Comments on: Recession Over?

By: Weekly Web Watch 10/26/09 – 11/1/09 « EXECUTIVE WATCH

Weekly Web Watch 10/26/09 – 11/1/09 « EXECUTIVE WATCH — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:30:05 +0000

[...] and Congress for the growth; so does Steve Verdon, who worries that the governmental stimuli are providing false indicators of recovery. Kevin Drum says that little of the growth is going towards wages. And Sam Staley may [...]

By: Drew

Drew — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:03:36 +0000

Worse than I thought. A survey of articles over the weekend place GDP growth at .5%.......plus or minus.

The shell game isn't working.

By: odograph

odograph — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:47:02 +0000

I'm sorry, I thought that was clear. I meant time-shifting of necessary government expenditures. If you need to test some clean coal, do it now rather than later. If you need to develop a cheap rocket to replace the space shuttle, accelerate the program. Bridge repair? Apparently we need more of that. Etc. I didn't mean that I support programs to lure consumers in their own time shifting. BTW, I think this is another "where the billions went" storyline we should be following: Why the Goldman Sachs-AIG Story Won’t Go Away

By: Steve Verdon

Steve Verdon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:35:22 +0000

Konnichiwa Drew-san.

Odograph,

The cars and houses programs were both stupid. Renewing them would be doubly so.

Stimulus should have been a time-shifting of necessary costs, moving forward projects that might have been done later, in periods of higher investment and employment.

Uhhmmmm, both Cash for Clunkers and the housing subsidy are time shifting policies.

By: odograph

odograph — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:32:28 +0000

The cars and houses programs were both stupid. Renewing them would be doubly so.

Stimulus should have been a time-shifting of necessary costs, moving forward projects that might have been done later, in periods of higher investment and employment.

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:26:50 +0000

I suspect that rigorous analysis of "true" GDP growth is a very difficult task.

However, since in my business I traffic in gross trends vs minute analysis, I'd posit that after factoring in cash for clunkers and the housing subsidy that real annualized GDP growth is in the range of 1 to 1.5%.

I really need to keep brushing up on my Japanese...........

By: steve

steve — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:34:57 +0000

The NBER looks at more than GDP. I will be a little surprised if they declare the recession over already. I agree that the housing subsidy needs to go.

On the brighter side, Simon Johnson noted today that there are stronger signs of recovery around the world. Barring a shock of some sort, I would expect us to have low GDP growth for a while.

Steve