Here in Michigan we've been in a recession for the last six years so if anyone wants to know what to expect just hit me up.

Canada is still going full tilt forward.

1. Our housing bubble has yet to burst (it will but I have been saying that for 2 years now) all across the country with prices crazier than ever;

2. Our stock market is at/near all time high;

3. The Canadian dollar is trading near $1.05 USD (yes $1 CDN buys $1.05 USD)

4. Unemployment is at all an all time low (still higher than the US but we live in a socialist paradise where often it pays for people NOT to work);

5. Consumer and public sentiment is good for the future.

However, I believe that a LARGE correction is well overdue but I am an overly cautious person....

I believe that we will -

As stated earlier - temp help employment has been slowly creeping down for the last 8 months. You'll start to see a change in the jobs report soon - Housing/Mortgage/Banking/Construction all taking a hit right now.

Price of oil - not good.

Wait till some of the "christmas spending" figures come out - when the media starts reporting on how bad these figures are - then you will see a real slow down on everything else.

So, 2008 - 2 quarters of misery - then enough of that - we will get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I think Russia is yet to learn the lessons that the Arabs learned in the 70's. (It is my belief that Russia, with its hand up the rear of Iran and throwing its voice, is intentionally driving oil prices as high as possible.)

G. Bush is just setting up a failing economy...so that the next Pres. (Democrat)
will get the blame for it.

OK - there's a Nobel Prize in Economics in this for some very smart PhD scholar who can put equations and analysis to the following concept:

So much of our economy (and that of other countries, particularly China, but others too) is not "real" or "sustainable" - in other words backed by real generation of value. Historically this has been goods and services. Real, tangible things. How does one calculate the percentage of an economy that is REALLY justified by its production and output? Conventional indicators like GDP and productivity factor in everything - including the "made up" phantom value, which really doesn't exist.

Here's an example - take the market in Phoenix Arizona. . .

Fifteen years ago, Phoenix was a desert community with few resources, few exportable products or services and a relatively "honest" economy. For the least 5-10 years, it's been going gangbusters, building like crazy but the economy has been "dishonest". Largely it's been about developers, contractors, home sellers, etc. Those have been the "hot" sectors that conventional thinking points to and says, "the economy is doing well", not taking into account the fact that all the development and construction (and income and spending) is really the same piles of money being pushed around from one person to the next and that no real new wealth or value has been created. Eventually a Day of Reckoning needs to come where someone needs to actually pay for all that stuff out of real wealth. All those $350,000 homes that got slammed all over the fragile desert ecosystem have to be paid for, which means people need jobs, backed by some sort of REAL good or service that has long-term and sustainable value in order to pay off the debt of today. And it ain't happening. It's the same desert community with few resources and exportable goods/services, but somehow it's worth many times what it was only fifteen years ago today? I don't think so. This is "phantom value". It's misleading and is disingenuous to those looking to really keep tabs on the health of the economy.

I'm not sure if there's a name for this phenomenon, but it's very similar to a Ponzi Scheme or doing "suicide rollovers" with credit cards in order to give the appearance of being economically solvent when in reality, the situation is quite dire.



Way I see it, we need to get back to basics and focus on creating goods and services that generate real value long-term. Not just do stuff haphazardly for short-term gain and confuse "dribble-down economics" with real wealth gain. There's a difference. I'm not sure I've explained this concept adequately, but hopefully good enough to have a discussion about it.

When I look at the "quality" of youth in this country, who are our future and who will be responsible for this nation either recapturing a place at the forefront of global relevance or letting it slide into third-world chaos, I lose sleep. I don't see much to be optimistic about. Education is not valued. Respect for others is not valued. Property rights are under attack. Personal liberties are under attack. Greedy governments continue to clamor for higher taxes and fees, and do little if anything with them in return other than support a jobs program for disadvantaged and unmotivated people. Entepreneurship is not valued in the same way it once was. Debt spending is the norm, not the exception. People think nothing about bartering our kids' futures in order to enjoy indulgences today. And the Baby Boom generation - perhaps the worst offenders of doing this - are retiring in droves, soon to place unprecedented demands on our already beleaguered health care system and national books. Our infrastructure is crumbling around us and yet we pay higher and higher taxes. Where does the waste/inefficiency end?

We're facing very real problems that could very well be the end of American prosperity and lifestyle for not only months, not only years, but GENERATIONS (if we last that long). And instead of focusing on them, our leaders prattle on about nothing and bicker and create heat (not light) over non-issues like school prayer, abortion and gay marriage.

We're in real trouble.

LOL, that's the spirit! The same spirit shown by all those Californians and Floridians in the real estate thread . . . in 2005.

It's time to start MANUFACTURING products here once more to be sold on a world market.


We can't keep outsourcing, and expect to survive.

With the fall of the greenback, our manufacturing needs to increase.

We should look at anti-dumping laws very carefully.

The problem is even with a weak dollar, manufacturing that is gone isn't going to come back. So long as the Chinese Yuan is pegged to the dollar, this will never happen. The Chinese aren't stupid, they know if they keep their currency low enough (relative to ours) once they wrest manufacturing out of the U.S., it won't ever come back here and it's theirs to keep.

Look at it this way:

If you're "Company X" based in say, Frankfurt Germany and have the choice of sourcing parts or raw materials for your widgets either from (1) a domestic (German) company at the cost of $100 each shipped to your door, (2) from a U.S. company at the cost of $80 (factoring in exchange rates) or a Chinese company at the cost of $10, which one are you going to go with?

We've been undercut SO badly by Asian manufacturing that a weak-dollar policy is sheer stupidity. It won't work, since it STILL doesn't allow us to compete, unless we're willing to take the Chinese on in a "race to the bottom" and try to undercut them. This probably won't happen (I doubt U.S. workers will be willing to work for $5 a week) but given how things are going, I wouldn't TOTALLY rule it out either.

yes, your right.

but if we can make more items here it would help.

I understand.

As the dollar depreciates, with the Yuan pegged artificially low to the dollar, doesn't that make raw materials more expensive for China to buy, thus undercutting their ability to sell goods cheap?

I guess what I'm saying is that it is impossible to cheat free and efficient markets forever. This will backfire on China, and have severe negative consequences for them.

Yes, I agree. China is acting very foolishly and thinking very short-term. There are already SERIOUS pollution problems and large bodies of water that are unusable. It's a huge mess and is going to be a very big problem for them in the future, but they don't care. They've evidently adopted that very American notion of "f*ck it - do what has to be done to get results now and let our kids worry about how to fix the consequences". How ironic.

It'll take a generation or two, but China WILL have to pay the price for its hubris. Problem is by then the U.S. economy might be so gutted it won't matter - at least from a competition standpoint. We'll be in no position to "take back" from them. I don't doubt for a second that this is the "gamble" the Chinese are making for positioning themselves to be the dominant global power in the future. Even though they'll have problems, they're making sure we have bigger ones and will be powerless to stop or stand up to them.

What Jeff said.. in each of his replies...

Also China has a competitive advantage of extremely cheap labor and huge currency reserves (nationally they have been buying foreign assets for years).

In fact they have the US by the balls even more than what people think. If Asia stops buying US Treasuries then the cost of K will skyrocket for every company in the US...

I'm in the IT field, and the same thing is happen with regards to India. The quality is about on par with "Made in China" imo :(.

Yes, we are definitely heading into a recession! Mark my words in the next 10 to 20 years we will see 1, 2, or 3 of them.

Let me say the buzzword again: transportation.

As transportation costs continue to rise, it will eventually become unprofitable to ship goods all over the world just to save money on labor.

I wonder what Wal-Mart's long term plan is...

Why so many Americans believe we're in a recession
October 25, 2007
Larry Elder

Are we in a recession?

Half of Americans think so, at least according to the new CNN opinion poll. The poll helpfully described the recession as "marked by a significant decline in economic activity." But what the CNN article describing the poll doesn't tell is that our economy is nowhere near a recession.

The government uses the National Bureau of Economic Research to define when recessions begin and end. This nonprofit Cambridge organization defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP (Gross Domestic Product), real income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales." Most economists consider a recession two or more consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

So, are we in a recession?

In September 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said 110,000 new jobs were created. For each of the last three months, our economy has created an average of 97,000 new jobs. Since August 2003, the economy has created more than 8.1 million new jobs in 49 consecutive months of job growth.

The national unemployment rate is at 4.7 percent – low by historical standards.

(Column continues below)

Since President Bush took office, real after-tax per capita personal income has increased more than 12.5 percent – an average of $3,750 per person. More than 30 percent of the country's net worth has been added since the president's 2003 tax cuts.

Real wages have increased 2.2 percent during the 12 months ending in August 2007. This is much higher than the average growth rate during the '90s, and translates into an extra $1,266 for a two wage-earner family.

Exports have increased over 14.8 percent during the 12 months ending in July 2007, and the trade deficit has been reduced by $8.3 billion.

Real GDP grew at a strong 3.8 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2007. The U.S. economy is in its sixth year of sustained economic growth, averaging 2.7 percent a year since the turnaround in 2001.

This year tax revenues grew by $161 billion to reach $2.568 trillion, the highest level ever recorded, and an increase of 6.7 percent. And that follows the 14.5 percent and 11.8 percent increase in revenues during the two prior years.

The federal deficit declined by $250 billion in the last three years. In February, the budget deficit for 2007 was projected to be $244 billion. But by September, the deficit was just $163 billion, or 1.3 percent of the economy. As a percentage of the economy, the deficit is now lower than the average of the last 40 years.

What, then, accounts for the pessimism? Well, take a look at the mainstream media.

Two professors, John Lott, economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Kevin A. Hassett, the Institute's director of economic policy studies, looked at newspaper articles on the economy. They wrote, "We found that newspaper headlines reporting economic news on unemployment, gross domestic product (GDP), retail sales and durable goods tended to be much more frequently negative when a Republican was in the White House. And this was true even after accounting for the economic numbers on which the stories were based and how those numbers were changing over time." So bad economic news becomes less bad economic news with a Democrat sitting in the White House. With a Republican in the White House, however, good economic news becomes less good, and bad becomes even worse.

The Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism surveys journalists annually. Their report, "The State of the News Media 2007," found more than one-third (34 percent) of national journalists identified themselves as liberal, as compared to one-fifth (20 percent) of the general public. Only 7 percent of the national press self-identified as conservative, compared with 33 percent of the general public. The press and the public are widely divided on social issues and values, as well. For example, while 58 percent of Americans think belief in God is necessary to be moral, only 6 percent of national journalists agree.

The Pew Center report only covers what journalists admit about themselves. And while 59 percent of this pool of national reporters couldn't think of a single news organization that was liberal, a whopping 82 percent said they could think of conservative news coverage. Even so, 64 percent of national journalists admit that criticism about the blurring of reporting and commentary is valid.

Here's a typical example of how the media shapes moods. Support for the Iraq war increased from 22 to 30 percent – a 36 percent increase – right before Iraq operations commander Gen. David Petraeus testified before Congress. MSNBC described this as an "uptick." Meanwhile, a major paper described a 36 percent increase in home foreclosures as a "surge."

Court TV founder and media watchdog Steven Brill once said, "When it comes to arrogance, power and lack of accountability, journalists are probably the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good."

CA RE prices are headed down the toilette and the CA Boyz are panicing...what a bunch of fking lemmings you all are.

Hey Boyz the cliff is over there>>>>>>>>

Remember what I said before...When Wayne crys uncle...that he doesn't know if he would ever buy RE in CA, cause he doesn't think it will ever come back...that is the bottom...

Wayne is kind of like "Everyman"

The tail of the tape will be todays Fed decision on whether to lower interest rates and by how much? The financial markets are programed for a 1/4%, that will help out the beleagured sub prime market..and keep the system liquid.

If they drop it by 1/2%, the economy is slowing and the Fed wants to juice it back up.

My old friend Jack says that so long as people are working things will keep rolling along. But if the unemployment numbers take a BIG jump...then we will be in for a rocky road.