Some mixed news this morning:
National output grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.2 percent last quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday, after growth of 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 2.2 percent in the third quarter.
The steady growth has quelled fears that the downturn is not quite over.
“It’s been a case of, when will they stop worrying and learn to love the boom?” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at ITG, who said that many economists have been too hesitant to acknowledge the steady recovery because the job market is still weak.
It seems some economists not named Robert Barbera have decided to hold off on the champagne until unemployment is under double digits in half the country. I’d call that prudent.
But another round of bank bonuses for you all!
soonergrunt
I’ll start celebrating when I’m employed again at the same money I was making before being laid off.
That should be in about four or five years.
OT, Governor Ahnold Gropinator says that he would run for President if he could. Anyone who remembers all the nonsense a few years back about how he couldn’t hold the office as a naturalized citizen–what is the venn diagram on people who wanted him to run and birthers?
Punchy
Robert Barbera (Hanna’s brother?) needs to spend a day at the Calculated Risk blog. The Doomers there highlight on average 319 reasons a day why one should noose themselves due to this economy and its faux recovery.
EDantes
Not to sound like a commie sockalist or anything, but a purely capitalist dialog about how much value these high-flying managers really add to their companies would be really satisfying to have. Every $million extra in pay they collect (assuming 100% overhead for an average grunt) is ~12 40k income employees that company is lacking. I don’t know about companies you’ve worked in, but the ones I’ve worked in, the grunts make the value for the customer. The CEO is not troubleshooting on the shop floor, he is not doing customer service, hell, he isn’t even keeping the bathroom clean.
Seems to me, personally, that the fall of American company is due to management’s unsupportable and therefore anticompetetive salaries. Some CEOs are worth what they are paid. SOME. Most, not so much, and those guys are sucking their companies dry.
MattF
More detailed reports mention that the current ‘boom’ is fueled by increased consumer spending… Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m staying under the table for a while longer.
PurpleGirl
Like Soonergrunt I’ll believe there’s a recovery happening only when I’m employed again.
Increased consumer spending = buying that medicine you need with the credit card because your unemployment benefits have run out.
mr. whipple
I think unemployment might drop a bit this year, but it’s going to be high for a very long time unless we wanna inflate some new bullshit ‘boom’.
soonergrunt
@PurpleGirl: Or pawning your CD/DVD collection for money to pay for a new suit for interviews. That’s two economic transactions for the price of one.
someguy
No doubt this is good news for the Republicans’ top female senator, Lindsey Graham.
He should pull out of bipartisan negotiations more often. For the good of the economy.
Walker
What does the output look like when you remove the financial services industry?
Napoleon
I still have a really bad feeling that it is going to get worse before it gets better. I think you are going to see a spike in layoffs over the next month as local governments lay off people now that the stimulus money has run out.
homerhk
employment always follows gdp. It may not be nice or ideal, but that is how it works in a capitalist society. and by capitalist i mean most of the western world, whether or ot considered socialist by the US press. I live in the UK where the same principle applies – you have to have growth to expand employment. Same in France, same in Germany and same in Spain.
toujoursdan
And our great ponzi scheme of an economy rolls on…
joe from Lowell
Guys, it’s ok. You can come out now.
Look at this chart.
Look at the bar on the far right (March’s numbers). Look at the nice, steady trend that’s been going on for a year.
Come into the light.
beltane
The stock portfolios of the Washington pundits are doing well, so we really have nothing to complain about. We exist to make them rich; we should just suck it up and accept our lot in life. It is part of George Will and Jesus Christ’s plan, so do not question it.
mr. whipple
@joe from Lowell:
Also.
Kirk Spencer
Soonergrunt and Purplegirl, I too have been unemployed a LONG time due to this. Even so, I’m going to say the economy is recovering. There are a lot of little clues.
It sucks that unemployment always lags the recovery — and for the past three that lag’s gotten worse each time, so it’s probably going to be ugly this time as well.
There are a lot of reasons for this, and I don’t think we’re going to fix most of them before the next crunch (in a decade or so). Talk about them, sure, but not fix them. The biggest problem is productivity, and it hits us in two ways. First, supersize businesses need fewer people but leave little opportunity for competition. Second, technology is such that what used to take many now takes few — and this change gets rebalanced every recession.
There are fixes used in various countries, plus some that have been used in the past. We won’t do them yet, but the raging “used to be well off, now are permanently poor” WILL force the changes next time.
But this next few years is going to suck for a lot of us as the economy — and most of the people in it — do better while we sit and suffer.
PurpleGirl
@joe from Lowell: Jobs lost doesn’t count… we need to see jobs added. That bump up probably reflects temporary Census hiring.
soonergrunt
@someguy: What’s with the gratuitous strike at Senator Graham’s sexuality? What the fuck does that have to do with the topic under discussion, and what business is it of anyones’ anyway?
joe from Lowell
@Mr. Whipple,
Damn, that’s a lot of inventory replacement!
joe from Lowell
@Purple Girl:
We ARE seeing jobs added – over 120,000 of them. The Census only accounts for 30,000 of those.
Punchy
@mr. whipple: So things are OK, now. Wait a minute…..
Also, if you ever wanted to know just how much “recovery” is due to industry profits, take a gawk at this and then lift your jaw off the table.
Davis X. Machina
It’s very important to set public-sector employees — the last bastion of unionized workers — and private sector workers at each others’ throats, in order to kill off unions altogether.
No forelock left untugged.
ericvsthem
OT – If you’re not following @KagroX (David Waldman from GOS) and @pourmecoffee on Twitter over the last 24 hours, then you’re missing out on some very funny stuff.
danimal
We’re seeing the start of a long, slow, real recovery. Stay positive, the employers are beginning to hire.
joe from Lowell
See, now this is just annoying, Republican-like behavior. Mr. Whipple made a point about the economy improving, using GDP growth and jobs growth. Punchy doesn’t want to hear that, he’s got a narrative he wants to believe, so he changes the subject and links to a chart about the national debt.
No, the economic recovery hasn’t fixes the national debt problem. Pollen levels are still high in Lowell, too.
THAT’S NOT CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!
Come on.
LarsThorwald
I’m waiting to see how Atrios turns this into shit pudding. SUPERTRAIN!
srv
You’d think by now we would be used to jobless recoveries.
I’ve found a new economics god, and his name is Hyman Minsky.
New Yorker
I’ll start celebrating when my MBA, 4 years of work experience, and Ivy League bachelors degree can get me a better job than the one I currently have: shoe salesman for about $11 an hour.
To be fair, I have had a few interviews of late, which did not happen at all last summer and fall.
kid bitzer
damn. i’m sorry to hear about b-j’ers unemployed. makes me grateful for my job. seriously.
so dismiss this if you like. but from what i can see, there really is improvement happening. people spending a bit more money. there’s talk of raises here this year–even a point or two is better than last year, when we were just grateful for no layoffs or furloughs.
it’s uneven across the country. but around here, we have definitely turned a corner.
jeffreyw
I’m doing my part to open up more job slots: I retired 5 years ago. Seems the competition for the best seats on the park bench since then has increased a lot. The spike in the temp retirement numbers is largely to blame. On the upside, the conversations in queue for the gazebo seats are better than they used to be, more intellectual.
ChrisS
@New Yorker:
There’s the joke about what the hell is a person going to do with a double-major in english lit and philosophy? Open a poem repair shop?
I’m sorry you’re unemployed, but the financial services sector probably has more than one person with your qualifications that likes to make a nice chunk of cash skimming off the top of deals.
Finance is a deal with the devil. When it’s good, it’s great, but when it’s bad, hopefully one saved for the rainy days instead of dumping bonuses into frivolous luxuries. Kinda like how so many professional athletes are bankrupt once they hit their 40s.
danimal
Perhaps the economy would be better served if 25 people got jobs paying 40K/year instead of a million dollar bonus for the bank exec.
Call me a socialist.
llr
@someguy:
So in order to insult Lindsey Graham you call him a woman. What exactly is wrong with being a woman?
Punchy
You’re saying they’re unrelated? Until unemployment drops below 7%, I’m not claiming a recovery. People who dont have jobs cant pay taxes to states who cant then balance their budget, who cut more jobs, leaving more unemployed people unable to pay taxes. While the housing market still drops, crushing equity that in the past was used for consumer spending.
And the national debt is a reflection of just how much the Feds have given away to prop up this faux economy in the past 18 months or so.
ChrisS
@Punchy:
I’ve always thought that the national debt was a reflection of how republicans were elected to office by cutting taxes and not cutting spending.
superking
My question is this: Why did Barbera allude to Dr. Strangelove here? In addition to being cute and glib and all that horrible bullshit, he’s referencing a sardonic cautionary tale about the problems with nuclear weapons. And in his version, the nuclear weapons–the bomb–is a moderate economic recovery.
WHAT THE FUCK?
anticontrarian
It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs.
It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs.
It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs. It’s not a recovery until people have jobs.
It’s not a recovery until people have jobs.
edantes12
I’m reading the news and economists seems to be all over the board (http://www.socialnews.biz/MarketsEconomics) on whether the economy is truly getting better. It is nice to see the new plan to remove liquidity from the system.
Ruckus
I am hearing from suppliers that sales are improving. Not a lot, and of course from almost the bottom of the barrel, but improving. I am seeing some improvement myself but it is uneven and slow. So I am taking my optimistic glass is 1/16 full and putting it up to 1/8 full. And that’s a lot of improvement from my glass has a hole in it optimism of the last couple of years. This is going to take a long time to fix, it is still going to be very painful for lots of folks and we have the added benefit of having the rethugs, teatards and lunatics thinking their opposition is going to help anyone. Including themselves.