Tag Archives: Great recession

business news

Market craters: Time for calming words from POTUS

Wall Street took a header today.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 600 points, signaling — possibly, maybe, perhaps — a new Black Friday.

I get that one day does not portend a stock market crash by itself.

However, I am wondering if the president of the United States is capable of offering some calm words of assurance rather than assigning blame for what happened today to millions of Americans’ retirement portfolios.

Ours took a beating today. I am not worried irrationally about our retirement future based on the market’s woes.

Donald Trump has spent a lot of emotional energy of late boasting about how Wall Street has reached record highs in record time. He has taken all sorts of credit for the market performance. He deserves some of it, although millions of the rest of us understand that the market has been climbing steadily during the past eight or nine years after it went through a serious crash to trigger the Great Recession of 2008-09.

Here’s what I would like to hear from the president: I would prefer he would provide some calm words of assurance. I mean, he is a self-described business whiz who’s made zillions of dollars. If he has any knowledge of what transpired today — and if it is a harbinger of more to come — then let’s hear it.

Talk to us, Mr. President, but speak to us like a grownup.

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Time for economic shouting match

The economic naysayers keep winning the shouting match over the state of the economy.

I choose to listen a bit more intently to the other side, the folks who proclaim the nation’s economy is doing better than what many Americans think.

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20140606&id=17680783

The latest job numbers provide reason for the positive thinkers to begin outshouting the other side.

The U.S. Labor Department announced Friday the economy added 217,000 jobs in May. Unemployment held steady at 6.3 percent; there used to be a time when that would be seen as “bad news,” but in this era it’s seen as an indication that more people are re-entering the job-search market, that hope is returning.

The May jobs boost comes after an April jobs increase that was even greater.

Why, then, do the goofballs who want the current administration’s economic policies to fail keep winning the argument?

My own guess is that they’re better at shouting over the opposition than, well, their opposition. Just maybe it’s time for those of us who do not share the Gloomy Gus outlook to begin shouting with a bit more fervor about the accomplishments that have occurred during the past six years.

I’ve tried to make the point on occasion from my own platform. It’s not getting much run out there. Surely there are others like myself who believe in a bit more optimistic future than the other side.

So, to whatever extent I can motivate the masses who share that view, I’m going to shout it out once more from this perch.

The U.S. economy is in recovery mode! We’ve gained back all the jobs we lost during the Great Recession of 2008-09! It ain’t perfect, but then again, when is it ever perfect?

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Stock index sets record, but no one’s cheering?

The Standard and Poor’s index closed at a record high today.

Wall Street’s indices all have recovered what they lost during the Great Recession of 2008-09 — and then some.

And yet …

We keep hearing from the chronic naysayers that the economy is in the tank. They bemoan the economic stimulus enacted shortly after Barack Obama became president. They decry the slowness of job growth. They ignore the other indicators that are blaring loudly and clearly that the economy is on its way back.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/27/investing/stocks-markets/index.html

Why is that?

Oh, silly me. It’s politics. I forget sometimes that in the political world, reality often takes a back seat to people’s ambition, which they usually promote at others’ expense.

I am heartened that my own retirement account hasn’t been flushed permanently down the toilet. I had some concerns when the market was collapsing, losing nearly half of its value. My financial guru told my wife and me not to sweat it. “Think long term,” we were told. We have but we’ve also been grateful that it didn’t all that long for our retirement account to recover its losses.

The S&P’s record is just one more indicator that investors seem confident in the future.

If only they could persuade the political chattering class.

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Economy takes a hit … or does it?

Economics question of the day: When does a drop in the unemployment rate mean bad news?

When the drop is caused by people giving up on their search for jobs.

So it is that the Labor Department today reported that the jobless rate fell to 6.7 percent, the lowest rate since 2008, but the economy added only 74,000 jobs in December, which is far below economists’ prediction.

Is it time to push the panic button? Time to throw in the towel? Time to storm the White House with torches and pitchforks?

No to all of the above.

As my financial adviser keeps telling my wife and me: Take the long view.

The nation added 2.2 million jobs in 2013, which is about what it added in each of the previous two years. The labor market isn’t great. As one economist said on NPR this morning, it’s gone from being “terrible to just plain bad.”

I’m not going to join the amen chorus of critics who keep insisting the economy is in the tank.

We’ve recovered all the jobs lost during the great recession of late 2008 and early 2009; manufacturing is up; the budget deficit is down, as is the trade deficit; domestic energy exploration is way up, as evidenced by all those pump jacks working furiously along the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.

Let’s just wait for next month’s job figures … and maybe the month after that.