Can someone explain to me where the recovery is going to come from?

[AllentownJake]

We have 70% of our economy in the service industry and 10% unemployment (really higher if you remove all the bullshit they take out of the statistic).

Our citizens are maxed out on debt to their eyeballs and those of us with good credit will get a higher interest rate on their loans if they buy on credit.

How does a consumer based economy recover when the consumer cannot take out any more credit and there are less jobs due to unemployment.

[leftstreet]

1. We will sell the contents of our garages to each other

I heard someone say that

[AllentownJake]

2. LOL

I have seen an increase in Garage sales.

I think the media and the normal talking heads talking about a recovery is a sucker to get people to spend money before Christmas and than allow reality to step in on January 2nd.

[leftstreet]

8. And Lo, we saw in the heavens a Christmas Economic Recovery Act

And then it burned out.

I think you're right

[Javaman]

48. I fear for the garage sale bubble burst. It won't be pretty. nt

[imdjh]

9. A new variation on "Take in one another's wash."

Which is actually kind of funny when you think about it, not to mention I can see it working, though not for recovery. I'm something of a giver in this regard. I will come over to your house and whip it into shape, down on the floor with a roll of paper towels and cleaner, it will be clean Christina, clean!

Here, in my house, not so much. I end up hanging out on DU.

I'll clean your house and you clean mine. We won't have any money, but we'll have clean houses.

[ZombieHorde]

3. Don't worry about all of that stuff, check this out...

http://images.google.com/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hl=en&source=hp&q=barack+obama%27s+dog&gbv=2&aq=7&oq=barack&aqi=g10">No need to worry.

[thereismore]

4. We need to enslave a 3rd world country and enjoy great recovery from their labor.

:sarcasm:

It's the only way. Manifest destiny.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. As soon as it looks like a "recovery" the price of oil shoots up & kills it.

The recovery can only be based on investment in profitable & sensible renewable energy technologies

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. You say "recovery" as if they mean "...for you".

By their definition, one person spending $1 trillion is the same as 100 million people spending $10,000.

[AllentownJake]

7. So electronic transactions on a computer

are now a part of GDP.

For all the shit we talked about the Soviet Union, we are sure becoming like it.

[caballero]

10. We need to persuade Japan to invade and occupy us. Do for us what we did for them...

;-)
Minus the nukes though, come to think of it...

[indepat]

11. The uber-rich, who have had trillions of dollars added to their coffers by unneeded, unfair tax cuts...

since the Gipper unleashed his ruinous voodoo economics, will begin letting a few more of their dollars trickle down to the little people. :P

[Warpy]

12. Don't forget the 40 years of depressed wages

in the jobs we do have. Wages never recovered after the oil shocks of the 70s, not in purchasing power. Cheap credit was offered instead and most people used it.

Now that the credit has dried up, businesses are going to have to come to terms with the end result of maximizing profit by cheating their workers: no customers.

I'm afraid we'll continue to see deflation of assets and inflation in essentials, the worst of all possible economies, until the PTB finally wake up and allow the type of government intervention that is needed to reset the economy into a sustainable form.

Screwing the peasants never works for long, although the short term rewards are so great that every third generation or so feels compelled to try it.

[Craftsman]

15. Exactly, in the late 1960's my dad could on aunion carpenters wage

Buy 2 cars, a modest home and support a family of 4. Try doing that today. Wages are being depressed.

[Romulox]

19. When you buy a Hyundai, it's hard to complain that the money isn't re-circulating.

:shrug:

[CrispyQ]

33. In the late 70s,

I put myself through college, lived in my own apartment, & bought a car, all with my good paying, part-time, union job. I'd go home on holidays & listen to my mother diss unions. I finally told her that unless she wanted to pay my tuition & living expenses, she should shut up on the anti-union talk. My step-father gave me a big :thumbsup:

[AllentownJake]

17. This group of wealth are particularly nastier than the last

I honestly believe this group enjoys watching human suffering, not just causing it to make a buck

[CrispyQ]

37. They genuinely believe they are better than the rest of us, just because they have more money.

:eyes:

He who dies with the most toys, still dies.

[Warpy]

38. Their hired help certainly does

if those recorded phone conversations of heartless Enron yuppies is any indication.

The uber wealthy, as always, don't consider us at all.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. I always thought that single payer would make sense as a jobs producer

If everyone suddenly had access to taxpayer provided healthcare, we would need to build more hospitals, clinics, labs, medical colleges, factories for medical equipment, service providers in hospitals, home health aids, etc. etc.

It's another service industry, but it would pay decent incomes (you would think) and there are worse ways to earn money than tending to your fellow American's health needs.

Additionally, it would free up all those dollars for the private sector and people might feel liberated and confident enough to open up new businesses that were not health related. We would all also each have more disposable dollars to spend on consumer goods, etc. if we were freed from the health insurance yoke.

Americans have so far been indentured to a single industry which has bought and paid for our Congress to keep us in their shackles.

[Skidmore]

14. When we all have been reduced to penury, the wealthy will start working on new markets

in China with billions to be made in a market of billions of people as marks. Scorched earth economics.

[cliffordu]

16. Ain't going to happen without massive job creation.

I have seen no move towards that.

I wish all the repubs and the republocrats in congress would lose everything in a ponzi scheme and live on the fucking streets for a while.

[Romulox]

18. Step 1: get a job at the Kia dealership. Step 2: Cash for Clunkers 2!

:shrug:

[leftstreet]

20. Cash for Cardboard

Basically

[Barack_America]

21. Knowledge is valuable.

Which is why I keep advocating the biomedical sciences. Research does not always provide a tangible product, so it's not manufacturing, but it is profitable.

Furthermore, our nation still has an edge in this area due to the superiority of our universities and research institutes. Workers with a Bachelors are paid solidly middle class wages and funding is primarily through the government, permitting preferential advancement to US Citizens. There are furthermore many jobs to be had in companies who manufacture and supply research materials.

Someone is going to claim superiority in this field. It should be us.

Unraveling the mysteries of our genomes is "space race" of our generation.

[AllentownJake]

23. Small sector of the economy

but one that can be developed.

I'm more talking about a 4-5 year horizon with our government advertising a recovery.

[Barack_America]

30. True. It's just the best I could come up with.

Personally, I think the govt. should offer education grants to send people back to school to be retrained for other jobs (but no MBAs!). That gets unemployment down a bit for 2-4 years. I currently get a decent stipend to go to school. My tuition and healthcare is furthermore covered. It's not a lot of money, but with my husband's salary (same field, but he's not in school) we get by just fine. I'm not expected to pay my stipend back with future service (i.e. working in rural or underprivileged areas), but many such stipends are. I am expected to work long hours doing research, but my schedule is flexible and the work is not physically demanding.

Basically a GI bill for out of work Americans to get training in biomedical and green jobs, that's what I'm advocating.

[Odin2005]

43. As a Biotech major I agree.

We will have to get the luddites to shut up, though.

[opihimoimoi]

22. You NOT gonna get anything new or good from the REPUBLICANS

They can't tell ya shit....

If there is to be a recovery...it should be a bi partisan effort...the GOP has decided to be a party of non support...

Meaning they want Dems to swim alone...fuck Country First...

This is pathetic...

[leftstreet]

24. Then thank goodness the Republicans aren't in the majority n/.t

[AllentownJake]

25. You aren't going to get much more with this crop of Democrats

Looking at trade deals is off the table, and they have taken just as much money from the Financial Service Industry that has hoarded all the investment capital to invest in, more financial service companies and derivatives.

A large amount of money that could be used to invest in new businesses is being tied up in the financial equivalent of Black Jack.

[opihimoimoi]

44. I happen to disagree...This crop of Dems is WAY BETTER than them Pubs

Never mind the moot

Think of Big Picture...The Dems are far ahead of the myopic Pubs.

[Rex]

34. Very pathetic, the GOP picked up their ball and went home.

They are suffering from a bout of Sore-Loseritus.

[opihimoimoi]

46. Signs of Sore Loser BULLIES....grumpy and destructive...as in a TANTRUM...myopic

[99 Percent Sure]

26. Like this--we pesky jobless folk and our families

Will become another underclass--that is, the few million of us that manage to survive homelessness and hunger.

Then, because we have no legitimate addresses to be counted in the 2010 census, we will not be included in the numbers and the govt will fudge the stats to make it seem as if we have, in fact, been taken to Mars by alien motherships. Or simply disappeared.

In other words, ain't no recovery, and ain't going to be no recovery until maybe this time next year. Many of us, however, will remain unemployed or underemployed. The revolution, when it finally hits sometime next year, will not be televised.

[mikelgb]

27. Bend over.

[Hidden Stillness]

28. Very Well Put

This is why things are getting so desperate, and it does not help anything to just keep cheering Obama like a fan club; it has to be faced because it is being lived by millions. FDR saw "one-third of a Nation ill-fed, ill-housed and ill-clothed" and worked to help them; the current DNC sees them, and tells them to shut up.

Our Michigan unemployment rate was just adjusted upward by the State Dept. of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, to 22.8% a couple of months ago, Depression levels, and even at a Joint Congressional panel a few days ago, on the economy, the expert (from the C.B.O., I think; it was the Maloney Committee, but she was not there, of course, because of the death of her husband), testified that this recession will be worse than the past several, because all sectors of spending are flat--there is no "healthy part of the economy" spending us all out of the slump. Jobs generally are worse--low pay, no benefits--and so there is not a possibility of spending and keeping up standard of living, because of that larger, general trend. All the economic signs, from unemployment and debt to foreclosures and bankruptcies, are all, steadily, getting worse.

You have a great FDR quote on your tag line there; this is another: "No business which depends for existence by paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to exist in this country." June 16, 1933.

[AllentownJake]

29. FDR

Didn't trust the bankers. He knew what they were about and he went about trying to reign them in.

Barack Obama picks Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner to be his economic advisers and we wonder why nothing is being done or has been done.

[CrispyQ]

31. According to Larry Summers, you're just going to have to adjust.

All Pledge and No Punch in Pittsburgh
by Laura Flanders

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/29-6

snip...

Read the papers, and the stats are all there. In the US, job seekers now outnumber job openings six to one. Official unemployment stands at 9.7 percent, its highest level in 26 years. If you're a teenager, it's over 25 percent. No reason there to shun protest for fear of ruining your job prospects, they're grim and only getting grimmer. That's if radicals like Paul Craig Roberts, a former officer of the Reagan Administration, are to be believed.

If measured according to the methodology used when he was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Roberts says "the unemployment rate today in the US is above 20%. Moreover, there is no obvious way of reducing it."

Consumer spending -- the engine that drove 70 % of the US economy and by extension much of the world's -- isn't coming back. And that's just the way it's going to be, President Obama's chief economic adviser Larry Summers told the BBC (my sister, actually) in Pittsburgh.

"The US can't, shouldn't and won't continue to experience the consumption-led growth of the past few years." said Summers. And the world -- and we -- should just adjust...

The message is pledge-on! Endorse "strong action" on climate and "balanced growth." But all those poor people out of work? They'll just have to adjust.
===

Tough shit for you & me.

[Truth2Tell]

32. The recovery is scheduled to fly out of my ass

right after the pigs.

[unblock]

35. why, rich people, of course!

the "recovery" is measured strictly in terms of gdp -- is the total economy producing more than it had been.
it says NOTHING about how that increase is distributed.

filthy rich people and enough corporations are able to make an absolute killing, enough to compensate for the hard times that the vast majority of us are facing. energy, pharma, insurance, and others are doing quite nicely.

if you, like most people, had your present and future wealth tied up in quaint concepts like "home ownership" and "working", well, these times are tough on you. why didn't you put all your millions in exxonmobil like the smart money did?


bottom line is that "recovery" doesn't mean "for everybody".

[Rex]

36. The uber rich turned America into a consumer based economy

once we had a great country that was the economic powerhouse of the world. Now we let criminals run our systems and then wonder why we 'lose' trillions in the fray of politics. Personally I think we had a huge, stockmarket crash and are stuck in a great depression - just not the one my grandparents knew.

[damntexdem]

39. The Black Lagoon? Outer space? Or ...

beyond the grave!!! Yikes!

[timtom]

40. I'm just thinking out loud, here:

Lessee, we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and turn that new "found money" to rebuilding our infrastructure...

[upi402]

41. LOL, when NAFTA and GATT are scrapped, and after 3 years go by

in time, things will begin to begin again. We'll bump along the bottom of a new living standard in the next several years. A much lower standard of living. Obama has assembled the same Clinton team that cemented the erosion Raygun started.

No change for now, we'll see I guess.

[TheKentuckian]

42. I can't guess Jake

We can talk about green jobs and filling medical positions forever but all of that won't fill in this hole. That might work to replace the super massive losses of the past couple of years but there is no easy fix to the losses that were transitioned to service crap.

The only thing I can guess to do to really move the needle is massive public debt to create an infrastructure revolution, education, and research revolution and hope that technology can cure ails by the time we get done with redoing the sewers, energy supply and distribution, rail, and whatever else that we have the foundation for a brave new world.

That or go hardcore protectionist and start making and doing stuff for each other like we did between WWII and Reagan.

[Johonny]

45. I don't know either

They've done nothing to pass financial legislation that re-regulates the market. If you had money to put back into the economy, why would you reinvest into this unregulated mess? I'm getting a little tired having to say it's only been X months give them time.

[opihimoimoi]

47. The only game in town is the Fed Gov't.....period....and the mofo Pubs wanna sink him/us