Just so everyone is clear on what a recession is

Chapdog

Abreast of the situations
A Recession is a decline in GDP for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Just so you know the forecast shows we are currently not at risk for a recession
 
I don't know, Chap; I read an article in the WSJ last week that quoted economists from all over the spectrum, and the debate wasn't really "if," it was "how bad." There was fairly unanimous consent that we're in some fairly big economic trouble in '08...all of that credit debt is coming home to roost. This is consistent with everything else I've been seeing, as well.

I hope it is NOT that bad, and only a minor correction, but there was some real doom & gloomers in the WSJ report.

Oh - and your Pats looked pretty human last night. The aura of invincibilty is gone!
 
3rd quarter GDP is going to be revised up to 3.9%-4.1% this week.
Exports are up 16%-17%
Early indications are Xmas shopping season has started out +8% over last year.
Before any of this information.. CBO was saying the mortgage crisis would not be enough alone to push into recession.

Dont think its going to happen. but i could be wrong.
 
Eagles had nothing to lose. they played fast and loose. this strategy will most of the time result in a L for competition against the pats.. but hell.. nothing else works.

Also Belecheck was irate.. he will make some serious DB adjustments this week.
 
The Pats are soft. All you have to do is hit 'em & they fold. It's ironic; they're almost exactly like the Rams team they beat for the 1st Superbowl win.

They are not a cold weather team this year. They're going to regret getting homefield advantage...
 
A Recession is a decline in GDP for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Just so you know the forecast shows we are currently not at risk for a recession


You neocons and your dishonest spinning is getting on my nerves. GDP only reflects activity, not an actual increased prosperity and security for a majority of people.
 
lol far from soft.. think about it yesterday.
1) trick plays. onside kicks.. flea flickers.. etc.. highly risky
2) elimination of Randy moss.. basically saying beat us with your other receivers. highly risky.
3) Running receivers into middle of the field.. (this was biggest exposure.. aka pats DB's have been running on outside to compensate for mediocre talent in that area).. I cant believe eagles were first to notice.
4) play calling.. andy reed and staff did awesome job..
5) pressure on brady.. sending blitze packages.. pats didnt pick up blitz well.. they can compensate by using screens.
6) the starts aligned and hell froze over... but pats won their trap game.

I will have to see this happen again in the coming weeks to the pats in order for me to admit any weakness whatsoever.. 1 times doesn't justify it.
 
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They were outplayed, pure & simple, by a more physical team. First time in awhile that I've seen BB out-coached, as well.

Take Moss out, and they become beatable. Take Moss out in the cold weather, and they become VERY beatable. That team can't run or tackle; it's built on Brady's arm.
 
They were outplayed, pure & simple, by a more physical team. First time in awhile that I've seen BB out-coached, as well.

Take Moss out, and they become beatable. Take Moss out in the cold weather, and they become VERY beatable. That team can't run or tackle; it's built on Brady's arm.

they can run.. unfortunately they have a depleted RB core. morris out for the season.. marony less then 100%.. i sort of wish they took cory dillon up on his offer to come back..

Yes i agree BB was out coached. but not enough to lose. It was nice to actually watch a competitive game last night for a change. usually its over by 2nd quarter.
 
let me tie this back to the topic at hand..

2 games like this in a row (just like 2 quarters of negative GDP) will indicate a weakness to me.
 
I was encouraged by watching the ballgame last night. I had planned to be in bed by halftime nut Feely and company changed that plan. It was a good game and it gives me a little hope for the rest of the season. Oh, and if I were Donavan McNabb I'd be worried.
 
Ok Back to the topic at hand. Chap, this article was mentioned in another post yesterday. I asked, but got no answer as to why this guy is wrong. Perhaps you can help.

And to Its Fabled Economy
Goodbye to the City on the Hill
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS/Counterpunch.org

"We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." --John Winthrop

America is being destroyed. Many Americans are unaware, others are indifferent, and some intend it.

The destruction is across the board: the political and constitutional system, the economy, social institutions including the family itself, citizenship, and the character and morality of the American people.

Those who rely on the Internet for information are aware that the Bush regime has successfully assaulted the separation of powers and civil liberty. Both Bush and Cheney claim that they are not bound by laws that impinge on their freedom of action or that interfere with their ideas of the power of their offices. Bush has issued presidential directives that permit him to make himself a dictator by declaring a national emergency. Cheney asserts that his handling of secret documents is not subject to oversight or investigation or bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information.

The foundation of social organization--marriage, family, and parental control over children--is disintegrating.

Mass unassimilated and illegal immigration has destroyed the meaning of American citizenship and forced large numbers of Americans into unemployment. For example, Steve Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies reported on June 20 that state employment data show that in the first six years of the 21st century 218,000 high school graduates in the state of Georgia have been employment-displaced by immigrants. Moreover, wages have stagnated, putting the lie to the claim that there is a shortage of workers. If there were a labor shortage, wages would be bid up and rising.

Many Americans are unconcerned that the US government in behalf of an undeclared agenda has invaded two countries, killed hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians, produced 4 million Iraqi refugees, rejected the Geneva Conventions and reverted to medieval torture dungeons. It does not trouble them that their government blocked ceasefires and UN resolutions so that Israel could bomb and murder Lebanese civilians and destroy the country's infrastructure.

Americans, whose ethical behavior toward others was once reinforced by having to look oneself in the mirror, now have a different ethos.
Many cannot look themselves in the mirror unless they have pulled a fast one and advanced themselves at someone else's expense. It is not only crooked prosecutors, such as Michael Nifong, who get their jollies from destroying their fellow citizens.

A google search will call up enough information to make the case for these points many times over. However, the destruction of the US economy, though far advanced, is still largely unknown. It is to this subject that we turn.

For a number of years Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services and I have documented from BLS nonfarm payroll jobs data that the US economy in the 21st century no longer creates net new jobs in tradable goods and services. In the 21st century, job growth in "the world's only superpower" has a definite third world flavor. US job growth has been limited to domestic services that cannot be moved offshore, such as waitresses and bartenders and health and social services.

These are not jobs that comprise ladders of upward mobility. Income inequality is worsening, and education is no longer the answer.

The problem is that middle class jobs, both in manufacturing and in professional occupations such as engineering, are being offshored as corporations replace their American workforces with foreigners. I have called jobs offshoring "virtual immigration."

The latest bombshell is that even those professional jobs that remain located in America are not safe. There is a vast industry of immigration law firms that enable American corporations to replace their American workers with foreigners brought in on work visas.

For years Americans have been told that work visas are only issued in cases where there are no Americans with the necessary skills to fill the jobs. Americans have been reassured that safeguards are in place to prevent US companies from using the work visas to replace their American employees with foreigners paid below the prevailing US wage. Now, thanks to a video placed on "YouTube" by a US law firm, Cohen & Grigsby, marketing its services, we now know that it is easy for US companies to legally evade the "safeguards" and to replace their American employees with lower paid foreigners.

The video shows Lawrence Lebowitz, Vice President for Marketing for the law firm of Cohen & Grigsby, together with a panel of the law firm's attorneys, explaining to an audience of employers how to use loopholes in the laws governing the work visas to hire foreign workers in place of Americans. Lebowitz says, "our goal is clearly, not to find a qualified and interested US worker."

Cohen & Grigsby's legal experts describe the strategy for ensuring that no American firm has to hire an American. The advertising requirements can be met by advertising the job in obscure or ethnic newspapers in locations where there are no likely job candidates. If a qualified American candidate turns up, "have the manager of that specific position step in and . . . go through the whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify them for this position--in most cases there doesn't seem to be a problem."

The "prevailing wage" requirement is evaded, for example, by making the offered salary and raises contingent on receipt of the green card, usually 3 or 4 years away, or by disguising the job by understating the job requirements. For example, a job requiring an advanced degree can be listed as requiring a bachelor's degree, but filled with a foreigner with a higher degree. As the higher degree is not listed as a job requirement, the employer is able to secure the foreign employee below the prevailing wage.

University of California computer science professor Norman Matloff has an excellent presentation available at his online site about the lack of impediments to the ability of US firms to replace their American employees with foreigners. Matloff says to keep in mind that Cohen & Grigsby "is NOT a rogue law firm." The advice provided by Cohen & Grigsby is the standard advice given by the hoards of immigration attorneys who are personally cleaning up by putting Americans out of work.

Except for Lou Dobbs on CNN, the US TV and print media have so far ignored the astounding story. Where are the headlines: "US Jobs: No American Need Apply"?

Chances are high that economists will ignore the story also.
Economists have made fools of themselves with their hyped claims that jobs offshoring is a great benefit to America and that any attempt to stop it would bring hardship, failed companies, and lost American jobs. When a profession gets egg all over its face, it closes ranks and goes into denial.

Unlike the post-depression generation of US economists, recent generations of economists have been indoctrinated with confidence in business. They believe that business knows best and that the free market will prevent or correct any mistakes. Many economists today are well paid shills for special interests. Others, simply careless, have assumed that statistical measures of high rates of US productivity and GDP growth were indications of the benefits that offshoring was bringing to Americans.

Only a few economists, such as myself and Charles McMillion, noticed the inconsistency between alleged high rates of productivity and GDP growth on one hand and stagnant real median incomes and rising income inequality on the other. Somehow the US economy was having GDP and productivity growth that was not showing up in growth in the incomes of Americans.
Thanks to economist Susan N. Houseman and the March 22 issue of Business Week, we now know, as I reported in the print edition of CounterPunch (June 1-15, 2007) and on online at vdare.com, that much of the growth in US productivity and GDP was an illusion created by statistics that mistakenly attributed productivity gains achieved abroad to the US economy.

With the ladders of upward mobility for Americans dismantled by offshoring and work visas, with the very real problems in mortgage and housing markets, with the very real stress put on the US dollar's reserve currency role by Bush's trillion dollar war that is financed by foreigners, with the downward revisions in US GDP and productivity growth that are now mandatory, and with a variety of other problems that I haven't the space to deal with, the fabled US economy is a thing of the past.

Just like America's prestige. Just like the world's goodwill toward America. Just like American liberty.

The eyes of all peoples are still upon us, only for different reasons. Whom will we attack next? When will we be bankrupt? What good is the American consumer market when the mass of the people are employed in third world jobs? How much longer will those trillions of dollars held by foreign governments be worth anything? How long before Americans will be knocking on European doors claiming political asylum.

(Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions
 
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A Recession is a decline in GDP for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Just so you know the forecast shows we are currently not at risk for a recession

Actually, the technical breakdown of the DOW does indeed suggest we are headed into a bear market. The next technical indicator is the 12550 intraday low from Aug 16th. We break that and it will be an even stronger indicator of a significant bear market.

This market is not pretty and it will very likely get worse before better. Any rally here is an opportunity to sell. Talk with your advisors, get defensive.
 
3rd quarter GDP is going to be revised up to 3.9%-4.1% this week.
Exports are up 16%-17%
Early indications are Xmas shopping season has started out +8% over last year.
Before any of this information.. CBO was saying the mortgage crisis would not be enough alone to push into recession.

Dont think its going to happen. but i could be wrong.

Decline in dollar is the main reason for increase in exports.

Mortgage problems combined with rising energy, rising grains, declining dollar and ever increasing debt will push us into a recession. Out of the previous, the declining dollar is most significant right now.
 
Google Charles McMillion. He's no slouch in the economic field. I mean just a Ph.D from Rutgers. Probably close to a GED but I am not sure.
 
Socrtease - Overall the author makes some good points but i have yet to see the end results of all this stuff. in a way we are in uncharted territory. perhaps we need to visit new ways of measuring.
 
Actually, the technical breakdown of the DOW does indeed suggest we are headed into a bear market. The next technical indicator is the 12550 intraday low from Aug 16th. We break that and it will be an even stronger indicator of a significant bear market.

This market is not pretty and it will very likely get worse before better. Any rally here is an opportunity to sell. Talk with your advisor's, get defensive.

oh im definitely baffled by the market. i have 30% off the table right now. not touching till end of December at least. had a horrid November so far lost tons of money so i cut my losses for now.

but still we are not at risk for recession per current CBO forecasts. if said forecasts change then its a different story.
 
My concern is he is right. That productivity and GDP growth are no longer as strongly tied to income growth. And that the economists that use that for measure will get blindsided when the US economy takes a downturn. They will say "but productivity was high! GDP was high!" This guy makes some gloomy predictions but it seems that he and Charles McMillion are in the minority.
 
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