What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[4est_4est_Gump]

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. economy that plodded along in the first three months of the year likely grew even less in the April-June quarter. And most economists no longer think growth will strengthen much in the second half of 2012.
Weaker hiring, nervous consumers, sluggish manufacturing and the overhang of Europe's debt crisis might be pointing toward everyone's big fear: another recession.
Against that background, the government on Friday will issue its first of three estimates of how much the U.S. economy expanded last quarter. The consensus forecast is that growth slowed to an annual rate of 1.5 percent, according to a survey of economists by data firm FactSet. The Commerce Department will issue the estimate at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
A quarterly growth rate of 1.5 percent would be the weakest in a year. It would follow a meager 1.9 percent rate in the first three months of 2012.
Much more growth would be needed to fuel stronger hiring. Economists generally say even 2 percent annual growth would add only about 90,000 jobs a month. That's too few to drive down the unemployment rate, which is stuck at 8.2 percent.
The U.S. economy has never been so sluggish this long into a recovery. The Great Recession officially ended in June 2009.
Until a few weeks ago, many economists had been predicting that growth would accelerate in the final six months of the year. They pointed to gains in manufacturing, home and auto sales and lower gas prices.
But threats to the U.S. economy have left consumers - who account for about 70 percent of the economy - too anxious to spend freely. Jobs are tight. Pay isn't keeping up with inflation. Retail sales fell in June for a third straight month. Manufacturing has weakened in most areas of the country.
Fear is also growing that the economy will fall off a "fiscal cliff" at year's end. That's when tax increases and deep spending cuts will take effect unless Congress reaches a budget agreement.
All that is making companies reluctant to expand and hire much.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120727/DA091J800.html

Told you so.

Back when ya'll were celebrating and projecting your models into a glorious future...

You cannot ever "fix" that which you despise and hate with a burning white (or should I say RED?)-hot passion.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Doooooom!
Gloooooom!

Dow 5999!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

... a three-year proposition...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Housing Headwinds: US Birthrate Lowest in 25 Years as Twenty-Somethings Postpone Having Babies

Boomer demographics and postponement of marriage on account of student debt and poor finances are two of the key reasons that I long-ago stated the housing recovery would be slow for a decade.

Declining birthrates now show that is indeed what is happening.

First, please consider a short snip from my July 25 post "Actual" New Home Sales First 6 Months of 2012 vs. Prior Years; Reflections on the Housing Recovery

Reflections on the Housing Recovery

Even with today's reported decline, new home sales have likely bottomed on an annual, cumulative-total basis.

However, don't expect much in terms of recovery.

Debt overhang is immense, and student debt is particularly problematic. Lack of jobs coupled with high student debt is capping family formation. Kids out of college are deep in debt and holding off getting married, starting families, and therefore buying houses.

Moreover, home sizes will trend lower and price recovery will be anemic because of boomer demographics. Retired boomers looking to downsize have few buyers able or willing to buy.

Bank-owned real estate (REOs) and shadow inventory are hugely underestimated. That too will pressure prices and sales.

The good news is home sales will add to GDP.

The more realistic news is structural headwinds are immense, demographics are poor, and job prospects for college graduates are poor. The bottom in new home sales may be in, just don't expect anything close to a normal housing-led recovery, because it's not going to happen.

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/#K21tDjCSOR35qiZv.99

That trickles down to durable goods...

Does your model say this?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It must be really painful to be an economist of the mainstream today — at least, it should smart to some extent. In a financial and economic calamity of the current scale, people naturally want to know who issued the warnings about the real-estate bubble and its likely aftermath.

When private-sector jobs have not grown at all in ten years, and when ten years of domestic investment is systematically undone in the course of 18 months, when housing prices in some sections of the country collapse 80 percent, and when formerly prestigious banks go belly up or receive many billions in rescue aid, people want to know which economists saw this coming.

Perhaps it is these economists — the ones who had long issued the warnings, and not the ones relentlessly consulted by the media — who should be giving the guidance about going forward. Maybe they ought to be weighing in on whether the new stock-market boom is a reflection of reality, or another bubble developing within a bust that could lead to a secondary depression.

Among the mainstream, however, no one saw it coming. That is because they have never learned the lesson that Bastiat sought to teach, namely that we need to look beneath the surface, to the unseen dimensions of human action, in order to see the full economic reality. It is not enough just to stand back and look at points on a chart going up and down, smiling when things go up and frowning when things go down. That is the nihilism of an economic statistician who employs no theory, no notion of cause and effect, no understanding of the dynamics of human history.

So long as things were going up, everyone thought the economic system was healthy. It was the same in the late '20s. In fact, it has been the same throughout human history. It is no different today. The stock market is going up, so surely that is a sign of economic health. But people ought to reflect on the fact that the highest performing stock market in the world in 2007 belonged to Zimbabwe, which is now home to a spectacular economic collapse.

Because of this tendency to look at the surface rather than the underlying reality, the business-cycle theory has been a source of much confusion throughout economic history. To understand the theory requires looking beyond the data and into the core of the structure of production and its overall health. It requires abstract thinking about the relationship between capital and interest rates, money and investment, real and fake saving, and the economic impact of the central bank and the illusions it weaves. You can't get that information by watching numbers blow by at the bottom of your TV screen.

Then when the crisis hits, it comes as a complete surprise every time, and economists find themselves in the role of forging a plan to do something about the problem. This is when a crude form of Keynesianism comes into play. The government spends what money it has and prints what it doesn't have. Unemployed people are paid. Tricks to prop up failing industries abound. Generally, the approach is to gin up the public to engage in some form of exchange, in order to keep reality at bay.

Austrians counsel a different approach, one that takes account of underlying reality during the boom phase. They draw attention to the existence of the bubble before it pops, and once it goes away, the Austrians suggest that it does no good to blow another bubble or otherwise keep uneconomic production and plans going.

The Austrians in the late 1920s and early 1930s found themselves having to explain this again and again, but it was the onset of the age of positivism — the method that posits that only what you see on the surface really matters — so they had a very difficult time making points that were more sophisticated. They were like scientists trying to address a convention of witch doctors.

http://mises.org/daily/3717/Economics-and-Moral-Courage

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

"Later in life, when speaking before a group of economics students, Hayek bared his soul about this problem of the moral choices economists must make. He said that it is very dangerous for an economist to seek fame and fortune and to work closely with political establishments, simply because, in his experience, the most important trait of a good economist is the courage to say the unpopular thing. If you value your position and privileges more than truth, you will say what people want to hear rather than what needs to be said.

This courage to say the unpopular thing marked the life of Ludwig von Mises. Today, his name resonates around the world. The tributes to him pour out on a monthly and weekly basis. His books remain massive sellers. He is the standard-bearer for science in the service of human freedom. Especially after Guido Hülsmann's biography of Mises appeared, the appreciation for his courage and nobility have grown.

But we must remember that it was not always so, and it did not have to be so. This kind of immortality is granted in no small measure because of the discrete moral choices he made in life. For if you had asked anyone about this man between 1925 and the late 1960s — the bulk of his career — the answer would have been that he was washed up, old school, too doctrinaire, intransigent, unwilling to engage the profession, attached to antique ideas, and his own worst enemy. They called him the "last knight of liberalism" as a way of conjuring up images of Don Quixote. When Yale University solicited opinions on whether it should publish Human Action, most people answered that this book should never see the light of day because its time was long past. It was thanks only to the intervention of Fritz Machlup and Henry Hazlitt that Yale bothered at all."

 

[RobDownSouth]

http://mises.org/daily/3717/Economics-and-Moral-Courage

AJ quotin' racist Lew Rockwell's Mises.org is reminiscent of 1960s commies quoting Mao's little red book. Both are "True Believers".

Propagan-DUH!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And You Thought the Housing Crisis Was Over!
By WILLIAM TUCKER, The American Spectator
7.27.12

The Community Reinvestment Act is back, as if 2008 never happened.

Do you remember that thing about how the banks wouldn't lend to blacks and Hispanics because they were racists? And do you remember how they passed the Community Reinvestment Act so that banks were forced to reduce down payments practically to zero and lend to a lot of people they knew were bad credit risks? And do you remember how Wall Street bundled all these risky subprime mortgage and sold them to investors around the world so that when it became clear that those people weren't going to be able to pay their mortgages banks everywhere were left holding the bag and all five of the Wall Street investment houses either went under or had to be bailed out by the federal government?

And do you remember how, when it was all over, liberals said it was actually the banks' fault for "deceiving" all those people into thinking they could afford to buy homes and that the banks should be punished for it and some of those people be allowed to keep their homes anyway? And do you remember how all this cost the government close to a trillion dollars and put the whole economy in a hole that we really haven't begun to dig ourselves out of yet?

Well, get ready because the whole thing is about to happen again.

Yes, believe it or not, the federal government is now starting another initiative to force banks to lend to low-credit-rated blacks and Hispanics -- not just anybody but specifically blacks and Hispanics -- and is threatening -- and already collecting -- huge punitive fines if they don't. Moreover, this time they're going even further. They're going to take over the credit rating agencies and force them to change their standards to accommodate blacks and Hispanics so that nobody will have any idea who is a bad credit risk and who is not. In so many words, the government is about impose its will on the whole home-lending market and force another round of bad loans so that the banks are going to be looted once again so that even the federal government may not be able to bail them out this time.

The principle instrument this time is not the Justice Department, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as it was last time, but the brand-new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, designed by good old Elizabeth "Nobody-Ever-Made-It-On-Their-Own" Warren, which should really be called the Bureau for Bringing Down the Entire Economy. As reported in last Sunday's New York Post by Hoover Institution Media Fellow Paul Sperry, the CFPB has just announced that it is adopting a 20-page "Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending" issues by the Interagency Task force on Fair Lending in 1994 that kicked off Attorney General Janet Reno's draconic enforcement of the Community Renewal Act. Part of the policy statement reads, "Applying different lending standards or offering different levels of assistance to applicants who are members of a protected [i.e., minority] class is permissible income circumstances. Providing different treatment to applicants to address past discrimination would be permissible if done in response to a court order." There are already plenty of court orders sitting around.

Just two weeks ago Wells Fargo caved to a Justice Department offensive and paid $175 million for alleged past discriminating against minority borrowers. All this occurred even though the bank received an "outstanding" grade in its most recent Community Reinvestment Act exam. The government did not even bother to prove discrimination in a single instance but relied instead on statistics showing lower rates of homeownership in minority neighborhoods. Thomas Perez, the Justice Department honcho who is spearheading this campaign, says banks discriminate "with a smile" and "fine print" and are "every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood." Nice objective evaluation there.

As in most such cases, Wells Fargo chickened out about going to court and refused to admit any wrongdoing but agreed to all kinds of diversity training and sensitivity counseling. The bank will have to "prominently display" a notice informing minority customers that they cannot be turned down for loans just because they are receiving public assistance such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps. (Maybe they can even use food stamps for the down payment.) Wells Fargo must provide minority customers $50 million for down-payment and closing-cost assistance, including "Borrower Assistance Grants" of up to $15,000. It was also ordered to pay $125 million to as yet unnamed victims of previous discrimination. But get this! If those past victims don't show up, the money must be handed over to community organizing groups. President Obama, you have a job waiting for you if you lose office this fall.

Almost a dozen banks are under similar investigation and will be soon falling like dominoes unless one of them musters the courage to stand up to the Justice Department in court.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/27/and-you-thought-the-housing-cr

 

[RobDownSouth]

Oh noe! Nigars and Spics getting housing loans!

Bring back redlining!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Democrats in the House have been outsmarted by the Republicans, and they aren’t happy about it.

In fact, they’re starting to get downright whiny. Every Senior Democrat on every committee in the house signed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and all the Republican heads of House Committees threatening them that the Republicans should start "immediate negotiations" on "a balanced deficit reduction plan" in order to head off automatic sequester cuts from taking effect next year:

"We all agree that a sequester starting in January 2013 is not in the country’s best interest and is not the best way to assure responsible deficit reduction. The American people want us to work together to avoid unnecessary economic uncertainty at this crucial time in our recovery. Failure to reach an agreement would have devastating consequences for our economy, small business and the middle class."

The Democrats want to reach a deal before the end of September. But the Republicans have stated that they want a deficit reduction plan that features cuts in domestic spending without raising taxes, and Democrats want to raise taxes. The Republicans have not budged, which leaves the prospect that the sequester and its massive cuts in defense will occur.

The Republicans were ahead of the curve this time. The Republicans agreed to the sequester last August as part of the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling, which entailed roughly $1.1 trillion in cuts to defense and discretionary domestic spending over the next decade. One problem for the Democrats: the cuts in defense were supposed to catalyze the bipartisan fiscal supercommittee to reach agreement on an alternative deficit reduction plan. But when the panel failed in that effort, as Republicans had to know it would -- have Democrats ever cut domestic spending without raising taxes? -- it triggered the sequester, which meant the Democrats would be responsible for cutting the defense budget and social programs, which means they will be open to attacks for their callousness.

The Democrats thought they could play “chicken” by bullying the Republicans into raising taxes. But this time, it’s the Democrats who are squawking.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/26/Dems-Freak-Over-Lack-of-Debt

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

"According to Census figures, some 200,000 small businesses disappeared from the rolls between 2008 and 2010. Those businesses were responsible for some 3 million jobs. The Obama administration claims that they’re now moving in the right direction – but the direction of the economy is now reversing itself."
Ben Shapiro

 

[RobDownSouth]

"According to Census figures, some 200,000 small businesses disappeared from the rolls between 2008 and 2010. Those businesses were responsible for some 3 million jobs. The Obama administration claims that they’re now moving in the right direction – but the direction of the economy is now reversing itself."
Ben Shapiro

In 2009,there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. Link

If 200,000 businesses disappeared over three years, that's 66,667 per year.

66,667 divided by 27,500,000 is a failure rate of .002.

That's 1/5 of 1 percent per year!

IMPEACH TEH NIGGAR!

 

[Beco]

In 2009,there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. Link

If 200,000 businesses disappeared over three years, that's 66,667 per year.

66,667 divided by 27,500,000 is a failure rate of .002.


IMPEACH TEH NIGGAR!

Now you finally got it!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The decline in American production continued in the second quarter, according to the new release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Q2 GDP growth rate (annualized) was a meager 1.5%, down from 1.9% in the first quarter and 3.0% in 2011Q4:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

The Bureau emphasized that the second-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 3). The “second” estimate for the second quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on August 29, 2012.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Spain says, we're going to need another German bailout...

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/07/27/spain-reportedly-discussed-366b-bailout-with-germany/

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Throb using the N-word...


Again.

Typical Democrat.

While you're at it, could you come up with a plan to cancel out America's nigger amnesty policy? And who gave Pocahontas and her drunk-ass tribe citizenship?

__________________
You gonna shoot us another one of your hollow-point bullet proof facts?
Or are you just hateful, angry rhetoric?
One of Dem inspirational and motivational speakers?

 

[RobDownSouth]

Throb using the N-word...
Again.
Typical Democrat.

Broad brush much?

I call him a nigger all the time. It's funny to watch him turn purple and start spitting...

^^^Democrat?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Much of the slowdown in growth in the second quarter was caused by a softening in consumer spending as Americans eased off on automobile purchases due to tepid job and income growth. Consumer spending, which makes up about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 1.5 percent rate, a step down from the 2.4 percent pace logged in the previous three months. Consumer spending was the weakest in a year. Much of that reflected a drop in spending on long-lasting goods such as automobiles, which had buoyed consumption in the prior period.

But there was some silver lining, with spending on services rising at a 1.9 percent rate, stepping up from 1.3 percent. Labor market weakness, marked by three straight months of job growth at less than 100,000 jobs per month, remains a major constraint to spending.

The economy needs to grow at a rate of between 2% and 2.5% to keep the unemployment rate stable. Business inventories rose $66.3 billion in the last quarter, contributing nearly a third of a percentage point to GDP growth. However, with domestic demand slowing, businesses could find themselves with unwanted stock, which would hurt growth in the third quarter.

Excluding inventories, GDP rose at a 1.2% rate, the weakest pace since the first quarter of 2011. In the first quarter, the comparable figure was 2.4%.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/...-growth-gdp-economic-expansion/#ixzz21pKlyetY

 

[bra_man69]

In 2009,there were 27.5 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. Link

If 200,000 businesses disappeared over three years, that's 66,667 per year.

66,667 divided by 27,500,000 is a failure rate of .002.

That's 1/5 of 1 percent per year!

IMPEACH TEH NIGGAR!

Racist

 

[Beco]

4 more years! 4 more years! 4 more years!

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, July 27, 8:46 AM

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of just 1.5 percent from April through June, as Americans cut back sharply on spending. The slowdown in growth adds to worries that the economy could be stalling three years after the recession ended.

 

[kbate]

Dear Everyone,

We know the economy is just struggling along and we also know that we're probably going to dip back into recession once Europe crosses the pond, but fortunately, we also know there is an election coming and the stakes are QE3, a tax bill that will save the world and the desperate hope that the next dip can be held off until late November or that

OH MY GOD< LOOK OVER THERE< A SHOOTING < A TERRORIST < AN OLYMPICS <

something can keep the voter from realising that we are pretty much where we were when the policies of the previous administration were the benchmark of disaster. Can you inherit a mess from yourself?

 

[Beco]

"We tried our plan. And it worked.”

Another day in Obamaville.

 

[RobDownSouth]

"We tried our plan. And it worked.”

Another day in Obamaville.

"We Tried Our Plan": Fox, Beco, Limbaugh & Co. Truncate And Distort Yet Another Obama Quote

Derp.

 

[bra_man69]

"We Tried Our Plan": Fox, Beco, Limbaugh & Co. Truncate And Distort Yet Another Obama Quote

Derp.

Media matters that says everything one needs to know.

 

[busybody..]

hey NIGGERPOOP,

EVERYTHING the NIGGER says has to be clarified and restated and put in context

EVERYTHING!

NOTHING about him is REAL, NOTHING

STFU and DROP DEAD