Friday, February 1, 2013

There Will Be No Recovery Without Reform


There are 4 million fewer Americans employed now than the month before the recession began (I believe the recession officially began November of 2007).

There were 5.3 million more workers during the "jobless recover" of the depression in the early 2000s after the dot.com bubble burst.

These statistics are from Spencer Jakab "Jobs Environment Changes With the Times" The Wall Street Journal February 1, 2013 p. C1.


I would like to note that most of the jobs that have been created during this current recession "cycle," which began at the end of 2007, are low-wage and part-time jobs.

A Part-Time, Low-Wage Epidemic: The jobs gained recently by the U.S. economy are disproportionately low-paying, insecure ones. By Mortimer Zuckerman. The Wall Street Journal November 5, 2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203707604578094601253124258.html 
 

Furthermore, a reminder that the US GDP shrank last quarter, so we could get more job losses:

Real GDP decreased 0.1% Annualized in Q4 Read more at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2013/01/real-gdp-decreased-01-annualized-in-q4.html#ReDQ5JmAI06VX1gI.99 

[Excerpted] Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent....



Finally, its important to keep the so-called "bright spot" of housing in perspective

From a previous post:Some Perspective on the Recovery of Home Prices

Housing is being heralded as 'in recovery,' unless you look carefully at the data. See how the headline frames a recovery despite not very promising data:

"Home Sales Recovery Holds Place" by Alan Zibel The Wall Street Journal Jan 26-27 p. A3

"New home sales rose by 20% last year . . . 

...last year was the third-worst on record for new-home sales, highlighting the long road to recovery for the industry. . . . December's results were down 7.3% on a monthly basis to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000, but figures for Sep through Nov were revised upwards."

Majia here: Now let us looking at housing stock. Do you see a mini-bubble here?

"Housing is Back - but Housing Stocks Are Due for a Fall" by Brett Arends WSJ Jan 26-27 p. B7

[Excerpted] At current levels, say analysts, homebuilding stocks have priced in much of the recovery ahead. As the chart shows, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Housing Sector Index has rebounded far more significantly than housing itself. Shares of Dr. Horton now trade at 1.9 times the  per-share value of the company's net assets, approaching the 2.3 level seen in 2004-2005....

...Pulte Group has swelled to 3.7 times its per-share net assets, a record...[end]


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2 comments:

  1. Majia....good job, exposing truth in plain sight!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Stock

    It is always good to read your comments

    Majia

    ReplyDelete

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