Well, if we want to call this a "recession", ok but we are more than likely entering into at least a mild depression or worse.
As I mentioned before, there is no stabilization in sight. It's a snow-ball effect. Loss of jobs means no spending. No spending means no need for services and goods...which means more loss of jobs and less spending. IF anyone here thinks differently, let's see your reasoning and facts to back up the reasoning. The evidence overwhelmingly points to further deterioration of the economy.
Hank Paulson said that this economic hardship will be deep and long lasting. So much for the over optimists.
If it looks like a depression, walks like a depression, and quacks like a depression...well...you know the story.
AP
Half-million jobs vanish as economy deteriorates
Friday December 5, 6:27 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
Half-million jobs disappear, worst in 34 years, as economy deteriorates ever more rapidly
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An alarming half-million American jobs vanished virtually in a flash last month, the worst mass layoffs in over a third of a century, as economic carnage spread ever faster and the nation hurtled toward what could be the hardest hard times since the Great Depression.
I used food stamps when I was homeless. It was a Godsend. And then I wrote a small book for other people on food stamps called "A South Florida Culinary Adventure."
....but did you really think the boneheads Bowers, Stoller and Kos would listen?
To a little guy like you?
Fuck no these arogant little pricks are still prancing around saying, 'We won! We won! Change is here!'
Morans.
We need to keep talking about the economy in an intelligent way. Krugman and others are pointing the way and I do believe this is something Obama will decide himself.
is Locker Associates, with a nice data table, although their newsletter is big bucks. Looks like, as of September, prices had skyrocketed...don't know about now, though
I know from a friend -- well, this is of a few years ago -- the only countries in the world that can make steel-making machinery -- blast furnaces, continuous casters, the big stuff -- are companies in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Japan. Curious how the WWII Allies can't do it.
I notice when I pass the Gary Steel Works on the train that Arcelor Mittal has some of the big buildings. But my impression is that the recyclers like Nucor are doing OK, and the bloodbath of the integrated companies like US Steel and Bethlehem has resulted in a fairly stable industry, although countries like Brazil and Russia keep trying to dump cheap steel.
That's an interesting issue because the capital investment costs to build from the ground up might break the bank.
That's another issue with this push to offshore outsource...
they ignore the initial capital expenditures, plus building up advanced manufacturing expertise in their short term thinking insanity.
I'm thinking about Steel. If Steel dies in the US and that's a national security issue, if the US later needed to have it's own domestic steel supply, just how bad would it be to have to rebuild that entire industry at that point?
Surprise, surprise. We traded corporations on who is running the country, but unfortunately Citigroup and Goldman Sachs own both parties, lock, stock and barrel.
Now we have Bill Gates instead of Halliburton.
I tried to point out all of those hedge fund managers swimming around Obama.
It's not the number I'm wondering most about (I am wondering), did you get that from a study? As a fan of the ASCE report card, I don't recall that big a number being in there -- they have "only" $1.6 trillion for their plan.
At the risk of boring comment readers, on another comment I threw around the number "2 trillion" for the dollars needed for a high-speed rail system in this country. My reasoning was that you take 40,000 of the 46,000 miles of the Interstate, multiply each mile by the approximately $50 million per mile that it looks like the recently approved California system would cost.
If you're interested in a recent estimate of "greening" the economy, I thought Gar Lipow did a nice job at Grist in a post called "How much should we spend to green the U.S.?". I also once did a very rough write-up on shutting down all coal plants by installing ground source heat pumps and solar panels to provide all heating and cooling needs, "Let buildings heat and cool themselves". I came up with 6 trillion for that, over 20 or 30 years, for all residential and commercial buildings in the US.
Robert, the U.S. had something like 40% of the world's manufacturing capacity as the world entered the Great Depression, if my memory serves. So yes, we had quite the spare capacity, and any massive rebuilding program would involve building lots of factories, which I don't think were required then. Although they produced a gazillion machine tools in WWII. The Soviets bootstrapped their industrial system in the 1930s, although I would hope a US bootstrapping would be much gentler and kindlier.
The Financial Industries are not too big to fail, Paulson is looting the Treasury. Paulson has applied "malicious compliance" to do everything he can to put a floor under housing valuation -- which is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Many of these homes cannot be foreclosed, the promisory notes have been lost in the shuffle.
Investors pulled the Subprime plug when we refused to accept Comprehensive Immigration Reform. We are now being paid back for killing the (CFR) NAFTA Highway and North American Union.
I hope my thesis in this diary is clear. There will be a bottom in volume before there is a bottom in price (probably by a substantial period of time). There is some evidence that volume is beginning to fall at a lesser rate.
In terms of price, Housing is Nowhere Near a Bottom.
The sale of an existing home does not create new jobs etc. because it does not produce new housing stock.
So I agree with you, but at the same time the foreclosure issue doesn't seem so relevant to the volume of new home sales, which is probably the first thing that is going to bottom in the housing bust.
I don't have the cite handy, but I have read in various places that the second round of resets has been to a large extent reduced. Both the borrowers and the lenders, mindful of the first wave, have taken action to recast mortgages in the second wave.
Additionally, with the Fed taking aggressive action re long-maturity bonds, mortgage rates have declined significantly -- so the resets will be to lower rates.
I agree that the biggest danger to this forecast is the plunge in consumer spending and jobs in the last 3 months.
Not quite out of my butt, but close. I want to work up a spread sheet from the ASCE's 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure, add in the two numbers I have worked up that are solid - $3.4 trillion for urban rail transit , and $1.0 trillion for the DoE unambitious goal of 20$ wind energy by 2030 - then present it here and ask people to start adding more projects, such as solar energy, high-speed long distance rail, water and sewage systems for Africa, widening the Panama Canal, and so on.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that we need a small mutiple of $5 trillion.
I believe the Fed has already pledged 60% of GDP to these damn financial institutions.
Then, on WWII, the US had a strong Domestic economy at that point, plus so much of the debt was war debt, which had an "end in sight", so I'm not convinced since the US is weakening economically, China and India are expected to supersede the U.S. very soon as the dominant economy, our dollar might no longer be a reserve currency and under those circumstances, I don't believe the US can sustain such large deficit spending.
In my view, while they talk about restructuring GM and so on (anyone except the financial sector!) I think the U.S. needs to restructure.
We pay 8 times in health care costs than any other nation and the DoD budget is out of control.
I was just looking into the spending during WWII. At it's height, according to table 1 in "The American Economy during WWII", the US government was spending from 32% to 37% of the entire GDP of the country on defense -- the Federal government as a whole got up to 47% in 1943.
If you take that "one third of GDP" figure and apply it to today's $15 trillion, voila, you get $5 trillion as the equivalent. That would be one serious infrastructure rebuilding program.
Another interesting thing to notice about the table is that much, if not all, of the increase in GDP came from the increase in the Federal Budget. Perhaps they were just printing money, which sounds OK to me, if the new money tracks the new production. Or am I missing something?
Anyway, at the rate things are going, it seems to me that the financial system will be nationalized eventually anyway. The French example is rather complicated, i think, but they seem to be doing just fine with a government-owned financial system.
Well, if we want to call this a "recession", ok but we are more than likely entering into at least a mild depression or worse.
As I mentioned before, there is no stabilization in sight. It's a snow-ball effect. Loss of jobs means no spending. No spending means no need for services and goods...which means more loss of jobs and less spending. IF anyone here thinks differently, let's see your reasoning and facts to back up the reasoning. The evidence overwhelmingly points to further deterioration of the economy.
Hank Paulson said that this economic hardship will be deep and long lasting. So much for the over optimists.
If it looks like a depression, walks like a depression, and quacks like a depression...well...you know the story.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081205/financial_meltdown.html
AP
Half-million jobs vanish as economy deteriorates
Friday December 5, 6:27 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
Half-million jobs disappear, worst in 34 years, as economy deteriorates ever more rapidly
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An alarming half-million American jobs vanished virtually in a flash last month, the worst mass layoffs in over a third of a century, as economic carnage spread ever faster and the nation hurtled toward what could be the hardest hard times since the Great Depression.
Considering the small sum of money in total for food stamps I imagine that is one good book for cooking good meals on a very limited budget is tough.
You can put up a link to your book if it's listed somewhere so people might buy it, check it out.
....AIG doubles salaries according to another post here by instapopulist. Nice work Pelosi.
I used food stamps when I was homeless. It was a Godsend. And then I wrote a small book for other people on food stamps called "A South Florida Culinary Adventure."
....but did you really think the boneheads Bowers, Stoller and Kos would listen?
To a little guy like you?
Fuck no these arogant little pricks are still prancing around saying, 'We won! We won! Change is here!'
Morans.
We need to keep talking about the economy in an intelligent way. Krugman and others are pointing the way and I do believe this is something Obama will decide himself.
Jes hope he sees the forest for the trees.
...The Big Three. Hmmmm....reminds me of something...what was that?
OH.
AIG.
How much have these crooks recieved by our legislators only too, too happy to 'prop up' an industry that produces few jobs and no 'real' product?
A fuck of a lot more thn $30 Billion and no one on The Hill says 'boo'.
The stink of the corruption in Congress is appalling.
is Locker Associates, with a nice data table, although their newsletter is big bucks. Looks like, as of September, prices had skyrocketed...don't know about now, though
JR on Grist
That's pretty much my understanding of the current state of affairs, but the Steel industry is under constant threat.
I know from a friend -- well, this is of a few years ago -- the only countries in the world that can make steel-making machinery -- blast furnaces, continuous casters, the big stuff -- are companies in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Japan. Curious how the WWII Allies can't do it.
I notice when I pass the Gary Steel Works on the train that Arcelor Mittal has some of the big buildings. But my impression is that the recyclers like Nucor are doing OK, and the bloodbath of the integrated companies like US Steel and Bethlehem has resulted in a fairly stable industry, although countries like Brazil and Russia keep trying to dump cheap steel.
JR on Grist
That's an interesting issue because the capital investment costs to build from the ground up might break the bank.
That's another issue with this push to offshore outsource...
they ignore the initial capital expenditures, plus building up advanced manufacturing expertise in their short term thinking insanity.
I'm thinking about Steel. If Steel dies in the US and that's a national security issue, if the US later needed to have it's own domestic steel supply, just how bad would it be to have to rebuild that entire industry at that point?
Surprise, surprise. We traded corporations on who is running the country, but unfortunately Citigroup and Goldman Sachs own both parties, lock, stock and barrel.
Now we have Bill Gates instead of Halliburton.
I tried to point out all of those hedge fund managers swimming around Obama.
It's not the number I'm wondering most about (I am wondering), did you get that from a study? As a fan of the ASCE report card, I don't recall that big a number being in there -- they have "only" $1.6 trillion for their plan.
At the risk of boring comment readers, on another comment I threw around the number "2 trillion" for the dollars needed for a high-speed rail system in this country. My reasoning was that you take 40,000 of the 46,000 miles of the Interstate, multiply each mile by the approximately $50 million per mile that it looks like the recently approved California system would cost.
If you're interested in a recent estimate of "greening" the economy, I thought Gar Lipow did a nice job at Grist in a post called "How much should we spend to green the U.S.?". I also once did a very rough write-up on shutting down all coal plants by installing ground source heat pumps and solar panels to provide all heating and cooling needs, "Let buildings heat and cool themselves". I came up with 6 trillion for that, over 20 or 30 years, for all residential and commercial buildings in the US.
Robert, the U.S. had something like 40% of the world's manufacturing capacity as the world entered the Great Depression, if my memory serves. So yes, we had quite the spare capacity, and any massive rebuilding program would involve building lots of factories, which I don't think were required then. Although they produced a gazillion machine tools in WWII. The Soviets bootstrapped their industrial system in the 1930s, although I would hope a US bootstrapping would be much gentler and kindlier.
JR on Grist
The Financial Industries are not too big to fail, Paulson is looting the Treasury. Paulson has applied "malicious compliance" to do everything he can to put a floor under housing valuation -- which is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Many of these homes cannot be foreclosed, the promisory notes have been lost in the shuffle.
http://www.consumerwarningnetwork.com/2008/06/19/produce-the-note-how-to/
Investors pulled the Subprime plug when we refused to accept Comprehensive Immigration Reform. We are now being paid back for killing the (CFR) NAFTA Highway and North American Union.
This is scorched earth policy.
I hope my thesis in this diary is clear. There will be a bottom in volume before there is a bottom in price (probably by a substantial period of time). There is some evidence that volume is beginning to fall at a lesser rate.
In terms of price, Housing is Nowhere Near a Bottom.
The sale of an existing home does not create new jobs etc. because it does not produce new housing stock.
So I agree with you, but at the same time the foreclosure issue doesn't seem so relevant to the volume of new home sales, which is probably the first thing that is going to bottom in the housing bust.
I don't have the cite handy, but I have read in various places that the second round of resets has been to a large extent reduced. Both the borrowers and the lenders, mindful of the first wave, have taken action to recast mortgages in the second wave.
Additionally, with the Fed taking aggressive action re long-maturity bonds, mortgage rates have declined significantly -- so the resets will be to lower rates.
I agree that the biggest danger to this forecast is the plunge in consumer spending and jobs in the last 3 months.
Not quite out of my butt, but close. I want to work up a spread sheet from the ASCE's 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure, add in the two numbers I have worked up that are solid - $3.4 trillion for urban rail transit , and $1.0 trillion for the DoE unambitious goal of 20$ wind energy by 2030 - then present it here and ask people to start adding more projects, such as solar energy, high-speed long distance rail, water and sewage systems for Africa, widening the Panama Canal, and so on.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that we need a small mutiple of $5 trillion.
I believe the Fed has already pledged 60% of GDP to these damn financial institutions.
Then, on WWII, the US had a strong Domestic economy at that point, plus so much of the debt was war debt, which had an "end in sight", so I'm not convinced since the US is weakening economically, China and India are expected to supersede the U.S. very soon as the dominant economy, our dollar might no longer be a reserve currency and under those circumstances, I don't believe the US can sustain such large deficit spending.
In my view, while they talk about restructuring GM and so on (anyone except the financial sector!) I think the U.S. needs to restructure.
We pay 8 times in health care costs than any other nation and the DoD budget is out of control.
When average housing prices hit 3x poverty level. Not before.
At the rate we're going, that'll be when you can get a 2 bedroom 1 bath ranch for $60,000.
I was just looking into the spending during WWII. At it's height, according to table 1 in "The American Economy during WWII", the US government was spending from 32% to 37% of the entire GDP of the country on defense -- the Federal government as a whole got up to 47% in 1943.
If you take that "one third of GDP" figure and apply it to today's $15 trillion, voila, you get $5 trillion as the equivalent. That would be one serious infrastructure rebuilding program.
Another interesting thing to notice about the table is that much, if not all, of the increase in GDP came from the increase in the Federal Budget. Perhaps they were just printing money, which sounds OK to me, if the new money tracks the new production. Or am I missing something?
Anyway, at the rate things are going, it seems to me that the financial system will be nationalized eventually anyway. The French example is rather complicated, i think, but they seem to be doing just fine with a government-owned financial system.
JR on Grist
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