US Features
ANALYSIS: Signs that US may be headed slowly toward recovery
Apr 15, 2009, 11:59 GMT
Washington - More than a year into one of the longest and deepest US recessions in living memory, there are signs that the world's largest economy may finally be coming around.
US President Barack Obama spotted 'glimmers of hope' in his latest progress report Tuesday on the US economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke of 'tentative signs that the sharp decline in economic activity may be slowing.'
Upbeat indicators over the last month have come from a variety of sectors, including those at the very heart of the global economic crisis. Manufacturing, housing, banks, retailers and consumers have all shown some signs of life.
While US consumers and the rest of the world take heart, economists caution that it's far too early to speak of a growing trend.
'I do agree that there are glimmers of hope, but it is only hope at this stage, and we need to see more facts,' Bart van Ark, chief economist of the New York-based Conference Board, said in an interview.
The most positive signal has been the stock market: Major US indices have surged more than 20 per cent since reaching 12-year lows on March 9, spurring a global rally.
In the ailing financial sector, US banks including Wells Fargo & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc surprised investors by reporting a profit in the first quarter of 2009 and are even considering paying back emergency government loans handed out since October. Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp could follow suit later this week.
The US housing market, widely considered the epicentre of the global recession, has shown some indications of bottoming out. Sales of existing homes climbed 2.1 per cent in February, according to the National Association of Realtors, as consumers began taking advantage of historically low mortgage rates and a dramatic plunge in prices.
The small signs of progress come in the middle of a devastating downturn that most expect will last into 2010. The economy shrank 6.3 per cent in the final quarter of 2008, and economists are bracing for a similar drop in the first three months of this year.
'2009 will continue to be a difficult year,' Obama said in a wide- ranging economic speech Tuesday at Georgetown University. 'The severity of this recession will cause more job loss, more foreclosures and more pain before it ends.'
More than 5 million jobs have been lost since the US recession began in December 2007, the sharpest drop since the end of World War II.
At this stage, raising hopes has become mostly about simply beating analysts' dire expectations, rather than reporting a solid uptick in the economy.
The Institute for Supply Management's factory index gained for the third consecutive month in March, though at 36.3 it still remains well below 50, the dividing line between contraction and growth in the manufacturing sector.
Investors took heart from US car figures in March that marked an increase from the previous month - yet were down on average 38 per cent from March 2008 - as a sign that struggling carmakers may yet survive the downturn.
The economy remains extremely volatile: Retail sales dropped 1.1 per cent in March after increasing in January and February, while producer prices fell 1.2 per cent on the month, according to government figures released Tuesday.
That fragility has left Obama with a difficult balancing act. While striking a more positive tone can itself help restore confidence in the economy, sounding an upbeat note too early could easily erode the administration's credibility.
'Uncertainty is still very high,' van Ark said. 'As long as the positive signs are linked to real facts, it's a good thing.'
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Older Talkback
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The credit industry should have been controlled and strictly regulated decades ago.That his nothing to do with restricting liberty.Unless the right for the investment banks to create exotic and malignant fiscal products is equated to 'liberty' as advocated by previous poster.The limitless greed of the investment bankers caused the world crisis,that much is certain.
Right wing news channels like FOX are trying to blame the Obama administration for the crimes of the GOP.I just hope sufficient people have enough short term memory available to remember that the crisis started before the inauguration of Obama who was then presented with the bill of eight years of doing nothing and open complacency with corporate business.
I think it is only just to make those that profited from these years of deregulation pay for the consequences of their greed.Now,that will be hard to acomplish.The GOP ,having lost much of it's influence is trying hard to reconquer some influence by adopting new tactics .The usual smear is one of them,courtesy of FOX.Another one is disguising itself as a would-be self declared popular uprising such as the tea parties,initiated by the usual billionaires in order to have the poor fight their wars for them.Who is stupid enough to be lured into these republican propaganda wars .Who is stupid enough to participate in a fiscal war from the rich refusing to pay their share of the taxes against their victims,those that have to pay for this greed.I wonder...
..wwhy yes...this is Barak Obama....oh, hello...yep..another five billion headed your way....reorganization...hahahahahahaha!....what?...oh..those credit cards...yeah, those snakes...what?...of course not!..we'll insert a clause for car buying!...gotta go now....there's another investment banker who wants to make another...er... donation..yeah...that's it....donation....so he can get federal pension funds to manage....man..the work is just PILING up!. By the way, how do you hide briefcaes full of cash in Detroit anyways?...oh, don't worry...these are secure phones...well..not from the chinese but Hillary has them covered...ya know? Gotta go now!'
Makes Bush and Cheney look like a flower stand....Enron, god we should BE so lucky...
9% unemployment.....one out of every two dollars in fed spending deficit money....stalemate in Afghanistan....falling personal wealth, falling productivity....deflation...golly Tonny..we're sure glad that 4.9% un employment from 2007 is over!...man, THAT was REALLY frightening!
Change you cannot f--king believe!
What the GOP and so called fiscal conservatives want is unregulated capitalism without any supervision.A system in which the workers are told there is never room for pay raise but CEO's get incredible amounts of money looting the average joe and the tax payer:
1. Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake Energy Corp., $112.5 million
2. Sanjay Jha, Motorola Inc., $104.4 million
3. Robert Iger, Walt Disney Co., $51.1 million
4. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., $42.9 million
5. Kenneth Chenault, American Express Co., $42.9 million
6. Vikram Pandit, Citigroup Inc., $38.2 million
7. Steven Farris, Apache Corp., $37.2 million
8. Louis Camilleri, Philip Morris International Inc., $36.9 million
9. Kevin Johnson, Juniper Networks Inc., $36.1 million
10. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co., $35.7 million
Et voila ,these are the salaries of some of of your corporate tycoons for 2008 .and these are mostly the guys lamenting that now their income tax is raised .Feel sorry for them ?Then vote GOP.
By the way SP4 you are making an incredible and completely absurd statement;one I am sure you can not believe yourself:in 100 days Obama has raised the unemployment from 4 to 8 percent ?Have you no shame left in you ?Are you really thinking there is anybody at all on this planet able to swallow such an enormous lie ?You seem to think so .what you are doing is in fact shoving eight years of gross GOP incompetence on the shoulders of Obama.An eight year old child will have no trouble understanding the causes and consequences of financial and economical activity take more than 100 days .The global crisis which led to unemployment was caused by Wall Street greed .You now claim it was Obama ?Keep on lying SP4 and the GOP electorate will shrink until one needs a microscope to find them.For every person on earth there is a limit to stupidity,except you.
Recovering?? Who are they kidding!! America is on the way to the bottom of HELLLLLLLLLLLL.........................................hahahahahahahaaaaaaa aaaa
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More LiesApr 15th, 2009 - 21:24:08
The United States is no longer a free country. Liberty's decline in that country is no almost complete. The government now controls the entire credit industry by one means or another. Just to make sure that this control is never questioned, the government of the United States is now attempting to stifle speech by associating its critics with 'right wing extremism.'
Here is a newly released report made by the Intelligence and Analysis Office of the Department of Homeland Security:
www.thelibertypapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/hsa-rightwing-extre mism-09-04-07.pdf
Here is a quote from the linked report:''Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and
adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups),and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.''
In if you are a Libertarian, a conservative Republican, a fiscal conservative, or are Pro-Life, or prefer local authority to federal authority, then you may well be in league with gun-toting beer-swilling racists playing army out in the boonies. In other words, if you are in any way critical of the government of the United States, you are a potential problem.
The government of the United States has not limited this troubling pose to those who are classified by our brainless news editors of being 'right wing'. The so-called 'radical left' has been similarly besmirched in yet another report issued by the Intelligence and Analysis Office of the Department of Homeland Security. That report can be found here:
www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Leftwing_Extremist_Threat.pdf
It is very clear from reading these reports that the government of the United States is most fearful of individuals and 'small cells' and 'leaderless groups' on both ends of the political spectrum because such people are next to impossible to track and are able to act without prior warning.
Clearly then, it behooves the intended audience of these reports, state and local law enforcement officials, to keep a close watch on those who take the time and trouble to voice their political opinions. Any one of such individuals may well be harboring dark designs on the government of the United States.
What else can be said? These reports were initiated during the Bush Administration, so they are not a warning signal about the incompetence of the Obama Administration alone. They are a warning signal about the Bureaucracies our politicians have created. Presidents come and go, but the people who actually run the country remain entrenched. Those people are now paranoid and with good reason. Their incompetence and bumbling have now enraged the American public to the point that actual reform might well be in the offing.
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