The recovery…
So the recession was deeper, and the recovery has been slower, than previously believed. That really isn’t news to those of us out here in the real world where economic statistics only tell part of the story, but it’s worth keeping in mind. As far as the future goes, it seems rather obvious that the economy is going to remain weak for the remainder of 2012 at the very least.
As far as the future goes? I can see beyond year’s end, as can almost anyone with half a brain. The future is bleak, very bleak.
You optimists will have to start printing your own money when the tax rates go up Jan. 1.
BTW, the taxes on the “wealthy” in the Obamacare Act are not indexed to inflation, a classic Democratic stunt just like the Alternative Minimum Tax on income, and all financial assets will be taxed.
Have a lovely time. I will need to eat my capital and my offspring will inherit next to nothing.
I’ve beat this horse here before, but let me beat it again.
Many of the major statistics we traditionally measure our economic health by are either cooked or, if bad enough, are usually just not reported, and if reported, are not comprehended by a large number of the current day “graduates” of our schools, the majority of whom still get their filtered and massaged news from the MSM.
So, alarming as our economic situation seems to be, from just the limited amount of the perpetually “unexpected” bad news that slips around the filiters, my reading of things is that our economic situation is much, much more perilous than we are being told.
Make that filtered and massaged
So what, Obama is awesome. And it’s all the fault of the Republicans and Tea Party Nazis who won’t let him fix the economy.
Anyway does know for sure whether Thomas Sowell said in 2008 that “if Obama only wrecks the economy we can count ourselves lucky.”
Heaven forfend, this can’t be true! The President himself told us his plan worked! (end sarc)
How could our situation not be perilous? How could our future not be bleak? We have sinned and the wages of sin is death. And repentance does not bring the cessation of cause and effect, but it may lead to new actions, behavior, policies which may then lead to a new era of peace and prosperity.
The questions is, “Will there be repentance?” The tea party is a large response to the need for a genuine repentance for living on our children’s labors, a labor which has not even occurred yet. But what of our children? What will they do with the world we gave them of debt, lagging defense, corruption, and lies? It isn’t “fair” to them. Will they be able to rise above that?
Wolla: One of my genuine complaints about Romney is that he is a product of the environment that believes those statistics reflect reality. He was a master at evaluating a firm and its prospects. That does not translate into expertise in macroeconomics.
Even if Mitt was the best pilot for the US economy, his gauges are lying to him. He will crash just as hard as someone who doesn’t even look at the controls.
foxmarks: your assertions are without merit. “His gauges”? What exactly are “his gauges”? We’re talking data here, are we not? Compiled by Treasury, Depts of Labor and Commerce, inter alia.
Yes, gauges can lie, like a gas tank that doesn’t read E when empty. So what are his gauges lying about? As opposed to the esteemed Federal Gov’t?
For anyone who wants to read the economic tea leaves, I recommend Maxed Out Mama @
http://maxedoutmama.blogspot.com/
She reads all the usual government and Fed stuff, but in a beady eyed, green eyeshade sort of way. She calls BS when she detects it. Her take on things these days is that we are skipping along the surface of falling into another recession.
My fear is that Romney wins and the economy is already in recession. Then the dems manage to create enough barriers to turning things around, particularly if they keep control of the Senate. A Republican Senate and Romney would be welcome, but it doesn’t change things unless Romney and the Repubs can fight hard to take the necessary actions. That is: get the government out of the way enough to restore confidence. $2 trillion sitting in money markets, CDs and short term Treasuries earning zero. It’s scared money. Confidence would allow it to be put back to work. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be quick.
Don Carlos: Romney uses those same official gov’t statistics. He is trained to believe they are accurate by the neo-Keynesian economists that train everyone at Harvard (and pretty much everywhere).
What Romney can’t see is that the data is both manipulated and incomplete. An easy tell is talking about GDP. GDP is measured in dollars, which have an uncertain and variable value.
When Rmoney wants the economy to grow, he will be looking at the “GDP gauge” on his economic instrument panel. There is, however, no “total debt” gauge in the Keynesian cockpit. So, even as Mitt might try to raise GDP while controlling the reading on the “FedGov deficit” gauge, he can’t see the mountain of leverage our economic airplane is heading toward.
J.J.: MOM is one of my regular stops. She has the Keynesian disease, and I have argued with her about it. But she also looks deeper into actual physical measures (like tons and hours), not just the dollar-denominated nonsense churned out by BLS and other agencies.
One of her regulars, Stagflationary Mark, does a nice job with charts showing how we’re in an economic house of cards.
http://illusionofprosperity.blogspot.com/
If you combine MOM’s macro analysis with Denninger’s capital-market analysis, you might begin to see why I think Romney is incapable of avoiding collapse.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker
foxmarks:
I believe you used the term re Romney, “His gauges”. “His” is a possessive, i.e. belongs to Romney. You and I are in 100% agreement that our gov’t data are a load of bull. But just like you and I recognize that, and were educated in the Keynesian wisdom (at least I was), we have nevertheless figured out that Keynes AND the gov’t data are BS. There is no reason to think that Romney is less able than we in that regard, and plenty of reason to think him more able.
In sum, there is no reason to think yet that his gauges, his perceptions of the data, their causes, their manipulation, are flawed.
Don Carlos: I see, you were reading a more personal meaning than I intended.
I have seen no evidence that Romney has an awareness that systemic debt and leverage are a fundamental problem. He knows about FedGov debt, but he hasn’t connected that to GDP.
He buys into the illusion of fiscal stimulus. That’s enough for me to explicitly argue what you read in my prior comment. His gauges *are* defective.
It is more than I can do to hope that he would pick any non-Keynesian advisors, and that if he did, that such a heterodox voice would awaken his mind.
Sure, he is bright enough that he *could* understand. But that would change his perception of his own past. And never forget that the banksters are big funders of both parties. What might be brilliant economics would look like bad politics.
It seems about as likely that Obama would bump his head and suddenly recognize the trap of collectivism.
foxmarks:
We fundamentally agree. But Romney *could* seems a great deal more likely than an Obama conversion. There is some, perhaps small but some, hope with *could*, but zero hope with Obama. Zero. His is the malign force of our times.
Further, let us not overlook that Romney is talking to millions, not to you and me in a private conversation.