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  • #1

    Depression?

    Access Denied
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7871421/With-the-US-trapped-in-depression-this-really-is-starting-to-feel-like-1932.html

    "Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing," he said.

    California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.

    Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene."

    Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

    Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.

    The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

    The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weniger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s.

    "Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted. By our math the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2m."

    Republicans on Capitol Hill are filibustering a bill to extend the dole for up to 1.2m jobless facing an imminent cut-off. Dean Heller from Nevada called them "hobos". This really is starting to feel like 1932.




    only a comment, but for the resident poly posters - how does it feel across the pond? any truth in this as it is slighly weird that a right wing Torygraph paper is even going in this direction. If the US is getting "depressed" the rest of the world is sure to follow.
    Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
    GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"
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  • #2
    As things stand, it wouldn't be right to call it a depression nation-wide. We're growing. It's not too robust, though. It's no longer a crisis, but in the aggregate, companies are asking their employees to work more hours rather than hiring a lot of new employees. I imagine that they'll start hiring again soon, but who knows on the timing...

    Maybe if I lived in Detroit or Las Vegas, I would think of this as a depression. It's all perspective. My brother-in-law was called back to his factory job at the first of the year from a lay off, so to me it seems as if things are getting better. My days are full. Businesspeople seem to be making decisions based off of their order books rather than holding on to what they imagine to be the last dollar they'll ever see. There have been sporadic reports of companies prioritizing orders for their most important clients, which would seem to suggest that the companies will increase capacity soon by hiring people to satisfy the orders from more marginal clients.
    Last edited by DanS; July 13, 2010, 14:32.
    I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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    • #3
      well let's hope it is only perspective ... and this whole debt implosion does not start the second round of pain...

      next year will be interesting nevertheless, as the "austerity" measures taken in UK and some other european countries start kicking in, US stimulus fizzles out etc...

      Eight million jobs lost over three years in US sounds bad though, extra weight is the fact that we will never be as affordable as people in the east to perform various services which will continue to go there... will be interesting to watch where will the "new" jobs be created, once various fiscal stimuli are phased out.
      Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
      GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

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      • #4
        No doubt the debt implosion is already causing continuous pain. That's why we aren't growing very quickly. People are saving more money. One comforting note out of all the bad news is that corporate America is not heavily indebted, unlike individual households. Once they see increased orders, there is nothing stopping them from expanding to handle those orders.
        Last edited by DanS; July 13, 2010, 14:44.
        I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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        • #5
          well... yes, but how much will they expand here, as opposed to over there?

          I was just suprised by this commentary that the overall impact so far was so strong, as going by the general commentaries - it did not look that bad to me. but 8 mil jobs lost, almost 10mil long-term unemployed (how do they make ends meet?, and what was the running rate for them during 1990's?)... etc...
          Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
          GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

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          • #6
            A good proportion of the new jobs will be created here. Most jobs in first world countries aren't very transferable and those that are transferable often have reasons why they don't transfer.
            I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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            • #7
              .

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              • #8
                On second thought, was that too much information?
                I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

                Comment

                • #9
                  Originally posted by DanS View Post
                  As things stand, it wouldn't be right to call it a depression nation-wide.
                  I pretty much agree we're growing just not fast enough to generate much in the way of jobs.
                  Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by DanS View Post
                    On second thought, was that too much information?
                    I suppose that's why it's a "." now...
                    "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                    Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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                    • #11
                      The hardest thing in AI is knowing proper context.
                      "The issue is there are still many people out there that use religion as a crutch for bigotry and hate. Like Ben."
                      Ben Kenobi: "That means I'm doing something right. "

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