The US and world economy in 2008 and 2009

firefly, The first sentence about "several months" threw me off; so thanks for posting the whole article.

It's interesting that he mentions Mae and Mac, and our governments interest in keeping them solvent. The reason I say this is because foreign investors, especially the Chinese, own a good portion of those stocks. If our government bails them out, American taxpayers will essentially be helping foreign investors for the failure of those two mortgage giants.

Hey, Ragman, what do ya think now?

Yesterday The direct ADP private sector employment report rocked the greenback and a reported calculation makeover to make the data more predictive of the non-farm payroll number has left analysts rushing to review forecasts for Friday’s number. Revisions are tending to push to prediction over the 600k barrier, challenging the record 602k decline in 1974. If the disastrous forecasts become reality, President-elect Barack Obama will need to ensure that his stimulus package is “spent wisely”, otherwise the collective hopes that it could be enough will dissipate rapidly. Still in the US, Fed’s Hoenig confirmed what most observers know already, that the outlook for the US economy in H1 is “grim”.

USD losses were not broad-based however, with commodity-linked currencies suffering as commodities hit the skids, with the CRB index falling for the first time this year. AUD was under pressure o/n and was hit by poor data this morning. The Nov trade surplus slumped to AUD1.45 bln vs AUD2.0 bln f/c and AUD2.96 bln in Oct while at the same time building approvals slumped 12.8% m/m, implying that any benefit for the mortgage market from the recent rate cuts are slow to filter through. AUD continued its retreat during the Asian session down to 0.7000 support. However, the USD is expected to maintain its softer bias into the non-farm payrolls, just in case, and further weakness may be forthcoming from a NYT article suggesting that China may be keeping more of its money at home amid the global slowdown, possibly slowing its purchases of US Treasuries.

With Barak Obama now at the helm, when will our economy begin to show some improvement? Two, five, seven, ten or twelve years from now? Ever again as in the late 90s?

What do I think...as I file for bankruptcy?

You are not alone, and it will become worse for many more as people lose their jobs, homes and health care. The question is, how much longer, and how many more Americans?

I've heard as much as 2M people have lost jobs (dating back to late '06 since the start of the real estate slide)..and that it could be as much as 6m before it ends. It will end, but what will remain is anyone's guess.

Ragman, I'm sure the estimates we hear from the government concerning unemployment are only estimates (they seem to revise their own numbers frequently), but the other side of the coin, the creation of new jobs is the worst since Hoover during GW Bush's presidency. And yet, 22% of Americans still believe he was a great president.

Some of us are aware about what makes up those 22% who respond to those popularity polls. Pardon the odious comparison, but those same 22% would vote positively for Hitler today. If you ask those 22% what they liked about about Bush's policies and get them to describe in detail, they wouldn't know a thing. Nor would they know where Alaska or Hawaii are on the map.

As has been stated often in the past, US Unemployment Insurance recipient numbers are only comprise those who are part of the system. Those still actively searching..or receiving benefits. The actual unemplioyed figure is probably at least 50% greater.

I bet many of those 22% are without jobs living on the dole, but refuse to admit they've been wrong; just like Bush.

My guess is that they would know where Alaska is because of Sarah Palin; she did say her neighbors are Russia and Canada. Maybe, those 22% can figure that one out, but they first have to know where Russia and Canada are located on a world map.

My forecast for our economy is decidedly downwards for at least another 12 months.

Our country is in big doodoo, and congress plays politics while hundreds of thousands continue to lose their jobs and homes.

Here's my opinion that I developed after reading about the current stimulus package and what they have been cutting out of it.

They have cut out spending on education which is harming the package more than helping. The reasons are many, but some of the major ones are as follows:
1. We must look at the long-term survival of our economy, and education will be an important ingredient in meeting the high tech and biotech demands of the future.
2. Cutting student loans will force qualified students in math and the sciences to drop out for lack of funds.
3. It will reduce the number of teachers at a time when we should be investing more towards our educational system, not only for now but for the future.

Not all social services needs to be eliminated from the budget; we still need to have a healthy citizenry to compete in the world marketplace. I applaud the plan to upgrade health care for our children; they are our future.

Our healthcare system is broken; we spend more per capita than any developed country, but still have upwards of 45 million without health insurance. There must be a way to cover all Americans at lesser cost.

Congress is also planning to cut funding to the states; a big mistake - imo.
It's true that states have not lived within their means, but to leave them out of the stimulus package will harm more Americans at a time when all levels of government are cutting staff or paid days (as in California), and service to the community gets reduced in areas the federal government has no responsibility.

Finally, this delay by congress to approve any stimulus package is going to worsen what is already a crisis. Congress didn't have any problem funding the Iraq war at $10 billion every month ($120 billion/year), but seems hamstrung when the money is to help her own people. They believe they've accomplished something by reducing the stimulus plan by $100 billion as thousands of families continue to lose their jobs every day, homes and health insurance. Something is drastically wrong.

Well, look what I found:

American Indians stand to gain almost $3 billion as part of the economic stimulus moving through Congress.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on yesterday included $2.8 billion for Indian tribes in its portion of the nearly $900 billion economic stimulus bill.

A House version to be voted on today includes a similar amount.

I think it's a good time to revive this thread on the US and world economy because we're now struggling to stay alive, but the stock market seems immune to all the bad news that we've had with more to come. Amazing times, this!

There are some signs of stabilization in our economy such has housing and auto sales, but increases in unemployment and business profitability are still not very good.

It's interesting to note that the multi-million dollar homes in the bay area are still selling very well while others are still losing ground. Refinancing is up, but that still hasn't translated into more consumer spending.