I thought this economy is in poor shape?

Question

I am doing better than ever! My stock portfolio is doing better than ever. The DOW just went back over 14K.....Umemployment is at 40 year lows....Housing crises is area related not entire US....SO, why all the DOOM AND GLOOM?

oh, I also locked in a fixed mortagage at 5.25% in 03....only dummies got ARMS or other scam mortgages. so , blame yourselves if you are in a crises not the USA!

Answer 1

Just this year? My stock portfolio is well diverse and all are performing great. Without getting into numbers, my returns over a 5 year average are tremendous. I have purchased a 4th home recently (for personal use.) With foreclosures rising, I have also been purchasing more homes for rental until the housing market rises. I have also purchased boats, cars, etc. I have a great job on the board of a medium defense contract company.

Things are good!

Answer 2

The economy is doing well, in spite of the problems that make things a little shaky. There all kinds of reasons, not the least is the crashing dollar with little or no inflation. This makes US goods and services quite a bargain on the world market.

But the doom and gloom may indeed be real. The housing and mortgage crisis is wide spread, and deepening. Not exactly fodder for irrational exuberance.

As for the stock market, yes, it is near a record, but its only about 15% higher than its pre-9/11-dot.com record almost 8 years ago If you got a 2%/yr return over 8 years you would not be bragging.

Answer 3

Whoop-ti-do!
I have not heard "doom and gloom" on the 6 o'clock news, further evidence that it is run by Liberals.
The economy IS in a terrible plight: The Canadian dollar is about equal to the U.S. dollar; our deficit is at an all-time high; our trade deficit is deplorable.
Inflation (real inflation, not the phony Liberal's version) is about 10% annually (proven by the fact that prices have more than doubled in the past 7 years!)
Until people quit importing junk from China (and other countries, but China is Number 1) and quit sending BILLIONS ($30,000,000,000 sent to Latin America by Latinos who have come to the U.S.) to Latin America, the Philippines and all the other countries; quit allowing criminals (illegals) to live in the U.S. (the cost is about $2.6 trillion for the 10,000,000 illegal adults or $260,000 EACH PERSON!), then our economy will improve.
(See the American Legion magazine for October 2007 as well as business publications for details.)
At present, the population of the U.S. is more than 300,000,000; the population of the world is 6.7 billion, yet the U.S. provides 28% of the output for the entire world. Yes, we are doing better than MOST countries, but that doesn't mean our economy is in good shape.
We have a saying in this country: "The rich (including yourself) get richer and the poor get poorer".
I agree people were not using their heads when accepting the A.R.M.s; of course, the mortgage people really push them, trying hard to get people to use them. Most people did not take even Econ 101; most people went to public school, a total failure, so what would you expect? People want more college educated people; why? Going to college does not make people more intelligent! Start over; build a good school from the ground up and quit thinking that throwing money at a cause will solve the problems. It doesn't; it just wastes money.
I remember in the early '80s when the DOW was less than 1,000...taking inflation into account, 14,000 is NOT hot; it is NOT keeping up with inflation. Check the prices back then, if you do not remember. At that time, you could still buy a brand-new house in California for less than $30,000! Now, in the same area, you can sell a 40-year old house, a small one, for half a million dollars! Don't rely on Government statistics: check business sources, then tell me the economy is in good shape.
Kudos to you on your successes; there are 299,999,999 others that may not be as fortunate as yourself.

Answer 4

The stock market has nothing to do with the soundness of the economy or its potential for growth moving forward.

The decline of the dollar is proportionate to the rise in stock prices - at the end of the day, your portfolio is only worth as many Euros or Canadian Dollars as it was before, and this is evident from the never-ending, and sharp recent price increases.

A constantly falling dollar is NOT good for foreign investment here, a major component of our high standard of living. If our currency keeps falling, foreign investors don't want to put their bets on our companies because they can't win. You could get a 10-15% annual return just by investing in NON-U.S. Certificates of Deposit.

Answer 5

President Bush has screwed things up so badly!

We have virtually NO unemployment (except in Michigan)
Interest rates are low
Inflation is low
We haven't been attacked since 2001, and we're WINNING in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read the answers to this question, "the Canadian dollar is worth more than ours"! How bad can it get? The Canadian dollar is worth more than ours, how will we deal with it? When we visit Canada our dollar will buy less!

Answer 6

honest american.....only cons you say? Seems to me that Diane Feinstein helped her defense contractor husband land some sweet deals. I'm sure there are more LibDems involved beyond that example.
BTW, how is your hero Michael Moores Halliburton stock doing? Just thought I'd ask.......

Answer 7

Well i'm happy that your portfolio is doing well...seriously i'm not being a smarta**,... and you got your home at the right time good for you !

However, most American's do not own stock. So your economy and the economy of others isn't necessarily the same.

Unemployment is low, but inflation is still looming. This means that most people have jobs, but the jobs aren't paying enough to keep up with the rise in prices for virtually every sector - including housing.

Pick a person off the street....for the sake of argument let's start with Wall Street.. and ask them what the leading economic indicator is... you might get an expected response (the DOW, NASDAQ...etc.) Now pick someone else off the street....like my street and pose the same question...again you might get another expected response ( price per gallon of milk, price per gallon of gasoline, median home price)

Like I said...there are two different economies.. The economy for the people who are above the poverty line, and the economy for the rest of us.

Now don't get me wrong... i'm not player hating on you, as I said i'm happy for you...just understand that your economy isn't the same economy many other people are living in.

That's kind of what turns me off about alot of politicians... They want to come accross as someone who understand the average working class person...they want to pretend they identify with you... But how can they ?...they don't even pump their own gas or shop for their own groceries !

The income gap is getting too wide...and prices keep going up. This is how we get this "us and them" mentality growing among the working middle class.

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The Other Guy - good for you....i'm happy for you too !, but you've missed the point completely.

My point is there are two economies... an economy that is not good...and an economy that is really good. We're effectively removing the middle class though... so what you end up with is the super rich, the i'm doing ok people, and everyone else is dirt poor....if we keep on the current track. My point is that it's not enough to say unemployment is low. I can have 10 McJobs and not be able to afford to live where I work.

Example. I work for the second largest homebuilder in the country... They are building anything fancy, just a builder of your standard 3/2 home. If I had not purchased my house in 02', well.. ....today, I would not be able to afford to buy a home built by the people I work for. That is a fundamental imbalance in the economy. Alot of it is area specific as the originator mentioned - SW FL - but it is taking a serious toll on the local economy...

people who have lived here all their lives are now moving away because they are on fixed (retired) incomes that aren't keeping up with inflation.

We're not talking about just the "lazy" un-employed people bitching about the economy... I'm talking about hard working people who work overtime every week and still struggle to pay their mortgages and are running out of gas on their way to work.

Answer 8

I'm glad things are working out for you in your little world but you don't speak for EVERYONE do you !?
The "dumb" people who got arms in their loans problem thought the same way as you, not preparing for that bubble to burst.
Again, it's that myopic thinking that the Dow is high so what's the problem ? It's all smoke and mirrors that's the problem.

Answer 9

We have had a period of strong growth since the early 1980s.

Long economic expansions coupled with brief shallow contractions, low inflation, low unemployment.

You can thank the Fed for for its use of anti-inflation policies, Reagan for instituting policies of deregulation and tax cuts, and every president since then for keeping tax rates below pre-Reagan Socialist levels.

Answer 10

AMEN!

This year, I got to buy the first house I've ever had and I'm 50. It's a great year.