Across the U.S., Long Recovery Looks Like Recession

[The Northerner]

This is not what a recovery is supposed to look like.

In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on the market are so-called short sales, in which sellers ask for less than they owe lenders. And in Arizona, in sun-blasted desert subdivisions, owners speak of hours cut, jobs lost and meals at soup kitchens.

Less than a month before November elections, the United States is mired in a grim New Normal that could last for years. That has policy makers, particularly the Federal Reserve, considering a range of ever more extreme measures, as noted in the minutes of its last meeting, released on Tuesday. Call it recession or recovery, for tens of millions of Americans, there’s little difference.

Born of a record financial collapse, this recession has been more severe than any since the Great Depression and has left an enormous oversupply of houses and office buildings and crippling debt. The decision last week by leading mortgage lenders to freeze foreclosures, and calls for a national moratorium, could cast a long shadow of uncertainty over banks and the housing market. Put simply, the national economy has fallen so far that it could take years to climb back.

The math yields somber conclusions, with implications not just for this autumn’s elections but also — barring a policy surprise or economic upturn — for 2012 as well:

At the current rate of job creation, the nation would need nine more years to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. And that doesn’t even account for five million or six million jobs needed in that time to keep pace with an expanding population. Even top Obama officials concede the unemployment rate could climb higher still.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/business/economy/13econ.html?src=busln

[treestar]

1. Who cares what it "looks like" so long as it is a recovery?

And quit with making the grimmest possible conclusion out of every single statistic.

For all we know, previous recoveries were just as slow. This is touted as being nearly as bad as the Depression, which certainly took more than a couple of years to get out of.

[Donnachaidh]

4. it's NOT a recovery -- that's PR terminology

The employment offices in my area are STILL overflowing - and adults are competing with teens for seasonal jobs.

NOT a recovery -- not in the REAL world.

[Andy823]

6. I agree.

I know some areas have been hit harder than others, but what so many fail to understand is that president Obama inherited this mess from Bush, and Bush had 8 years to screw things up to the point of a near fatal collapse of our country. Why do people think that president Obama should have all this fixed in just under 2 years is beyond me! Sure things could be better, but not when every single republican has voted NO on every major bill that would help get us back on track, and the blue dog democrats have sided with republicans on some of those bill also!

If people want change they need to get out during the primaries and make some changes. Get rid of the DINO's and get some real democrats in office, but it has to be done before the national elections. Sitting back now and complaining day in and day out won't make things better, but some people seem miss that point! If they really want to see things get worse, they will if the republicans are allowed to take over congress! I would much rather see democrats in charge at least trying to make changes for the better than republicans in charge who will do their best to stop everything in order to try and defeat president Obama in 2012!

[Donnachaidh]

2. the only recovery is for the elites and wall street

Everyone else is on their own.

[RandomThoughts]

3. I am not on my own.

:D

Neither are billions of other people not part of those groups.

[Donnachaidh]

5. tell that to the people who will have the gift of *foreclosure* during the holidays

Or the ones who are *disappeared* by the hundreds of thousands (that 400 K who filed for unemployment) while the government claims a *recovery* for the same period of 60K in jobs.


In REAL math that's a loss of 330K.... :eyes: