Economic Indicators Up More Than Expected in June

[dtotire]

Source: NY times


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Filed at 4:01 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- More plans to build homes, higher stock prices and fewer people filing first-time claims for jobless aid sent a private-sector forecast of U.S. economic activity higher than expected in June.

It was the third straight monthly increase for the New York-based Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators, and another sign pointing toward the recession ending later this year.

The index rose 0.7 percent last month. Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a gain of 0.4 percent. May's reading was revised up to a gain of 1.3 percent from 1.2 percent, while April was scaled back to 1 percent growth from 1.1 percent.

The group also said activity in the six-month period through June rose 2 percent, with an annual growth rate of 4.1 percent. That's the strongest rate since the first quarter of 2006.



http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/20/business/AP-US-Economy.html

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/07/20/business/AP-US-Economy.html

[liberal N proud]

1. So its over?

:sarcasm:

[dtotire]

2. Not Over Yet

But it looks like it is on track to be over by the end of the year. After that, jobs will start to be created, slow at first, but picking up by the middle of next year. That will be too slow for a lot of people. Hopefully, when November comes around, the voters will be more optimistic.

[shireen]

5. i hope you're right ...

people desperately need a break from this madness.

meanwhile, we need to do something about the likes of JP Morgan and Goldman-Sachs, once and for all! Evildoers! :mad:

[SeeHopeWin]

8. I really do think it is over...It will take some time to show up in employment

I am hoping that number looks better by early next year.

[geckosfeet]

12. Slowly. Verry slowly. But by end of next year, beggining of 2011, companies

will be scrambling to hire. It will be a job hunters market all of 2011.

[galileoreloaded]

3. Just don't forget the massive wave of foreclosures and

residential/commercial price declines that are starting up all over again.

Take all news with a grain of salt......

[MercutioATC]

4. Scratch that "less people filing initial jobless claims".

Under the adjusted numbers, the number went down.

There were, however MORE actual initial jobless claims, not less.

[maxsolomon]

6. So I can start spending willy-nilly again?

If meaningless BS statistics say so...

[SeeHopeWin]

9. I have been spending like crazy, supporting the Obama economy...nt

[bemildred]

7. So, I forget, do we sing "Big Rock Candy Mountain" or "Happy Days Are Here Again"?

All I see is the bank's problems have been papered over (and I do mean "paper") for a while and they are trying to get some more bubbles going.

[Yavin4]

10. Stimulus Be Working

To paraphrase the former NY Knick great Michael Ray Richardson.

[Igel]

13. I heard something like that from a roommate once.

The declaration that the recession was over came on the day the first stimulus money was actually approved for disbursement. The recession was decreed to have ended the previous summer, but that didn't stop him from saying that the reason the recession ended before Clinton was elected was the stimulus money spent 10 months after he was elected. I figure he didn't use that reasoning in his PhD. Then again, last I heard he wasn't even tenure-track, so maybe he did.

Of course, the vast majority of the 2/09 stimulus that doesn't go to keep state employees working or for unemployment will most likely be spent after the recession ends, making this stimulus no different from the vast majority of prior stimuli. They're going to have to rush to not make it redundant.

Then again, the recession hasn't been declared over. That declaration won't come until a year or so after it ends, of course.

In one case, the stimulus was approved a couple of years after the end of the recession. Less egregius, in the early '90s the Clinton stimulus had its first dollar allocated months after the end of the recession. This time round was an anomaly--the first stimulus was approved 3 months into the recession, and spent entirely in the first year of the recession (but we tend to forget the stimulus package of early '08). It didn't do much, or perhaps it did and we don't like that it did anything--ultimately I doubt there's any way to say with any certainty.

Since "recession = unemployment" for most people, the stimuli have always worked. It may leave out cause and effect, but no politician alive would be re-elected if people didn't have strange beliefs and if the politician couldn't employ the old 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc' reasoning.

[lindisfarne]

11. One month does not a trend make. n/t