Economic Growth.

[Turbineguy]

Obama bashers (from both sides of the business) aren't growing to be happy about this, but many indications are of a growing economy. We are now approaching the phase where financial regulatory reform would be a good thing to start to ease in.

Remember, it took nearly 30 years to get here and it even took the banksters 5 years to figure out how to really loot and harm the economy. And then it took another 2 years for those results to become apparent. There's going to be some latency in seeing the results going in the other direction.

[bemildred]

1. If we get through the year without another financial herd panic I will start to believe it.

There are still a number of large skeletons in the closet.

[jtuck004]

2. Better for whom?

Respectfully...

If someone has been run over by a bus and while laying on the ground they reach a hand up for help...would we call that recovering?

Some of us have seen this coming, or lived with it, for many more years than just two. Partly why I converted our mortgage to a 7% fixed in 2004 - everyone thought I was nuts. And some of those people don't have homes now.

Just to get back to 5% unemployment we need between 12 and 15 million jobs, and that doesn't mean at the pay of a part-time Walmart greeter. 49.2% of children have to use food stamps to eat during their childhood, and a little over 24% of houses (that's one of every 4 houses you drive by) has a mortgage that is now higher than the value of the house. On one night in February 2007 over 600,000 homeless people were counted, and over 200,000 had no shelter at all, and reports (it's kinda hard to count homeless people, as one might expect) say those numbers have increased by at least 12% in February of 2010. One estimate shows that another 1.5 million people will lose their homes over the next two years. Millions of people are getting ready to enter retirement with a home that is worth far less than they expected, an asset which has been what most people counted on. Social security will not pay enough to offset this, so what happens to these millions of older Americans?

A total incompetent boob of a president could trip into a .3% increase in employment when 15 million people are out of work, as opposed to when there is relatively full employment. We need about 150,000 new jobs every month just to break even. The BEST news out of this administration so far is that we are not losing as many as last month, but the numbers are still in negative territory. The January report was just revised and showed 60,000 jobs were lost, not the 22,000 that were reported. New numbers come out on Fridars will show on Friday. The only two things I know about this pres is that he is doing more than the last one, and not enough.

I appreciate your thought about latency, but that seems to indicate that we are on a path back. We are most likely going to simply go up and down at a relatively low level for the next 10 years or so. As you noted this scenario has been developing for the past 40 years, not just the past 8, through Democratic and Republican administrations alike. It doesn't take an "Obama bashers" to suggest that we may not be returning to some semblance of what we once were as a country - both parties are either clueless or complicit in our problems. The current administration is showing none, nada interest in curbing the excesses of the banks and insurance companies - the financial sector. Rather, they are feeding their greed. We are on a path of economic malaise that is going to last 10 years, maybe longer, and some fairly conservative predictions indicate the likelihood that we will be supplanted by China as the dominant power in the world, unless we are able to invent and invest our way out of this mess. It will make our little squabbles over Democrats and Repubs seem ridiculous.

On the other hand, maybe we will get health care. Maybe a doctor can write a prescription for a house or a meal. I read Du'ers posts here when they lose their jobs, and wonder if all the health care fanatics might provide them an address to send their benefits card to their home has been foreclosed on.

I would like to be hopeful, but I just can't be. Too much work to do still.