Comment Rescue: Leading indicator
And you guys can talk all you want about the economy, but every leading indicator is through the roof.
It is an article of faith among Republicans that the economy is good. They glean this, I suppose, from the fact that the DJIA is back to where it was when Clinton was in office.
While the DJIA being back to Clinton era level says SOMETHING – does it really say that the economy is awesome? Maybe it says that Bush corporatist agenda and the programmatic weakening of consumer and environmental regulations is paying some short term dividends?
I’m not saying it is, but so what if the economy is good.
With the Republican war in Iraq dragging on, the economy being “good” is kind of like getting a back rub while being kicked in the balls.
I’m not hearing folks say, “ooh that back rub feels great.”
I just happened across this leading indicator in the Dover Post.
Foreclosures up 36% in Kent County and 30% statewide.
Hurray for the Bush economy!!!
Back in April, the Economic Policy Institute provided a summary of the so-called “Bush Recovery” vs the average of historical recoveries since WWII.
See Graph and Summary here.
Corporate profits are certainly through the roof, but nothing else keeps up with that growth.
I think that this summary tells the story of the disconnect between the BushCo cheerleading on the economy and the overwhelming uneasiness about the state of the economy as most of the rest of us experience it.
Basically Bush crashed the economy so it could be rebooted in cheap-labor mode.
Growth is confined to the top 10%. It’s as though Bill Gates walked into a room full of poor people and said “Gee, the average income in here is pretty good!!”
It takes the same amount of gas for a rich man to drive 10 miles as for a poor man. Except as a percentage of income the poor man is paying a whole lot more. It costs the same for a rich man’s kid to see a doctor as for a poor man’s kid. Except the percentage thing kicks in again. And a rich man’s food cost the same as a poor man’s food, but the poor man has already spent all his money on gas to get to work and doctors for his kid, so he’s getting beans for dinner tonight.
The gap between rich and poor in this country is greater than it’s been since 1929 when they first started keeping records of this.
Bush’s base of the haves and have mores are doing just fine thank you, and screw the rest of the country. There is class warfare and we’re losing.
The economy in the aggregate is fine but some underlying distribution problems are still evident.
A sensible tax plan, real education reform and job creation will help a great deal.
Look at a http://www.50ideasfordelaware.com
or http://www.betterdealfordelaware.wordpress.com
sensible tax plan, education and job creation? OMG Mike, are you a socialist?
“It is an article of faith among Republicans that the economy is good.”
Apparently, its an article of data too, from the GPO/
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=economic_indicators&docid=f:00jn07.txt.pdf
Sure there are a few areas that can improve, but in general, income, earnings, CPI, consumption, all much higher than 2000 even when adjusted for inflation.
“Foreclosures up 36% in Kent County and 30% statewide.”
That is actually a result of a GOOD economy. People were doing so well that they failed to use common sense when purchasing a home. They bought bigger homes than they could really afford. Not great surprise that it happened, especially since housing prices boomed for a while BECAUSE the economy was good and more people were looking for houses than inventory provided. Supply and demand. In a bad economy housing prices are the first thing to bottom out. While housing prices have moderated, it is a still a normal housing market, not a depressed one.
Spin what you want you want to here, but the data does not really back you up here.
Foreclosures good for the economy?!?
That might be the dumbest comment in all the Internets!
“Foreclosures good for the economy?!?”
Not what I said. I said they were an unfortunate byproduct of a good economy. It would obviously best if there were none. It is a terrible thing to happen to someone. But with the lower interest rates and booming real estate market we had, it was inevitable.
My point is that you cannot point to it as a indicator of a bad economy. It just doesn’t work that way.
For example. If you have a family that makes $100,000 a year and they eat out at fine restaurants three times a week, buy strictly name-brand shoes, see first-run movies at least once a week, have every premium cable channel under the sun and still order pay-per-view, and drive the nicest cars, but at the end of the month can’t make the mortgage payment or buy groceries…are they really experiencing a bad economy?
Human nature drove many people to buy houses at the top of their affordability range. I understand. We saw the perfect house. It was just outside of the limit we set..and we still bought it. If I or my wife loses our job or gets hurt, we could easily find ourselves in the same position. But that doesn’t mean the economy is bad. If it was we would have not taken the chance, as many others would not have.
Nice try with the word twist, VC, but I expect nothing less of you.
Okay. If we all have to pack up, (Grapes of Wrath style) it will mean the economy is booming.
Chris you have passed through to the otherside of the looking glass. You have graduated from wingnut to plain old NUT.
Wow. Just wow.
Chris did not even read the doc that he cites.
If he did, he would see that it contradicts nothing that has been said here. The chart and analysis I linked to just provided some context to compare to. But this CBO report does say that corporate profits have been growing like gangbusters, and personal income and job growth does NOT increase at anywhere near that rate. The stock market and corporate profits DOES NOT constitute the the entirety of the economy.
And that is some Orwellian spin on foreclosures. If you know anything at all about these markets, you know that the industry got alot of confidence in its ability to layoff risk to others (like the hedge funds that went belly up last week) the the current foreclosure trend is some of that risk coming home to roost. The big question now is how much more of that risk is rolling downhill.
You could do yourself a favor and turnoff that wingnut radio and actually engage with the very real data presented.
Remedial statistics tutoring available in exchange for martinis.
“Chris did not even read the doc that he cites.
If he did, he would see that it contradicts nothing that has been said here.”
What part of the increased revenues, incomes, and CPI did you not understand.
Maybe you need it further spelled out for you…
http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/13/news/economy/consumer_sentiment.reut/index.htm
wow Chrissy, you have out trolled yourself in here.
foreclosures=good economy, just bad people that overspent.
stunning.
“What part of the increased revenues, incomes, and CPI did you not understand.”
And what part of a much slower rate of growth especially in comparison to corporate profits did you not understand? The report you point to shows my point. Sure there are indicators there rising, and most of them are extremely moderate. Corporate profits growth is outpacing all of those.
None of this data is without context. And you can pretend that there is a economic narrative that exists entirely without reference to what came before and the projections of what might come, to be an intelligent part of this conversation, you need to deal with that context. Otherwise you continue to look like a bundle of talking points with absolutely no capacity to grapple with or even assess data on your own.
And, just so you know, economists and markets generally (there are exceptions and we ain’t in one)want a slow rise in the CPI.
Come back to this conversation when you actually can read the charts you point to.
spankity, SPANK!!!!
Chirp, chirp goes the mocking-bird!