Hey car guy,
- Grumpy
Back at ya. 
Carguy, I appreciate your optimism.
Your construction spending graph is measured in dollars. To make that mean much at all you have to look at how the money supply changed over the same time period.
If you have a graph of housing starts instead of spending, I'd like to see that one.
Oh, look...here is housing starts:
Well on our way to recovery.....?
Looks like we are about a fourth of the peak. Sure, that high number was an artificial bubble caused by the Fed, so it is a bit unfair to compare to it. There is a small upswing at the end of the graph, but over the longer term that looks like noise. We dropped 75%, now we can make big headlines like "housing starts up 22%", but a 22% increase from historical lows is still pretty crappy.
I know you are in the housing/real estate and/or mortgage business, so you really want to see improvement in the economy. I would like to see it too, but I stand by what I said a few posts back, that this mess was caused by too much debt and adding more debt in an effort to fix it will not work, but instead make it more painful to recover from. It is a byproduct of our debt-based monetary system. There will be no recovery until we change our monetary system. Let the government control the money supply and not a private banking cartel, and more importantly, get away from a debt-based dollar.
the monetary system is not exclusively debt based. the problem is individual and collected debts are too high. The only way out of debt is to pay it off, and that takes time. (the other way out is amnesty which has its own problems)
and we can't trust the government to control the money supply all that much either. Look at how they manage finances; from a position of debt. They didn't need the banking cartel to help do that. We can't afford our government.
Boy, some of you guys are tough. What a bunch of naysayers.
CarGuy is right- things are a little better.
True, we've got a long way to go, but how do you start a recovery without, well, starting?
For construction, I like the housing starts number. It shows an uptick.
I also like the HMI (Housing Market Index). It is basically a measure of builder confidence. It is currently at 25. Any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor. is considered a good number. 25 means 75 percent of builders do not have good expectations.
While that may not sound too good, the other way to look at it is that 25 is the HIGHEST the rating has been since June of 2007.
Glass half full...glass half empty.
SVreX wrote: Glass half full...glass half empty.
Glass twice the size it needs to be.
We have a glut of empty homes to fill before starts go up a decent amount.
More numbers that are improving
"Despite political turmoil stateside and the prolonged crisis in Europe, manufacturing in the U.S. grew at its fastest pace in seven months in January."
I can do this all day folks.
And then there's this: HAVE YOUR HEARD ABOUT THE NEW WHITEHOUSE REFI PLAN (or is it a campaigning trick?) Well the investors have and here's what they said -Investors are skeptical enough of the White House refinance plan ever going into effect that some moved into higher coupon MBS, albeit cautiously Dow Jones reported.
Jobless claims are below expectations
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims declined about 3% last week, coming in lower than most analysts' estimates and staying below 400,000.
Most economists believe weekly claims below 400,000 indicate the economy is expanding and jobs growth is strengthening. Initial claims have been lower than this threshold for most of the past three months.
Again you ignore the fact that jobless claims are going down because people have run out of unemployment benefits, not because we've added that many jobs. You pick little pieces of the puzzle and claim that they rare representative of the whole, but they aren't. All I've personally claimed in this thread is that things are NOT getting better in the area of the country I live in, and they aren't. That's a fact. In other area's things may be getting better, but they aren't anywhere near where they need to be, so no, things are not good. I sincerely hope we get there, but there is no reason to celebrate at this point, and no reason to loosen up on spending. The indicators are just not there.
Who's picking pieces of the puzzle?
How about the fact that the weekly initial unemployment claims are down. That's not people who have run out of unemployment.
"The Labor Department said initial jobless claims declined about 3% last week, coming in lower than most analysts' estimates and staying below 400,000.
Most economists believe weekly claims below 400,000 indicate the economy is expanding and jobs growth is strengthening. Initial claims have been lower than this threshold for most of the past three months."
OK, I get it you are a glass half empty type of guy so here's one that will make you feel better about yourself.
But let's consider the source. CoreLogic just uses data from Fannie & Freddie and completely ignores the data on FHA & VA loans. Now FHA & VA happen to be the biggest source of loans at the moment so they are ignoring the largest segment of the market and therefore the numbers are meaningless in the overall scheme of things. A lot of places do that to make good headlines or justify a position they've taken.
I was just looking at an article that showed home prices in Texas were above the bubble prices. Las Vegas is no where near, but you know what Las Vegas is improving. So is Phoenix and so are Miami and Florida in general. So are just about everywhere with only a few minor pockets that while they may still be headed down, they can see bottom and the way up the other side.
I can't see how anyone can look at things and not say they have turned and are finally headed someplace nicer than they've been in the past few years. Are we totally recovered? HELL NO! But are we headed back in the right direction? YES!
I've sent you the link to a daily update blog so you can see how things are going so there's really no need to keep this thread going for just the benefit of us two.
http://www.startribune.com/business/138484784.html Two widely read barometers of manufacturing activity Wednesday reported healthy growth in January, and both showed signs that a more sustained recovery could be ahead.
Manufacturing experts say factories that make products for businesses, not consumers, are seeing the heaviest activity and fueling the gains. Exports were also a major factor in some manufacturers' stronger results.
A survey of the mid-America region by Creighton University saw its index jump from 50.0 in December to 55.9 in January, the largest monthly gain since October 2009. A reading above 50 indicates growth. The study's "confidence index" that measures respondents' outlook for the next six months posted an especially strong increase, from 59.2 to 67.2.
A similar nationwide survey by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) had a more modest increase in its overall index, from 53.1 in December to 54.1 in January. A stronger gain came in an index component that measures new orders. It rose from 54.8 in December to 57.6 last month. The substantial increase in new orders was at odds with some economists' projections that businesses would curtail orders.
Also,
In what was mostly a slow and steady climb, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.4 percent in January and the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 4.4 percent, the best performances for both indexes to open a year since 1997.
In reply to carguy123:
Do you even read my replies? Reading the first sentence in my last reply and the second in yours shows that you aren't even reading our replies. Either that or you are ignoring them. So yes, you are picking pieces of the puzzle. The good ones, and ignoring every shred of information provided here that questions what you are claiming. You made the post. Many of us have been able to poke holes in your claim. As it concerns me, you are also ignoring that I'm talking only about northeast Ohio, not the nation, not the mid-west, not the world. Things here are not much, if any better. I've been saying that all along and you have ignored this fact. You are largely arguing a point I didn't make and never intended to make. Even on a national level, the fact that our data doesn't agree with yours at best indicates that we can't make a conclusion. In any case, I won't be looking any longer. It's proven to be a waste of time.
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