Source: NPR. The stock market is back up, the overall economy is growing, and soon I think jobs will follow. The Republicans trying to place the blame (ridiculously) on Obama for the economic disaster he inherited from Bush is going to backfire in a HUGE way now that the economy is recovering. The American people are going to thank Barack Obama for getting this country's economy back on track. Obama's stimulus package worked, and it worked without the help of the GOP. If it was up to them, we'd still be spiraling down the hole. America must wise-up and remember to never give the keys to this country to the Republican party again.
You do realize the national unemployment rate of 9.8%, a 30 year high. It's been almost a year, and unemployment keeps going up and up under the Obama regime. Great going Obama http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm Instead of leading the US to socialism/communism what he should do is inact across the board tax rate decreases so businesses would have more money to operate, survive, and maybe even hire more people.
Good luck with that buddy. The economy is recovering and you guys trying to blame it on the "Obama regime" (If only I could somehow roll my eyes back even further...) is going to backfire. When you blame the economy on the President, then it only makes sense to give him credit for the recovery. This is what it's all going to boil down to: "The Obama Recovery overcomes The Bush Recession!" --- Indeed, 9.8% unemployment is quite a mess. Obama inherited an incredible economic disaster and he is in the midst of turning it around. Jobs are a lagging indicator, but they will come around as we finally move into the 21st century with our economy. As far as your nonsense about lowering taxes even further: WE ALREADY TRIED IT THAT WAY. It doesn't work. No. The Republicans don't get the keys to this country again for a very very long time. Hopefully never. They ran this country into a ditch, it would be insane to let them drive it again.
Okay, what exactly has he done to create a recovery? How many small businesses ever got any "stimulus" money? Answer zero. The only businesses that get money are big banks, and big auto companies. And Obama is such a fool, for receipt of the money he scared the crap of banks to loan money to people who need it. What Obama could do to actually do something helpful is give tax rate reductions.
Without pointing fingers or assigning blame, I can unequivocally state that the recession is NOT over as long as so many people (including my husband) remain unemployed.
Obama's approval rate has gone down 51-43 http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx Also, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html Direction of Country Right Direction 38.8% Wrong Track 55.5%
3 more years...... Hoping jobs will increase and foreclosures will decrease, but that is only a hope. Strange how "change" turned out to be "keep the bad things Bush did going and stop the good things." Can I get my refund?
As far as I am concerned when people are sufficiently employed the recession will be over. Nothing else is really of importance.
Actually you can track exactly where the stimulus money is going with this website: http://www.recovery.gov You can see there that many small business have received money through the stimulus. Pro Tip: It's a good idea to have at least *some* idea what you're talking about when you try to make a "point." "Recession" as a technical term is over but that doesn't mean the economy doesn't still suck for regular people, it does. But this is a very hopeful sign. It means the economy is growing in size for the first time in quite some time and it means that jobs should be coming soon. And though ignorant people love the blame the Obama admin, the truth is the stimulus has helped keep this recession from turning into a depression and it is helping us recover faster. Indeed, "regular folks" are still feeling the pain in the Bush recession and the Obama recovery will take time to reach those folks. But it will reach them eventually. And people like yourself who are trying to lay blame on Obama are just setting him up for a huge victory in 2012. I'm confident he will be able to make a very strong argument that his policies helped to stop the Bush recession from turning into the Bush depression and that it's because of his policies that job numbers are heading the right way and the economy is growing again. (also it should be noted that bush was in the high 20s/low 30s in the same poll and that "right direction" #s were in the single digits back when Bush was in the White House.)
On Aug. 5, Obama unveiled plans that would allow Indiana based Navistar to receive $39 million in federal money to build electric battery-powered commercial trucks with Modec. The trucks are built in Coventry, UK. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33495737/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project
This recession was a great opportunity for me to buy US stocks for the 1st time ! Looking forward for the hundrends of % gain when I sell them 5 years from now before the next crisis
Chaos: If you got into the American stock market some time this past spring as the market started to rebound....congrats. I hope the overall market continues to move forward. I've seen various analysts suggest a couple of things: 1. As the American dollar dropped against foreign currencies it generated a flood of foreign money into the market that began to push stocks upward. Both stocks and the dollar were cheap. 2. Businesses are learning how to create profits by cutting costs. There has been enormous cost cutting across the board. It is mostly salaries. As businesses achieve profitability with lower payrolls they will be loathe to add a lot of personnel until absolutely necessary and/or they see a lot of growth. Meanwhile, signs are that the American economy showed measurable growth in the 3rd quarter. I suspect that "technically" signals the end of a recession. "Technical" in the sense that economists and politicians want to give these things a start date (Dec. '07) and an end date. It would be the first growth period in GDP since the end of '07. Meanwhile things are not rosy by any stretch of the imagination. The overall American economy has been whipped about. It is operating at a significant lesser level than it was pre recession. There is far less money being spent. It will take a long time for a significant bounce. That is a reality. I directly lived through an industry DEPRESSION. It hit the commercial real estate industry in the US first in the Southwest in the mid to late 1980's and nationwide starting in 1989. I worked in the industry. It wasn't a recession. It was an industry DEPRESSION. All development in the office industry STOPPED. It stopped for several years. There was a period where existing landlords didn't have the outside cash to borrow to build out space for new tenants moving into vacant space. Construction workers, architects, engineers, etc. all lost their work. There simply wasn't any work. It took about 5-7 years for a healthy recovery. Between the period of Depression and back to healthy....there was a long slow period of recovery. That slow process is mainly a function of real markets and real supply and demand reocurring. It takes a lot of time for that to recover. For the right wingers...that keep claiming that business taxes should be cut and businesses will start hiring again: Quit using stupid slogans to lie to the rest of us. No business that is not selling enough is going to hire more people. NONE!! They just don't. Its simple private demand for business and services isn't there. Currently businesses are finding they can make do in hard times with less people. Negative taxes won't spur them to hire. At this point the only thing that spurs them to hire is more sales. Lots more. Enough to give a sense that the sales can continue. On its own the private economy is limping and is not moving toward recovery. If you think it is...take a look at all the private firms that keep shedding employees. Take a look at companies that are showing losses. Wake up. The ones with losses aren't paying corporate taxes at any significant level. They don't need tax breaks off of zero taxes. If anything, the money the fed govt has thrown into the economy has helped. It simply hasn't helped enough. To a certain extent it isn't helping enough because the two absolutely needed things in a private economy to grow aren't there: 1. People aren't spending 2. Businesses aren't spending. Do you realize how bad it is on the business spending side? Here is a clue. Consumer spending has dropped by a lot. Yet consumer spending as a percentage of overall spending is at a higher percentage than at the start of the recession. Why? Because business spending has dropped by a greater percentage. Again, if businesses are going to hire more people ....WHY ARE THEY SPENDING LESS and firing people? Those slogans are pointless and stupid in the face of reality. I've read, and I have to agree. The Obama administration on "stimulus" isn't creating enough jobs relative to the press and promises. I don't see it as a fault of the administration. The private economy isn't responding. Its too weak. If anything the surplus has helped a little. It has created some jobs. It has extended unemployment to people who can't find work in a private economy that isn't hiring. It has distributed money to people on the lower end of the economy. Its helped a little. It hasn't helped enough. Without it though the economy would be worse. Its that simple. Who is going to spend more money? Slogans? Slogans don't spend money. Slogans don't get people hired. Its good if reports for the third quarter find that overall economic activity (GDP) is higher in the third quarter than in the 2nd quarter. Economists will label it an end to the recession. It doesn't end hard times, though.
GDP is such a terrible gauge of economic health; GNP paints a much bleaker picture. They expected new home ownership to have risen in September, but it fell; yet we are out of a recession. Wages are down, but production is up; outsourcing is occurring in a way that has never been seen before and now Americans are being pitted against the cheapest global labor. MBA programs are teaching students to become global entrepreneurs instead of employees because it is a future with no improvement of condition to be at the whim of your boss. New jobs are not being created. There is no manufacturing to speak of that is improving, and the economic answer is to leave things alone and let the jobs go where they are. The economic definition of the end of a recession is when GDP is rising for two quarters in a row. The recession would truly be over if the metric used to measure the growth wasn't so deceptive. We are not out of any recession and are spiraling downwards much faster, regardless of whatever definition is being used to explain recession.
Those are good things to hope for. Hey you could be hoping for him to fail Bush did bad things? List please.
I would hold you to that but you'll fold like you did with those American stocks you claimed you were going to hold on to. I'll be back in this thread in a year, see ya then.
I found the stock market was too stressful for me. Although I made a little chunk of change on it (I finished about $5000 up... which is pretty good considering I only invested about $3000 in the first place) ... I decided that I didn't really like having so much of my time and energy invested in watching the market every day.
It still possible that the last quarter will go negative. September was so good. Most of the GDP gains were in July and August fueled by "cash for clunkers" and "first homebuyer credit" We can't sustain the economy on cars and housing. Housing is still on the decline and may fall another 25% The Commerce Department said Friday that spending dropped 0.5 percent in September, the first decline in five months. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Consumer-spending-falls-in-apf-2836210974.html?x=0 http://www.housingzone.com/giants/articleXml/LN1059180415.html Meredith Whitney believes that "Home prices in the US could fall by another 25 percent because of high unemployment and another leg down will come for stocks" http://www.cnbc.com/id/32773345
The recession was due to the democrats. It started when democrats had control of congress. It got much worse when Obama came to office, with unemployment peaking so far at 9.8%. http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000 Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual 1999 4.3 4.4 4.2 4.3 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.1 4.1 4.0 2000 4.0 4.1 4.0 3.8 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.1 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9 2001 4.2 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.9 5.0 5.3 5.5 5.7 2002 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 6.0 2003 5.8 5.9 5.9 6.0 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.1 6.1 6.0 5.8 5.7 2004 5.7 5.6 5.8 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.5 5.4 5.4 2005 5.2 5.4 5.2 5.2 5.1 5.1 5.0 4.9 5.0 5.0 5.0 4.8 2006 4.7 4.8 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.6 4.7 4.7 4.5 4.4 4.5 4.4 2007 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.5 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.7 4.7 4.8 4.7 4.9 2008 4.9 4.8 5.1 5.0 5.5 5.6 5.8 6.2 6.2 6.6 6.8 7.2 2009 7.6 8.1 8.5 8.9 9.4 9.5 9.4 9.7 9.8 Unemployment soared and has nearly doubled under the Obama regime.
You had some good luck but I wouldn't call it an investment. Rather speculation or gambling. The problem is the Banks are making all their money the same. They aren't loaning any money to make good and services. Not to small business anyway. We can't have a recovery if all economy is based on is a bubble and government programs.