I've got a date tonight, so can't do it, thanks for the offer, but I will start a thread in the "non monkey poo flinging" section of the BBS to try to plan something for the weekend of the 21st or 28th.
Cool, will extend the offer. And RM, I wasn't suggesting a get together there. RM Tex had stated he liked the idea earlier, so I asked him... No harm, no foul.
Sorry, by RM, I meant RM95. i guess you have to be more specific when you're referencing two Rocketmen. But I think its going to be a long, long time before I figure that out.
Let's see, we have substantial stimulus in the form of tax cuts and increased military spending, yet could anyone claim this is a strong recovery? There are question now whether the recovery will continue at all. Combine that with practically zero real interest rates and you wonder whether it could be quite a while till things improve too much. What more can the Fed do? How do you account for the big stock run up last yea? Just a correction from an overreaction to the downside?
I have a friend who works in the trucking industry. His company builds truck bodies that are purchased by the leasing companies. He says that his industry is VERY sensitive to the economic outlook. He further says that his industry is BOOMING. ------------------ Also, I heard an analysis of this figure. It is based on a small institutional sample and then extrapolated. I don't believe that too many military outfits or fastfood joints are part of that survey.
Try and shelve your sarcasm for a few minutes and consider what he reports. Are you disagreeing with his assessment. He is a regional sales manager for the southeastern US; he is not the builder of the truck bodies.
hum... Manufacturers added a meager 10,000 workers in July, after cutting a revised 1,000 from their payrolls in June. The department noted a loss of 21,000 jobs in the transport equipment industry, which it pinned on larger-than-usual retooling shutdowns at auto plants. Construction firms added just 4,000 new workers. The service side of the economy showed weakness as well, creating only 14,000 new jobs. Employment at financial firms plummeted, with big losses at mortgage brokers that some economists said could be tied to rising interest rates. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20040806/bs_nm/economy_dc
Your friend who regionally sells truck bodies to the southeastern US is right; the markets are wrong. On the other front: how stupid does Greenspan look if this turns into a long stall? Does this mean we can finally get rid of his overrated ass?
and i made money off it ;-) but the funds will be back...dont worry. people are just freaking out. but the big selloff might not come till next week.
Wait a minute... does this mean that you weren't being sarcastic with me? If so, I apologize for wrongly accusing you. BRB, I'm going to pour some brandy in my coffee.
Your friend's experience actually isn't an anomaly. The trucking industry is booming and has been doing well for a while now, especially trucking companies that are dependent on the steel industry. However, from the company that I worked with a few months ago and the experience of a colleague who worked on a company in a similar industry, companies who do trucking are experiencing strength due to some strange factors such as coke shortages and artificially high auto production volumes. His company, and that industry in general, are likely experiencing strength that is not necessarily reflective of the economy as a whole. mc mark - wrt to the loss of transportation jobs in july, over the last couple years, it has been a trend for auto shutdowns to last longer than "usual". production volumes have been at record levels, but while demand has been high overall, it hasn't kept up with production levels. the union dynamics of the screwed up auto industry forces the big3 to keep making vehicles even if people don't want them. as a result, over the last two years, the july shutdowns have been extended beyond the typical two weeks in order to help rightsize inventories. that job loss will correct itself by the end of september.
A few excerpts from an article in today's WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109179497976284946,00.html?mod=economy_lead_story_lsc "There was one bright spot: the separate survey of households used to calculate the unemployment rate showed a much more optimistic picture, with employment up 629,000 in July from June. Most economists and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, however, consider the payroll survey a more reliable indicator of job growth... ...Details of the report suggest flagging consumer spending has affected hiring. Payrolls fell by 19,000 at retailers and by 4,600 at hotels. Even gasoline stations trimmed payrolls by 2,600, or 0.3%. By contrast, more business-oriented sectors improved: professional and business service employment rose 42,000. Meanwhile, manufacturing eked out a 10,000 gain in jobs, suggesting that business capital spending and exports are keeping that sector's recovery alive. Government payrolls were unchanged.... ..."Businesses have reasons to hire people," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo, in a research note. "Business confidence has improved, demand is trending up and cash is piling up on the balance sheet." And he said businesses are less able to spur higher output from current workers, one reason that the average workweek rose last month to 33.7 hours from 33.6 in June. The more pessimistic interpretation is that consumers, the pillar of the economy since 2001, are finally flagging. "The cumulative evidence suggests something may be churning in the household sector which, at 70% of gross domestic product, is the be-all and end-all of the outlook," said George Magnus, chief global economist at UBS AG. "The interest rate-refinancing stimulus is pretty much over. Fiscal stimulus is turning into fiscal drag. Oil has also become a drag." It's all pretty self explanatory, but it's interesting how for the last 2-3 years, the consumer managed to keep the economy from sinking while business spending declined. It looks like we are currently seeing the opposite. If oil prices remain high, consumer spending will continue to decline. At this point, I don't think we can have another tax cut to spur spending, but something needs to be done to allow consumers to access their income. I just don't know how it is possible to get oil prices to decline in the short-term. It's becoming painfully obvious to all sides, that energy prices are by far the biggest threat to the economy. And the issues that are causing the problem aren't short-term issues. Supply sources will be threatened for a long time. Demand worldwide will continue to grow, so prices are bound to continue to increase. Somehow, that is going to have to change, I just don't see any solutions in the near-term...
Another failure of the Bush foreign policy... he can't even get the South American cartels to up the production for US consumers...
Q New job figures today -- 32,000 new jobs. That's a pretty small number compared to expectations. Unemployment dropped a bit. Can you talk about this -- MR. McCLELLAN: Sure. You may hear more from the President in a minute. … changing economy. There is more to do. .. we must continue to act to create as robust an environment as possible for job creation. Q Economists say that 200,000 to 300,000 a month is what you have to do for a substantive recovery. And you're at 32,000. Isn't this a situation where job recovery is in a pattern where it's about to stall out? MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I said -- we're continuing to add jobs…. And that's why I said the economy is continuing to move forward, but we've got more work to do… six-point plan that will create a robust environment -- as robust an environment for job creation as possible… our economy is moving forward. But we've got more work to do. Q Doesn't this make his pitch more complicated, though? I mean, he talks about how there's still more that needs to be done, but it's a pretty upbeat assessment -- MR. McCLELLAN: And again, I think you'll hear from him -- no, the President is not satisfied… changing economy we're in. We're in a changing economy… it is moving forward… It is a changing economy, and that's why we must continue to act.
