Posted by FlaMac on 9/5/06 7:42am
Msg #143508
Anyone watch the financial forecast on NBC this weekend...
Housing sales expected to fall by over 30 percent. They predict the property values have been overstated in most areas and will take a drop by 10 percent. The experts are predicting a recession..tho the broadcaster didn't say how soon. They think that when the Fed meets in September they won't raise the interest rate...but aren't willing to predict anything beyond this Fall.
I was hoping that the politicians would hold it all together until after the election...least we'd have a couple more years of success. But, the economists' think it's too late. It's starting to feel alot like Reagenomics. I will say this...I have seen some real dirty loans lately which tells me the brokers are getting desperate.
Any ideas on how those of us who don't want to return to the regular work force will survive? I never bought into the bankruptcy work the lady on a competing site was touting....and it didn't seem to flourish as she predicted when they changed the bankruptcy law. But, during a recession they say that bankruptcys, foreclosures and divorces are abundant so maybe that is the direction to move toward?
I wish there was a way that we could form our own industry as paralegals and not just signing agents...utilizing the internet...yet working in conjunction with law firms. Most attorney's don't even want to bother with the simple uncontested stuff. If the client doesn't have at least 50k in liquid assets they aren't even interested. Thier fees are so high a middle class person can't even afford one...much less someone makes little money.
If there was a glut of other proceedings in the market....possibly we could convince them to farm them out to self-employed paralegals...which is something that's never been done much..until the internet and computers. Lawyers are greedy...they'd rather see the consumer struggle to find an affordable one than give up any of the business
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Reply by Kevin/Ct on 9/5/06 11:01am
Msg #143545
I heard quite a different prognosis. There was some concern that the Fed's 17 interest rate hikes may have gone too far and thrown us into a recession. However, the unemployment report published last week indicated that the job market is still strong, and that we are most likely headed for a short soft touch down rather than a crash. This morning one economist indicated that the declining prices in housing is an adjustment from an overheated market, and that the 10% predicted price declines will actually attract buyers to the market. Notwithstanding the 17 hikes in interest, the mortgage rates remain well below 7%. I can remember 4 years ago when economists said anything below 8% was good. There will definitely be a slow period, but I do not think it will be prolonged.
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Reply by Merry_CA on 9/5/06 12:42pm
Msg #143573
The attached my cast some light on the economic outlook:
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Editorial: Little to celebrate on Labor Day
If you were planning to celebrate the holiday at St. Paul's annual Labor Day picnic on Harriet Island today, think again -- the Trades and Labor Assembly has canceled the event this year for budgetary reasons. It's a fitting metaphor for a society that has consigned organized labor to the back pages of history and placed its faith in free markets to allocate the spoils of economic growth.
Before Americans laugh away the ghosts of Samuel Gompers and Walter Reuther, however, they should take a look at what is actually happening in the U.S. economy today.
In the last 10 years, the productivity of the average worker has surged by 30 percent. Yet wages and salaries have risen just 11 percent. Total compensation (including pensions and health insurance) has climbed even less, and the household income of the median family is up just 7 percent.
Since the recession of 2001, the overall economy has been growing steadily for five years. Yet the income of the median household is down, the number of people in poverty is up, and the number of uninsured Americans is at an all-time high -- trends that are unprecedented in previous postwar recoveries.
Where did all the money go? The distinguishing feature of the 2001-2005 expansion is the remarkable share of income that has gone to corporate profits and high-income households. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank with liberal leanings but impeccable math, reported Thursday that corporate profits this year captured the largest share of national income in half a century, and that the share of national income going to employee compensation (even including health insurance) is at its lowest level in nearly 40 years.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with an economy delivering healthy returns to capital and skill, for that rewards investment and ambition. For a century or more, American economic history has been a tug of war between capital and labor.
But at some point the pendulum swings too far. When average Americans can't afford health insurance, when schoolteachers and firefighters can't afford to live in average neighborhoods of average cities, when middle-class parents can't afford college for their kids -- that's when a society finds its political cohesion and civic confidence unraveling.
For just this reason, most modern industrial nations -- Japan, Germany, Britain, Korea, France, Australia, Italy, Canada -- have what economists call "mediating institutions." They take different forms in different countries -- strong unions, family allowances, universal health insurance, a high minimum wage -- but in general they make sure that economic progress produces the results that society wants. The United States stands out in this crowd: It is the world's richest big country, but also the one with the highest poverty rates, the worst inequality, the most uninsured people and the most fragile middle class.
Americans might have decided sometime in the last 30 years that unions were the wrong tool to insure the uninsured, give each worker a pension and secure a future for the middle class. But if so, then they need to find an alternative.
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Reply by JanetK_CA on 9/5/06 2:54pm
Msg #143603
Yes, good article - thanks for posting. Trickle down economics doesn't seem to be working (which doesn't surprise me in the least!)
I heard a piece on a news radio station over the weekend talking about the outrageous increases in CEO earnings as a percentage of employee earnings. Most interestingly, they were comparing salaries of CEOs of defense contractors to Army generals in Iraq. Wish I could remember the figures, but they were astronomical - and thousands of times greater than what the soldiers (and officers) risking their lives were getting paid.
The conclusion is that there is no Congressional oversight happening, unlike in previous wars. And in other industries, overall executive earnings are out of control as well, although not to quite the same extremes in general. What was suggested - which I thought was a great idea - was that shareholders be allowed to vote on corporate executive pay packages. Apparently that is how it is done in many (most?) European countries. I agree with them that it would stop the disproportionate executive pay increases in its tracks.
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