Where's the recession?...

thegamerslink · 04-30-2008, 12:31 PM

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/mar...ands--quarter/

Thanol · 05-01-2008, 09:15 PM

Does this take into account the declining value of the dollar? Someone should do some growth figures adjusted against the Euro or any other currency for that matter. In raw dollar terms we may be growing, but in relative terms I highly doubt it.

In the past three months the Euro has gained 5% in value over the dollar.

EDIT: I forgot that's what Purchasing Power Parity GDP is for. I wonder what those numbers will say.

thegamerslink · 05-07-2008, 01:42 PM

Walt Disney just announced a 22% income gain over last year that is a gain of over 1.8 billion dollars......News Corporation just announced a 16% increase in 3Q earnings. These don't follow suit with a recession or even an economic slow down. Both of these companies Disney being one of Entertainment and Newscorp making theirs from Advertising would be among one of the first to start seeing slow downs and losses as those are typically the first places consumers and business begin to tighten the belts so to speak.

So beyond the Housing fiasco and the high gas prices do we really have a major problem?

iastaff · 05-07-2008, 04:04 PM

Although the dollar may be declining in world value, its not as low-strength as many may think. There are multiple countries that actually use the U.S. dollar among their own national currency as their money of preference. One of those countries is none other than Panama itself. I think the declining dollar is a temporary set back only. I really do not see a recession coming, at least not a full blown one as in the 20's.

thegamerslink · 05-07-2008, 04:15 PM

I'm seeing it like this, my views aren't views based on political parties although this will sound like it lol......firstly the credit crisis i.e. housing fiasco is more over than beginning...meaning we are in the recovery process and it's not as bad as it was.....the cost of gas....that is the biggest problem at the moment and hopefully there will be a way found to help alleviate it soon one way or the other......Supply and Demand of oil, if we don't increase our own abilities to get oil i.e. drill off the coasts such as in th gulf and in the atlantic, start drilling in Anwar and also build a new refinery, while at the same time we continue to research and implement new and improved power techniques.

What you can probably expect though is this, this is an election year, the congress is held by a democrat majority who is desperate to seize the White House. So the tax cuts that were so successful at alleviating the economic strain are not going to be made permanent, mostly because they were not the idea of the Democrats. This in itself is putting a strain on the economy. The market doesn't particularly care for democrats and does tend to not thrive as well when they are in power....If a Democrat takes the Presidency they have both already called for higher taxes as part of their economic plan mix that with the cancellation of the current tax cuts and we are instantly in a recession if not a full on depression......and if you think the dollar is low now wait till something like that happens

dbinto · 05-08-2008, 08:10 PM

You're basing your info on a story from Fox? Its a Murdoch filter view of reality.

Just go looking at the foreclosure market. Its real.

thegamerslink · 05-08-2008, 08:31 PM

You're basing your views strictly on one market that is troubled by the poor decisions of Banks and Mortgage companies that ok'd loans to people they knew shouldn't get it and of people that knew they were buying outside of their means. You can't base an entire economy on the mistakes of a few, not to mention the impact is not as severe as what is the general assumption, what is it like 1 in 20 or something like that?

homebizseo · 05-12-2008, 10:55 PM

The receswsion is all around you. Small businesses are closing up at a faster rate than ever before.

thegamerslink · 05-14-2008, 11:34 AM

Is that because there is less money being floated about or is it that there are more people going out and starting small businesses than ever before?

John Scott · 05-15-2008, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by homebizseo

The receswsion is all around you. Small businesses are closing up at a faster rate than ever before.

Economic slow down. May turn into a recession, but last I checked it didn't meet the criteria to be called a recession.

s_e_s · 05-15-2008, 05:40 AM

i actually agree with that John!but never the less i think the US should stop spending so much on weapons and military power and instead the government should spend more on social and economic development.
Also, a great number of laws adopted in the past should be cancelled or changed.
well, it's not going to be like in 20's but still there are some problems to be solved right now.
unfortunately, we have to wait till the new president is elected....only after that much more attention will be paid to the problematic issues of the economy and society.

thegamerslink · 05-15-2008, 08:18 AM

Wasn't World War II one of the major things that got us out of the depression and back on the road to economic recovery after the depression? When you increase the size of the military and increase military spending you are increasing jobs yes? As the economy goes there are only 2 major hurdles to over come at the moment as I see them....well putting the election aside.....1 is the housing issue, and that was caused as I said before by bankers/lenders making stupid loan choices and people going in to loans they had no business getting in the first place. And 2 the fuel prices, if you were to take away those two issues I don't think we'd be facing a slow down even. Oh and the election, did I mention that?

snowbird · 05-15-2008, 08:42 AM

The recession is about 20 minutes away from my house in Cleveland Ohio. There you can see abandoned homes that have been stripped of their aluminum siding and sold for scrap. Hookers and drug dealers have taken over some other homes as well. I saw a home on W 44 st in Cleveland that had used condoms littering the sidewalk in front of one boarded up house. It's nasty, but quite real.

Jobs? Well Wal Mart in Cleveland had over 4000 applicants when it first opened a few months back. That set a record for Wal Mart applications and shows how competitive getting a retail job is. Well, without many job openings around here for people, Wal Mart and other low paying retail jobs are all low/no skilled workers can get.

I agree energy prices are a huge risk. When jobs are lost and wages are not rising, it's hard to pay more for fuel, food, etc. In Ohio, our last Governor (Republican Bob Taft) allowed electricity companies to go to the wholesale market. The new Democrat Governor is trying to go back to regulation because there are estimates our electric bills will go up 50% starting in 09.

The city I live in plans on raising taxes to pay for a recreation center. They just raised our taxes for a new fire station, school levy, and our sanitary rates are going up 10% a year.

The tax rebates/stimulus will help with some of the extra bills, but Bush wants us to spend it. Come on. Spend it on what? Everything we buy is made in China. 70% of the stimulus will go straight to China to pay for the goods we bought. China's manufacturing will get a big boost while our retailers will get a slight boost to peddle foreign made products.

Many are moving away from here, but homes stay on the market 9-12 months easily. The house across the street from me sold for $5,000 more then I paid for mine five years ago. And that house has 1000 more sqaure feet then my house and one more full bathroom then mine. Property values are going down the tubes. My house is probably worth $10K-15K less then I paid for it five years ago. And I live in a suburb just west of Cleveland.

This may not be a national recession, but in the Cleveland Ohio area it certainly is.

thegamerslink · 05-15-2008, 09:37 AM

Wouldn't that fall under state and local government rather than national? We all have an innate desire to immediately place blame towards the Federal government in everything that happens when it has a lot more to do with state and local governments not making the right decisions or doing things that need to be done. If I remember right when Bush first took office there was an uproar because one of the first things he did was to start taking federal money away from the states forcing them to be self accountable. This actually is the way it should be I would think, or at least is how it was supposed to be, the local community government taking care of local, the state taking care of the state and playing referee to local government and Feds doing the larger scale of a states charge. When you try making one large federal government that becomes responsible for everything that happens all the way down to the local community you get something different than a democracy.....what is that word.....

selfhelpebooks · 05-15-2008, 01:09 PM

Well..food and gas prices aren't getting any better.
They estimate that gas will rise to $5 at the end of this year and possibly up to $7 in the next 4 years.
We better start saving up! ..lol

s_e_s · 05-16-2008, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thegamerslink

Wasn't World War II one of the major things that got us out of the depression and back on the road to economic recovery after the depression? When you increase the size of the military and increase military spending you are increasing jobs yes?

you can't have military oriented economy all the time...the problem there is when you have such a huge army, you need to use it somewhere, you need an "external enemy" to fight against in order to prove your political course and unite (well in some way) your nation....military based economics are good only for war periods and that's all....why do we need so many guns and tanks?who do we want to kill? i just don't get it..

we have to help people around the world not kill them...
we help them, they help us...simple

thegamerslink · 05-16-2008, 10:27 AM

You missed my point I think....when Republicans are in office we have a larger military for defense and humanitarian purpose that helps keep unemployment down to a minimum at the same time it is providing the ability for a larger amount of people of all ages attain higher training and education levels than they would have otherwise been able to. The World War II comparison was coming off of an immense depression so that is what helped with the recovery, in our case we aren't close to that severe of a situation, but if you put someone in office that raises taxes and then on top of that decreases current military spending on the citizen market and then will most likely decrease the over all size of the military which both Carter and Clinton did. You will ensure a recession. The military does have a drastic role on our economic health just not our military might. And just because we have it, no we don't have to use it to kill people.

snowbird · 05-16-2008, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thegamerslink

Wouldn't that fall under state and local government rather than national? We all have an innate desire to immediately place blame towards the Federal government in everything that happens when it has a lot more to do with state and local governments not making the right decisions or doing things that need to be done. If I remember right when Bush first took office there was an uproar because one of the first things he did was to start taking federal money away from the states forcing them to be self accountable. This actually is the way it should be I would think, or at least is how it was supposed to be, the local community government taking care of local, the state taking care of the state and playing referee to local government and Feds doing the larger scale of a states charge. When you try making one large federal government that becomes responsible for everything that happens all the way down to the local community you get something different than a democracy.....what is that word.....

The Feds have the primary responsibility of regulating mortgages, especially those originating and resold across state lines. But in Ohio's case, the State has plenty of blame as well.

The City of Cleveland passed an anti-predatory lending law only to have it snuffed out by the State. The State of Ohio argued successfully that it was not within the city's authority to regulate mortgages. Here we are a couple of years later and the mortgage mess is quite apparent. Instead of fighting the City of Cleveland, the State of Ohio should have taken action to protect its citizens and hold everyone (including the buyers) accountable.

The big thing in Ohio now is payday loans. I guess some are upset that payday lenders are able to charge 389% APR on loans.

Democrats don't like that so that's their new target.

Sorry, but I don't believe a big military is the key to keeping unemployment rates down. Look at the tradeoff - Thousands of American lives lost to boost the economy? Don't think so. What about the thousands of soldiers that are injured coming back to the states? As taxpayers, we will be paying for their disability checks for decades. If anything, this places a further strain on the economy.

If our elected officials are concerned about the economy, then they need to really look at global trade and curb imports/dumping from China and the like. I'm fine with not curbing imports so long as our trade agreements take into account the fees businesses in the US must pay (Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Workers Compensation, etc.). From what I see, our trade agreements have not significantly improved the standard of living for workers overseas. These trade agreements have simply left US businesses in a position that they can no longer compete.