JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Does Economy get better?

Does Economy get better?

Music industry is a part of a whole economy, and when the whole is healthy, then, perhaps, the parts are healthy too...

I follow financial news and see that officials say:
" Everything is getting better"

Other hand, I see those manipulations on commodities markets...
( JP Morgan is a " leader" on those fields )...

so-called "computer mistakes/bugs" on the stock exchanges, that become the mass events...

or bank HSBC moved it's main office from London to Hong Kong...

or Jim Rogers, famous investor, moved from US to Singapore with his family...

So what? Should we get those hints seriously?

Well, now economy is global, and this is obvious,
here in Ukraine state budget gets losses from export,
because world demand is weak and it's a bad thing...

And what about real US economy,that plain folks face everyday when paying their bills?

what happens really? I don't believe official statistics whether this is from US or Ukraine, as Mark Twain said:
" There is a lie, big lie and statistics"

So, what thoughts, guys?

Things are improving in Florida, USA. House sales and prices have moved up a lot and unemployment is down a lot. People still complain but it's really getting better.

Colin

The Economy improved about 1.2 percent the first quarter and about 1.8 percent the second quarter. So you could say the economy is improving. Supposedy the jobs being created in the latest survey are about 60 to 70 percent part time and in the lower paying jobs. Some say the realistic unemployment rate now is more like 14 percent as many have stopped looking. There have been more than enough complaints going around to say the economy is getting better.

Well, almost everybody doesn't care...
Ok, right today found this article:

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/what-to-expect-during-the-next-stage-of-collapse_08292013

It has been reported that second quarter the GDP was 2.5 percent. Nothing to brag about. So, be frugal. spend wisely.

Hi Brother Alek!

I'm a Clockmaker...& my biz is a bit of a Harbinger of the US Economy. Grandfather Clock Sales used to be the mainstay of my income. In 1988, we sold one a week...in 2009 we sold one all-year. Up until this year, we'd had 4 of the worst years, financially, in all 35 years we'd been in business here.

Then, slowly, but definitely Surely...Things Picked Up. Not in Sales, so much, but now people are Fixing-Up what they already-have. Repairs are coming in, and House Calls to oil-up Grandfather Clocks are WAYY Up. (And..heh..we've raised our price to do that from $100 to $130 over the last year, and it's going fine!) We normally do 1/3 our annual income Nov-Dec with Christmas Sales...so, I'll know for-sure IF the Economy's recovered-well in a few more months. (Big Clocks are for-sure Luxury Items...and those just don't get purchased in a weak economy.)

My Swiss-French wife went back several times to La Chaux de-Fonds, Switzerland...to put Papa in a rest home, after he had a stroke last year, and had to empty out his Apartment of the last 50 years. There USED to be 4 nice Antique Shops in her village... Now there are NONE..so guess The Recession's affected even The Swiss! (She had to give-away many a nice antique piece of furniture...no shops to buy 'em!)

With the US reportedly becoming an Oil Exporting Nation over the next 3 years (Thanks to improved drilling methods and major discoveries) the US should be in Great Shape soon-enough...assuming we can extricate our country from fruitless military pursuits.

Time Will Tell...heh!

Best Wishes & a Big Guy-Hug,
Stan

Around the time I was born there were 2.5 billion on this planet. Today there is around 7.5 billion and by 2025 there will be 8 billion.

Simply put we are running out of jobs available for people. We are also reaching a point where it's getting harder and harder to feed everyone. If it weren't for the amazing increases in food production started in the 1950's we'd already be seeing mass starvations worldwide. The really bad news is that we've leveled off and increases in food production science will not be able to keep up with population increases.

Natural food production for the United States was estimated to be for 250 million people .... We are over 300 million now and depend on modern fertilizers and genetic foods.

The choices are accept a certain level of a welfare state or choose a couple billion people that have to be eliminated.

Fertilizers are the ruination of soil.It give more food production first when you start using it but to keep that production up you have to add more and more of it.Natural fertilizers build up your soil,gives better tasting vegatables but less production per acre.It also is more labour intensive to apply and therefore more costly.The public wants cheap food, so the farmers go with chemical fertilizers.Eventually it will come home to roost.Without good soil, held together by organic matter, we can easily lose it to wind and water erosion.It all comes down to greed,farmers want as much production per acre as he can get, to provide cheap food for consumers and make as much profit as he can.But to continue doing so, he abuses his land, not giving it the proper nutrients to maintain healthy soil,not producing healty products,which affects the health of consumers.Land is suppose to be rested every seven years according to the bible,so it can recoup and recover, but rarely does that happen. Without good food and good water,we have nothing, and we are fast polluting both, not to mention the air we breathe.

While I agree in spirit Everett the fact is that using organic farming farmers can only support 250 million people in the US. This was a high number when first calculated in the 1940's and has held up as an accurate number even now. Sooooooooooooo who is going to decide the 50+ million people that would have to starve to death?

The calculations are that organic farming can support 6 billion people. We now have 7.5 billion. Do you want to pick who the 1.5 billion will be that would have to die?

Canada's population has matched the world population and has also tripled so it has the same issues.

I wonder what names people would call the farmers if they had said, "I need to preserve my soil, so I'm going to let all those third world peoples starve." In the 1950's that was the option and that humanitarian action created the problems we are going to face in the not to distant future.

You are right,but we are only putting off the problem which will soon hit. Maybe we should change our diet.We eat way too much meat,do we really need to drink cows milk? To feed one cow requires about one and a half acres of land,how much food would that area produce? Half of our health problems could be caused by food that is forced from unhealthy soil.The use of chemicals to stop insects from destroying unhealthy plants caused by unhealthy soil. The use of hormones and anti-bibiotics in animals and birds to make them grow faster and protect them against disease and stress caused by growing them in over crowded
barns or cages.

We want and expect cheap food which forces farmers and food factories to cut corners and force greater production from land than it normally can produce.Every thing we eat(other than seafood) come from the soil.We know berries and fruit that grow in the wild is much better and healthier than what is grown on farms and cultivated by man.Why is this?Because it comes from healthy soil cultivated by nature.Wild plants have built in defence against insects.Man breeds out that defence to make the product more eye appealing and make it produce more.We are now past the point of no return.We've sowen the wind and now we must reap the whirlwind.

Stumbled on this article:

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/what-to-expect-during-the-next-stage-of-collapse_08292013

Scary things if this really will happen...

Humans are an out of control virus infecting the host planet and it is only a matter of time before we kill the host. When that happens the virus dies if it cannot find another host.

Though I am not in Bill's cataclysmic camp, I will say that the working poor (emphasis on actually WORKING) have it the worst in the USA right now. Many are having their full time wages cut below 30 hours a week (from 30-40 to 15-25) all because of one thing, the "affordable" care act, better known as Obamacare. It will destroy both the finest health care system in world history, where most new medicines, new procedures and practice/equipment upgrades take place than anywhere else in the world (and in some cases more than the rest of the world combined). That amazing health care system is one reason why, for now anyway, we are the largest economy in the world. When it fully kicks in, more welfare, more unemployment and more working poor/black market labor pool with no benefits or protections of any kind, will pop up and our country will slow down to a stop and collapse inward. Austerity will hit in 20 years (or less) and our standard of living, among the highest in the world outside of small misleading countries where workers out number the non working at a far higher rate than here and/or where oil and other similar commodities come from.

All but 4 states currently are seeing meteoric rises in insurance premiums all in the goal to shift us to one payer systems all while the famous one payer systems are switching back to insurance companies or farther into socialism/statism/communism. Ironically Canada, who has become much more conservative with their social programs and their money in general, is switch back towards insurance while we are racing towards single payer. Most of my friends and members I know in the UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany already have private insurance in addition to any state benefits because they are okay for some things, but terrible on many others, including life threatening diseases/illnesses and anything that is life improving but not life saving. You don't want to be a woman with breast cancer in the UK. You don't want to need an MRI in Canada or surgery or you'll often come across the border in the USA to skip the line if you can afford it. But not for long, we'll be filling those lines to overflow soon enough with little place to go (the USA has more people coming here for medical care from outside of their country than any other) ourselves. As healthcare goes, so goes our economy and even though who wrote the bill still are shocked by much of the unintended consequences coming up. It's horrifying in the literal sense of the word. Those of us stuck in ages that won't be able to work enough to buy premium private healthcare options like our government reps and their staffs all have (oh, for those who don't know it, the US Congress and all their staff and families do not have to live under Obamacare. That is just for the "little people" who are beneath them.

All we can hope for is to show them the voters are their bosses and clean house on both sides of the aisle and installing laws that state no government employee may EVER skirt any law that a general citizen must follow. That would also include their legal ability to insider trade on wall street as much as they like which is how they all become million and billionaires in office. Who couldn't? They got caught, passed a bill banning it, then quietly worked together to pass another bill which allowed them to continue. The leadership of BOTH parties are among the biggest pigs in the trough.

A Constitutional Amend. for Term Limits. Removal of Obamacare (it leaves just as many people uninsured by the way... did you all know that?), a Constitutional Amendment on Balanced Budget, Congressional pay and budgets based on GDP success or failure, Each department employees pay and budget based on measurable success of publicly stated and addressed goals, Jail terms and legal liabilities for any non elected officials actions, no government employee eligible for Presidential Pardon!!!. I could go on and on. But I can't image out of simple fairness and common sense that anyone could be against these things unless they accept what is happening right now. Most people on Food Stamps, lowest ever measured working % of the population, etc. It's a disaster. The Unemployment rate has been fixed by each successive white house to make the number look better by changing the rules more and more. People in the USA work less per person right now than at any time in our history. And to make matters worse, we have the lowest birthrate we've ever had, not even enough to sustain ourselves without constant hyper-growth of low skilled immigrants. We should allow anyone in who has an advanced degree or quantifiable advance needed skill into the USA immediately with a Green Card and a path to citizenship that knocks off a year for every year they work in that advanced level job that corresponds, or starts a company that employs AMERICAN workers or LEGAL IMMIGRANT workers to advance our country while all those American kids who choose to get high and play video games in their parents basements will have to compete or go to colleges that actually TEACH THEM SOMETHING OF VALUE to the working world so that when they graduate they can work or create their own jobs.

It's not that tough folks, we just need to be a little tougher.

I do like Bill's post for the Jefferson post that sums up a lot they already knew in the 1700's USA.

Oh, and before any of you call me out politically, I did not vote for either Bush and in fact only 2 republicans Presidents in my life (and I doubt you know which ones) and I have never missed a vote on or off year Pres. elections.

I've considered running for office in 3 different parties, but none fit my view points totally. Just I as I bet my views, (when boiled way down past these damn divider issues which are all a scam since neither party ever really moves those needles do they?) actually match yours over 90% of the time no matter WHO you are. Most of it is just rhetoric and approval tested "words" with no meaning because behind the scenes, nothing changes. Bush worked like a spend away democrat and Obama wars away like a war monger Republican right? They just use them to separate us against each other so we ignore "our side" while they ignore "their side" and it is why in our historical election in 2010 where the most seats ever shifted, we still had an 85% incumbency success rate for both parties. That is worse the most communist elections. Think about it!

Actually,
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Obama Care is doing everthing backwards. With less and less hiring we are slowly returning to the 1930's. All the Big Social Programs put in place to prevent the 1930's from happening again is a glaring failure. Supposedly the number of paople acutually working today is back to where it was in 1978. All of my Grandchildren are working so there is some good news. Keep on trucking!

It's lower as a % of population, but perhaps the total number working is the same as 1978 in the middle of the malaise of Carter, which happened before I could vote, but I did run as Ford in 6th grade and won there, back when Ohio voted Republican. = )

My grandmother used to tell me about how they used to buy penny insurance policies before SS. The name came from the fact that you paid a penny a week for each policy and they were for the equivalent to a years salary. Some of the ones she had were for $500.00 to give you an idea. She had 30 of them which she figured was a bit overkill but better to be safe. When she retired in the 1960's she cashed in her first policy and that $500 policy paid her I think it was $5000 (the average yearly salary). When Social security was started it basically put the penny policies out of business. The argument was that SS would pay more than $500 when you retired.

Though not a big fan of SS it did work as planned until the politicians rigged the system and started bloating the SSI ranks. The last figure I saw was that SSI is now 20% of Social securities payouts each month. A program that was intended to help people with catastrophic injuries is now paying people with temper issues. SS isn't breaking Social Security SSI is.

We were poor when I grew up and my brothers and I joined the Army in the 1960's so we could get GI Bill benefits and be able to afford college. The middle class kids all had Mom and Dad's to pay for their college and had no problem calling us baby killers etc.....Fast forward to today ...... My BF (also a veteran-20 year man) has had two catastrophic illnesses and hasn't paid a penny for care. We are fortunate to live near 3 of the top 5 VA hospitals and many of the VA hospitals are connected to major teaching Universities. Basically, the care is as good as any hospital. In fact because of those illnesses my BF is now legally blind and the doctor at Vanderbilt is sending him to what he said is the best low vision hospital in the country, the VA hospital in Birmingham. Cost: $0 for what will be a 4 to 8 week in-patient stay.

Memories die hard and I wonder how many of those people that called us baby killers are struggling to pay their Medicare co-pays while my BF and I pay zero. We don't even have to pay into Medicare so that's like a $200 monthly raise for us both.

On the business side, years ago I was going to open up a small boatbuilding business in conjunction to a friend who was going to start building his own large sport fishing yacht business. Both of us were marine engineers. We picked the old Pacemaker site in New Jersey because we had both used the facilities before and the property had been used for boatbuilding for over 200 years. We didn't want to screw up a new property because of the inevitable spills. The epa made it a requirement that we dig up over 5 feet of topsoil and replace it before we could begin. Do you have any idea how expensive replacing over 10 acres of soil is?
The end result was my friend decided to outsource his boats to Malta and after the first pieces of crap got delivered from Malta I had a small business repairing their poor work, but I was than doing repairs so there were different regulations for that. This all resulted in the loss of over 200 jobs there would have been if we had both been given permission to use the initial property that already had 200 years of contaminated soil.