Signs of Life: Economy's Worst May Have Passed
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- Although you wouldn't know it from the behavior of the stock market, the economic outlook is turning just a bit less gloomy. Prosperity may not be just around the corner, but statistical evidence is mounting to suggest that the worst of this recession may soon be past.
Irwin Kellner, chief economist for MarketWatch, provides 21 reasons that the worst of the recession may be behind us.
HT: Mike LaFaive
19 Comments:
We can't recover already. The Democrats haven't even begun to implement their socialist programs.
Quoting Irwin Kellner:
Although you wouldn't know it from the behavior of the stock market, the economic outlook is turning just a bit less gloomy. Prosperity may not be just around the corner, but statistical evidence is mounting to suggest that the worst of this recession may soon be past.
Actually, you would know it from the behavior of the stock market!
Port Washington is definitely not representative of the whole country.
How is a doubling of the cost of shipping a good thing?
Cost-minded businesses can't be happy about this.
Real hourly earnings rose 4.5% in December following a 3.3% increase in November.
And how exactly is this good for people earning minimum wage? It scares the heck out of me.
Reading through the list, I'm not convinced of an economic recovery.
Many of the items on his list simply indicate inflation. No surprise, since the Fed's policies are incredibly inflationary.
He notes that the Fed's policies have created a tidal wave of money and we're swimming in liquidity. Awesome, except the problem was solvency, not liquidity.
Home sales have increased because home prices have fallen so much - although they have only begun in areas like the NYC area.
Also, it seems highly unlikely that Washington will end its policy of expanding government and crowding out private investment. To the extent that these spending programs represent a burden on future production, people will have less incentive to produce in the future. So, all these "stimulus" projects will provide a further damper as their effects begin to be felt.
Ironman,
the market is down since January 30th. So much for that prediction.
If this is true, this will be the first time the economy is ahead of the market.
Good. We need more optimistic articles like these.
If you think better times are just around the corner, go buy some stocks. Any stocks. I don't care which. Just BUY 'EM, for chrissakes! The economy has turned the corner, after all!
Because if you don't... Then me and my evil speculator brethren won't get the bounce we need to reload our shorts to ride this sucker down to DOW 5000.
We call it "skiing the slope of hope".
Dave Narby,
Funny comment, though I hope you're wrong.
People don't seem to notice it because they all seem to be sulked about the idea that the economy is so dead and they're dead as well. If only all of us would start to look at the brighter side of the picture. It wouldn't help if we will all just rant about the declined economy. A little optimism would help.
"Everybody and their brother" is waiting for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to bottom around 5000-6000. And the same real estate buyers who couldn't wait to get in at the peak of the bubble are now waiting for it to "bottom." There are already some technical signs in both markets that they are coming off life support.
(Note: The above comment is not intended as specific investment advice to any one person or portfolio. For specific investment advice about your portfolio, consult your own investment professional)
Dave Narby said:
"Good. We need more optimistic articles like these.
This morning I found cause for great pessimism.
Two guys recently opened a local Asian restaurant and were interviewed in a newspaper:
" KH: That’s something we didn’t bring up about opening in this economy. We had to take our ad off of Craigslist for the general hiring. We had 1,000 responses in 72 hours. And this was an anonymous ad post.... We were able to pick and choose who we brought in."
At 7:40 this morning, I officially quit looking for a job; I had wasted entirely too much time looking.
p.s. here's the link:
http://wweek.com/columns/hotseat/#35.16
Not to worry folks, the Obama administration's commie cabinet will take care of making sure the market not only bottoms out but augers in even further...
Thank you SVBOR:
Carol Browner's Socialist Revolution Begins
Surprisingly enough, several of President Obama's close advisors were involved with Fannie/Freddie in the 1990's when they implemented their policy of relaxed lending. (which many argue helped cause our current "crisis"). These are the same players who want the American public to know they are coming to their rescue.
> Signs of Life: Economy's Worst May Have Passed
Not to worry. Obama has a plan to remedy this inconvenient fact.
> And how exactly is this good for people earning minimum wage? It scares the heck out of me.
Good. Maybe you'll get a clue and....
MOOOOOOOOOOVE.
> Thank you SVBOR: Carol Browner's Socialist Revolution Begins
Not only that, Dr. Sanity points out how Life Imitates Art
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