The Recession is Over

Newsweek:

Could our long national nightmare be over? The economic contraction, this Great Recession, began in December 2007, and there's no apparent end in sight. As the unemployment rate has spiked, analysts have thrown cold water on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's March sighting of "green shoots." The stock market's spring rally has fizzled.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[rabiddog6708]

Read this great article on why the recession may be worse than most people think (or are being told by the media:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nine-Reasons-the-Economy-is-usnews-1021116601.html?x=0&.v=1

[Indra]

This article is the biggest crock of BS I have read in a long time. Forget the R word. We are now in a Depression.

[ProperGanda]

Doesn't this belong in the comedy section for its ridiculousness?

[batterycharged]

"YES! The Titanic is no longer sinking....as fast....we are in great shape!."

-Captain of the Titanic

[ShambalaMountain]

The economy will not recover until American's number one asset -- the real estate value of their homes -- become profitable again.

Foreclosures are actually increasing while property values continue to drop. Let''s also note that there is no relief from the government for homeowners on the brink of foreclosure, this from the same banks that received billions in bail-out money.

The American dream use to be home ownership; now it's a nightmare.

[inorbit]

It's not so much of a nightmare for those of us who got fixed-rate 30 year mortgages that we could afford - sold to us by trustworthy brokers.

The only thing we're worried about are our property values.

[markm8128]

.....and the fact that the next wave of foreclosures in the pipeline, is made up of people just like you, who bought homes they could afford, with large down payments....did everything right....but have lost their jobs due to the economic downturn. The worst is yet to come...and you could be next.

[desertman]

It's nightmare if you borrowed more than you should and have no rainy day funds.

[leduck]

yeah the recession is not in a free fall anymore
it's getting worse much more slowly
maybe things will even start to pick up soon
but then again, we could have another oil price spike at anytime
causing the whole thing to end up back in a free fall

this recession may eventually become a depression

i think this is it though..., oil production has been on a plateau since 2005
if production could rise like b4, it would have done so already.
the industry is just trying to keep us on the plateau as long as possible
b4 the bottom falls out and oil production ends up in terminal decline

[desertman]

This is a depression.

The Federal Reserve reported that seasonally-adjusted June industrial production fell by 0.4% for the month, after a revised 1.2% (previously 1.1%) decline in May. Year-to-year contraction in activity deepened to 13.6% in June from the revised 13.5% (was 13.4%) tumble in May. Such set a new record low for annual production growth since the shutdown of war-time production after World War II.

With annual change down 13.6% and with a peak-to-trough (June is the short-lived current trough) contraction at 15.1%, the industrial sector of the economy (including manufacturing, mining and utilities) continued in depression. A depression is defined (SGS) as a recession where the peak-to-trough economic contraction exceeds 10%.

[ADunafraid]

I studied Economics in college and the problem with economic indicators is that they are based on models of previous economic conditions.

We have unique economic conditions right now that we have never had in the past. We have never had an economic recession like this during a time when we were spending a large amount on wars, or for that matter when we were printing new money at a rate like this, or when we were bailing out large investment banks, or when we have had so little manufacturing and export trading.

When we come out of this recession economically I think we will look more like a combination of China and Mexico than what the US was.

[HarryParatestis]

bingo...you get a cookie

[nanny138]

ECRI says they don't use models...

[steppenwolfsayshi]

Ok. I guess I would agree if I thought the GDP figures were worth their weight in sand. How come jobless recoveries didn't start occuring until the 1990's? What exactly is the economic reasoning that such a drastic altercation occured to the laws of the business cycle? Could it be *gasp* that it is created by overstating the GDP numbers? By saying that the economy is growing when in fact it is shrinking and then just shrugging off stuff like businesses going bankrupt and people losing jobs as unimportant "lagging indicators." Genius! Amazing how those "lagging" indicators are also foreshadowing indicators.

[ClarcKing]

We can not fix the system of economy or monetary finance that is presently killing us. The bailouts will not work: the design and intention was to be ineffectual from the start. The priorities of an economy is the preservation of the population. As per Lyndon LaRouche: Put the Fed into bankruptcy protection. All banks that qualify will join the U.S. National Bank. America needs a job mobilization program that can employ 500,000 people per month for the next four years. Jobs and purchasing power will be introduced into the population's physical economy. Expand Social Security and Medicaid. Stop the foreclosures. Enact the Homeowners and Bank Protection Act. Start the construction of 100 nuclear generating facilities. Water harvesting and distribution systems are needed. Excess auto industrial capacity will be used to create a modern mass-transit system. Through our God given intelligence, we can put this crisis in its' proper perspective and create a new economy with proper human being priorities.

[jeanrenoir]

Brace yourselves for huge corporate profits in the next few years, since the companies are now lean and mean, and will have record profitability as a result, precisely because they've let so many people go. That's how capitalism works. What's the alternative? SOCIALISM? Surely you jest. Where has that worked anywhere? Face it: Life is hard. Just make sure that if you've got working-class kids they get educated for non-manufacturing jobs. They can't make it in the coming America with lousy educations. They'll be toast, especially with all the hungry immigrants, many very smart Asians, they'll have to compete against. We talk a lot about the lousy "inner city" schools in America, but few talk about what lousy students lots of white working-class kids have been, and still are. If this continues, these white dunces have no one to blame but themselves (and their parents) when they live unemployable lives.

[Chaimirija]

well since the duncyWhities as you call them run these companies, according to your reasonsing, they will flop

[vippy]

Since our economy is made of the middle class' spending and that is not happening, since 25% of them lost their jobs, and those who are working are working extra for free (for the privilege just to have a job) I don't see how anything is improving. I also wonder how Goldman Sachs can report record profits, profits from what. On Bloomber's ticket every company or 99% are still in the RED. Do tell me where the profits come from?

[Rule Of Law]

Remember our bailout of AIG and how AIG turned right around and gave 13 billion back to Goldman to cover their derivative bets? They booked that as income. And there are billions more in guarantees direct from the FED, a policy which had never been undertaken in our nation's history. Paulson helped Goldman eliminate its competition while more and more of their alums went to work in the Obama admin. The profits they are claiming are in large part OUR money.

[Rosewren]

And hasn't that always been the real intent? People need to wake up and I think they are. They just haven't reached the point of outrage and pitchforks yet.

[nanny138]

"Jobless recovery is a ridiculous oxymoron."

The data show that the last recession ended in Nov. 2001, but overall jobs were lost until 2003.

Are you saying the last recession lasted from 2001 to 2003?

[vippy]

During Clinton's reign I was unable to get applicants for jobs. In 2000 I noticed I started to get flooded with job applications. I was in the retail business and the downward trend started in 2000.
More and more businesses started to close, many empty store fronts, and people taking on any
job.

[MadAppraiser]

It is unfortunate this creative economic group missed Mr. Rod Serling! I imagine Mr. Serling could have utilized creative screenplay writers for his “Twilight Zone.”

America has travel through a maze of creative economic distortion. It is becoming more difficult to differentiate between fantasy and reality! American economic specialist will find it more difficult to fool us this time with economic madness. THE SHOW IS OVER; MAINSTREAM AMERICA IS SINKING FAST!!!

Skillful marketing campaigns, statistical data manipulation, and eloquent political presentations cannot mask an American economy that is collapsing around us as we travel the boulevards. Hidden in the dark recesses of the American global economic participation scenario was the dissolution of the American manufacturing sector.

I am not going to lose myself in academic rhetoric. Not until MAINSTREAM AMERICA is able to access employment opportunity will economic statistical analysis, and computerized Excel spreadsheets hold meaningful authenticity for Middle America.

[nanny138]

To continue with your Rod Serling analogy, Gross did say that ERCI is the "Spock" of forecasters when it comes to recessions and recoveries :-)

[EvilCartman]

The recession is over for the Rich. They stold our money. Time to celebrate.

[HPfanRJ]

Yaaay! Now I may be able to get a job gardening or yacht polishing or limo driving or something for a Goldman-Sachs exec.

[Chaimirija]

be sure and be GRATEFUL you have the job too!

[Oxonian2001]

Or organizing trophy wife #3's football stadium sized shoe closet. (And you wondered why those folks need 50,000sq. ft houses).

Yes, feudalism is back! (Not that it ever went away...)

[Scent]

The recession is over? - Weird. And here I thought that for it to be over things would have to be better.

But when You need to sell success it doesn't really need to be real.

As long as they can tell s that DESPITE what caused the problems and will cause more the recession is over we will not scream for the criminals to go to jail so loudly I guess.