I hear you bro. From where I sit it does indeed look that bad.
But I still say that the full build back better, with the upper income tax hikes, and then the Green New Deal, are the best ways to respond.
Mark, you see a lot of things differently from me. I am interested to know how you and anyone here would critique this Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg? He is also talking about economic issues.
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SJG
Jane - School of Rock
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The Fed seems set on getting inflation down and seems the only way they can do it is to cut back on demand which one would assume would hurt businesses.
I live alone and don't like to cook thus I eat-out/do-takeout a lot - at least in my area I see a marked reduction in restaurant foot-traffic - I haven't been to a mall in a while so IDK how they are doing but with school starting soon I assume they will have a decent amount of traffic.
^ That doesn't count, he's no longer looking for work. as far as I know he's self employed he claims to be building an organization of sex workers, who as far as I know aren't counted by the Dept. of Labor, either.
Yeah it sucks. We destroyed our dollar and now it doesn't go as far. And these assholes were trying to print EVEN MORE money. We don't fucking make anything anymore. Our economy just ain't as a strong and the end of the day our lifestyle is going to take a hit. Notice how a former GI working in the factory with a stay at home wife 3 kids, can't buy a house in not only coastal California anymore but in a lot of places. Everybody gotta get their ass to work now a days and you might just have to have some roommates too.
There is a house in the sub division next to mine. It is 2 story and I'm guessing about 2,000 sq ft. Every time I go past it there are 5 or 6 fairly late model cars parked in the driveway and on the street. I have to wonder how many adults are living there.
The stock markets aren't crashing because investors think the Fed will have killed off inflation by the end of the year and can pivot back to interest rate cuts. That's unlikely. Volcker had to raise interest rates above the inflation rate back in the eighties to eliminate the high inflation of that era and Powell will have to do the same thing. Right now, he's not anywhere close to it. When he does that, it will be worse than 2008.
The Vail School District ( Tucson ) has a welding training program for high school students. Every graduate of that program got a job with salaries between $70,000 and $90,000. Eighteen year old kids.
Meanwhile, Gender Studies graduates from elite colleges are living in their parent’s basement, working part time at Starbucks.
Which one of those groups is smarter ?
^ for whatever reason they can’t seem to fill those jobs, that’s not new either, as long as I was in the construction industry we has shortages of skilled workers, not sure why cause the money was terrific.
The labor force participation rate dropping to 62.1 does skew the unemployment rate somewhat as there are less people being classified as unemployed if they have dropped out of the labor force.
You beat me to it
“the number of Americans not in the labor force -- no job and not looking for one -- climbed above the 100,000,000 mark again, settling at 100,051,000 in July. That's a 239,000 increase from June; and it follows an increase of 510,000 from May to June, when the number rose to 99,812,000.”
How many of those 100,000,000 not working are getting government assistance ?
^ this has always been the case, official unemployment rate always an undercount. I think this was much more of a factor during Trump's term. And I think now, post COVID, it is a bigger factor than ever before.
SJG
It depends what you mean by corporate bailouts.if you mean reducing corporate taxes across the board, I approve. In fact, I’d like to replace the corporate tax with import duties and tariffs.
If you mean the government subsiding “good” corporations and penalizing “ bad” corporations, that’s a horrible idea.
I opposed all pandemic handouts including the PPP. I also opposed the 2 year lockdown which gave government an excuse for meddling with the economy. The lockdown and the resulting government intervention in the economy fucked us over royally.
The lengthy Covid lockdowns will be increasingly seen as a mistake in the future as the long-term negative effects are felt. We tried to avoid the short-term negative effects by printing up and passing out six trillion dollars over two years. We increased the total money supply by 40% and that has led to inflation and higher prices.
The lockdowns may have hurt poor people the most. They are suffering the most now from higher prices. During the lockdowns themselves, many of them were working since many of them were in essential jobs in areas like food production and distribution and were still exposed to the disease. Richer people, the laptop class, just got to stay home and work in their pajamas. Financial bailouts often went to the politically connected, not necessarily those who needed them the most. Large numbers of small businesses went under while Amazon and Walmart made huge profits. For some reason, delivering packages was considered not to spread Covid as the merchandise passed through the big Amazon warehouses that were still open to the delivery guys and going to a crowded big box store like Walmart to buy something like shoes was ok because it also sold food.
"The lengthy Covid lockdowns will be increasingly seen as a mistake in the future as the long-term negative effects are felt."
YES
"We tried to avoid the short-term negative effects by printing up and passing out six trillion dollars over two years."
Yes, that is what happened, Pelosi and Trump standing side by side at the printing press, using hair driers to make the green ink dry faster. And it was really stupid.
"The lockdowns may have hurt poor people the most. They are suffering the most now from higher prices."
YES
The bailout money sustained rentiers and mortgage lenders. It protected the real estate bubble. But with the economy stopped it was the real estate and securities bubbles that should have absorbed the hit.
"Large numbers of small businesses went under while Amazon and Walmart made huge profits."
YES
And the sheltering, masking, and travel restrictions protect nothing and no one.
SJG
If you don't have adequate savings (enough to pay your bills for at least six months), start saving every penny you can.
If you do have adequate savings, the patriotic thing (to prevent a recession) is to not reduce your spending. (Don't increase it much either, since inflation is also a potential problem.) I know, strange, novel concept of patriotism here. No threats, violence, or hatred of people who aren't straight white males involved.
If you are both a gambler and an unusually smart investor, it might make sense to short the market. Otherwise any time spent guessing if a recession is coming would more productively be spent wanking to porn.
Hey Scrub, I just got a message from Nancy Pelosi. She's turned on by your posts here on TUSCL and wants to strap one on and take your virgin ass... she'll be back in the US next week what day is good for you ???
Covid/lockdowns, was/is way over-politicized – Covid/lockdowns were used as part of the “get Trump out no matter what” arsenal – they used Covid/lockdowns to get Trump out; and once they had that; they needed to keep on the same track – w/e totalitarians use to get power, they need to keep doing, and often increase, to keep power.
I'm trying to buy a new car and dealers are still charging $4-6k over MSRP.
So... Car demand is still strong. I know there's a shortage. But so far this is a very shallow recession.
Your story of car prices makes me wonder if prices are too high for people to buy anything and, thus, grow the economy. Maybe the key metric would be car sales volume at these prices?
I was going to be too lazy to look it up but here it is.
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There's a guy on YouTube that goes by "Lucky Lopez" that breaks down the car-scene pretty-well - he's saying there will be major-carnage in the car-biz with prices, particularly for used-cars; plummeting in the next few months to a year – he talks about how many people got approved for car-loans that shouldn’t have – how many-people were able to get into cars they o/w wouldn’t have been able to but could b/c of government Covid $$$, not having to pay rent nor student loans at the time; etc – but now those people can’t afford to keep those cars especially being upside-down on them due to having overpaid for those cars in the first place – also rising-interest-rates means there will be people that can’t keep up w/ payments – he predicts a massive amount of car-repos in the next few months.
The thing about a recession is that shit hits the fan over time – it doesn’t all happen at once at the beginning – no one can guarantee what kinda recession there will be nor if one will happen at all, but a lot of signs are pointing to it analogous to a bad weather event in the Atlantic that w/ each day seems it has more of a chance of becoming a hurricane.
The last time we had a housing crash, in 2008, it took 2 years for prices to bottom out. It took that long for most sellers to accept the new reality and lower their price. Sometimes, it took the bank to do it for them. Once people decide “ My house is worth $X”, it’s tough to shake them off it.
A lot of the used car dealers who target people with bad credit have trackers hidden on the car. They can sell and repossess the same car 3 or 4 times in a year. They can make $10,000 profit by selling a $5,000 car multiple times.
Before CoVid and chip shortages, the average new car sale only generated $1,500 to $3,000 profit for the dealer. Now, they make 3 or 4 times that with the mark ups.
If it is his (Biden) doing, which it isn’t, then I want to say thank you for bringing balance into an overpriced economy. Stop the printing presses, we are getting back to normal!
^ I'm amused by how all of you members of the $350K club are so worried, if your shit is so tight what the fuck are you doing on a tittybar website, go out and make some money, there's plenty of jobs available, unless you're too stupid to figure it out, cry me a fucking river, tubby shrubby
It's also a well known fact another way to reduce inflationary wage pressure, is to increase the labor supply, but those cowards in Washington are afraid to look like they're soft on immigration, but if they actually wanted to reduce inflation and lower the possibility of a recession, would be to loosen up the border restrictions, that would go a long way towards reducing the inflationary pressures we are facing from the pandemic and employee shortage.
You can always count on Republicans to be in full "doom and gloom" mode when Democrats are in power. It's predictable like clock work. The right wing media pumps out their propaganda and their followers lap it up and spread it. Notice they rarely have solutions, just whining and vitriol.
"but if they actually wanted to reduce inflation and lower the possibility of a recession, would be to loosen up the border restrictions,"
Already happened. Migrants--the great majority of which are economic, not the bullshit asylum claim--are pouring over the border at an alarming rate.
^ That's not even close to my point, let them get work permits, the way we deal with them costs us money, if they wanted to deal with immigration properly, it would solve our labor shortage not the phony rhetoric the Maga crowd uses when any real conversation comes up.Immigration should be a win-win for us, not some zero sum game the fucking politicians trot out to scapegoat the outrage of the day.
The problem is that by just opening up the border, a lot of unskilled workers are coming in. Sure, some of them are needed but you can't just have that type of worker coming in by the millions. It would be better if immigrants were going through the formal process that we have in place. That probably entails allowing more legal immigrants but stopping the flood of unskilled workers flooding the border.
Unemployment isn't a good indicator. Lots of people don't qualify for unemployment if they didn't work enough in the period that counts for it. It doesn't take into consideration the under employed nor long term unemployed.
And the economic downturn is really starting to be noticeable. You see it by how people grocery shop. My favorite bar used to be standing room only Saturday nights. Last night there were 23 people. It's been like that a few weeks. Strip clubs can get busy but not much money is being spent. Restaurants and malls are dead. I went to a mall recently and was surprised there weren't more people doing back to school shopping. Ross and Marshall's don't seem to be busy either.
A key point with immigration is that most Latino immigrants have preferences similar to those people in the US had 80 years ago. They are comfortable, and even happier, living with relatives or friends, in living spaces most people in the US would consider crowded. Meaning they can live well on less $.
Seems to me, the solution is to figure out the right amount for a per-hour tax on hiring a legal guest worker. If somebody can't compete with another worker who is much more expensive than they are, that's probably a problem that won't be fixed by kicking the other worker out, That somebody probably has physical or psychological limitations. Maybe just due to the fact that current US residents are much older on average than people in Latin America. The tricky part would be catching abusive employers who hire guest workers who will put up with it.
For the April-June second quarter of 2022, total credit card debt rose a staggering $46 billion, the biggest jump in 20 years.
Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.
This appears to be a recession based on the economic growth.
However, there are other factors making it look better than it is. The unemployment levels are relatively low, until you begin examining the labor pool and see that it has shrunk due to many folks stopping their search for a job.
The bank I work for is doing very well. We are ahead of originations volume targets, delinquency rates are low, and yet we haven’t replaced many folks who departed during the pandemic. Even our bank president mentioned that our efficiency ratio is looking too good. There is a challenge to find good people.
The main concern - in this environment - is rate compression. A loan rate that is reasonable today, will likely become less profitable when the next rate hike moves in. So, forecasting the timing and size of the Fed increases is important as well.
It’s no fun to see them pushing rates up, to tighten the available amount of loanable funds, but it is necessary to slow the inflationary pressures, and try to avoid a full scale recession.
I’m not a fan of a lifelong government employee (with diminished mental capacity) being at the top of the current administration. But, I hope the folks pulling the strings are smarter than him.
The next country to collapse could be Pakistan. By collapse, I don’t mean they are in a recession. I mean they can’t import food and millions starve. It’s the same story. They need to import food and energy, the government has amassed massive debt, and they can’t export enough to pay debts.
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I am convinced we would be better often off without the Federal Reserve trying to manipulate/correct the market. Let natural market forces respond, not a committee of “experts” who are wrong every time.
We have an economic system which has been broken since the 1870's when the demand for labor started to drop. It will continue to drop every year.
Putting more people into Welding Programs does not alter this.
As we don't need the labor, if people want to major in Gender Studies, all the better.
The remedy is Universal Basic Income, Strong Public Housing Offering to contain private gentrification, Medicare for All, Free College with past college debts being pushed onto higher income and high portfolio tax payers.
SJG
Jane - School of Rock
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The Pretty Reckless - Take Me Down (Official Music Video)
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Advanced Industrial and Information Technology could take care of every single person even better than royalty lived in past centuries. But the reason we do not see this is capitalism and the rationalizations which keep it in place.
SJG
Jane - School of Rock
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The Pretty Reckless - Take Me Down (Official Music Video)
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Down on Me - School of Rock
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Aquarius - School of Rock
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^ Fortunately, you're in the small minority of people who want human advancement to call it a day. We've got diseases to cure, hunger to alleviate, the environment to clean up, and beauty to add to the world, while you're watching and cursing the darkness.
We do have good things to do, but our present economic system is not promoting this, it is promoting financialization and extremes CEO compensation.
SJG
Soon, over a million drivers a day could be forced to cough up as much as $23 to enter midtown and lower Manhattan – a toll that planners say will raise $15bn to fund New York public transit while cutting vehicles in the area by as much as one-fifth.
I’m sure the government will use this money wisely. Yet another way to help the working man with inflation.
Pundits, several, are predicting a short lived and shallow recession, one which we will be out of as soon as they’ve declared we were in one, since official results generally lag behind several months to a year. It sure feels recessionary on many levels, but not all. Phx restaurant business is booming since people with jobs feel like splurging after work.
Anyway, the stock market may be indicating the fed sees the light at the end of the tunnel for raising rates, but will take credit for it from the natural force of the cycle. We were red hot and will likely plateau a bit longer from here with economic activity.
^^ I still have a lot of life to live and not dwell on factors out of my control. We all need a more positive outlook, you’d think the conservative base should know this already with their backing of faith based organizations. But what do I know, I just live in the church of life? I only wish for a better future for my family and loved ones, and choose to see most of what’s moving in a hood direction. My attitude helps me get more pussy, too!
I live in a senior citizen community. All homes are owner occupied. FEDEX dropped off an envelope an hour ago. I opened it not realizing that the address and name were wrong. It was for a neighbor down the street. It was an application form that needed to be signed for a reverse mortage. I'm fine financially but I'm sure there are a lot of other seniors that are not. They'll get a cost of living increase in social security but that won't be until January.
^ I’m not sure how I feel about reverse mortgages in some ways they are a blessing, in other ways they appear to be predatory. It’s rough getting old without adequate resources and we really need to address how we help those folks that don’t have a strong safety net.
Reverse mortgages are kind of like an insurance policy keeping yiu in your home base using the equity as collateral. If you have no other assets and want to stay in your house for as long as feasibly possible without moving and you live a longer than normal life expectancy, you’ll come out ahead. Most people will move into assisted living or move out of their home eventually, so there’s that downside. Also, if yiu need to tap into the equity from your house, it’s much less costly to do a home equity line of credit. You will pay more in fees with a reverse mortgage. The HELOC allows more flexibility to change your mind in the future at a better price, too. Rare to see reverse mortgage in favor of the one purchasing it. It’s always the bank that wins. Sorry for someone who has to make that decision, because of dwindling assets.
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