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Agriculture • UK Rural Economy Spiraling Towards Recession – Survey
Survey Suggests Rural Economy ‘Spiralling Towards Recession’
15 May 2013UK – Rising unemployment, shrinking profits and plummeting confidence in countryside businesses has thrown the rural economy to the brink of a further recession, according to a new survey by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and Smiths Gore.
Data from the Rural Economy Index for the 2013 first quarter shows that both agricultural and non-agricultural rural businesses are suffering. All eight survey indicators fell across both types of business.
Agricultural businesses are faring worst. The optimism felt in 2012 has gone, due to bad weather, poor harvests and the rising price of livestock feed. The Index’s measure of optimism has fallen by 40 per cent compared with the same quarter last year.
Sales have fallen in the past six months with orders, sales and profits expected to be lower in the next 12 months. Farming businesses also anticipate employing fewer people.
Non-agricultural businesses are less optimistic although they still expect higher profits in the next year despite actual sales shrinking over the past six months and the number of business enquiries falling.
Hopes for higher employment also faded with fewer non-farming businesses expecting to employ more people in the next year.
CLA President Harry Cotterell said: "This comes at a time when the Government’s priority is growth. Therefore, we call on the Government to reduce the negative impacts of over regulation by implementing the MacDonald recommendations as soon as possible, putting in place a broadband infrastructure that is effective, affordable and available to all and encouraging rural businesses to fully embrace the principles of growth."
Dr Jason Beedell head of research at Smiths Gore said: "The Rural Economy Index clearly shows that the rural economy is continuing to suffer. For farming, bad weather, poor harvests and the rising costs of livestock feed have all played a part, which we largely expected.
"More shocking is the fall in expected profitability for non-agricultural businesses over the next 12 months. The rural economy has stalled and further recession is possible."
http://www.thecropsite.com/news/13689/s … -recession
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed May 15, 2013 8:57 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
Other • Recession Indicators That Are Flashing Red
The Price Of Copper And 11 Other Recession Indicators That Are Flashing Red
By Michael, on May 7th, 2013
There are a dozen significant economic indicators that are warning that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession. The Dow may have soared past the 15,000 mark, but the economic fundamentals are telling an entirely different story. If historical patterns hold up, the economy is heading for a very rocky stretch. For example, the price of copper is called "Dr. Copper" by many economists because it so accurately forecasts the future direction of the U.S. economy. And so far this year the price of copper is way down. But that is not the only indicator that is worrying economists. Home renovation spending has fallen dramatically, retail spending is crashing in a way not seen since the last recession, manufacturing activity and consumer confidence are both declining, and troubling economic data continues to come pouring out of Asia and Europe. So why do U.S. stocks continue to skyrocket? Will U.S. financial markets be able to continue to be divorced from reality? Unfortunately, as we have seen so many times in the past, when stocks do catch up with reality they tend to do so very rapidly. So you better put on your seatbelts because a crash is coming at some point.
But most average Americans are not that concerned with the performance of the stock market. They just want to be able to go to work, pay the bills and provide for their families. During the last recession, millions of Americans lost their jobs and millions of Americans lost their homes. If we have another major recession, that will happen again. Sadly, it appears that another major recession is quickly approaching.
The following are 12 recession indicators that are flashing red…
#1 The price of copper has traditionally been one of the very best indicators of the future performance of the U.S. economy. The fact that it is down nearly 20 percent so far this year has many analysts extremely concerned…
Copper’s downward trend foreshadows a stock market collapse, according to Societe Generale’s famously bearish strategist Albert Edwards, who said equity markets will riot "Japan-style."
"Copper is acting exactly as it did when I wrote about the impotence of liquidity in the face of the (then imminent) 2007 recession. Once again it is giving us an early warning that liquidity will not save risk assets: time to get out of equities," Edwards wrote in his latest research note, on Thursday.
#2 Home renovation spending has fallen back to depressingly-low 2010 levels.
#3 As Zero Hedge recently pointed out, U.S. retail spending is repeating a pattern that we have not seen since the last recession…
Retail sales of clothing is growing at the slowest pace since 2010; but while major store sales are about to drop negative YoY for the first time in over 3 years, the utter collapse in general merchandise sales is worse that at the peak of the last recession at -5%. It seems tough to see how a nation with an economy built on 70% consumption is not in a recessionary environment. And while this alone is a dismal signal for the discretionary upside of the US economy/consumer; as Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg points out real personal income net of transfer receipts plunged at a stunning 5.8% annual rate in Q1. The other seven times we have seen such a collapse, the economy was either in recession of just coming out of one.
#4 Manufacturing activity all over the country is showing signs of slowing down. In fact, Chicago PMI has dipped below 50 (indicating contraction) for the first time since the last recession.
#5 In April, consumer confidence unexpectedly fell to a nine-month low…
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment declined to 72.3 in April from 78.6 a month earlier. This month’s reading was lower than all 69 estimates in a Bloomberg survey that called for no change from the March number.
#6 NYSE margin debt peaked right before the recession that began in 2002, it peaked right before the financial crisis of 2008, and it is peaking again.
#7 The S&P 500 usually mirrors the performance of Chinese stocks very closely. That is why it is so alarming that Chinese stocks peaked months ago. Will the S&P 500 soon follow?
#8 The economic data coming out of the Chinese economy lately has been mostly terrible…
For starters, China’s recent economic data, as massaged as it is to the upside, is downright awful. China’s PMI numbers were the worst in two years. Staffing levels in the Chinese service sector decreased for the first time since January 2009 (remember that year).
China’s LEI also shows no sign of recovery. If anything, it indicates China is heading towards an economic slowdown on par with that of 2008. And if you account for the rampant debt fueling China’s economy you could easily argue that China is posting 0% GDP growth today.
#9 Things just continue to get even worse over in Europe. Unemployment in both Greece and Spain is now about 27 percent, and the unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole has just set a brand new all-time record high.
#10 Crude inventories have soared to a record high as demand for energy continues to decline. As I have written about previously, this is a clear sign that economic activity is slowing down.
#11 Casino spending is usually a strong indicator of the overall health of the U.S. economy. That is why it is so noteworthy that casino spending is now back to levels that we have not seen since the last recession.
#12 The impact of the sequester cuts is starting to kick in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the sequester cuts will cost the U.S. economy about 750,000 jobs this year.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue May 07, 2013 5:23 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
The Price Of Copper And 11 Other Recession Indicators That Are Flashing Red
There are a dozen significant economic indicators that are warning that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession. The Dow may have soared past the 15,000 mark, but the economic fundamentals are telling an entirely different story. If historical patterns hold up, the economy is heading for a very rocky stretch. For example, the price of copper is called “Dr. Copper” by many economists because it so accurately forecasts the future direction of the U.S. economy. And so far this year the price of copper is way down. But that is not the only indicator that is worrying economists. Home renovation spending has fallen dramatically, retail spending is crashing in a way not seen since the last recession, manufacturing activity and consumer confidence are both declining, and troubling economic data continues to come pouring out of Asia and Europe. So why do U.S. stocks continue to skyrocket? Will U.S. financial markets be able to continue to be divorced from reality? Unfortunately, as we have seen so many times in the past, when stocks do catch up with reality they tend to do so very rapidly. So you better put on your seatbelts because a crash is coming at some point.
But most average Americans are not that concerned with the performance of the stock market. They just want to be able to go to work, pay the bills and provide for their families. During the last recession, millions of Americans lost their jobs and millions of Americans lost their homes. If we have another major recession, that will happen again. Sadly, it appears that another major recession is quickly approaching.
The following are 12 recession indicators that are flashing red…
#1 The price of copper has traditionally been one of the very best indicators of the future performance of the U.S. economy. The fact that it is down nearly 20 percent so far this year has many analysts extremely concerned…
Copper’s downward trend foreshadows a stock market collapse, according to Societe Generale’s famously bearish strategist Albert Edwards, who said equity markets will riot “Japan-style.”
“Copper is acting exactly as it did when I wrote about the impotence of liquidity in the face of the (then imminent) 2007 recession. Once again it is giving us an early warning that liquidity will not save risk assets: time to get out of equities,” Edwards wrote in his latest research note, on Thursday.
#2 Home renovation spending has fallen back to depressingly-low 2010 levels.
#3 As Zero Hedge recently pointed out, U.S. retail spending is repeating a pattern that we have not seen since the last recession…
Retail sales of clothing is growing at the slowest pace since 2010; but while major store sales are about to drop negative YoY for the first time in over 3 years, the utter collapse in general merchandise sales is worse that at the peak of the last recession at -5%. It seems tough to see how a nation with an economy built on 70% consumption is not in a recessionary environment. And while this alone is a dismal signal for the discretionary upside of the US economy/consumer; as Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg points out real personal income net of transfer receipts plunged at a stunning 5.8% annual rate in Q1. The other seven times we have seen such a collapse, the economy was either in recession of just coming out of one.
#4 Manufacturing activity all over the country is showing signs of slowing down. In fact, Chicago PMI has dipped below 50 (indicating contraction) for the first time since the last recession.
#5 In April, consumer confidence unexpectedly fell to a nine-month low…
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment declined to 72.3 in April from 78.6 a month earlier. This month’s reading was lower than all 69 estimates in a Bloomberg survey that called for no change from the March number.
#6 NYSE margin debt peaked right before the recession that began in 2002, it peaked right before the financial crisis of 2008, and it is peaking again.
#7 The S&P 500 usually mirrors the performance of Chinese stocks very closely. That is why it is so alarming that Chinese stocks peaked months ago. Will the S&P 500 soon follow?
#8 The economic data coming out of the Chinese economy lately has been mostly terrible…
For starters, China’s recent economic data, as massaged as it is to the upside, is downright awful. China’s PMI numbers were the worst in two years. Staffing levels in the Chinese service sector decreased for the first time since January 2009 (remember that year).
China’s LEI also shows no sign of recovery. If anything, it indicates China is heading towards an economic slowdown on par with that of 2008. And if you account for the rampant debt fueling China’s economy you could easily argue that China is posting 0% GDP growth today.
#9 Things just continue to get even worse over in Europe. Unemployment in both Greece and Spain is now about 27 percent, and the unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole has just set a brand new all-time record high.
#10 Crude inventories have soared to a record high as demand for energy continues to decline. As I have written about previously, this is a clear sign that economic activity is slowing down.
#11 Casino spending is usually a strong indicator of the overall health of the U.S. economy. That is why it is so noteworthy that casino spending is now back to levels that we have not seen since the last recession.
#12 The impact of the sequester cuts is starting to kick in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the sequester cuts will cost the U.S. economy about 750,000 jobs this year.
Do you have any other recession indicators that you would add to this list?
I invite you to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
View full post on The Economic Collapse
History Tells Us That A Gold Crash + An Oil Crash = Guaranteed Recession
Is the United States about to experience another major economic downturn? Unfortunately, the pattern that is emerging right now is exactly the kind of pattern that you would expect to see just before a major stock market crash and a deep recession. History tells us that when the price of gold crashes, a recession almost always follows. History also tells us that when the price of oil crashes, a recession almost always follows. When both of those things happen, a significant economic downturn is virtually guaranteed. Just remember what happened back in 2008. Gold and oil both started falling rapidly in July, and in the fall we experienced the worst financial crisis that the U.S. had seen since the days of the Great Depression. Well, a similar pattern seems to be happening again. The price of gold has already crashed, and the price of a barrel of WTI crude oil has dropped to $86.37 as I write this. If the price of oil dips below $80 a barrel and stays there, that will be a major red flag. Meanwhile, we have just seen volatility return to the financial markets in a big way. When volatility starts to spike, that is usually a clear sign that stocks are about to go down substantially. So buckle your seatbelts – it looks like things are about to get very, very interesting.
Posted below is a chart that shows what has happened to the price of gold since the late 1960s. As you will notice, whenever the price of gold rises dramatically and then crashes, a recession usually follows. It happened in 1980, it happened in 2008, and it is happening again…
A similar pattern emerges when we look at the price of oil. During each of the last three recessions we have seen a rapid rise in the price of oil followed by a rapid decline in the price of oil…
That is why what is starting to happen to the price of oil is so alarming. On Wednesday, Reuters ran a story with the following headline: “Crude Routed Anew on Relentless Demand Worries“. The price of oil has not “crashed” yet, but it is definitely starting to slip.
As you can see from the chart above, the price of oil has tested the $80 level a couple of times in the past few years. If we get below that resistance and stay there, that will be a clear sign that trouble is ahead.
However, there is always the possibility that the recent “crash” in the price of gold might be a false signal because there is a tremendous amount of evidence emerging that it was an orchestrated event. An absolutely outstanding article by Chris Martenson explained how the big banks had been setting up this “crash” for months…
In February, Credit Suisse ‘predicted’ that the gold market had peaked, SocGen said the end of the gold era was upon us, and recently Goldman Sachs told everyone to short the metal.
While that’s somewhat interesting, you should first know that the largest bullion banks had amassed huge short positions in precious metals by January.
The CFTC rather coyly refers to the bullion banks simply as ‘large traders,’ but everyone knows that these are the bullion banks. What we are seeing in that chart is that out of a range of commodities, the precious metals were the most heavily shorted, by far.
So the timeline here is easy to follow. The bullion banks:
- Amass a huge short position early in the game
- Begin telling everyone to go short (wink, wink) to get things moving along in the right direction by sowing doubt in the minds of the longs
- Begin testing the late night markets for depth by initiating mini raids (that also serve to let experienced traders know that there’s an elephant or two in the room)
- Wait for the right moment and then open the floodgates to dump such an overwhelming amount of paper gold and silver into the market that lower prices are the only possible result
- Close their positions for massive gains and then act as if they had made a really prescient market call
- Await their big bonus checks and wash, rinse, repeat at a later date
While I am almost 100% certain that any decent investigation by the CFTC would reveal that market manipulating ‘dumping’ was happening, I am equally certain that no such investigation will occur. That’s because the point of such a maneuver by the bullion banks is designed to transfer as much wealth from ‘out there’ and towards the center, and the CFTC is there to protect the center’s ‘right’ to do exactly that.
You can read the rest of that article right here.
There are also rumors that George Soros was involved in driving down the price of gold. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by “The Reformed Broker” Joshua Brown…
And over the last week or so, the one rumor I keep hearing from different hedge fund people is that George Soros is currently massively short gold and that he’s making an absolute killing.
Once again, I have no way of knowing if this is true or false.
But enough people are saying it that I thought it worthwhile to at least mention.
And to me, it would make perfect sense:
1. Soros is a macro investor, this is THE macro trade of the year
so far(okay, maybe Japan 1, short gold 2)2. Soros is well-known for numerous market aphorisms and neologisms, one of my faves being “When I see a bubble, I invest.” He was heavily long gold for a time and had done well while simultaneously referring to it publicly as a speculative bubble.
3. He recently reported that he had pretty much exited the trade in gold back in February. In his Q4 filing a few weeks ago, we found out that he had sold down his GLD position by about 55% as of the end of 2012 and had just 600,000 shares remaining. That was the “smartest guy in the room” locking in a profit after a 12 year bull market.
4. Soros also hired away one of the most talented technical analysts out there, John Roque, upon the collapse of Roque’s previous employer, broker-dealer WJB Capital. No one has heard from the formerly media-available Roque since but we can only assume that – as a technician – the very obvious breakdown of gold’s long-term trend was at least discussed. And how else does one trade gold if not by using technicals (supply/demand) – what else is there? Cash flow? Book value?
5. Lastly, the last public interview given by George Soros was to the South China Morning Post on April 4th. He does not mention any trading he’s doing in gold but he does reveal his thoughts on it having been “destroyed as a safe haven”
It is also important to keep in mind that this “crash” in the price of “paper gold” had absolutely nothing to do with the demand for physical gold and silver in the real world. In fact, precious metals retailers have been reporting that they have been selling an “astounding volume” of gold and silver this week.
But that isn’t keeping many in the mainstream media from “dancing on the grave” of gold and silver.
For example, New York Times journalist Paul Krugman seems absolutely ecstatic that gold has crashed. He seems to think that this “crash” is vindication for everything that he has been saying the past couple of years.
In an article entitled “EVERYONE Should Be Thrilled By The Gold Crash“, Business Insider declared that all of us should be really glad that gold has crashed because according to them it is a sign that the economy is getting better and that faith in the financial system has been restored.
Dan Fitzpatrick, the president of StockMarketMentor.com, recently told CNBC that people are “flying out of gold” and “getting into equities”…
“There have been so many reasons, and there remain so many reasons to be in gold,” Fitzpatrick said, noting currency debasement and the fear of inflation. “But the chart is telling you that none of that is happening. Because of that, you’re going to see people just flying out of gold. There’s just no reason to be in it.Traders are scaling out of gold and getting into equities.”
Personally, I feel so sorry for those that are putting their money in the stock market right now. They are getting in just in time for the crash.
As CNBC recently noted, a very ominous “head and shoulders pattern” for the S&P 500 is emerging right now…
A scary head-and-shoulders pattern could be building in the S&P 500, and this negative chart formation would be created if the market stalls just above current levels.
“It’s developing and it’s developing fast,” said Scott Redler of T3Live.com on Wednesday morning.
Even worse, volatility has returned to Wall Street in a huge way. This is usually a sign that a significant downturn is on the way…
Call options buying recently hit a three-year high for the CBOE’s Volatility Index, a popular measure of market fear that usually moves in the opposite direction of the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index.
A call buy, which gives the owner the option to purchase the security at a certain price, implies a belief that the VIX is likely to go higher, which usually is an ominous sign for stocks.
“We saw a huge spike in call buying on the VIX, the most in a while,” said Ryan Detrick, senior analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “That’s not what you want to hear (because it usually happens) right before a big pullback.”
The last time call options activity hit this level, on Jan. 13, 2010, it preceded a 9 percent stock market drop that happened over just four weeks, triggered in large part by worries over the ongoing European debt crisis.
And according to Richard Russell, the “smart money” has already been very busy dumping consumer stocks…
What do billionaires Warren Buffet, John Paulson, and George Soros know that you and I don’t know? I don’t have the answer, but I do know what these billionaires are doing. They, all three, are selling consumer-oriented stocks. Buffett has been a cheerleader for US stocks all along.
But in the latest filing, Buffett has been drastically cutting back on his exposure to consumer stocks. Berkshire sold roughly 19 million shares of Johnson and Johnson. Berkshire has reduced his overall stake in consumer product stocks by 21%, including Kraft and Procter and Gamble. He has also cleared out his entire position in Intel. He has sold 10,000 shares of GM and 597,000 shares of IBM.
Fellow billionaire John Paulson dumped 14 million shares of JP Morgan and dumped his entire position in Family Dollar and consumer goods maker Sara Lee. To wrap up the trio of billionaires, George Soros sold nearly all his bank stocks including JP Morgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. So I don’t know exactly what the billionaires are thinking, but I do see what they’re doing — they are avoiding consumer stocks and building up cash.
… the billionaires are thinking that consumption is heading down and that America’s consumers are close to going on strike.
So what are all of those billionaires preparing for?
What do they know that we don’t know?
I don’t know about you, but when I start putting all of the pieces that I have just discussed together, it paints a rather ominous picture for the months ahead.
At some point, there will be another major stock market crash. When it happens, we will likely see even worse chaos than we saw back in 2008. Major financial institutions will fail, the credit markets will freeze up, economic activity will grind to a standstill and millions of Americans will lose their jobs.
I sincerely hope that we still have at least a few more months before that happens. But right now things are moving very rapidly and it is becoming increasingly clear that time is running out.
View full post on The Economic Collapse
Other • Even Mafia fails to escape grips of recession
Even Mafia fails to escape grips of recession
MICHAEL DAY ROME TUESDAY 12 MARCH 2013
Even the Mafia is not immune to the lingering recession, according to new reports that suggest a merciless spending review is causing serious discontent in Sicily’s Cosa Nostra.
The axe, which is falling chiefly on hand-outs to junior mobsters, family members and hangers-on, has exacerbated the fall in “earnings” already taking place thanks to a police blitz on extortion rackets.
Only the big Mafia bosses will be spared the social security cuts. Those worst affected have been the relatives of jailed mobsters, prompting their wives and girlfriends to lead the backlash, Italian press reports said.
The insight into the mob’s own financial crisis has been illustrated by wiretaps of Palermo’s Noce clan, based in the centre of the Sicilian capital. This section of the Mafia was particularly hard hit last October in a series of raids organised by Palermo’s three anti-Mafia magistrates – Francesco Del Bene, Lia Sava and Gianluca De Leo – which saw 41 Mafia suspects arrested. La Repubblica says this brought Cosa Nostra “to its knees” in its Sicilian heartland.
In one of the telephone calls recorded by investigators, the wife of a recently jailed mobster is heard complaining about the financial situation to a female friend in a similar position. “I have to look after myself, I have to look after my husband and I have to look after my children,” she said. “November, December, January and then I didn’t seen anyone. It’s not right that they abandon my husband.”
Significantly, she went on to say that she intended to go right to the top and speak to clan boss Renzo Lo Nigro, who assumed the role after the October raids. Mr Lo Nigro was one of six people held this morning as a result of the surveillance.
A couple of years ago it was predicted that organised crime in Italy might prosper from the economic downturn, with the likelihood that businesses caught in the credit crunch would be forced to accept offers of finance from underworld sources.
But the new claims appear to back earlier reports that suggested many mobsters were being hit hard by the drawn-out recession. Mafia expert and author Corrado De Rosa, who has just published Mafia da Legare (Mad Mafia) with the journalist Laura Galesi, said the news of the Mafia spending cuts underlined how the mob acted as “an anti-state, alternative welfare system”. But he added the willingness of Mafia wives to speak out marked a major departure. “Twenty years ago… this would never have happened.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world … 31652.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:33 am
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Use of coupons spikes most since 2007, the beginning of the Great Recession
The consumer is feeling renewed stress. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up. But incomes are stagnant or down generally.
Life for the middle class continues to be tenuous. As the Federal Reserve prints and prints and prints, pushing money into the stock markets and commodity markets, life for much the investor class has stabilized, and in the case of some (think big bankers) the past 4 years have been a time of unprecedented manna.
For those clinging to jobs, trying to put kids through schools with tuitions which continue to rise every year, who are in some cases struggling just to keep the pantry stocked, things have been tough for a long time now. Nothing seems permanent Little feels tangible. Many people remain underwater on their houses. Young people can’t find jobs out of college. Hours are being cut widely thanks to the healthcare experiment being hoisted on the country from Washington DC. Payroll taxes just went back up. It’s no wonder the use of coupons has spiked again.
For middle class America things are not much better than they were 5 years ago. For the bread and butter of the economy, the sarlied breadwinners outside of government and finance, the optimism of past generations, though not gone, is dimmer than in years past. Not only are we mired in a recession, but the rich have gotten richer and the government has gotten larger.
The only solution to this ongoing problem, the alienation and continued marginalization of the middle class, is the reintroduction of sound money. It is clear that the fiat money experiment, initiated by Richard Nixon in 1971 when he took the United States off of the gold standard has failed, for most people. But that’s for another post.
For your information Staples and Chipotle have great coupon deals going right now.
(From CNBC)
Consumers are clipping coupons at a rate not seen since before the 2007 recession, and that’s a troubling sign, according to Coupons.com CEO Steven Boal.
The website tracks how often people view and print coupons and their redemption rate. Right now, Coupon.com’s Internet Coupon Index, as it’s called, shows a spike in coupon offers and demand.
This pattern is almost identical to the one that played out right before the last major economic downturn. The higher the index value, the more consumers are under economic pressure, Boal told CNBC.com.
“The index tends to run in a range,” he explained. “In September, October, November in 2007, it popped out of its range for the first time… And, for the first time since then, we are seeing a tripping out of the range,”
The post Use of coupons spikes most since 2007, the beginning of the Great Recession appeared first on AgainstCronyCapitalism.org.
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Government and the “powerful, widespread and enduring” Great Recession
Americans are skeptical about the federal government’s ability to lead a recovery from the Great Recession, according to Diminished Lives and Futures: A Portrait of America in the Great-Recession Era, a national survey from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Those surveyed have good reason for that belief.
Near one-fourth had been laid off during the past four years and more than half of those who managed to find jobs had to accept pay rates more than 30 percent lower. A full 86 percent said that good jobs with good pay will never return or are unlikely to do so anytime soon. More than 61 percent do not expect their current economic situation to improve. Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center, told the Washington Post that such pessimism “speaks to how powerful, widespread and enduring this Great Recession is.”
The Post’s story on Diminished Lives and Futures noted that the recession “destroyed nearly 40 percent of Americans’ wealth” and pushed unemployment over 10 percent. A full 4.7 million workers remain unemployed for more than six months and “a disproportionate number of jobs created in the recovery are at the low end of the wage scale.” Those surveyed believe the economy “has descended to the new normal” and there was “deep skepticism about Washington’s ability to do anything to significantly improve the economy.” What remained unexplored was the role of federal government policies in causing and prolonging the recession.
Those policies include the sub-prime mortgage debacle, the bailout of banks, runaway spending, the creation of new federal agencies, a failed stimulus package, fathomless deficits, an onerous regulatory regime, the failure to reform entitlements, and the creation of a huge new entitlement in the form of Obamacare.
Federal politicians may talk a good game or growth but the U.S. economy shrunk last year for the first time in three years. That will not lift the spirits of those Americans surveyed in Diminished Lives and Futures. To paraphrase Lincoln Steffens, they have seen the future and it irks.
View full post on MyGovCost | Government Cost Calculator
15 Signs That You Better Get Prepared For The Obama Recession Of 2013
You better get ready, because there are a whole host of signs that economic trouble is on the horizon. U.S. economic growth slipped into negative territory during the fourth quarter of 2012. That was the first time that has happened in more than three years. Several important measures of manufacturing activity have also contracted in recent weeks, and consumer confidence is way down. There is a tremendous amount of economic pessimism in the air right now, and Americans are pulling enormous amounts of money out of our banks and they are buying up precious metals at unprecedented rates. Meanwhile, our “leaders” seem very confused about what is happening. For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to insist that we are “in a recovery“, and some other Democrats are calling the latest GDP numbers “the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see“. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve says that economic growth has “paused” in recent months, and therefore a continuation of their latest quantitative easing scheme is necessary. Well, no matter how hard any of them try to spin the numbers, there is no way that they are going to get them to look good. Despite four years of outrageous “stimulus” spending by the federal government, despite four years of record low interest rates, and despite four years of unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy continues to perform miserably. Later this year the federal government will probably finally acknowledge that we have entered another recession, even though the truth is that if the federal government used honest numbers they would indicate that we are already in one. In any event, nobody should have ever expected that our debt-fueled prosperity would last forever. When the debt bubble that we have been living in completely bursts, a “recession” will be the least of our worries.
Hopefully this little stretch of false economic hope that we have been living in will last for a little while longer. I don’t think that too many people are very eager to repeat the horrible economic pain that we experienced back in 2008 and 2009. Unfortunately, we never fully recovered from that last downturn and now the incredibly foolish decisions that our “leaders” continue to make have made another major economic downturn inevitable.
Personally, I would very much prefer for 2013 to be a year of peace and prosperity for America. But at this point there appears to be a great deal of downward momentum for the economy.
The following are 15 signs that you better get prepared for the Obama recession of 2013…
#1 The mainstream media was absolutely shocked when it was announced that U.S. GDP actually contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent during the fourth quarter of 2012. This was the first contraction that the official numbers have shown in more than three years. But of course the truth is that the official numbers always make things appear better than they really are. According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, U.S. GDP growth has actually been continuously negative all the way back to 2005 once you account “for distortions in government inflation usage and methodological changes that have resulted in a built-in upside bias to official reporting.”
#2 For the entire year of 2012, official U.S. GDP growth was only about 1.5%. According to Art Cashin, every time economic growth has fallen that low (below 2 percent annually) the U.S. economy has always ended up going into a recession.
#3 According to the Conference Board, consumer confidence in the United States has hit its lowest level in more than a year.
#4 For the week ending January 26th, initial claims for unemployment rose to 368,000. In future weeks, watch to see if it goes above 400,000. If we hit that level, that will be a sign of real trouble for the economy.
#5 During the first full week of January, an astounding $114 billion was pulled out of U.S. banks. That is the largest amount that we have seen moved out of U.S. banks in one week since 2001.
#6 The U.S. Mint was on pace to sell more silver eagles during the first month of 2013 than it did during the entire year of 2007. Why is so much silver being sold all of a sudden?
#7 The payroll tax hike that went into effect in January has reduced the paychecks of average American workers by about $100 a month.
#8 Several important measures of manufacturing activity along the east coast missed expectations by a huge margin in January. The following summary is from a recent Zero Hedge article…
So much for the latest “recovery.” While everyone continued to forget that in the New Normal markets do not reflect the underlying economy in the least, and that the all time highs in the Russell 2000 should indicate that the US economy has never been better, things in reality took a deep dive for the worse, at least according to the Empire State Fed, the Philly Fed, and now the Richmond Fed, all of which missed expectations by a huge margin, and are now deep in contraction territory. Moments ago, the Richmond Fed reported that the Manufacturing Index imploded from a 9 in November, 5 in December and missed expectations of a 5 print at -12: this was the biggest miss to expectations since September 2009.
#9 An astounding 33 percent of all “subprime student loans” are at least 90 days past due. Back in 2007, that number was only at 24 percent. Could this be evidence that the student loan debt bubble is beginning to burst?
#10 Time Inc. has just announced that it will be eliminating hundreds of jobs.
#11 Blockbuster recently announced that they are closing hundreds of stores and eliminating about 3,000 jobs.
#12 Toy maker Hasbro has announced that the size of their workforce will be reduced by about 10 percent.
#13 According to a new Pew Research study that was just released, one out of every seven adults in the United States is financially supporting their kids and their parents at the same time. Pew Research is calling it “the Sandwich Generation”.
#14 According to one recent Gallup poll, 65 percent of all Americans believe that 2013 will be a year of “economic difficulty“, and 50 percent of all Americans believe that the “best days” of America are now behind us.
#15 According to a different Gallup poll, Americans are now more pessimistic about where the U.S. economy will be five years from now than Gallup has ever recorded before.
So what is Barack Obama doing about all of this?
Not much.
Actually, he is shutting down his much ballyhooed “Council on Jobs and Competitiveness”. It last convened more than a year ago on Jan. 17th, 2012, and apparently Obama does not feel that it is needed any longer.
Of course we all know that it was just a political stunt to begin with.
Sadly, the truth is that both parties have been leading us down a road toward economic oblivion. The past four years under Obama have been absolutely nightmarish, and even though the Republicans have been in control of the House for the last couple of years they have done very little to even slow him down.
For much more on the decline of the economy over the past four years, please see this article: “37 Statistics Which Show How Four Years Of Obama Have Wrecked The U.S. Economy“.
Yes, I tend to criticize Obama’s economic policies a lot, and rightfully so, but neither political party is willing to tell the American people the truth.
40 years ago, the total amount of debt in the U.S. economic system was less than 2 trillion dollars.
Today, the total amount of debt in the U.S. economic system has grown to more than 55 trillion dollars.
It hasn’t mattered which party has occupied the White House or which party has been in control of Congress. The debt bubble that we have been living in has just continued to grow.
And all bubbles eventually pop.
The mainstream media is endlessly obsessed with the little fights that the Republicans and the Democrats are having, but they never talk about the bigger picture.
The prosperity that we are enjoying today is the result of the biggest debt binge in the history of the world.
We have stolen a giant mountain of money from our children and our grandchildren and we have destroyed their futures.
People can debate about whether the next “recession” has already started or not, but the truth is that what we are experiencing now is nothing compared to what is coming.
In the end, we will pay a great price for our decades of foolishness.
The U.S. economy is going to completely collapse, and the last few years have only been the very beginning of that process.
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American • Fall in US Q4 GDP shows US almost in recession, not in a re
Fall in US Q4 GDP shows US almost in recession, not in a recovery
Posted on 31 January 2013
So the growth in the US economy turned out to be a charade created for an election year after all as ArabianMoney suggested a long time ago. There is no hiding from a 0.1 per cent fall in GDP in the fourth quarter in the world’s largest economy. Another quarter of decline and the US is officially back in recession.
Agora Financial managing editor Chris Mayer, who is visiting Dubai in the middle of February, said in his last newsletter that the US economy looked a bit like 1937 when tax rises and spending cuts undermined a recovery from the Great Depression. Is the US making the same mistake in 2013 and going for a bit too much austerity, too soon?
$1 trillion deficit
You could say that but a $1 trillion federal budget deficit has to be tackled at some point. A nation cannot borrow to live beyond its means indefinitely. And indeed there is now far less need to do so with all those elections out of the way.
Was the US economic upturn of 2012 just a charade created by bending statistics and hyping spending for an election year? It is certainly very suspicious that the only consistently good figures are for employment. Why does the line for food stamps continue to grow with one-in-six people in the US now dependent on this food aid program?
People are being knocked out of the official unemployment queue and handed out food stamps instead. That’s 47 million and counting, twice the level of poverty that President Obama inherited when he first took office.
The Federal Reserve said yesterday it expects growth to pick up in 2013 and for Q4 to be a temporary setback. Yet why should that happen when taxes are rising and spending being cut back? The Q4 disaster was apparently mainly down to defense expenditure cutbacks but they are not about to be reinstated.
Falling US exports
There was also a six per cent annualized fall in US exports in the fourth quarter. How does that square with the expansion of global trade currently being claimed by the Chinese and refuted by Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea? The reality is laid bare for anybody who cares to look further than the foolish bulls on Wall Street.
If you misled by tradtional financial commentators on TV or in the newspapers then you have every right to be very annoyed. They have been spinning a recovery out of thin air and now we see just how thin that air has become.
What comes next is a correction in financial markets to reflect this new reality and to wipe away the illusion of a recovery that is quite demonstably not happening when you sum up all the statistical evidence from the world’s largest economy for the final quarter of last year.
http://www.arabianmoney.net/private-equ … -recovery/
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Jan 31, 2013 1:21 am
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International News • Greece’s 2013 budget forecasts sixth year of recession
Greece’s 2013 budget forecasts sixth year of recession
Greece will bring forward painful budget cuts to end a decade of primary deficits while grappling with a sixth year of recession, according to a 2013 draft budget.
Austerity-weary Greeks have taken to the streets in often violent protests against the waves of salary and pension cuts Photo: Reuters
By Reuters3:28PM BST 01 Oct 2012
The government unveiled a tough austerity budget after Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras met the so-called "troika" of International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank inspectors, whose approval is vital to unlock the next slice of aid, urgently needed to avoid bankruptcy.
Greece will aim for a primary surplus before debt service of 1.1pc of GDP next year, the first positive balance since 2002, after a 1.5pc deficit in 2012. But the economy will continue to shrink for a sixth year by 3.8pc.
Economic output will have declined by a quarter since 2008 in a vicious spiral of austerity and recession, with the most heavily indebted eurozone nation repeatedly missing targets set under its EU/IMF bailouts and at risk of being forced out of the single currency area.
Analysts said even the recession scenario set out in the budget appeared optimistic, given Greece’s slow reform efforts and a weakening eurozone economy.
"Chances are the budget targets will be missed because of the deeper recession which the cuts will bring and the inability to meet privatisation targets," said Xenofon Damalas, head of investment services at Marfin Egnatia Bank.
The general government deficit, including debt servicing costs, will come to 4.2pc of GDP next year from 6.6pc in 2012, while unemployment will rise to 24.7pc.
The draft gave no target for privatisation revenues. In a sign of the daunting scale of Greece’s problems, public debt is projected to reach 179.3pc of GDP next year despite a major write-down of debt owed to private investors this year.
The budget will make more cuts to public sector pay, pensions and welfare benefits as part of an €11.5bn austerity package of savings spread out over the next two years.
Austerity-weary Greeks have taken to the streets in often violent protests against the waves of salary and pension cuts that have driven many to the edge. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who will also meet the troika chiefs later on Monday, has vowed this is the last round of cuts.
Dozens of protesters waving Greek flags and shouting "out with the troika" jeered troika officials as they entered the finance ministry on Monday.
Greece’s largest labour unions will hold further 24-hour strikes and walkouts this month.
"We don’t have another option. We can’t just sit around doing nothing," said Nikos Kioutsoukis, the general secretary of private sector union GSEE.
At stake is a €31.5bn installment from a €130bn second bail-out keeping Greece afloat. Lenders have made clear no money will be disbursed without credible measures.
But two German magazines reported at the weekend that Greece would receive the next payment despite missing its targets because eurozone governments were too afraid of the "domino effect" if Athens were forced out of the currency area.
Two junior leftist parties in Samaras’s coalition government have resisted the cuts and a handful of deputies have warned they will vote against the bill in parliament, which will debate the draft and vote on the final version in mid-December.
"We are trying to rescue whatever we can even at the eleventh hour," Andreas Papadopoulos, spokesman for the small, co-ruling Democratic Left party, told Reuters, signaling the battle in parliament will be intense.
Analysts expect the coalition, which holds 178 out of 300 parliament seats, to pass the bill despite any defections. The final budget is expected to differ from the draft.
A government official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said Athens will frontload a big chunk of the new spending cuts under negotiation with the troika.
"The draft budget will include €7.8bn in cuts for 2013," the official said.
Belt-tightening has taken a toll on economic activity, suppressing domestic demand and driving the jobless rate to a record of almost 25pc.
Returning to a primary surplus will hinge on how faithfully the government sticks to the unpopular measures, after years of missed targets that have angered its partners.
"In terms of the government meeting the targets, it will be very difficult," said Ben May, European economist at London-based firm Capital Economics, adding that tensions within the coalition could derail efforts especially if the troika asks for additional measures down the road.
"We are at the stage where all the easy options have disappeared," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina … ssion.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:02 am
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