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Are we really in a recovery?

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  • #16
    US "recovery" in a visual nutshell:



    You be the judge.
    Last edited by seanD; 09-16-2015, 03:13 PM.

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    • #17
      More visuals of the wealth gap:



      Though not as specific as what I outlined in post #6, notice how the gap begins to widen before Clinton and Obama, but that it distinctly spikes during Clinton's and Obama's admin. But I wouldn't put much stock in that, as there's no doubt Romney (who supported the bailout, of course), who's just as much of a wallstreet puppet, would have allowed the Federal Reserve to engage in the same unprecedented actions post 2008. Only reason I pointed it out is the political irony, as "democrats" are typically touted as the least pro-super rich.
      Last edited by seanD; 09-16-2015, 03:16 PM.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by seanD View Post
        US "recovery" in a visual nutshell:



        You be the judge.
        These would be more meaningful if they all covered the same time period.
        Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

        Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
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        I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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        • #19
          Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
          These would be more meaningful if they all covered the same time period.
          Depends on what perspective one is looking at it from. From a political perspective, yes. In other words, it's difficult to place the blame on any specific prior president because some of the trajectories cover multiple presidential admins. But I think it's meaningful from a much bigger economic problem with our system, which is what I've tried to convey in this thread and correlates with post #5; that our economy is fake because it's based on a wealth illusion that is really just consumer debt. Federal Reserve, the US central bank, has been fueling this illusion cycle by micromanaging (manipulating) the system with its policies. It's just that the Fed's manipulation has really gotten out of hand in the last several years or so (note that most of the spikes have occurred within the 2008 bust cycle), perhaps because the debt is so massive that the illusion is wearing off and the chickens are coming home to roost.
          Last edited by seanD; 09-16-2015, 05:48 PM.

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          • #20
            Originally posted by seanD View Post
            Depends on what perspective one is looking at it from.
            No matter what perspective, using the same start and end points would allow an accurate comparison of the data.
            From a political perspective, yes. In other words, it's difficult to place the blame on any specific prior president because some of the trajectories cover multiple presidential admins. But I think it's meaningful from a much bigger economic problem with our system, which is what I've tried to convey in this thread and correlates with post #5; that our economy is fake because it's based on a wealth illusion that is really just consumer debt. Federal Reserve, the US central bank, has been fueling this illusion cycle by micromanaging (manipulating) the system with its policies. It's just that the Fed's manipulation has really gotten out of hand in the last several years or so (note that most of the spikes have occurred within the 2008 bust cycle), perhaps because the debt is so massive that the illusion is wearing off and the chickens are coming home to roost.
            Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

            Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
            sigpic
            I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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            • #21
              Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
              No matter what perspective, using the same start and end points would allow an accurate comparison of the data.
              I don't understand what you mean by "start and end points." The point of the charts is the decline (most of which has occurred significantly within the 2008 period of a so-called recovery). Please, explain your point.


              Thanks for your contribution to the thread.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by seanD View Post
                I don't understand what you mean by "start and end points." The point of the charts is the decline (most of which has occurred significantly within the 2008 period of a so-called recovery). Please, explain your point.
                The point is hazy because the charts don't all start at, e.g., 2000 and end at 2014; it raises the question of cherry-picking the start and end points to make the data look as bad as possible.
                Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                sigpic
                I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                  The point is hazy because the charts don't all start at, e.g., 2000 and end at 2014; it raises the question of cherry-picking the start and end points to make the data look as bad as possible.
                  That makes no sense. You can clearly distinguish the peaks and declines within the "recovery" after 2008, which is the benchmark year I'm focusing on, so I don't understand how it would be hazy. If you think it's cherry-picking you can certainly look at the data yourself.
                  Last edited by seanD; 09-16-2015, 10:53 PM.

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                  • #24
                    I think I'll just let you go back to your monologue.
                    Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

                    Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
                    sigpic
                    I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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                    • #25
                      Cool. The thread has a lot of posts with a lot of information to digest. My "monologue" in a nutshell is that we were never in a recovery. The recovery was an illusion because our economy is based on an illusion and the data supports the fact that it's all an illusion.

                      In the future, I have no problem with anyone refuting anything being posted, but if anyone's going to refute something, please know what the heck you're talking about and have more of an argument than just emoticon smilies. That's all I ask

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                      • #26
                        No Federal Reserve rate hike in September...

                        http://www.theguardian.com/business/...et-yellen-live

                        Of course not. Because the Fed claims they're "data dependent" which determines whether they'll raise rates or not, and, as I've been pointing out in this thread, the data ain't good.

                        The problem is that the data isn't getting any better, it's getting worse, hence the reason the Fed has been bluffing about raising rates for years now. But if there was no reason to raise rates a couple years ago when the data seemingly wasn't as bad, then there's absolutely no reason to raise them now when the global economy is now on the brink of disaster.

                        It amazes me why economists believed they would raise in September or that they will raise any time this year. Only reason the Fed would raise rates at this point is if they completely ignore all the data.

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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by seanD View Post
                          I thought I'd add a bit more support to the idea that the Federal Reserve's monetary action (I'm specifically focusing on the period during Bernanke/Yellen's term) is directly responsible for the growing wealth gap of late, as opposed to free market capitalism in general.

                          All it takes is just a little common sense to know that if you give select financial institutions more than four billion dollars in exchange of their bad assets within seven years, and then keep 0% interest rate loans available to this same exclusive group of wealthy institutions during that same timeframe, while excluding everyone else from that party, the wealth of the former group will greatly surpass the wealth of the latter group. I mean, this isn't rocket science.

                          But here's the data to back that up…

                          [ATTACH=CONFIG]7451[/ATTACH]

                          As you can see, not only is the middle class fading fast (more about the shrinking middle class here), and not only has the .001-1% practically regained the income they had pre-2008 crisis, but the bottom 50% continued to lose ground from 2007-2012 (with most of the loss from 2009-2012) during the supposed recovery.

                          Obviously this is not because the .001-1% is smarter than everyone else, as they were on the verge of wiping themselves out, along with everyone else, in 2008. Of course, one might also argue an advantage for those that can engage in investment criminal activity without any real criminal consequences other than fines that are smaller than the profits they make in such activity, but it's impossible to really prove how much of that .001-1% is engaging in criminal activity.

                          So, in regards to an increasing wealth gap, when we apply a little logic and match it with the data, the conclusion is pretty clear. The tragedy is that liberal media is implying that this is a result of capitalism, thus we need more government capitalist control (i.e. socialism). But again, this isn't free market capitalism; this IS wealth socialism with explicit government complicity.

                          Things have a tendency to balance out in a free market capitalist system. We don’t know for sure how much, if any, the middle class would have regained post-2008 crisis, but many of the corrupt and reckless wealth monopolies in place right now making the system lopsided would have had this advantage eviscerated if government had allowed free market capitalism to actually work.

                          Just more confirmation that the "recovery" was lopsided and only benefited the already wealthy...


                          Source

                          Looking at eight groups of household income selected by Census, only those whose incomes are already high to begin with have seen improvement since 2006, the last full year of expansion before the recession. Households at the 95th and 90th percentiles had larger earnings through 2014, the latest year for which data are available.

                          Income for all others was below 2006 levels, indicating they're still clawing their way out of the hole caused by the deepest recession in the post-World War II era.


                          "Each decade, it's taken longer for the poor to recover from recession, for the poverty rate to start turning around after the official end of the recession," said Arloc Sherman, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. "There's quite a bit of work left to do."

                          Median household income is 6.5 percent lower than in 2007, the year the recession started.

                          Overall, median income was $53,657 in 2014, not a statistically significant difference on an inflation-adjusted basis from 2013's median of $54,462. It's the third straight year that there's been no significant change, after two consecutive years of annual declines.
                          So, don't for a minute fall for the spectacles surrounding the Federal Reserve's actions post-2008 or the decreasing U3 unemployment number, because how these are represented is complete bullcrap.

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                          • #28
                            I kind of backed away from this thread because there are so many data metrics showing we're heading towards (or are already in) an economic downturn that I figured people were getting bored. Analyzing economic data metrics gets technical and people get bored with technicals because this results in very long posts.

                            But Obama gloating about the January jobs report, or the 5% U3 number decrease to the gullible masses that wouldn't know how to read and analyze an economic data metric even if they wanted to was too much for me to bear.

                            So, let's once again analyze the 4.9 U3 number, the ONLY bread and butter economic metric that Obama and the MSM economic shills can use to back the economic recovery canard when it's misrepresented as grossly as it is. Manufacturing has all but collapsed in the US, and everyone knows this by now including the MSM and that job growth has been riding the coattails of a low wage service sector surge…


                            America's manufacturing sector shrank for the second straight month in December. The industry's key index -- ISM -- hit 48.2% in December, the lowest mark since June 2009. Anything below 50% is a contraction and a month ago it hit 48.6%. The index has fallen for six straight months.

                            Manufacturing was one of the worst performing job sectors in the economy in 2015. As much of the U.S. job market improved last year, manufacturing added a meager 17,000 jobs.

                            http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/04/news...shrinks-again/

                            This means that jobs being created are not full time high paying factory jobs, but cashiers, waiters, waitresses, bell hops, bartenders, etc…



                            Source

                            As a side note, the unexpected wage jump in January 2016 also happened right as several states are implementing a mandatory wage hike, not because of any indicator of economic improvement like some MSM economists were implying in order to garnish the 4.9 U3 number with additional positive outlook. All we need to do is look around and use some common sense here: wages are obviously not going to increase, nor are food stamp recipients going to shrink (which are still at historical highs), nor is homelessness going to shrink (which has actually been rising nationwide -- see here and here) if the job market is driven primarily by low wage jobs -- a pretty simple equation. These are all factors we should not expect to improve, in fact even regress, if the "economic recovery" canard is a sham, and this is precisely what we see.

                            As was pointed out earlier in this thread, we not only don't know how much of the U3 unemployment decrease is attributed to part time job increase (i.e. people being forced to take multiple part time jobs to compensate for low wages which is counted as multiple jobs created -- i.e. Joe has to take two part time jobs to make ends meet which is counted as two separate jobs created), but we now have an economy that doesn't manufacture, thus doesn't produce and is reliant on consumer debt.

                            In addition to this, something that Obama certainly won't tell you about the January jobs report is that the number of jobs created was actually lower than expected. The veiled truth kept quiet behind the 4.9 celebration is that service sector job growth is also now beginning to wane as indicated by the January report…


                            Activity in the vast U.S. services sector slowed to a near two-year low in January, suggesting that economic growth weakened further at the start of the first quarter even as the labor market remains resilient.

                            The economy has been undermined by a strong dollar, softening global demand and an inventory destocking, which have pressured manufacturing and export industries. Spending cuts by energy firms, reeling from a collapse in oil prices, have also dragged on growth.

                            Until recently, services sector strength had offered hope that the economy would weather both the domestic and global headwinds, which held gross domestic product growth to a 0.7 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter.

                            http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN0VC1JZ

                            There's also a bigger problem with the adult population/labor participation rate ratio that is amiss. But since this is much too technical and I want to keep things as simple as I can, I'll just leave a link in case you're inclined to delve into it. So, to summarize what the U3 number really means:

                            - The jobs market has been driven primarily by a non-manufacturing service sector.
                            - We're not sure how much of a factor multiple part time jobs per individual is skewing the jobs number; we can certainly guess that this is a major factor (the shrinking labor participation rate perfectly fits into this context).
                            - The slight wage increase came right as state minimum wages increased.
                            - The service sector surge, the only factor keeping the economy treading water, is now also showing signs of waning in the new year.

                            I should also note that the employment number is always the last data metric to go negative when a recession hits. In other words, it's a lagging indicator, thus can't be used as evidence of a future healthy economy even if the U3 number legitimately represented a healthy economy. But let's celebrate because on the surface a 4.9% U3 number certainly looks a whole lot better than a 10% U3 number, and that's all that matters to the masses that don't know what the underlining data really says.

                            Here's my prediction for 2016. I still am not sure (as I stated in post #5) whether the decline will end in a sudden collapse (meaning a violent stock market flash crash a la 2008) or a gradual regressive economic decline. I still cling towards the latter, despite the fact we're now seeing clear signs of a stock market crash looming on the horizon (i.e. crazy market fluctuations currently taking place). Due to other economic data metrics, what I know for sure is things will get worse. We are going to see some serious indications of economic downturn in 2016, to the point that even the populace masses that don't have a clue of the economic technicals are going to notice something's terribly wrong, so much so that not only will MSM be forced to address it, but the federal reserve will likely lower rates once again and possibly even institute more QE and/or lower rates into negative territory (of course, I'm barring a possible black swan such as a major war here that can be used as a scapegoat to all this).

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                            • #29
                              As Zerohedge put it; this is peddling what Obama calls fiction...



                              source

                              Others would call it the Orwellian reality, where up is down and down is up; black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter; fiction is fact and fact is fiction.

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                              • #30
                                So much for the plunging Labor Force Participation Rate...




                                Being the result of retirees...

                                This means that while total workers aged between 16 and 54 are still some 3.5 million below where they were in December of 2007, during the same period workers aged 55 and over have grown by a whopping 8.1 million to a new all time high of 34.4 million, and as of this moment the oldest worker group comprises a record 22.8% of the total number of workers (per the Establishment survey) of 151 million.

                                source

                                So the next time you hear that excuse from an MSM economic Keynesian shill or from their ignorant minions, show them this chart...

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