Place your bets, the recession predictions are in

by divorced one like Bush

Come on, step right up, don’t be afraid. Lay that money down.

3 and 1/8 economist out of 4 say the dastardly deed is done or ending by next month.

After months of uncertainty, economists are finally seeing a break in the clouds. Forecasts were revised upward for every period, with 27 economists saying the recession had ended and 11 seeing a trough this month or next.”

A better-than-expected employment report for July, where employers cut 247,000 jobs and the jobless rate fell for the first time in 15 months, suggests the worst is over.
Whatever the Fed decides, the economists expressed some confidence that the central bank will be dealing with how to manage a recovery, not another recession. They expect GDP growth to remain above 2% at an annualized rate through the first half of next year, and they put the chances at just 20% of a “double-dip” second downturn before 2010.

All in everyone, you don’t want to be left out of the next bubble do you? Or do you?

4) To be sure, the drop in the unemployment rate was a surprise, but it was all due to the slide in the labour force — the employment-to-population ratio gives a more accurate picture of the slack in the labour market and the hidden secret in today’s report was that this metric slid to a 25-year low of 59.4% from 59.5% in June and 61.0% at the turn of the year. Of those unemployed, 33.8% of them have been unemployed now for over 27 weeks — a record amount (was at 29.0% in June and was at 17.5% at the start of this recession).

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.

Data released on Wednesday show the US still facing strong economic headwinds, as retail sales unexpectedly fell, weekly jobless claims unexpectedly rose, and foreclosures continue to roil the housing market.
US retail sales fell 0.1 per cent in July from June, compared with analysts’ estimates of a 0.8 per cent gain.
Excluding auto sales, which were boosted by the popular cash-for-clunkers programme, US retailers fared even worse, dropping 0.6 per cent, compared with expectations of a 0.1 per cent gain on the month, on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
Foreclosure activity in the US hit a new record in July, setting its third monthly record in five months, RealtyTrac reported on Thursday.
Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, hit 360,149, an increase of 7 per cent from June and 32 per cent on the year. One in every 355 US homes received a foreclosure notice in July, according to the online marketplace for foreclosure properties.
The release comes the day after the National Association of Realtors reported that an increase in foreclosure sales led to a record 15.6 per cent decline in median home values to $174,100 in the second quarter from the year before. About 36 per cent of transactions in the second quarter were distressed sales, either foreclosures or short sales.

We never did broaden the discussion.

We haven’t answered the question: How are we going to fix the money from money economy. Yes, we had to stabilize the banks. That we did is not of issue, how we did it is. The approach only reinforced the money from money economy. We are pledged to $23.7 trillion. (BTW, try to go get a loan and see if they don’t ask what you have co-signed onto along with what you personally have borrowed). Our GDP as of 2000 was 1.9% of the financial turn over and the Fed thinks nothing of swapping 1/2 trillion dollars. The issue is not whether it was necessary, it is the casualness with which it was done. You know, that billion here, billion there, soon we are talking real money?

We have not produced any policy that will reverse these trend lines which show that personal consumption has out passed the share of income to the bottom 99% since 1996. A trend that lasted at least 13 years from the depression and was 10 years where my chart ends in 2005 and we hadn’t had the big one yet. We were almost 3 more years past that when this recession started. But hey, the recession is ending.