Since the election I have been out of the loop lately on what the economy has been doing. Can a few of you fill me in and rate it for me. An honest rating please.

Is it rebounding?
Unemployment?
Manufacturing?
Construction?
Retail Sales?
Etc. Etc.

Thanks

Gangbusters for Wall Street . . . shitty for Main street.

THE NATION
Long-Term Jobless Find a Degree Just Isn't Working
By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2005

Dan Gillespie never thought he'd have to look so hard for work.

When the Seattle-area resident left the Air Force in 1980, he earned a computer science degree and enjoyed 20 years of steady work. He saved enough money to buy his wife's childhood home last year.

Three months later, he was laid off.

Gillespie, 53, hasn't found a job since. Even the corner store won't hire him. He and his wife sold the house last month.

"The computer jobs are gone," he said. "So what's next? We can't all move into gene splicing."

Long-term unemployment, defined as joblessness for six months or more, is at record rates. But there's an additional twist: An unusually large share of those chronically out of work are, like Gillespie, college graduates.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobless11mar11.story

which no longer exists...officially.

Needing a college degree to do anything from word processing to inventory clerking (blame employERs for that one) where only a HS degree was necessary before is a huge part of it. EVERYONE has a college degree because of this; you aren't going to get your foot in the door without one. And that's sad.

It holds together until our mortgage is paid off.

I see the general economy (that is, the economy of the working class) tanking.

Comstock Partners, Inc.

Employment Numbers Without the Spin
March 10, 2005

Last Friday the report that February payroll employment increased by a monthly 262,000 was greeted with great enthusiasm by the stock market and most economists. This was the 39th month since the official recession bottom in November 2001. The following is an attempt to put this number into perspective without the spin.

In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs.

If we did add 13.2 million jobs on the current cycle, the average monthly increase would have amounted to 338,000. Instead the monthly average increase has been only 50,000, and we have exceeded 300,000 in only three separate months out of the 39.

Snip ......

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165

Graph From TahitiNut

eom

Most of the people I know were laid off or fired since bush came in and they are now getting jobs again after about 2 years but the same level as before or lower. Mostly lower. The businesses I know are not doing well, just eking by.

It was never even an issue in the 2004 election.

Source: Dallas Federal Reserve

Personally unemployed 59 Months!

Two college degrees: BSEE, MBA
Honorably Discharged Naval Officer
Commercial Pilot
15 + years of professional experience
Over 3,000 resumes out the door

Economy? What economy!

But from my prospective it SUCKS. Just a view from the street.

:hurts:

Military budget deficits assisting the GDP numbers.
Downsizing (outsourcing)
Corporate mergers
Japan buying up the country
No jobs, despite unemployment numbers
Rising prices, stagnant wages
Wage disparity increases
Inexplicable stock market, followed by 1987 crash
Followed by 10% unemployment in the 90's

what is it, pretty much stagnant to unchanged since 1973 (in the 37-42k range), but we work 24 more days a year than our 1973 counterparts did?

I've never felt like workers recovered from 70's stagflation. These charts would seem to verify that.

http://www.osjspm.org/101_wages.htm

many countries are starting to fully divest from our dollar

Banrupcies are up....

Should I go on?

So this year they probably won't even have that option. I'd say the economy sucks.

secret energy meetings info never released, no accountability, globalists, they are not loyal to america and The People, they are just plain addicted to money-lust, power and greed, and consider themselves above the law, continuing war famine and pestilence in the 21st century in preparation for authoritarian control-like we have never seen in their need for 'legitimacy' which they must enforce with force, because they don't respect dialogue and don't care or want change.

( "the greatest tool in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" - Stephen Biko)

This Republican Media Complex, of which JG is a small part, has so
dominated the national conversation, so controlled the agenda, so
intimated the press that, here in America, we are now living in a
reality that exists only in the minds of the policy makers. And
here's the crime. Those policy makers are ignoring the people
equation in their Fantasy World. To be sure, this is a world
crafted for profits and corporate power.
So why is Bush's trip a testament to the power of the Republican
Media Complex? You can see it when you watch the Europeans shake
their heads in disbelief. They can't understand why we have
allowed this to happen.
It seems America is living in one reality and the rest of the world
is dwelling in another. The reason for this disconnect is very
clear. They haven't been the target of the Republican Media
Complex message.*
( A MESSAGE TO MASSAGE the VISAGE to MIRAGE the SEWAGE, this AGE NEEDS TRIAGE & COURAGE ! )


On June 21, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that the ever-growing 'Peak Oil' crowd seems to have missed. The article concerned the Shell oil refinery in Bakersfield, California that is scheduled to be shut down on October 1 -- despite the fact that the state of California (and the nation as a whole) is already woefully lacking in refinery capacity.

Now why do you suppose that Shell would want to close a perfectly good oil refinery? It can't be because there is no market for the goods produced there, since that obviously isn't the case. And it isn't due to a lack of raw materials, since the refinery sits, as the Times noted, atop "prolific oil fields." The Scotsman recently explained just how prolific those fields are:

The best estimates in 1942 indicated that the Kern River field in California had just 54 million barrels of remaining oil. By 1986, the field had produced 736 million barrels, and estimates put the remaining reserves at 970 million barrels. (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=578462004)

Of course, just because there is a strong demand for a product, and a ready source of raw materials with which to produce that product, does not mean that any corporate entity is obligated to bring that product to market. In the corporate world, the only thing that ever matters is the "bottom line," because corporations exist for one purpose only: to generate profits. So the only question, I suppose, that really matters, is: can the refining of gasoline and diesel fuel at this particular facility generate profits for the corporation?


One would naturally assume, given Shell's decision to close the refinery, that the answer to that question is "no." But that would be an entirely wrong assumption, since the truth is, as L.A. Times reporters discovered when they got their hands on internal company documents, that the refinery is wildly profitable. How wildly profitable? The Bakersfield plant's "profit of $11 million in May <2004> was 57 times what the company projected and more than double what it made in all of 2003." (Elizabeth Douglas "Shell to Cut Summer Output at Bakersfield Refinery, Papers Say," Los Angeles Times, June 21, 2004)

Go ahead and read that again: "more than double what it made in all of 2003." In a single month! And 2003 wasn't exactly what you would call a slow year at the Bakersfield refinery. According to Shell documents obtained by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, "Bakersfield's refining margin at $23.01 per barrel, or about 55 cents profit per gallon, topped all of Shell's refineries in the nation."
(http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=114-04062004)


Let's pause briefly here to review the situation, shall we? There is a product (gasoline) that is in great demand, and that will always be in great demand, since the product has what economists like to call an "inelastic" demand curve; for many months now, that product has been selling for record-breaking prices, especially in the state of California, and there is no indication that that situation will change anytime soon; there are abundant local resources with which to produce that coveted product; and, finally, there is a ridiculously profitable facility that is ideally located to manufacture and market that product.


Given that situation, what response would we normally expect from that facility's parent corporation? Sit back and let the good times roll? Attempt to increase production at the facility and rake in even greater profits? Sell the facility and make a windfall profit? Or, tossing logic and rationality to the wind, shut the facility down and walk away?


That last one, of course, is what Shell has chosen to do. And this story, believe it or not, gets even better:
The internal documents obtained by the Times, including a refinery output forecast, indicate that Bakersfield will soon be producing far less than its capacity. After relatively high output rates in May and early June, Shell plans to cut crude oil processing about 6% in July and another 6% in August, according to the forecast. Those two months are when California's fuel demand reaches annual peak levels.
Aamir Farid, the general manager of the Bakersfield refinery, was asked the reason for the plan to reduce output at the time of peak demand. Farid claimed that he was not aware of any such plan, but he added that if there was such a plan, "there is a good reason for it." However, he also added that, "off the top of my head, I don't know what that good reason is."

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html

According to both company documents and the unnamed employee, "there were no problems with the plant's equipment," and no other explanation was offered for the radical reduction in processing -- undoubtedly because there is no legitimate reason for the decreased output. So obvious is the company's intent to artificially tighten gasoline and diesel supplies that the FTC was obliged, for the sake of appearances, to step in and pretend to launch an investigation. Shell's response to the investigation has been to delay the closing of the refinery for a few months while it goes through the motions of pretending to find a buyer.


In completely unrelated news, a July 31 LA Times report announced that "profit at ChevronTexaco Corp. more than doubled during the second quarter ... echo the strong quarterly results reported by other major U.S. oil refiners this week." ChevronTexaco's profit jumped from $1.6 billion to $4.1 billion. Not too shabby. Three days later, the Times reported that Unocal's earnings for that same quarter had nearly doubled, from $177 million to $341 million.
(Debora Vrana "Chevron Profit Soars," Los Angeles Times, July 31, 2004, and Julie Tamaki "Unocal's Earnings Nearly Double," Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2004)


Nobody should conclude from any of this, of course, that inflated fuel prices are attributable to rampant greed and the quest for obscene profits. No, clearly rising fuel prices are a sign of 'Peak Oil.' Just ask Mike Ruppert and Mark Robinowitz. Or better yet, bypass the flunkies and go directly to the scriptwriters at Halliburton and the Club of Rome.

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html



* * * * * * * * * *
*SPINNING NewsBytes INCESSANTLie MisCreating a NEBULOUS CACAPHONY*

Asked by Eric Boehlert whether the neocon attack on the press is a
way to eliminate a national point of reference on facts, Ron
Suskind responded:
Absolutely! That's the whole idea, to somehow sweep away the
community of honest brokers in America -- both Republicans and
Democrats and members of the mainstream press -- Sweep Them Away So
We'll Be Left With A Culture And Public Dialogue Based On Assertion
Rather Than Authenticity, On Claim Rather Than Fact. Because when
you arrive at that place, then all you have to rely on is
perception. And perception as the handmaiden of forceful executed
power is the great combination that we're seeing now in the
American polity.

ENOMY? = MONEY$
People First in the 21st

There is an enormous housing bubble in play with lost of idiots with 100% owed on their homes. Our economy is 'fake' meaning we are spending borrowed money, thats what is fueling it. You have a couple of phases.

1) Phase one people make real money, maybe this was late 90s.
2) Phase two, economy takes a crap and all those folks use home equity, credit cards etc to maintain lifestyle. We as a nation never returned to a higher savings rate like we should after a recession is ending.
3) Phase three, train runs out of steam. Can't borrow anymore consumers are tapped out on credit, we are entering this stage now.

What will happen? Well given the fact the government has huge debts as does most of its taxpayers I think they will try to print their way out and inflation will go way way up. This will have the effect of devaluing all the debt the government owes as well as people and at the same time burning up those of us who didn't go spend crazy as our savings get beat down by inflation.