The State of the Economy Thread - “Falling inflation, rising growth give U.S. the world’s best recovery”

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Larry]

On 7/27/2020 at 10:17 PM, Mr. Sinister said:

Good luck to all. Dark times are ahead.

 

But, this is the opportunity that corporate America has been needing for decades, to push wages down for all Americans not in the investing class.  

 

[skinsmarydu]

I absolutely cannot stand homelessness and hunger. 😢 

Inexcusable for a country claiming to be soooo great. 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[hail2skins]

First whack at Q2 GDP was -32.9 percent, which was close to the consensus. I think I read that the very early consensus for Q3, which will be released the Thursday before the election, will be in the +17 percent range.  Would that be enough to sway late undecideds (which will be albeit fewer than in 2016) if they just pay attention to the latest number and forget the horrific number from today?

[TheDoyler23]

Trump sure runs this country like a business, eh?

 

A failing one. He's used to that. 

[88Comrade2000]

45 minutes ago, hail2skins said:

First whack at Q2 GDP was -32.9 percent, which was close to the consensus. I think I read that the very early consensus for Q3, which will be released the Thursday before the election, will be in the +17 percent range.  Would that be enough to sway late undecideds (which will be albeit fewer than in 2016) if they just pay attention to the latest number and forget the horrific number from today?

What undecideds? You probably shouldn’t vote if you haven’t already decided on whether to vote for the president or not.

 

That question should already be decided. The only thing left to decide, if you decide not to vote for Trump is:

 

1. Do not vote

2. Vote but skip voting for President

3. Vote Biden

4. Vote third party

 

A positive economic number for Q3 really shouldn’t be that big a factor in your decision. If you have a brain you know that the number would be positive; as the nation reopened. Just like the nation had a bad number when things closed.

 

You already have to be leaning to vote for Trump if you are going to vote him.

[Renegade7]

So when they said V-Shaped Recovery, did they really mean a boomerang? 

[tshile]

20 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

So when they said V-Shaped Recovery, did they really mean a boomerang? 

The v shaped recovery is a real thing backed by people with real credentials

 

some of the people throwing it around a buffoons, but that theory has solid grounding. Namely that economic fundamentals haven’t really changed and while they weren’t great before they weren’t awful either. 
 

the caveat is that it’s hard to predict what structural changes will come about due to how long this drags out. 
 

my prediction at first was that employers would realize work from home isn’t nearly as bad as they were afraid of (this is industry specific though), and that companies will reduce office space requirements because they can spend that money on other things if working remotely is a solid option for both sides. 
 

I was mostly laughed at. Today? My feeds are full of “commercial real estate may get hit hard as companies decide to downsize office requirements” articles and articles about the results of companies studying the true effects of utilizing a remote work force. 
 

So hard to predict what structural changes form. Theoretically that rent money gets spent elsewhere and maybe even become more productive spending (or less...), but the commercial real estate market will take a hit. 
 

as a side note npr had a podcast yesterday (the indicator I think?) with the exec from Redfin. Housing sales are up 40% and they’re desperately trying to hire more residential agents (think he said he needs at least 100 more, right now). So residential real estate is apparently doing very well. He said people are realizing they won’t want to pay a ton more for a tiny condo or apartment in a city when they’re working from home and can’t enjoy the city. They’re realizing just how small their living situation is now that they’re stuck there all the time, both parents and a kid or two, in a 1100 sqft condo/apartment. 

[No Excuses]

3 hours ago, hail2skins said:

First whack at Q2 GDP was -32.9 percent, which was close to the consensus. I think I read that the very early consensus for Q3, which will be released the Thursday before the election, will be in the +17 percent range.  Would that be enough to sway late undecideds (which will be albeit fewer than in 2016) if they just pay attention to the latest number and forget the horrific number from today?

Yes people standing in bread lines and facing eviction right now will surely vote to re-elect buffoon who caused their hardship with his inaction and just all around negligence. 
 

Also the economy isn’t improving as long as the virus is hanging around. And with the amount of idiots in this country, it’s almost a certainty that it will hang around for quite a long time.

[88Comrade2000]

We haven't experienced the full economic impact of the virus and probably won't until next year. It's going to get alot worse before it gets better.

[Renegade7]

@tshile

 

Us both being in IT, we probably gonna be canaries on the coal mine concerning industries that take a mostly remote workforce seriously.  I'm taking some time off finally, in large part because I've been working hard as I can to prove I can be just as productive from home, so seeing the memo from as high up as it can saying they are noticing that in their contingency planning speaks volumes to me.  It's coming.

 

And you are dead on with the note on residential real estate.  Wife and I have been watching larger properties for rent in Zillow getting goobled up almost as quickly as they are listed now, our lease us up in end of October, we are at a point (both working from home), that not only do we need a bigger place then we originally planned for, but we gonna focus on having the cash on hand to deal with how competitive it got all the sudden. 

 

For a second, rent was dropping, that made sense, now listing are dropping and coming back with higher rent or being sold instead.  The idea of the economy snapping back to some place below what it was once things opened up made sense to me as well, I just wasn't buying it was going to snap back to just below or just above where we are after all the blood that's been lost.  The longer it takes to get the virus under control, the lower that second part of the V is going to land.

 

If OMB is saying we won't fully recover from this until about 2030, I'm not sure we're all on the same page of what we are up against.  The $600 UI addition is going to expire at this rate, we haven't even seen the worst part of the first half of the V yet to be talking about what the bounce back is going to look like.  At my parents apartment complex, the number of windows being left wide open showing empty units is growing, and has for months now.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

I'm very skeptical of the real estate market.  When millions of people don't know where their next rent payment is coming from, on the other side of that are millions of landlords that don't know where their next mortgage payment is coming from.  Lenders are ramping up their loss mitigation efforts in preparation for what is to come here very shortly.  Some lenders aren't even willing to offer a cash-out refinance or HELOC right now.  I don't expect 2008 bad, but I expect the market to come back to reality very soon.

[Busch1724]

In PA real estate was shut down until early June. Was it that way elsewhere? Would that explain the housing marking increase since it was dead for a bit?

[RedskinsFan44]

22 minutes ago, tshile said:

The v shaped recovery is a real thing backed by people with real credentials

 

some of the people throwing it around a buffoons, but that theory has solid grounding. Namely that economic fundamentals haven’t really changed and while they weren’t great before they weren’t awful either. 
 

the caveat is that it’s hard to predict what structural changes will come about due to how long this drags out. 
 

I don't buy this. It ignores the huge number of people who have suffered financial hits over four months now and who's jobs are not likely to come back anytime soon. Even after a vaccine is available (which will take a long time to get distributed) a large number of people are going to be reticent to go out to eat, go to concerts, sporting events, etc. Maybe if it had "just gone away" in May things would have quickly bounced back. The faucet is getting turned off on the 3 trillion in free money that's been floating the economy and if, as I suspect, the Ds take over in January the Rs are going to be fighting tooth and nail for austerity because of the "disastrous national debt".

[Mr. Sinister]

23 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

Yes people standing in bread lines and facing eviction right now will surely vote to re-elect buffoon who caused their hardship with his inaction and just all around negligence. 
 

Also the economy isn’t improving as long as the virus is hanging around. And with the amount of idiots in this country, it’s almost a certainty that it will hang around for quite a long time.

 

I smell Trumpet

[tshile]

4 minutes ago, Busch1724 said:

In PA real estate was shut down until early June. Was it that way elsewhere? Would that explain the housing marking increase since it was dead for a bit?

Wasn’t shut down here. 
 

he said housing went down at first and they planned to accommodate the down turn. Then all the sudden they couldn’t keep up. 
 

(I love the indicator and planet money)
 

The economy is in crisis, but the housing market is booming : The Indicator from Planet Money  - https://www.npr.org/2020/07/29/896942333/the-coronavirus-housing-boom
 

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by tshile

[tshile]

22 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

Us both being in IT, we probably gonna be canaries on the coal mine concerning industries that take a mostly remote workforce seriously. 

We spent a week or two setting everyone up for remote work. It wasn’t bad in general, it was the lack of decision making and foresight of our clients that caused simple stuff to be an emergency (like deciding at 4pm everyone would work remotely. Starting tomorrow)

 

the biggest issue was dealing with the problems in people’s homes. We now have to support people who are working in an uncontrolled and unknown network. Internet speeds. People with hot spots or satellite. People with old machines that are fine to go buy something on amazon on during the evening, but try to work productively and participate in video conferencing all day was impossible. 
 

the number of people I watched take their work pc and monitors home because they didn’t have a computer, or it was windows 7, or it was just garbage, was incredible. 
 

That’s mostly settled. Most of the “I cannot connect” or “keep getting disconnected” problems are now coming from the people with ****ty equipment and internet, and it’s like yeah man I’ve told you twice so far the problem is on your end and I can’t fix it. 
 

Now we’re swamped with catching up and dealing with all the security vulnerability stuff. I still haven’t patched my servers for the dns worm  just no time. 
 

my situation is further complicated by the fact that most people I know have a wife who has a lesser job and can pick up the slack when this happens, but my wife has a significantly greater job. So I have to pick up the slack. 
 

so my work suffers but my employer understands. The other option is I resign and they know they can’t afford that. Finally got a bonus, decent one, so they’re obviously not upset about it or at least understand I’m doing what I can. 

13 minutes ago, RedskinsFan44 said:

I don't buy this.

Ok. 
 

All I can say is look at the arguments and who’s making them. And don’t forget the context of things. 
 

just because a well reputable person made a well founded argument in April, doesn’t mean they still believe it in July. The whole thing is a moving target. 
 

the only guarantee is the goldbugs and cryptokidies and the hyperinflation scare monsters will show up every time and pitch their nonsense fear tactics every chance they get. 

Edited July 30, 2020 by tshile

[PleaseBlitz]

Jesus.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/30/gdp-q2-coronavirus/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_gdp-845am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

 

Quote

The U.S. economy shrank 9.5 percent from April through June, the largest quarterly decline since the government began publishing data 70 years ago, and the latest, sobering reflection of the pandemic’s economic devastation.

 

The second quarter report on gross domestic product covers some of the economy’s worst weeks in living memory, when commercial activity ground to a halt, millions of Americans lost their jobs and the nation went into lockdown. Yet economists say the data should also serve as a cautionary tale for what is at stake if the recovery slips away, especially as rising coronavirus cases in some states have forced businesses to close once again.

 

On Thursday, the government also reported that jobless claims increased once again last week to 1.4 million, another sign any recovery is stalling out.

 

GDP shrank at an annual rate of 32.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the agency that publishes the statistics on quarterly economic activity. While it usually stresses the annualized rate, that figure is less useful this quarter because the economy is unlikely to experience another collapse like it did in the second quarter.

 

[Fred Jones]

Will this change anything?

 

The rich and wealthy (not going to define them today) has been steadily paying less and less taxes and hiding more and more money off shore.  Republicans have been brainwashing and brainwashing since the early 70's after the greatest economic expansion in history also had the highest tax rates.

 

Someone has to start paying for the exploding deficit and future budgets.  The GOP hypocrites.  Some guy named Adam Smith, worshipped by Republicans, once theorized that businesses and individuals will generally make rational and prosperous decisions when given means and power to do so.  Yeah, take a look at Trump and the GOP today.  Power, greed and control or Authoritarian government.

 

So, will Warren win out and raise taxes on the rich and wealthy, will they increase the size of the IRS to go after all the rich people like Trump avoiding paying taxes?

[tshile]

The covid pandemic is gonna look at the “Great Recession” and snicker 

[tshile]

9 minutes ago, Fred Jones said:

So, will Warren win out and raise taxes on the rich and wealthy, will they increase the size of the IRS to go after all the rich people like Trump avoiding paying taxes?

more likely they’ll do enough to make it look like they did something then go about their usual way. 
 

it’s hard to expect significant change and reform when the general public routinely shows themselves to have short memories and be easily placated. 
 

they rolled back the protections put in place to prevent another financial crisis and prevented the CPB from functioning correctly by refusing to approve leaders and allocate funds. 
 

if the general public grabbed their pitch forks and marched in Washington when they did it, I’d be optimistic about what change would come from this. 
 

but they didn’t. A small group of people went “hey everyone do you see this! Do you understand what they’re doing?! You should be outraged!!” And the general public responded with “meh I’m looking at twitter leave me alone”

we’ve been watching children get slain in schools and 0 progress has been made on that. meanwhile we have an atf that can’t function properly due to political pressures and no matter how often it’s brought up it never goes anywhere or changes. 
 

so. No. Until proven otherwise I don’t believe the general public has what it takes to see through demanding serious change. 

 

especially since we have the racial tensions to distract everyone. I’m not saying the racial tensions don’t matter or are made up. I’m saying they (the people were talking about being responsible for the state of the country) usually distract the general public easily, and racial tensions are #1 on the list of things that’ll distract people from other things, and with everything going on their job of distracting people is about as easy as it could be - just turn on the news. 

Edited July 30, 2020 by tshile

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

2 hours ago, tshile said:

The v shaped recovery is a real thing backed by people with real credentials

I am willing to bet copious amounts of money that there will be no such thing. Maaaaaaaaybe if we had gotten the virus under control but now, no chance. The recession will be deeper and longer than was originally predicted and it will take us years to recover.

[Larry]

5 hours ago, Rdskns2000 said:

What undecideds? You probably shouldn’t vote if you haven’t already decided on whether to vote for the president or not.

 

Or, in many cases, if you have.  

[Larry]

25 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

I am willing to bet copious amounts of money that there will be no such thing. Maaaaaaaaybe if we had gotten the virus under control but now, no chance. The recession will be deeper and longer than was originally predicted and it will take us years to recover.

 

Damn Obama.