck” has been turning on him more often than usual over the last decade because he is not all-knowing, as you are seeming to espouse.
What he doesn’t admit is that he is also a hypocrite.
He whines about the taxes his personal assistant pays, while making sure he doesn’t have to pay up to his dot-gov mandated level. Granted, even I don’t think he should pay that percentage, but he promotes ideas and entitlements that will cost you and I even more than we’re currently paying.
So unless he wants to man-up and fire his accountant and never hire another one to find him shelter after shelter, as well as take his total wealth out of his well found hidey-holes so that his children can avoid the majority of the death tax (which he also promotes), I won’t listen to a word the man has to say.
The donks can put out a press release calling for victory, but as the linked article states, we’re able to see the bodies from the car wreck lying along the road, and if we don’t stop lookie-looing and get back to the task at hand, we’re gonna hit that jack knifed gas truck up ahead.
I don’t need new clothes. I may have a ripped knee on my jeans, but my longjohns are holding up fine.
Yes, Warren Buffet is a “Limousine Liberal” who has often abused tax shelters, in fact he would be just another “country club Liberal”, rating wheels no more opulent than a Lexus if not for the tax shelter. He may even have had something to do with WRITING those loopholes.
But, I have to give him credit of the fact that he can move money around and make more with what he has, and he’s one of the best at doing that, so he evidently KNOWS the economy.
Of course I wouldn’t want 50% inflation, but when the Obama-mahdi heaps new entitlement programs and more tax breaks for the underclasses on top of GWB’s deficit, it could get that bad. He will also re-define “rich guy” to include folks at your and my income level, and our taxes will skyrocket, and not just by the $2,500/year predicted by some GOP wonks.
The rich will still get their loopholes, that’s what they pay the big bucks for both above and below the table, so the new Obama-Nation will have to be financed from OUR pockets, since we are the only real producers left if you subtract the rich and the poor from the equation. I can do THAT much math.