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New York, 2:50 PM
Fri Nov 27
11 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/29/09
So, yeah, I'm thinking, at least in my line of work, companies aren't going to start hiring again until they see how horribly this holiday shopping season is going to pan out. So, people, keep spending that money you don't have;-)
Of course, I should also mention that I've been searching for a full-time job with benefits since I was laid off in January 2008. So this recession has been particularly painful one for me. #recessionomics
10/29/09
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10/29/09
It always kills me that they never mention this part. Kills. Me. #recessionomics
10/29/09
The A-12 table of the Employment Situation Report due November 6 should provide a clearer picture of U-6 unemployment, which considers those individuals.
The recent report was not intended to measure "discouraged workers" or individuals who are no longer receiving unemployment benefits. At least it didn't get worse, no? That indicates no fresh and massive layoffs, which is a sign of stabilization. #recessionomics
10/29/09
10/29/09
This has been lucky for me because my existing repeat clients are in recession proof industries - guys always want porn and girls will always want to lose weight - so I've just been able to find other companies in the same industries and am making more money than in a long time.
My girlfriend, on the other hand, is a freelance luxury travel writer and let me tell you, she hasn't been making any money.
So all in all our joint income has remained the same, because mine has gone up enough to cover what she's not making.
But, shit, I wish she had developed contacts in non luxury industries roughly 18 months ago. #recessionomics
10/29/09
For stimulus to be effective it needs to enhance productive capacity - roads for trucks to travel on, rail for commuters, power plants to underly economic activity, etc. The stimulus hasn't delivered on those fronts, which makes its utility questionable. Nobody's going to get a job they keep until stimulus efforts create the basis for an expansion in productive capacity. Creating artificial demand and attendant retail jobs is worthwhile only insofar as it creates "phantom jobs" that transition some folks from government-sponsored, debt-fueled unemployment to government-sponsored, debt-fueled employment.
If GDP growth isn't sustainable and the recovery doesn't create jobs in the midst of the largest fiscal stimulus in American history, who do you blame? The Federal Government.
10/29/09
10/29/09
You mean subsidizing autoworker unions and their bankrupt employers? #recessionomics
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10/29/09
Well, it was clearly a patronage expenditure - thanks for the votes! The Government can and should borrow to diminish the destructive impact of a recession, but it's time to stop handing out candy like the money hasn't run out. CARS, the $8000 homebuyer credit - these aren't helping the economy. They're helping specific people, temporarily. All those jobs and all that "value" disappears as soon as the stimulus money does.
The stimulus package is effectively making the case of monetarist economists/social theorists: governments have a tendency to waste taxpayer dollars on purchasing votes, fail to account for knock-on effects, and fail to withdraw stimuli that taxpayers become addicted to. Just wait until we extend and expand the homebuyer credit - printed dollars for all! #recessionomics
10/29/09
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10/29/09
It assumes that 565,000 of the cars sold under cash for clunkers would have been purchased anyway, so it divides the total spent on cash for clunkers by the 125,000 cars Edmunds.com says would not have been purchased absent the incentive.
In any case, you must have missed the point of any and all government stimulus in a recession, which is to soak up excess capacity in the economy.
Maybe these cars would have purchased anyway, but there would have been far fewer dealers to buy them from as many would have gone out of business waiting for demand to return.
10/29/09
I'm calling it a dead-cat bounce, because consumer demand has been so suppressed over the last year.
We ain't out of this one yet, children. #recessionomics
10/29/09
What is this need for economic commentary to be so fucking paternal? They aren't your "children," they're scared Americans.
Consumer demand is suppressed because consumer debt is at unbelievable levels. It's falling, but debts take time to pay down and/or monetize. But the real problem is a lack of production - we're stimulating and relying on demand instead of finding supply or gaining access to markets. #recessionomics
10/29/09
So go make chairs instead of commenting on a blog. #recessionomics
10/29/09
Consumer debt has been at unprecedented levels for years, or have you not been paying attention? What's suppressing demand right now is a combination of a very high rate of unemployment and good old-fashioned fear; people are either trying to make ends meet if they still have benefits, or if they're lucky enough to still have jobs, are working at reduced pay scales and don't know if their jobs are going to be around next week or next year.
"Lack of production," my eye. This is America, we don't do production because we sent all that to China and Mexico. We're faced with a chore that's never been attempted in our history, and that's hauling a service economy back from the brink of disaster. There's even a case for bringing back the CCC and the WPA, because government-sponsored, debt-fueled employment would at least give the millions of unemployed something to do.
With regard to "subsidizing autoworker unions and their bankrupt employers," you seem to be unaware of the fact that most of the companies that make automobiles in America aren't bankrupt, just strapped for capital. On top of that, there's an entire universe of businesses that exist to support and supply the automakers. There are valid reasons to object to Cash for Clunkers, but your argument is so sickeningly lame that it makes FDR look like Fred Bloody Astaire.
People like you make me wish that Gawker offered the polar opposite of the heart icon, but I'm not sure that a tiny little douchebag would be easy to render in a recognizable form.
10/29/09
GM declared bankruptcy. So did Chrysler. Ford would have absent Federal stimulus. All three "big three" automakers have received billions of taxpayer dollars to remain afloat. What definition of "bankrupt" or "subsidized" would you like to work with? This is to say nothing of the massive revenue black hole that domestic auto manufacturers have been for years.
A service economy can expand productive capacity by producing more services. Were you assuming that I meant we should open more canneries? You can export movies, software, technology, etc. - "production" isn't all hammering sheet metal. I agree that we should be bringing it back from the brink - let's start by devoting stimulus money to sustainable industry that requires service. Build a broadband network or a road, but don't throw cash into the tire fire of American automaking.
As for consumer debt, we're saying the same thing. I just didn't attach a mopey populist screed. #recessionomics
10/29/09
You're also forgetting a few more companies than those three are building cars in America: BMW, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, and Toyota; Volkswagen is opening a plant in 2011. If automaking isn't a sustainable industry that requires service, I don't know what is.
Building and maintaining roads is a great idea too, but if it merely encourages the creation of more Sprawlywoods, we can probably find better things to invest in.
Building (or rather, beefing up) broadband networks means that we would buy most of the networking gear from overseas; but at least it's designed in California... when it isn't being designed in China or India.
I hate to point this out to you, but there's a growing number of countries that have no desire whatsoever to buy American software or American movies, because they have home-grown or pirated alternatives.
How in the world do you expect to make money by producing more services in the absence of a market for those services? #recessionomics
10/29/09
Here are a couple of ideas:
1.) Devaluing the dollar relative to other countries, which should make our goods more exportable.
2.) Making things people want. At the end of the day it's about quality products and emerging markets. Invent something like the PC, create a cancer cure, construct a website that the internet loves, or design a power plant that produces cheap energy. Do something! Enterpreneurs are the way forward. (This is where stimulus money should be going.)
3.) Reducing consumer debt. We're monetizing it and paying it down currently - the nominal value of the G.19 has gone down drastically for several quarters, and the real value is also decreasing. This doesn't happen overnight though, and will depress GDP for years to come.
4.) Stop listening to people like you. Your commentary is rife with defeatist, paternal bullshit that serves no one. #recessionomics
10/29/09
2) I don't see anything terribly concrete there, just an exhortation to "do something!" that isn't going to put ordinary people back to work. Your suggestions might make one or two people rich, but it does absolutely squat for the overwhelming majority of the unemployed and the underemployed.
3) I suspect that the reduction of consumer debt is more likely to happen through short sales and the bankruptcy courts than through gradual paydowns. But that's what I get for reading newspapers from Detroit and Chicago, I guess.
4) I say that I'm a realist, not a defeatist, but if it makes you feel superior, call it what you will.
This is the seventh recession since my childhood, and I have seen a steady decline over the last decade in job opportunities in my chosen profession. There are on average six unemployed people for every job opening, and in my field, it's more like 20:1. I think I'm entitled to call the glass half empty, fuck you very much.
(Also, "paternal" doesn't apply in my case, but I don't know if "auntly" would allow you to spit at me quite as satisfactorily.)
Your commentary is shot through with pie-in-the-sky projections that suggest to me you are another Wall Street bloodsucker with a trust fund, who ought to be lined up against a wall instead of being bailed out by the Fed and the Treasury.
(blows kiss)
10/29/09
Good luck out there! Just remember that there are no easy answers in economics, banking, or life - you've lived a long time, you should know. A positive attitude will take you further than a negative one.
Sorry if you feel I've consumed thy flesh. #recessionomics
10/29/09
10/29/09
2 bis) Breed unicorns to develop an all-natural mass transit system, and for consumption as a nutritious alternative to minotaur burgers. #recessionomics
08/10/09
Let's see what Chase tries to pull next.
08/10/09
Chris Dodd, chair of Senate Banking has written to the Federal Reserve asking that people be able to opt-in or opt-out of overdraft protection and he says that if the Fed doesn't change the rules, he will.
08/10/09
Also, when BofA runs those cute coffee-store ads where you buy your coffee and presto, it appears in your easy-peasy online bank statement, HORSE SHIT. They regularly post "pending items" to my account, only to delete them for several days and leave me with a false balance. So if you really want to track your spending, break out your check register and document everything, including all the fees and hidden costs.
08/10/09
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08/10/09
After all, that's what credit cards are for!
08/10/09
08/10/09
This what happened. I bought a comforter at Target, paid for it with my Chase debit card. Saw another one at a competing store I liked better. Returned comforter at Target and had $85 credited toward my checking via my debit card. Went home, logged onto my account, saw that even though said credit was listed as pending, the $85 was added to my balance. Thinking I had enough funds to cover my car payment, I logged onto Carmax and paid my bill.
Well, the next morning I was in for quite a shock when my car payment had put me in the red. There was my $85 Target credit -- still pending, still credited toward my balance, yet my Carmax payment had cleared and there was a negative $14 in the column next to it. Hello $39 overdraft charge.
Two lessons: Now I know not to count pending payments until they are cleared, which according to Chase's customer service can take up to 48 hours. And to just pay cash, because then I could have gotten cash back, which I could have spent right away. However, as I said here in a different comment, Chase is now going to charge me an $8 maintenance fee unless I use their debit card at least 4 times a month.
All I'm saying, even though I consider myself a careful consumer I was duped. It happens, and I think large banks like Chase are purposely trying to mislead their customers.
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