Economists Make Shocking Discovery: US in Recession
The U.S. has finally slid into recession, according to the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal economic-forecasting survey, a view that was reinforced by new data showing a sharp drop in retail sales last month...
The survey, conducted March 7 through March 11, marked a precipitous shift to the negative from the previous survey conducted five weeks earlier. For example, the economists now expect nonfarm payrolls to grow by an average of only 9,000 jobs a month for the next 12 months -- down from an expected 48,500 in the previous survey. Twenty economists now expect payrolls to shrink outright. And the average forecast for the unemployment rate was raised to 5.5% by December from 4.8% in the previous survey.
Much of the gloom stemmed from last Friday's employment report, which showed a loss of 63,000 jobs in February, the second consecutive monthly decline. "My recession call comes from the employment data," said Stephen Stanley of RBS Greenwich Capital. "It struck me as a recessionary number."
Twenty-nine of 55 respondents said they expect the economy to contract in the current quarter and 25 expect it to do so in the second. The average of all the forecasts is for meager growth -- just 0.1% at an annual rate in the current quarter and 0.4% in the second.
What's different, and notable, is that a growing percentage of surveyed economists are beginning to suggest that this recession will be worst than the last two. This group is still in the minority--48%--but we are glad to see others are finally starting to notice what we think has been obvious for months: we're screwed.
(And the good news is, once we finally have a strong consensus that we're screwed, we'll have paved the way for recovery).
Honestly, I hope these companies who are shipping US jobs overseas go bankrupt from tax increases.
Um, yeah, in a way, he *is* right. When there is no one left here to *buy* the goods and services produced with cheap overseas labor because all of us are out of jobs in the US what do you think is going to happen? Can the 1% of people who own those businesses keep the other 99% of our people going on their own over-inflated incomes? You better hope so because outside of rich greedy CEO's and rich stock traders there isn't going to be much else cooking in this country pretty soon.
Ship the jobs overseas, cut US forces down to nothing, freeze wages for all but the top execs, increase layoffs, offer early retirement, let technology do the work of actual people, allow shoddy workmanship to keep "costs" and hours "down" and "under control" - how long can this go on, just so that overpaid greedy execs can keep siphoning off profits for themselves, and give the rest to Wall St.? How long?
I agree with Maynard, too - I work for a company that's publicly traded - what do you think goes on there? One person does the job of two or three people every single day. And still corporate wants regional to tell district to tell the local head-honcho to slice the budget more. Can one person do the work of three people? Hey - let's find out!
Our management structure is top-heavy and redundant - management gets at least twice the pay peons do and there is literally one peon to every manager. So according to corporate, which claims it answers to Wall St., it's OK to have so many managers they're tripping over each other, and to pay them at least twice as much as they could pay lower-rung workers for the same work, but it's *not* OK to hire more lower-rung workers and just pay them a decent wage. Nooooooooo. Let's work every existing lower-rung worker to death, and keep this bizarre, expensive hierarchal structure of ours, and please Wall St. with it however we can.
When the numbers for my company came in this year I was giddy; profits were up YoY and the stock is trading higher. But my happiness was short-lived: apparently corporate thinks that Wall St. needs us to do even *better*. More cuts. More layoffs. More of the same old crap.
This is what happens when you let Corporate America run our economy. Bad, greedy business decisions and the lower rung of the economic ladder cut out of the picture - and the profits - entirely.
I ask you - or anyone - how much longer can this go on?
America was made great on the backs of blue-collar workers, industry, and people caring about each other, not just caring about themselves and their families, but caring about their employees too. Now America is all about bowing to Corporate America, which exists to cut costs so that stocks perform well and greedy execs can rake in big bucks.
Well, let's keep a bunch of greedy blue suits over in NYC happy by all means, and the hell with the other 99% of the American population that Corporate America *needs* in order to survive.
This economy is a joke, and the joke is on any of us who aren't running one company or another somewhere in the US - or profiting from companies that are publicly traded.
The bottom *will* fall out of this economic mess soon enough, and though it is perverse of me, I almost can't wait for that day to come.
Oh, and does anyone recall the days when the government used to tell us we were in recession? Maybe because we're having a war in Iraq the gov has to keep the propaganda machine going - so now we can thank the media, of all sources, for the only news we get that agrees with what we can already see with our own eyes...
You know it just shouldn't even be considered newsworthy when these idiots open their mouths.
You've got politicians who want to keep their jobs talking up positives when it's obviously not, and you've got politicians who portray the economy as negative in order to get power. What we don't have is someone who actually knows anything and is willing to just be honest.
We need to fire our entire government. I don't like either party anymore. Why wont Bloomberg run, maybe he's better.
command economies dont work (the extreme example is the USSR)
if the manufacturing economy is so great why has the standard of living in this country for the average worker gotten so much better since the 1960s (just compare the average size house, etc)
You people don't understand economics at all.
In addition, recessions used to be much more frequent under manufacturing based economies.
All those people who think the governemnt needs to intervene to save this country are way off.
I'm out.
It's not a "warped view" - it's my life. It's what I see with my own two eyes every day, at work, in my friend's and family's jobs and lives. I'm not warped - what's going on is warped.
I'm not playing this out as a situation of "Corporate America is out to get us" which seems to be your problem with what I wrote; I'm dispersing blame for what's happened to our economy on a number of sources: among them the greed of Corporate America, also a government that cannot clean up the mess with their bailouts of the banking and mortgage industries.
They spend trillions of dollars for the Iraq war, for NASA space programs, for $42 million to send us letters bragging that Bush got us the "tax rebate", $42 million that could have been used to 1) create jobs 2) feed and house the homeless - do you get where I'm going with how *all of this money* could have been - should have been - better spent? And the government runs the printing press that was once the Federal Mint without raising taxes to pay for any of it! How well do you figure that's going to work out for the US long-term?
I pay taxes too, which means I have the right to complain if I don't like how my tax money is being spent - and I don't.
The government is pumping short term money into the economy, sending our country deeper into debt and solving none of it's problems, then they tell us to solve the country's economic problems ourselves by spending more on "goods and services", when most of us, collectively speaking, are running out of money to spend on even the basic things in life when we have 1) frozen wages 2) layoffs 3) lack of new jobs out there 4) foreclosures 5) debt piling up 6) inflation 7) outrageous health care costs, etc, etc, etc...
And what good does pumping our own the money into the economy do when there is no job creation or raises or benefits coming out of it for any of us anymore, even when these corporations post huge profits like my own did - unless we are in the top tier of corporate executives, who get outrageous salaries and huge bonuses/stock options.etc.?
Where is all this money for "goods and services" supposed to come from now? Yet Bush himself told us to support the Iraq war by spending, spending, spending! How do we do this, once there is no money left - and there isn't - Americans don't save any money at all anymore, so they have nothing left to fall back on - for the sake of the economy?
Am I forcasting a failure of epic proportions for the economy? The next Great Depression? Honestly, I don't know - I can't look into a crystal ball here, and even if I could, if the news was bad enough, I'd hate to be the one to start the panic by reporting it.
But things are not looking good here, Tim - where've ya been? What's your answer to the mess our country is in?
My answer to it is more responsible corporate spending *coupled with* more responsible government spending. My "view" sounds pretty moderate and rational to me, but maybe that's just my "warped" take on it. It's so hard to be objective about me when I am me! So be it, Tim - call my "view" what you will.
I don't call fiscal moderation and spending money in a socially responsible way "warped", but I'm sure you can get plenty of people to agree with you that that's exactly what it is.