WaPo: The recovery is losing steam, fast

[marmar]

The recovery is losing steam, fast
By Neil Irwin


Another day, another lousy piece of economic data. The 27.2 percent fall in existing home sales in July was far below analysts' official expectations (though in line with some of the whisper numbers that close watchers of housing data were expecting).

And financial markets have again taken notice; money continues gushing into safe U.S. Treasury bonds, sending the yield on those bonds to 2.52 percent as of 11 a.m. (it reached as low as 2.48 percent earlier this morning).

There's a pattern here, and it's not a good one. Virtually every major economic indicator to come out in the past two months has been disappointing in one way or another. Retail sales. International trade. Weekly jobless claims. The monthly employment report. Housing starts.

In fact, of the major data releases, the only one I can think of that has been decent over the past couple of months was last week's industrial production report.

....(snip)....

Forecasters already expect second-quarter growth to be revised down to 1.4 percent Friday (Goldman is even more pessimistic, expecting a revision to 1.1 percent.)

The U.S. economy should grow at a 2.5 to 3 percent annual rate in the long run just due to population growth and higher productivity. So 1.5 percent growth would mean that the gap between what the nation is capable of producing and what it is actually producing would be widening, rather than narrowing.

The scariest thing is that they might be right. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/08/the_recovery_is_losing_steam_f.html?hpid=topnews

[NightWatcher]

1. Remain calm. All is well

[xchrom]

2. Ain't that right. Nt

[taught_me_patience]

3. But, but, but Geitner said we were in "recovery"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03geithner.html

Welcome to the RecoveryBy TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER
Published: August 2, 2010


Gary Taxali
THE devastation wrought by the great recession is still all too real for millions of Americans who lost their jobs, businesses and homes. The scars of the crisis are fresh, and every new economic report brings another wave of anxiety. That uncertainty is understandable, but a review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth.

The recession that began in late 2007 was extraordinarily severe, but the actions we took at its height to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery.

From the start, President Obama made clear that recovery from a crisis of this magnitude would not come quickly and that the recovery would not follow a straight line. We saw that this past spring, when the European fiscal crisis posed a serious challenge to the markets and to business confidence, dampening investment and the rate of growth here.

While the economy has a long way to go before reaching its full potential, last week’s data on economic growth show that large parts of the private sector continue to strengthen. Business investment and consumption — the two keys to private demand — are getting stronger, better than last year and better than last quarter. Uncertainty is still inhibiting investment, but business capital spending increased at a solid annual rate of about 17 percent.

********************************
Fucking tool.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I will add that to my list of "famous last remarks".

You know..
"Mission Accomplished"

"Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"


"Dewey beats Truman"
etc.

[villager]

4. Well, the piece has made Pollyanna Unrec a little peeved...

n/t

[golddigger]

6. Well that was unexpected.

:sarcasm:

[Winterblues]

7. Right before the election...imagine that..

:shrug: