Ten Reasons The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think

Wall Street Journal:

The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[lovbug]

I disagree TOTALLY with the article. the main reason the economy is bad is 8 years of George Bush and his cronies who had their hand in the till. Capitalism is the number 2 cause. Then there are, bad investors, unregulated housing market, lack of govt oversight, greedy CEOs, easy money, free enterprise for the few, etc. these are the causes of our bad economy. Obama became President at the worst time but he and govt. are not to be blamed for this mess. The article is misleading. my memory is not that short -- i will not play that blame game.

[blastocyst]

It's is worse than that. The adults formerly running the show have departed the scene as our age-contemporary, writ-of-entitlement bearing (degreed) friends now have taken charge. It had become a free-for-all and the tab for that party's going to be mind-boggling. It is reshaping our culture even as we're being pandered and marketed to.
Like the dim-witted children, relatively speaking, that we are.

[gypsy508]

Funny, not too many Democrats proposed anything different over the last 8 or even 16 years.

[blastocyst]

Take a manufacturing powerhouse; the U.S.
Give the jobs which nurtured neighborhoods, burgs, towns, and cities to foreign entities.
Attempt to supplant those lost manufacturing jobs by selling hamburgers and flat-screens to each other.
This is essentially the behavior and ruinous methodology which we've been following, intensely, for the past decade.

See where it has gotten us.

[samjung23]

Yuppers!

Here's the cure-all for this situation. Manage the unions and big business properly. Get these jobs back, and BE FAIR. Union members are going to have rights, but they're not going to get paid like doctors. CEOs are not going to get paid 50 million a year, get their pay in line with what CEOs in foreign companies make. Regulate health care again, starting with the drug companies, hospitals, so on and so forth. Pack up all these illegal aliens and SEND THEM HOME. Pass a moratorium banning most immigration, at least 95% of it all. Unless you are a pro basketball player or the best research scientist in the world, you ain't getting in! Start training doctors and engineers here instead of discouraging students from math and science and opting to hire foreign instead. Start spending a reasonable amount on the military...more like $100 billion total, even less.

Do all this, and the economy will be sitting pretty by 2011. If not...well, sucks for us, we have a stupid government.

[blastocyst]

You would need to convince the largest body of citizens here, the proletariat, that using their hands in the course of manual labor is not a bad thing. They've been brainwashed or conditioned to believe that college is the answer to every ill. There's dignity in humble labor. Having a degree of any worth is fine but we still need to make most of the things we consume. Can't be any other way.

[sposton]

This crisis is prolonged and made worse by Obama's main choices in his economic team. They are agents of the same Wall Street that is directly responsible for this disaster. This makes Obama an agent of Wall Street.

Today's FT's opinion section there is a piece by Nassim Nicholas Taleb that is worth reading.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e02aeba-6fd8-11de-b835-00144feabdc0.html

Taleb is one of the few who understands the inherent dangers of unpredictabilities when the system ventures into the non-linear space. Weird stuff starts occurring on the system's edges. Obama and his team are doing nothing to bring it back the stability associated with predictability and robustness. The reasons for inaction are clear to all. The yesterday's Wall Street structures responsible for this disaster are still in charge of decision making in this country. Their guy resides in the White House.

[Dragash]

The single biggest reason to be worried to death is the tidal wave of comments by Geithner, Summers, Bernanke & Co. announcing imminent economic recovery (flying straight in the face of cataclysmic economic statistics hitting us daily, if not hourly)

The economic neo-speak reminds one of Herbert Hoover's immortal 1929 comment that 'prosperity is just around the corner'. This was about 5 minutes before Great Depression hit us.

[sposton]

Why does our criticism seem to be always limited to Geithner and Summers and it never extends to the guy who appointed them? I am quite certain we would not have extended this courtesy to someone like George Bush. Just because so many of us voted for Obama we are unable to call the the way it is - Obama is an agent of Wall Street.

[Adartist777]

It seems that the only jobs around are medical, life insurance and retail sales jobs. Tech jobs have just about disappeared in my area. Jobs in trades such as electricians, carpenters and plumbers are scarce. Many manufacturing businesses have either furloughed their employees or are in the process of shutting down. Forget about working for the state or local government. Even our local newspaper has furloughed employees.

On top of that, unemployment has already run out for hundreds, if not millions, of long term unemployed without another extension in site. Welfare and food stamp applications are going up and homelessness is rising.

Good to know Goldman-Sachs is doing so well.

[samjung23]

Medical jobs are soon going to go. They have to. They've already been unrealistically bleeding people dry for years. Those hospital employees have been living it up for years at our expense. They still are, as of now.

Not for long though! That's when the real pain is going to come.

[BillyMcGorn]

Hospital employees are living it up? When did this start happening? Everyone I know who is employed in health care (and I know several, as I worked in a surgery center and clinic for 4 years) works like dogs throughout their shifts, with doctors and nurses often pulling 16-hour days. Clinical staff will be heavily in demand as America's population ages, and there appears to be no relief in sight for a health care system that is already stretched to the limit.

If you're referring to the worthless health insurance machines that have turned our health care system into another stream of revenue for Wall Street a$$holes, I agree. If you're referring to the overworked and under-appreciated system of health care providers and clinical staff in this country, I couldn't disagree more.

[Liberal2]

Internet based medical disgnoses, coupled US nurses qualified to provide treatments. "Nurses" can't do that?????? If China allows their nurses to provide similar treatments, WTO rules will require US rules be set aside as restraint of trade.

American lawyers will have similar competition from Chinese lawyers using the Internet to meet with US clients, conduct courtroom procedures.

"Can't happen"??? WTO rules say otherwise.

[BabblingBrooks]

Morty kinda waffles and wavers between being a lib and a conservative depending upon which way the political winds are blowing. That he's pointing out how bad the economy is doesn't really give us a clue which way he's leaning now. Is he bucking Obama's "stimulus is working" riff or is he agreeing with Biden that the Obamanians have been misunderestimating the weakness of the economy?

In any case, one fears he's right about the severity of the problem, and it's interesting that all the Democrats talk about are ways to make it worse: raise taxes, etc.

[mcmutter]

Worst economy since 1929. You're living through a Black Swan event, happens once in a lifetime.

[iblogleft]

If you are surprised, shame on you.

[Dolmance]

Unemployment always rises for several years AFTER a recession is declared over.

This recession ain't over yet. And it was brought to us by the Republicans. And a thousand Rupert Murdochs ain't gonna make people believe different.

[KCFreedom]

Agreed, I don't think we ever got out of the 2001 recession, and we arn't even at midpoint yet.

For some reason, D.C. thinks we can continue multiple wars at once in this economy.

[Downix]

he missed the 800 lbs gorilla in the room. The Commercial Real Estate collapse is starting to occur. 6-12 months after any residental real estate bust comes the "aftershock" of the commercial one, when business mortgages start defaulting. Look around you at how many "for rent" "for lease" and "for sale" businessess are in your neighborhood, your downtown, your shopping mall, and then think, how long can they stay empty and the mortgage still get paid?

[owiseone]

Yes. And think of all the millions of people whose "salary" is commission based. Some may get a small salary, but largely workers in these jobs are unemployed yet are not counted as such. The salespeople in the carpet, building supply, real estate, appliance, etc. areas have been suffering for years, and it will commercial real estate bottoming out, the crisis will reach into retail businesses like an explosion.

[fallout4U]

- The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. That's 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water, and factories are operating at only 65% of capacity. If Americans were still clocking those extra 48 minutes a week now, the same aggregate amount of work would get done with 3.3 million fewer employees, which means that if it were not for the shorter work week the jobless rate would be 11.7%, not 9.5% (which far exceeds the 8% rate projected by the Obama administration).

The actual unemployment numbers are astronomical. The REAL numbers are real troubling.

[mcmutter]

WORST economy since 1929. This won't be over anytime soon.

The banks, insurance companies and Wall Street screwed you and they're not finished yet.

[confidance government]

Welcome to the beginning of the Greatest Depression folks.

[Adartist777]

You've got that right. I can't understand why people keep calling it a Recession. Party on Wall Street! Pain on Main Street.

[1sparrow]

the sheyitz is on the friyitz and butt-inskis on the boob tube. women don't really like sex and the last truth you will hear in your life.

[GrainOSand]

This poem is presented with the thought of country in mind. America deserves to survive. Its good people deserve a strong vibrant nation, as it is for all people (God bless all people everywhere or may good fortune, excellent planning and execution, and empathetic hearts pervade this environment of life). The nation is challenged. The future appears uncertain. Belief systems are being “rocked to the core”. Real pain exists and is steadily growing. May we find the vision, will, and courage to “make that change” beyond the cosmetic and deeper than the veneer of greatness hyped.

================
A Nation’s Strength
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904)


What makes a nation’s pillars high
And its foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor’s sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.