Recovery at last?

[charliex]

The area I'm in has weathered this rather well. Not many foreclosures and in Rochester there is quite a number of new housing starts. I'm not sure of what the current unemployment rate is here but I would assume it's rather low. No one I know has lost a job or been down graded. A few restraunts have closed but several more have recently started up. The better ones seem to do a good business, especially on the weekends. The home stores, HD, Menards, Lowes and Fleet Farm, can have packed parking lots on the weekend also.

[knotley]

Not to get too political, but several news sources have reported that GM did not pay off the loan with earned income. (GM has lost money in every quarter since the bailout.)

The money came from an escrow fund created with TARP money.

In other words, GM paid off its loan with our money. And GM still owes us taxpayers $52 billion in bailout funds.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopOpinion

GM ads and the Underlying Truth
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...rticle1545194/

Sort of like we get a loan of $100 when we only need $75, then when we pay back the extra $25 early it makes us look good.

[Hoover]

Some signs are misleading. Most roads and bridges are owned by governments, so this construction is sponsored by government spending rather than economic recovery. Generally - I believe that so far our government is going out of its way to keep people employed by borrowing and spending. Private sector economy has very few signs of recovery. It is not shrinking any more, so bleeding has stopped but patient did not get better yet.

Isn't it true the government spending on roads and bridges employ workers from the private sector. These workers spend money in the private sector, buying groceries, cars, clothes, and houses. Don't buy into the tenet that these signs are misleading.

[vaking]

Isn't it true the government spending on roads and bridges employ workers from the private sector. These workers spend money in the private sector, buying groceries, cars, clothes, and houses. Don't buy into the tenet that these signs are misleading.

Last year we saw economic stimulus package justified with same exact logic - Give people money so they can spend it and boost the economy. I noticed that this year my tax refund was smaller than last year. Checked with my accountant. It turned out the net effect of the stimulus package was that companies reduced tax withholdings during the year but overall tax rate did not change so at the end of the year people have to pay more to make up for smaller payments throughout the year. Economic stimulus was nothing more than a loan given to people against their year-end tax-refund. If economic downturn had been small and we only needed few months to get out of it - stimulus would have worked. But we are in a deep recession and few months did not do it. Economic stimulus has run out of steam and we just had to repay the loan and we are still in recession. For real problems such gimmicks don't work. The same with government jobs financed by more loans. It is another temporary measure which comes at high cost. During the last couple years government debt increased a lot and that means going forward borrowing will be harder and harder and even paying for current debt will cost us more. As you know the lower is your credit rating - the higher interest you have to pay. The same with governments - they also have credit ratings and the rating of US government dropped heavily during this recession.

[germdoc]

A couple of thoughts here--we ARE out of the recession technically speaking, though it will take quite a time for unemployment to catch up.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010...S-Economy.html

We were in the biggest hole financially since the great depression, so admittedly there is still a lot of pessimism around.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/bu...norris.html?hp

Lastly, my intent was not to debate whether the recovery program is working or whether the GM/Chrysler bailout was a good idea, but merely whether things are improving from your perspective. Obviously YMMV, depending upon where you live. Things never got terribly bad here and they are looking up. I've travelled quite a bit recently and my own opinion is that people are more optimistic and starting to spend money again.

[Woodwerker]

People believe whatever they are told.
Isn't that how we got in this mess to begin with?
Recovery will begin when "REAL" unemployment is under 10%
About 2 years from now IMHO

[Hoover]

I follow The Caddy Shack rule of investing, and it works for me. IT is based on fundamentals.

[rcp612]

Isn't it true the government spending on roads and bridges employ workers from the private sector. These workers spend money in the private sector, buying groceries, cars, clothes, and houses. Don't buy into the tenet that these signs are misleading.

In my area though, the "private sector" apparently lives elsewhere. The subs working the little bit of construction going on are not giving anything back to this community and, by working very cheaply, they actually take away from the local economy.
But on the bright side,,,,,,the contractors, which BTW, are the largest in the state, are doing very well. It looks to me that if you give a company some money to work with, they will find a way to vastly increase their profits even if they don't have all their own employees working since they can use much cheaper labor from some distant area.
Just my opinion.

[woodturner]

Interesting show on Nova last night. The show highlighted research that showed, among other things, that markets are driven by emotion. They showed through experiments how even experienced traders create "bubbles".

Problem is, they don't yet understand WHY or HOW these emotions drive the market - so they don't really have any insight into workable controls on the market yet.

It was an interesting show if you are interested in finance and investing.

[germdoc]

Bubbles are VERY SIMPLE. Too much money, too little intelligent thought.

(The few bits and pieces of the Goldman testimony I heard yesterday convinced me those guys are not the sharpest chisels in the financial toolbox.)

[germdoc]

I follow The Caddy Shack rule of investing, and it works for me. IT is based on fundamentals.

?? What the heck is the Caddy Shack rule of investing ??

[eccentrictinkerer]

Bubbles are VERY SIMPLE. Too much money, too little intelligent thought.

(The few bits and pieces of the Goldman testimony I heard yesterday convinced me those guys are not the sharpest chisels in the financial toolbox.)

Here's an interesting article that summarizes the hearings from the standpoint of someone who understands Wall Street.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../04/026171.php

I liked his last statement and heartily concur.

I'm not a particular fan of either Goldman Sachs or Congress, but today's hearing confirms that, given a choice, I'd rather have Goldman Sachs regulating Congress than Congress regulating Goldman Sachs. Goldman's employees are much smarter, considerably more honest, and far more likely to have my interests at heart.

[germdoc]

Goldman's employees are much smarter, considerably more honest, and far more likely to have my interests at heart.

I agree that the financial whiz kids think they're smarter than everyone else. That's the problem and why we're in this "decession". I emphatically don't agree with the last part of this quote.

Hmmmm--reminds me of some other "wise guys"...

[Hoover]

?? What the heck is the Caddy Shack rule of investing ??

Rodney Dangerfield is out on the golf course, he gets a call from his investor. "What's everybody doing?" "They're buying" says the investor. "Well, then sell, sell."

In other words, don't follow the pack. I buy and sell based on fundamentals, not technical trading. I have two different brokers, one account I am up 350%, and the other almost 500%. I sleep well at night. I own stocks many have heard of, and hold them until fundamentals change.

[master53yoda]

Interesting show on Nova last night. The show highlighted research that showed, among other things, that markets are driven by emotion. They showed through experiments how even experienced traders create "bubbles".

Problem is, they don't yet understand WHY or HOW these emotions drive the market - so they don't really have any insight into workable controls on the market yet.

It was an interesting show if you are interested in finance and investing.

What is interesting to me is that they brought up socioeconomics but didn't look into it very deep. Socioeconomics is the driving force that Elliot stumbled onto in the 30s and 40 and is what Elliot wave analysis is all about. What the economists don't want to accept or see is that the markets, economy, governments all follow mans progression cycle. the markets respond to it faster then anything else because of the millions of people that are involved. The markets don't respond to economic cause and effect like most think they do. Proof of that is most of the major things such as 9/11 don't do anything to the market that is not in the pattern. If you remove the time stamps you can't find Kennedy's assassination, the start or end of wars with the exception that they are a part of 2nd and 4th correction patterns, Migrations of people almost allays happen at the end of a 4th pattern resulting in world power shifts. 4th patterns also brings major changes in social attitudes. 5th patterns cover completely new areas of progression and normally completely retrace back to the previous 4th pattern. A classic example was the 80s and 90s we had started into unknown technology and world economies, The social impacts of both have not been successfully utilized by man and until they are we will be in a sidways pattern both socially and economically, until a world economy in reality and thinking comes into effect, Socially we will have to learn how do deal with more information then is usable and how to effectively use our time. Progress requires effective time use not focused on leisure. Once these are handled by the end of this century we will enter the Grand super cycle 5th wave that will carry us into space as earthly homosapiens and the next pattern will be dealing with the complete shift in time and space. Star trek or star wars Or The Kingdom of Our Father in Heaven