Thê Rêcession That Breaks The Empire?

[nicomachus]

This is the worst recession of the past 40 years. By far. Consider the following chart from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:



(Source: bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=13498)

That's people, not markets. Markets seem to do okay, and those who make a living investing in them are doing better than they were two years ago.

But most people are not doing better.

Suppose we compare this recession to the Great Depression. Can we come out of this one the way we did then?

I suspect not: Unlike the 1930s, the trade unions are terribly impotent and there is no left wing infrastructure to balance out the political power scale. During the 1920s and 30s there were hundreds of well organized chapters of socialist groups and Communist parties across the United States. Today's Democrats, by contrast, while holding the monopoly on liberal interests, is indistinguishable from the Republican party of 20 or 30 years ago.

In contrast, the right is extremely well organized and well funded and has near complete control on the media, pumping out their propaganda on FOX, AM-Radio, and magazines 24 hours a day. And people follow them!

Meanwhile, an extremely corporate congress and big business-surrounded President are giving us budgets that eliminate heating assistance for the poor, cutting back on welfare programs, dramatically decreasing federal funding for poor neighborhoods, schools, job training programs, and phasing out the Pell grant component of student loans (which is crucial for many young people).

All of this while obstinately making sure that the rich are paying historically very low taxes.

Your taxes aren't going to make sure social security remains solvent for you (something the President promised to put on the backs of the wealthy in his 2008 campaign but has since bailed on), but to increased weapons systems and a futile nuclear power reactor.

And the question is: How long will the people put up with it?

Unless the government begins paying attention to people over markets, pretty soon our streets might look like Egypt's did last week.

[itstippy]

Unemployment benefits last a maximum of 99 weeks. Figure 23 months. Now look at the job loss chart. We're about to enter a period where millions of Americans' unemployment benefits end. Meanwhile, States are slashing "safety net" programs because they're broke. Very tough times coming for many who have been barely hanging on for the past year and a half . . .

[vl]

What makes this unlike any prior downturn is that it was steered and controlled. This has been an attempt by eggheads to take us into the future tethered to electronic devices. Too bad none of them lived in the REAL world before trashing it. We won't be going anywhere soon and when we do, expect us to be taking prehistoric steps with cyber-age exposure knowledge tripping us up. LOOK at the magnitude of socially-driven marketing today. We have all experienced it in the past, it will ignore glaring alarms of imbalance and push demand when supply compromises the ecology and economy while increasing waste.
Those unemployed you see are not likely candidates for re-assimilation. There are two futures to consider-- if jobs suddenly pop up and hiring barriers are reduced to gain mass engagement to revive tax-generating revenues... bad bosses will be pummeled or destroyed postal-style. The other option is a forced shift away from where we were steered and controlled to. In other words we will shift to alternatives whether "big" wishes it or not.
Either way... you can pretty well guess what 2012 is shaping up to be. The adages-- be careful what you wish for, and, what goes around comes around... will be ringing true all year. In every prior "recession" some wealthy person lost it and some risk-taker became wealthy. Lawyers, Bankers, Financiers and Politicians haven't paid the piper yet. It will happen or war will.

[dumdeedoe]

The government does pay attention to people, That is why they extended the Bush tax cuts,It added 15 million poor to the not taxed bracket, and helped the rich by keeping cap gains to a nice low level... Installed a national health care system to aid the poor when they get sick or need help.... Extended unemployment to 99 weeks,after which you can apply for welfare.......The poor in this country will never riot as long as they have a big screen plasma TV and a cable modem, and 2 cars in the garge....

Its the middle class has no help and will continue to foot the bill for all of this.

[Virgil Showlion]

An equally telling plot comes from the same article:



This is using the BLS' fudged job data. The plot flatlines right about the time the EXHTRATE starts dropping hundreds of thousands of job-seekers off the unemployment rolls.

[nicomachus]

Coming Soon: America: Special Third World Version.
Now With More Poverty!

[vl]

Coming sooner... a sub-economy with its own currency. The dumbest thing any government can do is to exclude the People from its plans, print lots of money regular people don't ever see or use and raise the debt ceiling so regular people's children are indebted for generations. Sorry, but if I can't use it, I'll lose it and start my own, leaving the tab for the money grab with those who caused this mess.
We can create jobs today by eliminating corporate boards and management who accepted pay without tangible productivity and useful performance, not paper pushing and button pressing.
We will recover when there is no more Wal-Mart and millions of small businesses are created in offset.
We will prosper again when our government abides by the exact same rules and conditions the People must.

[neohguy]

A little bit from todays members letter from The Consumer Metrics Institute (bold by me):...

It is important to remember a few things about our data when comparing it to data from either the BEA or the BLS:

-- Our data is intrinsically inflation neutral (or arguably "real" as opposed to "nominal"). This avoids the kinds of problems present in recent retail sales gains that completely disappear when adjusted for price movements.

-- Our data is largely free from aberrant seasonal adjustments, since it reflects daily year-over-year changes (using a 364 day "year", with only minor timing adjustments to reflect calendar shifts in the Easter and Thanksgiving holidays). It is also impervious to those dreaded storms that are handy explanations for unfavorable surprises.

-- The consumers that we track are demographically different from the aggregate profile of the "U.S. Consumer." Our consumers are (generally) younger, better educated and less culturally diverse than the entire U.S. population. Those same characteristics may have caused our consumers to be effected by the recent recession in ways that diverge from the population as a whole.

-- We have chosen to use as a baseline year for our weightings the same year (2005) that the BEA uses for its NIPA tables. One of the consequences is that our weightings still assume that residential real estate and healthy employment levels are relevant to the economy.

But even with those caveats in mind, the above chart is clearly signaling that something is amiss with the consumer economy -- something that neither the BEA nor the BLS has yet reported. Our data suggests that their aggregate measures of the economy fail to capture share changes among the different socio-economic, age, gender, racial or cultural demographics. In effect, this may not be a rising tide -- but rather a selectively benevolent crane operator who is lifting favored boats back to sea.
Some external evidence of demographic divergences was observed within the February University of Michigan consumer sentiment data by Dave Rosenberg. Although the headline number of 75.1 beat expectations (and was the highest level since June), Dave noted that:"all the gains in consumer confidence in the past month were concentrated in the high income segment ¯ soaring to 88.2 in February from 80.7, which is the best reading since December 2007. That is a sure sign of how the equity wealth effect has taken over, at least among the folks that own stocks. But sentiment among the lowest income group actually tumbled from 72.1 to 67.7, a three-month low, and that may reflect the unintended consequence of QE2, which was to send the prices of food and fuel sharply higher."

[vl]

U of M... it has about 22,000 enrolled students at any one time. Of those, some 19,000 are Michigan residents. Perhaps the charters of this data should contact the university's own admissions office. The fall enrollments of in-state students is expected to fall by nearly 50% while the new governor slashes funding to it. Makes you wonder what these large colleges will look like without enough students to accommodate overhead or fund a football team.

Riddle me this... if you can anticipate decline and know factually that it will impact funding, why hasn't ANY major university tore the lawns out and replaced them with self-sustaining crops that would not only supply food service naturally, but be managed by students who will likely be doing the same in life after graduation?

[usaone]

Its called trickle down economics. We are following the Ronald Reagan game plan from the 1980's.

The chart on consumer confidence also showed a gap between rich and poor before the 2008 recession. Nothing new.

V_L the technological revolution is here. Sorry your not happy about it. A lot of older folks are scared and confused by it.

[lifewasgood]

Getting back to basics for many in this country will be painful as they have no idea what basics means. Corn and Beans taste much better than Ipods and DVD's. But it will take some time for that to sink in. America will not wake up until she is hungry and bleeding. The greedy bankers and wall street brokers have caused great pain for Americans and the pain will worsen until we take back our money system. Most folks in this country have not connected the dots as none of the fraudulent SOB's have been arrested or charged with any crimes. Instead we the people gave them more money that belongs to yet born citizens.

[usaone]

Thats because 80% of the country is doing just fine.

[lifewasgood]

No, again you are not correct.

[usaone]

Well

Who are all those people in the malls. All those millions of middle class people at all those sold out college and pro football games over the winter.

Who are all those people traveling on planes....the most in years?

Buying Apple products?

[lifewasgood]

Fools mostly, I know exactly who those folks are, and you make my point, Do you realize how many folks stopped making house payments? Many are either behind a month or two or just out right stop paying and waiting for the eviction notice, which by the way has been delayed for various reasons. These folks stopped making mortgage payments and spent the money on Xmas, ball games, ipods, play-stations etc etc. However, the free ride days are coming to an end and it will be then when things start going out of control. Imagine dropping your $1200 a month house payment for over a year, that puts an additional $14,400 in your pocket to spend. The banks cutup the credit cards on these folks but they found a way to keep up the lifestyle. Until................................................................

[usaone]

There are 310,000,000 people in this country. Tell me how many have stopped paying there mortgage?

[mikec]

USA1
When you stop beating your head against a wall it feels good......

[usaone]

I know but sometimes its tough.

A lot of miss information out there.

[vl]

310 million people.
30 million are directly unemployed (10%).
They have families so multiply by 2.2.
62 million people are directly impacted by unemployment.
100 million are under-employed (took concessions, pay cuts and jobs below their skill set).
They have families so multiply by 2.2.
220 million people are directly impacted by under-employment.
Collectively, 282 million people are NOT doing well.
That leaves about 30 million who are.
Of those, 29 million live rent-free.

A million people have more than they need and a mindset for greed.

To be young, relatively stupid, ignorant of the surrounding world and reliant on electronic devices isn't going to go far. We all use electronic devices, the trick is-- can you put yours down and do ANYTHING else that is tangibly significant to your self-sufficiency? I doubt it.

Possessing an i-Phone doesn't make you good at anything, it just means you bought or lease an i-Phone. It may tell you where to find preprocessed food but it can't feed you.

[lifewasgood]

About 11%

hubpages.com/hub/Sub-prime-Mortgage

[usaone]

100 million are not underemployed.

[usaone]

So 11% of people who have mortgages are behind.

How many people in this country have a mortgage?

35%

So 11% of the 35% are having trouble.

[lifewasgood]

Tough to see when you walk in the dark with your eyes closed.

[usaone]

Time marches on V_L.

Its a techo revolution.

[usaone]

Feb 17, 2011 12:03:05 GMT -5 @lifewasgood said:

Tough to see when you walk in the dark with your eyes closed.

Right back at you!

[mikec]

Wow my head feels SO good!!!!

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

I've had my one of my best three years of all time in 2009. This year is looking up, too. Of course, I'm in lower income / working class housing.

My tenants work at Target and Wal Mart so easy on the no more Wal Mart comments there! I find the "Wal Mart" debate hurts my head which is why I won't have it anymore. Either people understand economics, or they don't. If they don't what's the point of trying persuade them?

[neohguy]

Feb 17, 2011 16:10:13 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

I've had my one of my best three years of all time in 2009. This year is looking up, too. Of course, I'm in lower income / working class housing.

My tenants work at Target and Wal Mart so easy on the no more Wal Mart comments there! I find the "Wal Mart" debate hurts my head which is why I won't have it anymore. Either people understand economics, or they don't. If they don't what's the point of trying persuade them?

Slavery and lots of artrocities make good economic sense. Not so good for society. I'm tired of explaining it to them.

[vl]

I understand why some people "think" technology as they know it is good. We know it too. We also know how things work without technology. That's the gap or chasm or great divide. There are people who were totally lost when their Palm died. We're well beyond Palm and into things called "apps". Apps are great for short-cutting what you already know. What happens when an app REPLACES what you're SUPPOSED to know.
Twenty-something. Thirty-something. Even some Forty-somethings. While we appreciate your enthusiasm, we have Teen-somethings and the responsibility to ensure they know what they are supposed to and not be reliant solely on apps. The reality of that would amaze you. It will amaze you more in a few years or a couple of decades when your vision blurs and you need a function that is now only available in an-- app.
Technology leaves your sprinklers on in a rainstorm but is useless when water-rationing must be obeyed. It allows you to read statistical data you could readily observe just by looking out the window. It lets you play Cooking Mama but doesn't electrocute you when you buy a home built without a kitchen. It stores contacts by name and dials them for you but cannot display a number when crushed in a car accident and you need to dial it manually at a phone booth. We are indeed bright people, but Madison Avenue steers YOUR life, it doesn't-- mine.

[The Virginian]

What happens when an app REPLACES what you're SUPPOSED to know.

Didn't anyone watch Jeopardy with the "Watson" computer!

I can't wait to get my hands on one of those babies!