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Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
Economy is coming back in the U.S., but slowed down due to the problems in Europe and companies not hiring back many of the workers that were laid off the last two years. I think those two things will settle and we'll see an even bigger increase in the economy. Long term I am concerned about the large debt and possible increases in taxes.
Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake - Napoleon Bonaparte
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
Originally posted by runningman
Oh give it up Florida. The man was elected by whites. It has NOTHING to do with race. Even the brothers don't like Obama. He is a grade A sellout. He will go down as one of the worst Presidents up there with Bush and Carter. In fact I think he is worse than Bush because he is a liar. At least Bush was just stupid. Obama flat out lies about everything.
Oh my dear God, I completely agree with you on this one.
Music is the answer, to your problems. Keep on movin', till you solve them.
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
obama took the country in its worst position after bush had fuked about everything up, i think he fuked up by running for presidency in the first place.
the economy we saw the last couple of years was the fall, and now were living the hit...and the worst part about falling is the hit not the fall, the economy is broke globally and the US is what i saw to be suffering the most, time for the emerging markets to shine...
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
Originally posted by trick12
obama took the country in its worst position after bush had fuked about everything up, i think he fuked up by running for presidency in the first place.
the economy we saw the last couple of years was the fall, and now were living the hit...and the worst part about falling is the hit not the fall, the economy is broke globally and the US is what i saw to be suffering the most, time for the emerging markets to shine...
Bush still had a democratic congress for the last 2 years of his presidency. Democrats have been every bit as inept as Republicans, a sign that the 2 party system is a failure and are continuing to perpetuate bullshit policies. Obama has been given time and his first mission should have been to secure our nations economy before enacting bills that would increase our deficit.
And speaking of emerging markets; good luck with that. The Baltic index is taking a beating with the emerging markets about to take a hit. The amount of large vessel freight ships in activity right now is down while production of more large cape-size ships are being pushed out, leading to an expensive surplus of stagnant ships.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
-Bertrand Russell
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
The Baltic index? good luck with that! Who ever made any bets on those states ever lost.
I think trick was talking about Asian economies and India. India has excellent predictions for the nest couple of year.
TheIdiotsAREWinning.
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
Mark Twain
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
Originally posted by Shpira
The Baltic index? good luck with that! Who ever made any bets on those states ever lost.
I think trick was talking about Asian economies and India. India has excellent predictions for the nest couple of year.
India possibly, especially if the service industry surpasses the slowing industrial growth. But China, not so much, unless it can step away from having a state-owned economy. It's still an export economy and if we don't grow, they don't grow. So their only alternative is to increase internal consumption which means falling away from communism in general. That sort of power-loss probably won't be likely.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
-Bertrand Russell
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
not true...there is a growing consumer market in china and things will continue in that direction this is well demonstrated by recent factory workers protests in china which led to relative wage increases of over 50 and up to 100%
TheIdiotsAREWinning.
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
Mark Twain
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
(Reuters) - A six-month rally in the dollar has stalled in recent weeks on concerns about the U.S. economic recovery, prompting some strategists to bet the tide may be turning against the greenback.
An index tracking the dollar against a basket of six major currencies breached key support this week, suggesting more losses could be in store. Activity in the options market and speculative positioning both showed a significant reduction in bullish sentiment towards the dollar.
Selling in the dollar accelerated this week after data showed slowing manufacturing and weakness in consumer spending, while Federal Reserve meeting minutes showed policymakers felt further stimulus may be needed if the recovery slows further.
"The turnaround in attitude towards the dollar has been remarkably swift," said Andrew Wilkinson, senior analyst at Interactive Brokers Group in Greenwich, Connecticut.
"The recent economic vulnerability set in motion by a slew of reports indicating slowdown has coincided with declining vulnerability of European governments and a pick-up in activity in the region," he added.
The U.S. dollar index has lost 4.1 percent this month after rallying about 10 percent from January to June. The index made a decisive close below the key 84 mark on Tuesday.
"(It) was the most dramatic evidence we've seen so far that the dollar could be in for a few months of corrective action instead of just a few weeks," said Walter Zimmermann, chief technical analyst at United-ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The euro has rebounded 5.8 percent this month and 9 percent since hitting a four-year low around $1.1875 in early June.
RISK VS DOLLAR
For much of the time since the global crisis took hold in late 2008, the dollar has moved in the opposite direction of equities, rising when stocks fell as investors sought safety in U.S. Treasuries and weakening when stocks rose.
But recent declines in stocks have failed to boost the safe-haven dollar as investors focus on worries about the U.S. economy and the dollar's diminishing yield appeal. The spread between 2-year U.S. and euro zone rates has widened against the dollar in recent weeks.
The 25-day correlation coefficient between the S&P 500 index and the dollar index was last at 0.21, Reuters data showed. In mid-May, the ratio was a strong -0.91.
Analysts said risk sentiment will likely continue to drive the dollar's performance, though worsening U.S. fundamentals could mean the dollar would sell off more in a risk-taking environment than it would rally in a risk-off scenario.
"It does not mean risk sentiment does not matter. But these other developments such as growth and interest-rate fundamentals can and should matter a bit more," said Robert Lynch, currency strategist at HSBC in New York.
Samarjit Shankar, managing director for global foreign-exchange strategy at BNY Mellon in Boston, said while fears of a U.S. slowdown have grown, "risk appetite is not dying out completely," as evidenced by steady inflows into emerging market securities and solid bond auctions in Europe.
"There's still a tremendous amount of cash in global portfolios and that cash needs to be deployed into more productive assets," he said.
STILL LONG
The value of the dollar's net long position fell to $3.82 billion as of July 6, according to CFTC and Reuters data. In June, net long dollar positions hit above $23 billion.
Jens Nordvig, senior currency strategist at Nomura Securities in New York, said while dollar longs have fallen significantly, "it is still fairly large relative to history, when we have been used to an aggregate U.S. dollar short."
In the options market, risk-reversal structures have "given back their huge bias towards a stronger" U.S. dollar, said Simon Smollett, senior foreign-exchange options strategist at Credit Agricole in London.
Goldman Sachs on Wednesday revised lower its forecasts for the U.S. dollar. It expects the euro/dollar to hit $1.35 in six months and $1.38 in 12 months.
Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York, said some of the pessimism on the U.S. economy might be exaggerated. "Sometimes the price action alone made people more pessimistic," he said.
Chandler said the dollar could fall to $1.31 per euro and 85 yen in the near term. But he added: "This is largely a correction to what we've seen in the past six months. We're in the middle of a larger bull market for the U.S. dollar."
(Editing by Dan Grebler)
TheIdiotsAREWinning.
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."
Mark Twain
Re: Buffett Says Economy is "Coming Back"
Raghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.
"Our numbers are always very accurate, so I was surprised at the discrepancy with the government's numbers," says Mayur, whose firm owns the TIPP polling unit, a polling partner for Investors' Business Daily and Christian Science Monitor. After all, the headline number shows the U.S. unemployment rate today is 9.5%, with a total of 14.6 million jobless people.
However, Mayur's polls continued to find much worse figures. The June poll turned up 27.8% of households with at least one member who's unemployed and looking for a job, while the latest poll conducted in the second week of July showed 28.6% in that situation. That translates to an unemployment rate of over 22%, says Mayur, who has started questioning the accuracy of the Labor Department's jobless numbers.
Even Austan Goolsbee Has Been Skeptical
Mayur isn't alone in harboring such doubts, nor is he the first to wonder about inaccuracies. For years, many economists have pointed to evidence that the government data undercounts the unemployed. Economist Helen Ginsburg, co-founder of advocacy group National Jobs For All Coalition, and John Williams of the newsletter Shadow Government Statistics have been questioning these numbers for years.
In fact, Austan Goolsbee, who is now part of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in a 2003 New York Times piece titled "The Unemployment Myth," that the government had "cooked the books" by not correctly counting all the people it should, thereby keeping the unemployment rate artificially low. At the time, Goolsbee was a professor at the University of Chicago. When asked whether Goolsbee still believes the government undercounts unemployment, a White House spokeswoman said Goolsbee wasn't available to comment.
Such undercounting of unemployment can be an enormously dangerous exercise today. It could lead to some lawmakers underestimate the gravity of the labor market's problems and base their policymaking on a far-less-grim picture than actually exists. Economically, and socially, that would make a bad situation much worse for America.
"The implications of such undercounting is that policymakers aren't going to be thinking as big as they should be," says Ginsburg, also a professor emeritus of economics at Brooklyn College. "It also means that [consumer] demand is not going to be there, because the income from people who are employed isn't going to be there."
Indeed, it will add additional stress to an already strained economy. Businesses that might start ramping up after seeing the jobless number drop could set themselves up for disappointment when customers don't appear or orders don't flow in.
College Grads Serving Fries
Plus, having a job today is quite different from what it was just a few years ago: Many Americans have had their hours cut and are working for less pay. A Pew Research survey found more than half of all adults in the labor force had either lost a job or suffered a reduction in income because of the recession.
Ginsburg says the biggest source of undercounting comes from people who can't find a full-time job that they're qualified to do, for instance recent college graduates who take part-time jobs at fast-food joints or retail stores. Today, the Labor Department estimates that 8.6 million people are in this category.
The federal government counts such people as employed. However, polls show that these folks actually consider themselves "unemployed" and "looking for a job," and probably accounted for a large chunk of TechnoMetrica's respondents.
Jobless Workers Who Disappear
Another major source of undercounting is the unemployed who've given up looking for jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics headline number counts as unemployed only people who have actively looked for a job in the previous four weeks. About 2.6 million people had pursued jobs in the past 12 months but, discouraged by the lack of opportunity, had stopped looking altogether.
"Isn't it interesting that if you stopped looking for a job, you evaporate as a jobless person and are just not counted," says Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute in Kingston, N.Y. Celente believes this kind of undercounting has suited the government politically. "It's what government does: Downplay disasters and amplify success."
According to the Pew Research Center, a large number of people are out of jobs for a longer period during this economic downturn. The typical unemployed worker today has been out of work for nearly six months. That's almost double the previous post-World War II peak for this measure, which was 12.3 weeks in 1982-83.
Indeed, if all of the truly unemployed were counted, the rate would be significantly higher. The BLS, in a data point titled "U-6," says it counted the total unemployment rate in June at 16.5%.
Misreading Americans' Anxiety
However, John Williams, founder of Shadow Government Statistics, says when accounting for the long-term unemployed, the jobless rate runs up to as much as 22% currently. Williams's newsletter, which analyzes flaws in government economic data, points out that such a rate isn't that far from the 25% it hit during the Great Depression.
Both Celente and Ginsburg believe lawmakers' not-dire-enough view of unemployment is one reason why they didn't extend federal unemployment benefits. Of course, party politics is another deterrent. Ginsburg says the Administration's decision to tackle the health care reform over unemployment reflects its lack of priority.
By taking his eye off one of the most fundamental issues affecting the country, President Obama has seen his popularity sink. The most recent Public Policy Polling survey says 45% of voters approve of the job he's doing, while 52% disapprove -- the first time Obama's disapproval ratings have exceeded 50% in this survey.
It's obvious that Americans view unemployment more urgently than either lawmakers or the president. And if pollsters like Mayur or economists like Ginsburg and Williams are right, it will take longer to fix this hole because it's already bigger than Washington thinks.
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