Posted on 05/08/2008 8:34:11 AM PDT by porgygirl
Last week, the government released two important figures: GDP growth (or lack thereof) for the first quarter of this year, and the number of jobs created (or lack thereof) for the month of April.
The day before the released GDP report, a headline in USA Today read, "USA TODAY survey: We're in a recession, economists say." The first two sentences read as follows: "The U.S. economy is in recession, or soon to be in one. … the economists said the U.S. economy is in recession."
the 52 economists' predictions. They predicted 0.1 percent economic growth for the first quarter, 0.5 percent negative growth for the second, with positive growth for the next four quarters at 2.3, 2.0, 2.2 and 2.6 percent respectively. But they never bothered to show the growth in the last quarter of 2007, was still a positive 0.6 percent. In other words, assuming the traditional definition of recession – back-to-back quarters of negative economic growth – even USA Today's economic experts were not truly predicting a recession.
The next day, the actual number for this year's first quarter came out.
Oops. USA Today's website headline for an Associated Press story read: "Weak 0.6 percent economic growth in Q1 is better than forecast." In English, this means that since the recovery began in Bush's first year in office, we have had zero quarters of negative economic growth, let alone consecutive ones.
Now, on to last week's jobs numbers.
The day before the Labor Department released the numbers, the Associated Press warily wrote: "Investors are predicting another gloomy reading on U.S. employment on Friday. The Labor Department's report is expected to show a 75,000 net loss in jobs for April … and a rise in unemployment to 5.2 percent from 5.1 percent in March." So, what happened?
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
The recession is in the minds of the liberal masses and the MSM. They are all reading from the same doomsday book.
THEY’RE “TALKING DOWN THE ECONOMY”!!!!!!...............
How come government statistics all of a sudden become gospel when a Republican holds the presidency?
what else would you recommend jeeves?, they are the ones keeping the data.
Do you believe the current statistics? Why or why not?
Our economy is 70% consumer spending. The FED has no more ammo with the discount rate at 25 (below inflation)
A recession is coming and it is coming hard...(see the "lost decade" in Japan for reference)
I suspect that in this case it may be less liberal media bias and more due to situational bias.
The difference between a recession and a depression is said to be this: when your neighbor gets laid off, it's a recession; when you get laid off, it's a depression.
The news industry is in recession — largely because there is less demand for product. (Could have something to do with product quality, but that's an independent issue.) News professionals are being laid off left and right.
Since their little corner of the economy is tanking, they assume that the rest of the economy has to be just as bad. To quote Willie speaking to Joe: “The hell this ain't the most important foxhole in this war. I'm in it.”
Economic reality is mixed. Construction has taken a dive and is not reflected in unemployment (birth/death of construction businesses is still showing more job births). The problem is the lagging nature of those adjustments (which also understated the job growth earlier in the Bush recovery).
I went out to lunch the other day with some moonbats.
Well, not really. They are good ole southern boys, they just like to complain alot.
We talked about our new lawnmowers...”52inch, 15hp JohnDeere”
We talked about our TVs.....”48inch HD plasma”....”I like my TiVo”.....”I have a 32inch plasma in my bedroom”
We talked about our kids....”all mine have cell phones”....”they like their PlayStation 3”
We talked about local resturants.....”I go there about twice a week”....”what about that new place, I’m gonna try it out this weekend”
We talked about vacations....”the wife and I are looking at Carnival Cruseline”
...and of course, they talked about how bad the economy is under Bush.
I just shake my head.
thank you for mr truman’s quote,my neighbor is doing fine and i am retired.
Obviously, there is no recession and there will be no recession as long as the consumer maintains spending in the face of 4 dollar or ever higher gasoline.
how about the RANGER boat with the 200hp Merc on it sitting in the driveway next to the dually Toyota pickup.you mean they didn’t mention what a good candidate OBAMA was, and what a good show CNN had on last nite?
I do not. The recent jobs report was a blatant lie, based on the BLS birth/death model. They just made up jobs that don't exist and plugged them into the model. Without that, we lost over half a million jobs in the last two months:
April Jobs - Another Report From Bizarro World
No doubt everybody from GWB on down will rationalize to themselves that this type of fudging is necessary to avoid panicking the markets and doing even more damage. They think they are doing the right thing.
So where's the recession ??
Must be on Wall St. because Main St. is thriving things have not been better.
YMMV
My brother contracts his own construction work on new residential and commercial decorative rock work, like granite or marble and ceramic tiles.
He just bought himself a new F250 SuperDuty and while he was at the dealership his wife talked him in to trading her Camry for a 07’ Buick Rendezvous.
He has more work than he can possibly do himself.
We piled in the new Buick to go out to a resturant but was soon frustated. Ever resturant in town was full with lines out the door.
Nice car, though.
The recession is real to me. The company I work for is closing tomorrow.
Sorry about your company. Hope you find something new. It might be a blessing.
But see, I worked for a company that closed too. That was in 1998. There was no “recession” in 1998. Times were bad for me in 1998.
Emphasis on “for me”
Toyota doesn't really have a dually on the market do they? I've already told by wife that when they do our F-350 is gone, gone, gone . . .
I don't see much of a recession in my neck of the woods.
“””Best Buy parking lots are still full. Neighbors still have at least 2 cars/trucks. iPods are still selling like crazy. Traffic (wasted gasoline) worse than ever. People still buying $1.50 bottled water by the truck load””””
We must be in the same area. Try going to HomeDepot at noon on saturday. IMPOSSIBLE
Where is here?
Seems like the second part would be key right now, it's been holding up around here (distant suburbs of DC).
On CNN today.
“Housing Markets Set To Fall”
“Economy Woes, How Do You Cope”
wait fo it....
“Grand Theft Auto IV steals sales records”
Burbs of Charlotte NC
see many cars on the road older than 5 yrs? how long does it take to get in and out of your walmart super center?how about the drive-in at dunkin donuts, between 8 and 10 am?
I’m not looking. Will cut back big time and retire with hubby.
Well, see.....
I started out feeling sorry for you but now I am jealous.
Yes things appear bad, yet business is good. I’ve never been busier.
Go figure.
Yes things appear bad, yet business is good. I’ve never been busier.
Go figure.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, and most economists, define a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” By that definition we’re in a recession.
Larry Elder used to (correctly) chide Bill Maher for calling himself a libertarian. Well, Larry should do the same thing for himself. I know, I know- he calls himself a “Republitarian” now- whatever the heck THAT’S supposed to be. But come on. He should just be honest his listeners, his readers, and most important of all, himself, and drop the “tarian” part altogether. Yes, of COURSE there’s liberal media bias, but no, that does NOT explain allt he negativity! How can a libertarian be so trusting of these awful government statistics, that say there’s no inflation?! That ALONE skewers the GDP number. I could go on, but this whole thing can be summed up in one sentence- Elder became an infomercial for the Bush administration a long time ago.
The credit spigots are still on! That’s why we’re still seeing this nonsense- not because the economy is still strong. Most people are out of money. When the credit card companies start suffering the same fate as the subprime mortgage, all the borrowers will whine yet again on how they “were tricked” into taking those loans, and around and around we go...
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