Recovery Looms, Housing Booms ... Are These Guys Loons?

• Report this Comment On March 17, 2009, at 10:55 AM, CAPTAINWACK wrote:

  These good numbers are greatly distorted simply due to the fact that housing starts are in the toilet to begin with. So even a slight increase in new construction will look good. What will come next will be car sales are up when compared to last year... sure things are looking good when compared to the crash of 08. We have a long way to go before the consumer actually has more money in his or her pocket to spend, which is what's going to really drive the US economy out of this recession.

• Report this Comment On March 17, 2009, at 5:53 PM, npddave wrote:

  With all the past gloom and doom the fed as been talking about - it's about time the spread some good news, My question is: What's going to happen when all of the unemployed can't make their house payment and those homes go into foreclosure. Unemployment benefits and credit cards only last so long.

• Report this Comment On March 17, 2009, at 7:31 PM, xetn wrote:

  A much bigger problem will be when China and some of the other big purchasers of our debt stop buying and want to cash out. What do you suppose will happen to our money's value? HYPERINFLATION! And don't say it can't happen; China's premier has already started talking about the loss of value to their treasuries and asking for guarantees from the US. So, don't rule out other countries doing the same. So, just how would the US guarantee its debt; print more money? More dollars do not equate to more purchasing power, just the opposite.

• Report this Comment On March 17, 2009, at 9:30 PM, justdoit12345 wrote:

  Yes, all the reports look good so far. As usual the market is up. But the essential things haven't been changed yet. The people who are responsible for the mess are still in charge of our financial systems. No one yet have been blamed for the mess. The only people got penalized are the one got laid off since last Sept.. The one created seems getting Bonus and there is no way to stop them. Let's lend more money to unqualify borrowers. let's raise more gov't debt to finance our budget deficits. Let's not to reform our healthcare system and let the cost go up with no limit. I just hope the uptrend wouldn't stop until I got all my money back.

• Report this Comment On March 18, 2009, at 12:45 AM, HENRYMCLIV wrote:

  There have been many astute ideas expressed in this discussion. I agree with most. The scariest and most accurate is the fear of mega inflation. Look back at Germany in the 1920's when it took a wheelbarrow of marks to buy a loaf of bread! That is an exaggeration, but the people felt that way. The point is that when all savings are lost and the goverment prints money to try and replace what is lost they only depreciate the money further and excerbate the disaster. What will happen when the reckoning comes to pay for the loss of value? It will take more than the outmoded theory of Keynes's pump priming to get us out of this mess.

• Report this Comment On March 18, 2009, at 9:04 AM, pixieil wrote:

  I think this upturn will demonstrate the power of the television media more than anything else. If the media continues to declare that the recession/depression is "turning around" or "over", optimism will reign and the actual length of the problem will be greatly decreased. If the media gets tired of the "good news" and starts talking about the things that are still going downhill, pessimism will take over and more things will plummet. I'm not sure that the entire "turn around" isn't an experiment by the public media to see just how much power they have. From an historical perspective, how many times have we "recovered" from a downturn this deep in less than 2 months?

• Report this Comment On March 18, 2009, at 4:02 PM, Tusk87 wrote:

  I tend to agree with pixieil... The media seems to have the actual power in this period. When they report only bad news the public performs just as reliably as Pavlov's dogs. The news says we're going down the tubes, the public, in turn, stops buying anything! Then the media reports that things are going well, the economy is rebounding and "Lo and Behold" the public spends money! While the politicians might claim that the disaster they are force feeding to future generations of our country is working, the actuality of this whole thing/mess is how the media presents it! It would seem that the entire population of the USA is little more than a large herd of lemmings trying their best to find the correct cliff to hurl themselves over. Let us use our intellect and realize that this is not a short term problem. Not for the USA but for the entire global community. And do not be confused.. each and every country is interested in only their own well being. The USA has been the largest contributor of aid to other countries, regardless of how they use the funds, of any other country in the world. We are despised for our "consumerism mentality" while at the same time are relied upon it to keep many economies afloat. We are attacked for our spending habits while at the same time without those habits there would be many millions of people in other countries without the jobs/money/resources to purchase the very same things Americans do and that they want to have. Get rid of the rose colored glasses and take a good hard look at reality!

  We are a great nation and will continue to be if we simply realize that our enemies are not interested in destroying us so much as they desperately want the opportunity to be like us!

  To those companies that beg for assistance from the American taxpayers so that they can outsource jobs to other countries I pledge to refuse to do business with you if I possibly can and will not spend hours on a telephone with a "support representative" that can barely speak English! You aren't saving money...you are forcing your customers to assume the burden of doing business with you. The very customers upon which you depend have to pay, in time and phone bills, and frustration(s) for your products. Without listing specific companies there are some very large ones that are realizing that they are losing business by forcing their customers to spend countless hours trying to understand the (insert country name here) support personnel that do not speak English! Finally, how much of our environment is being destroyed by including manuals in multiple languages with each and every product sold. A $15.00 appliance contains a manual with 10-15 different language. The instructions for a given country might require 2-3 pages of paper. Instead we get 2-3 ounces of paper!

  Our world can not sustain profit over conservation of the limited resources we have.

Add your comment.