Please explain.
Gas is $1.97/gal this morning. All pumps are working. Grocery shelves are full of food. The sun came up and the high is going to be in the upper 60's or lower 70's. I still have my job. All the people I know still have their jobs. The paper released data this past week claiming the unemployment in this state is DOWN this month from a year ago. Does the economy depend upon what part of the US you live in, or has someone been watching too many Obammunism commercials? :confused2::rofl_200::rofl_200::rofl_200:
OK, admittedly stocks are down and a lot of people are scared, plenty of businesses have gone into hiring freezes due to uncertainty in the economy.
I have no doubt we will go into a recession; maybe.....the defintion of a recession by the way is SHRINKAGE in gross domestic product over two consecutive quarters, we just got or 1st quarter and it was -.3% growth, the analysts predicted -.5%
It's ALL emotion driven right now tho'
There is no fundemental, underlying weakness in the economy right now other than scared people spending less based on fear. Which is driving a cycle of short trading, less spending by the consumer and business, and will no doubt drive us into a short term recession.
The housing market most assuredly did pop it's bubble, but is was due to pop because valuation was way too high versus intrinsic worth, and being driven by speculation of future growth based on the greater fool theory, spurred on by a push by the "do-gooders" to get unqualified poeple into homes they couldn't afford, and compounded by the packaging of these loans into real estate equities and being sold off to the highest bidder.
When a loan is made with the knowledge that the underwriter is going to take a cut off the top and then sell the loan off to someone else, then the underwriter has ZERO motivation to make sure that it is a good loan and not one built on a weak base.
We are simply going to revert back to the days when if you couln't afford a house then you didn't buy one, is that really that big a deal?
The housing bubble popping isn't any different than the tech bubble popping or many others over the years. The market and the country always recovers tho'.
Unemployment is up, but it's still less than the historical average unemplyoment rate for this country, and a whole lot less than just about any other "1st world" economy.
Inflation is threatening to creep up as well, but is still less than the historical average for this country, a whole lot less than just about any other "1st world" economy as well, and will probably remain so.
It's extremely easy to find historical data and find out for your self how "bad" the economy is based on facts not fear and media hype.
This country has enjoyed an unusually great economy for the last 15 or so years verus historical numbers. Shit, 9/11 barely made a blip in terms of recovery time.
We can all have our own opinions but we can only have ONE set of facts.
And the only true measure of how the economy is doing is
Inflation
Unemployment
GDP growth
Interest rates available to the consumer; which should be low enough to deter inflation but high enough to discourage crappy decision making based on unsound footing on the part of the consumer and business alike.
In my humble opinion the fed funds rate has been set too low for too long, spurring massive uncontrolled borrowing and spending which has made the economy too hot and too unsustainable.
You can listen to the fear mongering media and buy the hype or base your judgement on the true condition of things while putting them into perspective of history.
If your only 25 or so that's harder to do without a little research.
I'm not saying there aren't parts of the country that aren't doing pretty badly right now but if your area is depressed, then MOVE, that's what this country has always been about.
And yes there are industries that may never recover; as our trade agreements, the slip and fall lawyers suing the shit out of businesses and forcing them to do things differently to the degree that overhead goes though the roof and the cost of doing business just isn't worth it anymore.
If your in one of these industries then find another, the government cannot and will not be able to save your ass, even if the election promises say otherwise.
I've never been so sickened in my life as I am now by the "Mr. fixit" promises of how big Gov't is gonna make the country into rainbow stew and bubbleup brew for everyone.
The gov't should not be about "getting stuff"
I am also sickened by this bailout, if a business is going to fail then it should be allowed to fail. Falsely propping it up will only delay the inevitable and take up room where a more sound business could be.
The gov't can't "create" jobs no matter what they say, the only thing they can do is make it easy for business to prosper, and business that succeed are what drive our economy.
Put enough tiny leaches on a cow and it will assuredly die, and the leaches with it.
As for the market, mosts stocks, and the stock market as a whole, is entirely undervalued right now in terms of price to earning, which is the only truly worthy indicator of value.
If you had a shitload of money to put into the market right now it's the biggest buying opportunnity there has been in a very long time.
Why does everybody run like hell from the store when they slash prices? and buy the shit out the stores merchandise when they jack prices up?
That's the market right now.......
No downturn, bull market, or recession has EVER failed to recover.
There has NEVER been a single 20 year period in this countries history in which the average YEARLY return for the entire 20 year period was less than 10%, which is pretty damn good.
If your close to retirement and your retiremement funds took an unrecoverable hit due to your lack of available recovery time then you need to either kick your own ass or your financial advisors ass because you shouldn't have any significant exposure to the market when you are that close to retirement.
