Stock gains don’t make up for continued sluggishness in economy, job market
The Dow Jones Industrial Average today briefly touched the 14000 mark, before falling slightly. As I write, it’s hovering right around that level, the first time it’s done so since late 2007. The broader S&P 500 is at a five-year high, about 3 percent off its all-time peak in October 2007. The Nasdaq is at a 10-year high, though it’s significantly lower than its tech-bubble peak. In all, though, these major indices finally are back to roughly where they were before the housing crash and Great Recession (as long as we don’t adjust them for inflation, that is).
Yet, earlier today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the unemployment rate had ticked upward to 7.9 percent even though more people had stopped looking for work than found a job. At January’s rate of job growth (157,000 net jobs created), it would take until at least 2025 to regain pre-recession employment levels. At the rate for all of 2012 (an upwardly revised 181,000), it would take “only” until 2022, a decade and a half after employment peaked.
And yesterday, the Commerce Department said the economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2012, the first negative quarter since mid-2009. The economy is an estimated 14 percent smaller than it would have been if it had grown since 2008 at the long-term average of 3.1 percent a year. That’s some $2.25 trillion of economic production that never came into existence.
The reason for continued market advances in the face of sluggish economic news might be summarized by this quote from the Wall Street Journal:
“Any not-bad news is helping this market,” said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner at Meridian Equity Partners, a New York brokerage. “If we get great news, good news, or okay news, it’s still going to make our screens green.”
“Not-bad” is not exactly indicative of a boom. If this quarter were to repeat last quarter’s performance, the above numbers are where the Obama Recovery would have left us: barely back to zero for investors, still well below it for job-seekers and economic growth.
This is the reality wrought by the primary economic policy of the past four years — trying to jump-start the private sector via government spending and monetary expansion. All the spending and expansion hasn’t translated into robust private-sector growth. Four years later, there’s little reason to believe a boom is just around the corner.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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557 comments Add your comment
JamVet
February 1st, 2013
8:22 pm
OK, B.
Here’s a Leadon song to make up for the last one. Sorta. (grin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbpw6LG5a8I
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:22 pm
The great thing about Seger is that you can put up 4 or 5 great songs by him, and there’s 8 or 10 still waiting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld1l4Ud7jp8
indigo
February 1st, 2013
8:23 pm
According to the evening news, it’s all smiles on Wall Street.
According to the evening news, it’s still all tears for 12 million Americans on Main Street.
Sociopathic Capitalism at it’s finest.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 1st, 2013
8:24 pm
A lot of us remember “Like a Rock” being a sellout -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe7yOccqdxI
td
February 1st, 2013
8:26 pm
Serious Robuck
February 1st, 2013
8:13 pm
td, tell me again about the genetic gene pool that created you.
Why do have such disdain for rural white South Georgians? Your comments about South Georgians are really cruel. There are many people there today who read and think and care about their fellow human beings.
I guess living in the intellectual nirvana of Paulding County creates your haughty attitude. Is that right, td? Or if not, tell me why you think you’re superior to the white folks in my native county, whatever county that may be.
Sorry. I was born and raised in Cobb county. I never said I was superior to anyone. I just said the gene pool in that county in south GA was about like the royal family in England. Not a whole lot of branches off the family tree.
Never said cruel things about all of South Georgia. Have many friends in South Georgia that are great people.
josef
February 1st, 2013
8:26 pm
td
For the record, there has been a great deal of inmigration to that area…and secondly, I come from one of your, uh, “inbred” backgrounds…been doing it for nigh onto 400 years here in America (and for about 800 more before the gene pool came here). You just have to be careful with what crosses with what in which generation. You know, a Southern gentleman of culture and BREEDING!
JamVet
February 1st, 2013
8:29 pm
At the time, this was my idea of country music…
(Hey, he is from Beaumont!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz5PYxEHb6o
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:29 pm
md @ 8:11
That is an interesting story and really something that they found the coin, which he reportedly always carried in his pocket. Strange things do happen sometimes. I had a cousin who was in WWII and had the stock shot off his rifle but didn’t get wounded, in that incident.
The Cleburne myth was debunked at the time, though. He was actually shot once in the chest (backed up by the Confederate records of the day). The 49 bullet hole story got re-told in Sam Watkins’ “Company Aytch: Or, a Side Show of the Big Show”. It was a good look at the life of the common soldier but as history, it had a lot of exaggerations and misinformation in it.
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:32 pm
I’ll never forget landing at LAX at 4 AM, still 17 years old and a long way from Jersey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H0ma6BQa-w
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:33 pm
“inbred” backgrounds
Anybody who has ever done any genealogical research knows that that isn’t restricted to any one part of the globe. It’s everywhere, all over. Most folks just don’t know their background well enough to know it. You’d be hard pressed to find somebody whose lines don’t cross within the last 4-6 generations.
josef
February 1st, 2013
8:34 pm
BTW
Really enjoying the Seger.. still my favorite of his so that tells you how old I am…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2aBOTNGWMY
CC
February 1st, 2013
8:34 pm
Aesop, here’s an ‘oldie’ for you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG8Ect3Xn7w
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:36 pm
One last Seger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsnZMee16lk&feature=endscreen&NR=1
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 1st, 2013
8:37 pm
Who wants to go to Fire Lake?
Appreciate that, Bruno.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2aBOTNGWMY
td
February 1st, 2013
8:38 pm
josef
February 1st, 2013
8:26 pm
td
“For the record, there has been a great deal of inmigration to that area…”
There really has not been and you know it. Migration patterns in the coastal counties are fine but those counties next too the coastal counties is slim at best the past 150 years.
CC
February 1st, 2013
8:38 pm
. . . and another . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12DeNdF0KPA
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:38 pm
And now for something completely different………….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB8txXS2PFs
Serious Robuck
February 1st, 2013
8:39 pm
td, I’ll take that as a smart apology. Advice: don’t belittle your natural allies, td.
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:40 pm
At the time, this was my idea of country music…
Jam–I’ve been lucky enough to see both Winters brothers. I saw Johnny in the early 80s at the old Strand theater on the Marietta Square. Edgar knocked it out of the park at one of the Music Midtown fests, only to be followed on stage by Dave Mason. Freakin awesome.
td
February 1st, 2013
8:43 pm
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:33 pm
Very true. It is only going to get worse in the next few generations since we are now having so many children being born out of wedlock and growing up not having a clue who their father is.
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:44 pm
Probably nobody has ever heard this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pskJl5G1p7M
Thulsa Doom
February 1st, 2013
8:44 pm
josef,
Thanks for the Ringo Starr it don’t come easy. Hadn’t heard that in awhile.
Bruno & Jamvet,
Great seeing you guys tonight but I’ve never been a Seger fan.
Where’s the metalheads tonight- and where is Moonbat Betty when I need a good metal fix?
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:45 pm
Jam–In case your in the zone, I’ve been saving this Rick Derringer number for you. Real trippy, quite a departure from “Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG0sqhHoTWA
josef
February 1st, 2013
8:46 pm
HILLBILLY
An interesting one on that. When I was in college one of my running buddies was one of those that I always deferred to in a fashion that was often brought up to question. All I could say was that she looked so much like my mother that it was unsettling. We got to talking one night about ancestors, and it turned out that she was from the Pennsylvania branch of my mother’s father’s Maryland-Virginia-Carolina-Tennessee-Mississippi branch. Both hers and our lines had done a great deal of that inbreeding along the way from the late 1600s to the late 1900s…
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:47 pm
Hey TD–How did your football season turn out?? Triple thumbs up here. We need to get together next year.
md
February 1st, 2013
8:48 pm
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet band……Atlanta, 1977 Dog Days Festival w/ Cheap Trick, Foreigner, Heart, and Atlanta Rhythm Section. Cost to get in was $10.
Don’t remember much of Bob though as I think he was last on stage and we weren’t doing too well at that point in the evening……..(at Grant Field and booze was easy to sneak in).
td
February 1st, 2013
8:48 pm
Serious Robuck
February 1st, 2013
8:39 pm
td, I’ll take that as a smart apology. Advice: don’t belittle your natural allies, td.
What apology? You are the one that called me out. I am as mild mannered as can be to everyone that is the same to me. I do truly believe that you treat people the way you want to be treated but I also believe that the only way to stop a bully is to punch them in the nose. This is called a passive/aggressive personality and I have it.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 1st, 2013
8:48 pm
Josef- Who’d a thunk that you and I had the same appreciation for music? Good one, my man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e1_K-JDfOk
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:48 pm
It is only going to get worse in the next few generations since we are now having so many children being born out of wedlock and growing up not having a clue who their father is.
Maybe in the big cities but out where I live, everybody knows who really belongs to who. I can remember my Grandma laughing about a little boy who lived across the road from her mother-in-law (my great-Grandma), yelling out to her one day, “Mrs (withheld), if you want to see my new baby sister, she’s down at Mrs (also withheld)’s house. That was nearly 100 years ago.
td
February 1st, 2013
8:49 pm
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:47 pm
Hey TD–How did your football season turn out?? Triple thumbs up here. We need to get together next year.
Not great but not to bad.
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:51 pm
One more rippin’ Rick Derringer number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwNoFORVtmk
td
February 1st, 2013
8:52 pm
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:48 pm
It is getting worse in the burbs everyday. I grew up in Smyrna and it was exactly like what you described growing up and now no one even knows their neighbor.
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:52 pm
td–I meant Big TD, Thulsa Doom. You’re little td.
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:52 pm
josef @ 8:46
That’s true. There were just a few ports of entry, way back, NY, Boston, Philadelphia, Virginia, Charleston (and New Orleans but it wasn’t English at the time). People migrated in groups and the same families kept following each other, all along the way. That happens all through my lines and it didn’t stop here. Many of them did the same thing as some of them went west.
Thulsa Doom
February 1st, 2013
8:54 pm
Bruno,
I was just messing around. I took $100 built it up to $800, lost it back down to $400 and cashed out before I lost it all. Didn’t need the money so I don’t even know why I cashed out to tell you the truth. I usually just leave money in the account till the next season unless I win in the thousands. Cashed out $3500 a few years ago which was cool. Was going to reload but just never did. The only thing that sucks about gambling is that the height of the season is during the height of my business so there’s not much time to do research. And my feeling is that if you really do your research that you can and will win. Time- you can never have enough of it.
Hillbilly D
February 1st, 2013
8:54 pm
Most of y’all probably don’t get RFD-TV but this guy was on there the other day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK7jXq5dn7c
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:54 pm
Hey td–Which neighborhood?? I used to deliver pizzas there back in the day, back when Julia Roberts was working at the DQ on South Cobb Drive.
Thulsa Doom
February 1st, 2013
8:57 pm
“I meant Big TD, Thulsa Doom”
You mocking my girth? I put on 30 lbs or in the last year or 2 the ole belly is hanging over the speedos. But I’m back in the gym and aggressively hitting the treadmill and weights. Slowly but surely Doomy gonna look hot in his speedos again. Keep can hardly wait.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 1st, 2013
8:59 pm
Where’s the metalheads tonight- and where is Moonbat Betty when I need a good metal fix?
Don’t despair Thulsa –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QP-SIW6iKY
JamVet
February 1st, 2013
9:01 pm
Hiya, Doomy.
You’re right, HD. But I liked it.
Did I tell you that I saw ARS for the first time ever this past September?
A free show in Duluth, no less. They killed the place.
B, I heard an interview with Derringer a couple of years ago and was really impressed with him. He gave up the rocker lifestyle and became a big guy for Christ. But he was exceedingly cool about it and of course, he still has a great sound.
And 2012 was kind of a bummer, because we lost…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkGvObg6WIw
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 1st, 2013
9:02 pm
And, just in case that wasn’t enough -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUHFfR8hWcA
td
February 1st, 2013
9:03 pm
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
8:54 pm
Hey td–Which neighborhood?? I used to deliver pizzas there back in the day, back when Julia Roberts was working at the DQ on South Cobb Drive.
Do not want to throw the exact neighborhood out on the blog. Let us say I lived about 4 miles south of the DQ you are talking about. Julia was in the class that graduated behind mine. She dated a good friend of mine the whole time she was in HS. He was the grandson of Bobby Dodd.
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
9:04 pm
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet band……Atlanta, 1977 Dog Days Festival w/ Cheap Trick, Foreigner, Heart, and Atlanta Rhythm Section. Cost to get in was $10.
md–Same summer, $10 got us Dickey Betts, J Geils Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Frampton at the old JFK stadium in Philly. Plenty of party supplies being passed around that day.
CC–Thanks for the contributions.
Thulsa Doom
February 1st, 2013
9:04 pm
Allright. Since I’m feeling mellow tonight and there’s no other metalheads on I’ll play one of my oldies but favorites.
Even josef would like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7S8-Iewi0
josef
February 1st, 2013
9:04 pm
TD
First, you said since the early 1800s, now you say the last 150 years. Pretty big jump there, but understandable since you seem to be of the Oglethorpe’s thieves mythology (or as Mr Wolfe would have put it, “our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern because and English cutpurse went unhung.
)
Between 1800 and 1830 the area had drawn in a tremendous mixture of the native Creek and various European ethnicities who interbred (expanding the gene pool extensively since many of the Europeans were not only English, Irish and Scots, but Austrians, Hungarians as well as Germans and Dutch).
Following the Removals, large numbers of Mixed bloods “hiding out” came in from both North Florida
and Central Geogia.
Following the Civil War, the exploitation of the pine resources brought in considerable numbers of North Carolinians who were involved in the pine industries. Again, widening the gene pool. Many of those counties encouraged disabled Union soldiers to come down to escape the effects of the cold winters on their war wounds…look up the history of Fitzgerald for an example of this…
Like most of the rest of the rural South, these counties lost much of their population in the early to mid 20th Century due to outmigration for economic reasons which is why their populations are, even today in some cases, less than they were at the turn of the century.)
Bruno
February 1st, 2013
9:11 pm
And now for something completely different………….
I always liked that number, HD. I’m not ashamed to let my pop self free now and again.
td–From the old Domino’s Pizza which was just north of Pat Mell, we likely delivered to your neighborhood until they built the Kings Spring store in the mid 80s. I’ll never forget delivering to the trailer parks on Atlanta Rd late at night, though. A little dicey there at times.
md
February 1st, 2013
9:12 pm
Bruno…that $10 is why I have such a hard time going to concerts these days, it’s tough shelling out that 75-100 knowing what we used to get for much less.
A bit like buying cars for me, they now cost what I paid for my first house…..
Thulsa Doom
February 1st, 2013
9:14 pm
Aesop,
Thanks man. Dang if that didn’t get the blood pumping. I don’t know what was more awesome- seeing those Russkies rocking out hard or the intro to the song of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Dusty
February 1st, 2013
9:16 pm
Shhh, I won’t stay long. Not trying to sneak into the Beaucoup Boys Club here. I’ve never heard a rock star in person, am not a major historian.and sometimes wear high heels. Don’t think I fit in here…
I just wanted to say “Hi” to Josef. Come again, my dexterously worded friend. I raise my glass of Manichevitz to you. G’nite.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
February 1st, 2013
9:16 pm
Time Out, Thulsa, the Hollies is not Heavy Metal, regardless of what you think -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUkqBRC1zUA&feature=artistob&playnext=1&list=TLeDUzExx0VFk