This Isn't a Recession, It's a Collapse
seekingalpha.com
seekingalpha.com
Useless. Amateur Hour.
What I'd like in such articles is some root-cause analysis and at least a few pointers on how to proceed.
I'm proceeding by living my life. I took a loss on my house when I sold it, not primarily because of economic concern, but largely because it was time to move elsewhere (having kids etc). I have a manageable debt, mitigation strategies if that debt becomes undesirable, am not against taking on more if it becomes more desirable. My intent is to diversify into markets that may go contrary to the general economy (particularly petroleum).
I don't think anybody knows what to do. The events of the time remind me of yesteryear's disasters -- the pundits don't have anything to say, but the tape is rolling so they're talking.
If you remember back to 2006, there were lots of things wrong with the economy that everybody loved to point out. A housing bubble that was about to pop. A consumer debt bubble and usurious credit card rates. A Web 2.0 Startup bubble with a bunch of dumb ideas. Anemic wage & job growth since the last recession. A derivatives time-bomb. Massive government deficit spending to finance the war on Iraq. High oil prices, partially caused by demand from China and India and partially because of speculation. A large current account deficit, and fears of dollar overvaluation. A student loan bubble where many students take out expensive loans for college and then can't find jobs afterwards.
The majority of these doomsaying prophecies turned out to wrong - by my count, the housing bubble, high oil prices, and the derivatives time bomb were right, and everything else either hasn't happened yet (credit cards, student loans, dollar devaluation) or turned out to be quite minor (Web2.0 popping). But just those three were enough to put a serious dent in the economy.
The 1930s were similar: people like to blame it on the Fed constricting the money supply, but it was really that, plus the gold standard, plus Smoot-Hawley, plus the Dust Bowl, plus the bursting of the stock market bubble, plus the bursting of the Florida real estate bubble. Any one of those might've been shrugged off, but all of them together was cataclysmic.
I don't believe we have seen the bottom of the market, but I'm hopeful that the American economy that emerges from our original mess will be much more rational & sustainable.
We must collectively recognize the need for long term economic vision or else repeatedly suffer the fickle repercussions of short sighted greed, and delusion. Our nation, all of its industries, all of our people don't exist in a vacuum. Each of our actions and individual productivity in aggregate results in shifts in our economic strength and resiliency.
And what about those 'projected returns' figures that never materialised?
And what about Earth's limited capacity to sustain unlimited needs?
And what about that huge desert in Iraq where once a great civilization flourished?
And finally what abt - "There is enough for everyone's need not for everyone's greed - MKG"
Intellectuality is not the only angle of looking at things. Try it out with any woman !
Its not about avoiding mines. We could go about drilling mines on the moon.
The point is this - 'Consumerism thats out of control. A need not unlike that of a child and that too which is ever growing (fuelled by ever-growing population). Its about growing up to be true producers - like nature'
Geithner Sees Evidence of a Financial Recovery http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/economy/17geithne...
Summers Says U.S. ‘Close to a Level Path’ to Recovery http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=antm...
Fed's Hoenig says U.S. recovery to be very slow http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE56D6CK20090714
We recovered from the Panic and now we are going through a Recession. There's no collapse as far as I can see but like any panic, it sure felt like we were close to a collapse.
State governments were completely unable to cope with the sudden, significant decrease in funds: California and NY are in big trouble.
But it's not a collapse. People should start reading about the other major panics that the US experienced instead of just reacting to the current one. Turns out it's not as bad as what we went through before. But it is bad.
The Housing Bubble will unfortunately go down in history with Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble, and the the Great Panic of 1873. We'll recover but unfortunately, it's going to be slow treading and state services will be cut significantly even while federal services will likely expand.
As the saying goes, "We'll survive by doing each others laundry". That saying, of course, is meant to be a joke. The US can't just do it's own laundry to survive. We can't just sell latte's to each other, either. We have to actually produce more than we consume.
So, we either have to produce a lot more, or consume a lot less. I don't see us producing more, do you?
I used to comfort myself that we had evolved as a nation, from doers into investors, and that we still brought value to the world by providing the capital needed for the rest of the world to grow, and so we were indeed, earning our bread. My faith in this viewpoint has been shaken, however.
All is not bread and circuses for non-US folks either. If the US consumer quits buying, I think that's a big deal to everybody.
You know that this is not sustainable if you look beyond US's borders. It's a big planet and someone will have to produce less than they consume or this won't really work.
"we had evolved as a nation, from doers into investors"
This is not what I would call evolution.
"If the US consumer quits buying, I think that's a big deal to everybody."
It is, but it's not as big a deal as it would be a couple decades ago.
We (as in "mankind" - I don't live in the US) will survive. In the end, this adjustment may even prove helpful. At least, that could be the viewpoint of those who survive us ;-)
You say that it's a big planet, and someone will have to produce less than they consume. Sure, for an instant. That's why God invented Capacitors, Inductors, and Bank Ledgers. To smooth over the instantaneous fluctuations in the system. However, long term, the capacitor needs replenishing. Long term, a nation better produce more than it consumes, to make up for the times it produces less, and for the inefficiencies in the system. This is a conservation of energy mindset that I often apply to economics. Adam Smith tells me that it's not a zero sum game, and that you and I can trade, and both come out better for it. This does violate my conservation of energy model, to some degree. However, I still maintain that I better produce something, and what I produce, I better not use all of it, as I need some of it to trade with you.
You say evolution from doers to investors is not evolution. I say it is. I can bake a pie, or I can finance a 200 chef pastry kitchen. You're saying I've serviced humanity less by creating the kitchen than I did by baking the pie? If you think that, you can't be reasoned with.
You assure me that mankind will survive. Thanks. I never doubted it. What does that have to do with anything at all?
Mobile phones work miracles on conciseness.
"I better not use all of it, as I need some of it to trade with you."
This is not what I meant. If you base your economy on producing more than you consume, you end up risking having nobody to buy your goods because everybody got somewhat self-sufficient or got their supplies someplace else. It's nothing but smart to be as self-sufficient as possible.
The strategic dilemma between being a doer and an investor is that, despite the illusion it's the other way around, the investor is actually serving the doer. You see - your kitchen is valuable as long as you have people wanting to cook, but absolutely useless if you have people who want to fix cars. Investment capital is a very useful tool, but it's only part of the machinery - it only smooths out some fluctuations that allow some companies to get started. Converting your whole economy from 100% doers into 100% investors is suicidal.
(However America may provide a service as the world's speculator, if you meant that. (No negative connotations implied.))
(1) Large opportunities are available for businesses to invest and make money.
(2) People start spending money again because consumer confidence improves.
BTW, the goal is not to produce more than we consume. That, in my view, is a formula for failure. The goal is to create a more stable supply and demand curve. If consumers don't spend enough money, then the problems get worse as a business's gross revenue decreases.
If we stop panicking, spend their money, stop with the bail outs, provide tax incentives for entrepeneurs, and most importantly, provide an opportunity for business to make money as well as compete with existing giants, then the recession will start easing into recovery.
(1) Large opportunities are available for businesses to invest and make money.
- where? VCs obviously don't think so. VC down 50% http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/17/venture-capital-down-50...
(2) People start spending money again because consumer confidence improves.
- How? They have no savings, and their credit's being pulled.
The way see it is that the recession is going to be long, very long. But it wont be a collapse. We will see state after state, company after company, country after country hit crisis and be bailed out.
The crucial thing is this will happen in sequence rather than all at once.
We survived a major banks crisis earlier this year and can probably survive another similar crisis without the world going to ruin.
Im predicting 10 years to recover from this myself. Any other predictions?
Who's gonna pay back the bailout?
However, if a market persists in unemployment rate long after a recession than there are forces preventing pricing changes and the reallocation of resources. Such forces are often government regulation or bailout, maybe perhaps stubborn unions or cartels.
Again, too much supply, not enough demand.
> Again, too much supply, not enough demand.
And adjusting prices is the orthodox mechanism to match supply and demand.
Anyway, in a physical sense there is enough work to do. We haven't reached Mars, yet. Diseases afflict the world's population. And where is my yacht?
To be honest, I think the recovery will be surprisingly fast. Economic cycles are not what they used to be. At this point in history our economic infrastructure has become so sophisticated that within no time you will have an dramatic amount of new business starting to carry the weight of the economy.
It's like a forest fire. First there is the pain, then there is the barren wasteland, but then you see the new light opens up the seeds and the ashes of the old forest feed the young trees. A new forest appears in no time.
How? Our manufacturing sector has been taken apart in the last 20 years. A large amount of baby boomers are retiring now, cashing out 401k/IRA/social security/medicare.
I'm American, and I'll say that this is a typical American thing to say. We live in a world economy now. Certain parts of the world specialize in certain sectors. We can come out of a recession without depending on manufacturing. What you're saying is the equivalent of saying that a place like Silicon Valley can never escape a recession because they don't have a huge manufacturing base like, say, Pittsburgh.
Yes, we make game/tv/movie/porn/internet. But notice that Asia is notorious at pirating them.
Yes, but in this worldwide recession, people only buy things that they need. Those things you mentioned are all advanced (want, not need) products, which has dropped severely in demand. Things we need (oil, cheap stuff, cheap services) are mostly manufactured by other countries.
The middle part of the country grows a large portion of what we eat. I can't state everything everyone needs, but food is certainly one of those things. On top of that, I don't see how you can say medical advancements are something we don't need.
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EDIT: On top of the Crash of 1929, agricultural conditions in the Midwest of the United States greatly added to the problems.
http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com
It publishes excerpts from the Wall Street Journal on this day in 1930. The interesting thing is that the stock market was at nearly the same place relative to its peak at this time in 1930, the newspapers were all saying the same thing ("The worst is behind us", "Look for a slow recovery in the fall", "Businesses report anemic earnings but the pace of decline has slowed"), and it seems unemployment was fairly similar too.
Make of that what you will.
People always compare this to the Great Depression, but they never talk about the recessions and stock market crashes (e.g. in the 80's) that did not, in fact, lead to depressions.
The big difference between this recession and the 1973 or 1980 recessions, IMHO, is that the perception back then seemed to be that we were doomed. According to my parents and the books/news accounts I've read from then, people thought that American supremacy was permanently on the wane, the Japanese would kick our asses, and we just had to get used to a new era of austerity and lack of opportunity. While now, the mainstream news media seem to think a recovery is just around the corner, the worst is behind us, etc. Much like the 1930s.
In other words, we were not doomed then because we thought we were doomed and acted accordingly, and we are doomed now because we think we're not doomed.
Which makes sense in a perverse way, if you think of a recession as an economic signal to stop doing what you were doing, and find something new to do. Like how many young people in the 70s eschewed the corporate paper-pushing jobs and started playing around with computers.
Something similar could happen here, but it'll take more than social networking sites and fart-noise iPhone apps.
This constant focus on "jobs" worries me quite bit. It's not just you but politicians worldwide seem to operate that way. More jobs in the short term trump stability in the longterm. This results in painfully wrong tradeoffs being made left and right (billions pumped into dead auto-companies) which only drives up the bill that someone has to pay later.
IMHO jobs are not the main metric we should be looking at anymore. At least not without differentiation. I'm not from the US but as I'm told many americans already need multiple jobs to stay afloat. Over here in germany we have millions of people in subsidized "jobs" that don't quite deserve to be called that (mostly to keep them out of the unemployment statistics, afaik). All of that is is probably looking even less rosy in other countries.
I think much more interesting topics would be the overall concentration of wealth (e.g. along the lines of an improved gini coefficient) and the size of the "middle class" which seems to be shrinking everywhere. These are ofcourse just examples but I think this is the area where we should be looking for metrics, because the gap between "low-skilled" and "high-skilled" (or low/high income, low/high education) workers is widening so rapidly.
There is inflation in things you need (gas, food, energy, utilities) and deflation in things you want (luxury items, car, house)
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/cpi-ipc/cpi-ipc-eng...
DEFLATION:
-Shelter
-Clothing, footwear
-Transportation
INFLATION:
-Food
-Household furnishings/equipment
-Health and personal care
-Recreation, education, reading
-Alcohol and tobacco
So it's not as clear cut (at least here in Canada over the last year) as necessities seeing their prices go up with luxury items seeing them fall.
For that matter, gas prices were like 50% higher before this crisis began...
The debt moratoriums will be either explicit or implicit (massive inflation).
Creditors will lose out and debtors will win big. Assets are probably overvalued, so there will be some deflation there.
Broader Unemployment Rate Hit 16.5% in June
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/02/broader-unemployme...
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I think you can only safely say we are in Great Depression territory when you start to see food lines.
Southwest Florida food pantries in need as supplies run low http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/jul/02/southwest-florida...
Sacramento police are shutting down a new homeless tent city http://www.capradio.org/articles/articledetail.aspx?articlei...
Ah, those lovely Americans. Always clamouring for the lost paradise of an industrial economy.
Looking at GDP figures, Germany was hit much harder by the global downturn so far than the US. And we do produce things you can touch with your hands here.
(Ironically, a few years ago Germans were worried about the heavy reliance on industry. Pundits worried about how Germany might close the gap to more modern service economies in the UK and US. They imagined a ladder of value adding that starts with agriculture, goes to industry, and then to services.)