It's the economy stupid

Americans are quite resilient.

 

those of us on the debt deleveraging spiel were on this for a long time.

I don't credit anyone in particular, but the fact is, once the credit cycle returns to normal levels---this was bound to happen.

but if we were to play the blame game, one does note that under Democrat presidents, Americans just happen to be a tad more resilient.

 

Resiliency is a matter of opinion. Please feel free to quantify Americans' resilience under different American presidents for me.

 

you are conflating economic production with American resilience. In this case, the argument is simple; GDP and accomplying economic statistics grow better under Democrat presidents than Republican ones.

case closed, and shut.





If you wish to rethink your use of the word resilience in an economic context, feel free to do so.

 

I never made an economic claim. I said Americans are resilient. You claimed they are more resilient under Demo presidents. I asked you to back your claim and you didn't because you and I both know you cannot quantify resliency.

Please feel free to add bar graphs on who was the majority in the Senate and Congress during the presidencies that you used in your economic claim.

 

From the comments of the article posted:

 

You posted that Americans are resilient---in a thread that is titled "It's the economy stupid". Then you claimed you weren't making an economic claim.

I won't waste time arguing with you, as I'm really just using your posts as springboards for my economic talking points, to be perfectly frank. but you're terribly off-topic, by the way.

 

for people's enlightenment, with regards to your question---

http://www.asymptosis.com/congress-presidents-spending-taxes-debt-gdp.html

 

The best growth is when the repugs control two areas.

It looks like economy is best during Republican president and Senate and Demo Congress.

Leave the policy to the Repugs and the oversight to the Demos.

 

If you want to take it even further, the economy grows further in RDRD scenarios---Republican President, Republican Senate, Democrat House, and Democrat-appointed Fed chairman.

but yeah, leave the policy to Republicans based on one chart you copy+pasted (and did not really bother to see the context behind it).

 

So does this mean wages are also up 10.9% over the last year?

But seriously, I think the causes for this are (in order):

1.) Feds spending $85 billion a month to keep interest rates at all-time lows. (In 2011 a 30 year mortgage payment for a $250k house is roughly the same as a $295k house today. There's a 20% increase right there.)

2.) Home supply shortage due to a lot of loan owners not listing homes because they're either effectively underwater or aren't really in a position to buy a new home.

3.) Over the past several years large investment firms bought up excess distressed inventory in bulk for cheap, further contributing to supply shortage (1% wins again!).

4.) Still a large shadow/cloud inventory in pre-foreclosure as well as banks just sitting on foreclosed homes to keep them on the books. Again...limiting supply.

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5.) Normal Americans' prospects and wages are increasing so much that it's leading to increased demand for homes and causing prices to surge.

Anyone really think #5 is a significant reason house prices are increasing?

This doesn't appear sustainable to me until house prices rise along with wages and the Fed isn't spending $85 billion per month just to keep it all afloat.

 

This news isn't really anything to rely on. It's yet another arbitrary marker while a wasted generation of youths and the unemployed are stagnating.

Economists have been hemming and hawing over the current question of making a bubble to get out of a bubble busted recession, but the real work has been looming.

It seems central banks can engineer growth with decent amount of effort (especially when everyone is hurting...), but can the Fed prevent it from spiraling out of control and into another bubble? American saving and credit levels are still pretty bad on a longer term historical level, but good enough if you pretend day 0 starts in the year 2000.

And perhaps, the worst news is that productivity gains are from machines and automation and the jobs it replaced (along with people doing more to fill in the void) during the crash will never fully come back. Keep in mind, people were expecting boomers to retire and create an exodus of mid-upper level management. With retirement savings taken a bite from the 6 years ago and higher costs of living a retired and insured life, more of the qualified people are standing pat while the newbs are still waiting for the foot in the door.

And really, the whole ****pile that Congress has laid and is continuing to dump over the last 15 years can't be easily forgotten with "better than expected" numbers, can it? Who expected it? And do you know anyone who's still looking for a job or one their degree provided some training under?

Those people are out there. A **** ton of them.

 

I agree with the premise that the recovery America has had so far won't solve everything, but you have to start somewhere. It's hard to tackle youth unemployment if your economy is sliding towards double-dip recession.

I'm of the opinion that central banks should stimulate economies, and regulatory agencies should be responsible for ensuring they don't overheat. You can't use the central bank in both functions, otherwise you have entire macro-economy effects that go way beyond intended effects---a central bank interest rate hike has very profound implications throughout the economy, something say, a risk-weighted capital buffer requirement for certain financial institutions would not have (at least not on such a sweeping scale).

 

I wonder what the replies in this thread will look like when there is no more QE?

 

The stock market's up indicating a good economy? Must be 2007 again.

 

The FED is pumping billions of "funny money" into the banks. Sort of like blowing up a balloon with hot air. We know what comes next.