Thanks to the AP and Philly.com
We at US Democrazy partied hard this weekend. No, we weren’t indulging in festive Halloween high-jinx! We learned THE RECESSION IS OVER! Yeah BABY!
Just check out these headlines:
- Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million (New York Times)
- 3 strong economic reports lift recovery hopes (The Associated Press)
- Manufacturing boosts global recovery (The Financial Times)
Everything is looking great, right? Time to Party!
But, then today… we woke up with a pounding headache. It wasn’t a hangover, it was some gloomy economists who ruined our party mood.
Take Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate and NY Times Columnist. He says: GOOD NEWS! The recovery is due to Obama’s stimulus package!
But that’s also the bad news — because the same textbook analysis says that the stimulus was far too small … Unless something changes drastically, we’re looking at many years of high unemployment.
That is one big BUT ! (no pun intended)
Free exchange, a blog at our friends at The Economist magazine, agrees with the frightening view that
Essentially, we are looking at a situation in which, … American unemployment will remain near 10% through the end of 2010, at least.
Ouch! That’s a kick in the BUT!
Even the current economic growth is not helping the worst off areas of the country. Just take a look at the image above.
Now we’re not sure how to feel… is the economy going up or going down?
Either way, this economic roller coaster hasn’t come to a stop. There’s even a rumor of a second stimulus plan…but don’t celebrate too soon!
nothing is going to be fixed overnight. C’mon people we have to stop looking for a quick fix and deal with what is going on right now. We will get out of this, we have before. We just have to be patient. Stop blaming Obama for a problem that was here before he even took the oath. I know it’s hard, I’m dealing with it first hand!!
I agree. We face some really large problems and the solutions won’t be quick, painless, or easy. In fact, with oil going up again, any economic growth is going to be very very difficult.