Recession coming

[BallHawk]

Tyrone is like a black Silas?

How do you know Silas wasn't black.

Silas was an albino caucasian. Albino African-Americans became extinct in the 1600s.

[Tyrone Bigguns]

I guarantee jesus isn't like those pics hanging in churches..no blue eyed, blond haired jews hanging aroung galilee.

I've always imagined that Jesus looked like Gary Glitter.

And, he liked young boys as well?

[texaspackerbacker]

A recession is defined by 6 consecutive months of negative GDP (gross domestic product) growth. I'm not sure how the GDP did the past couple months, but we will not know for a few months if we are in a recession for sure.

It's more likely that we are in a period of stagflation. Where inflation is growing (which we see in rising food and gas prices), and where unemployment is rising. A ying/yang going on at the same time.

I have to confess to not reading all 28 or so pages of this thread or going to the What's For Dinner or whatever thread that was mentioned.

I see that somewhere along the line, the thread departed from the original title, so I quoted the above from page 1, as it seems on point, if not entirely correct.

As LL2 said, there is a clear economic definition of recession, which has not even come close to being met. The talk of recession is primarily demagoguery by the anti-Bush Adminstration leftist mainstream media.

Where I differ from LL2 is the talk about "stagflation". This is a term coined during the Carter years to denote something which had basically never happened before, and which went against all textbook economic principals.

Students learn in Econ 101 that there is a "tradeoff" between inflation and unemployment. In the Carter years, we had extreme inflation AND very high unemployment resulting from a stagnating economy--lack of economic growth.

THAT scenario is absolutely NOT what we see today. Unemployment is about 4.5%--lower than any time in nearly a half century. Growth has slowed down from the economic boom brought on by the Bush tax cuts, but it still exists. And inflation is still low--up just barely from the extraordinarily low rate a few years ago. True, oil/gasoline prices are up, and that has raised a lot of other things due to higher transportation cost, etc., but statistically, inflation is NOT alarmingly high.

Likewise, the mortgage "crisis" is a "tempest in a teapot" promoted by the degenerate and biased media. Defaults are under 1%; Actual foreclosures are well under that. Some demagogues have actually compared this to the Depression when foreclosures reached 50% of mortgages. They were 2-3% for several years in the late70s/early 80s.

To a great extent, this is all election year politics more than anything else, as the leftist media tries to generate trouble--at America's expense--to try and influence the election in favor of one of the leftist candidates.

[Scott Campbell]

Good to see you Tex!

[BallHawk]

Good to see you Tex!

Our prayers have been answered.

[texaspackerbacker]

Thank you, Scott. BallHawk, I haven't been around here long enough to know where you stand--and whether you were being sarcastic or not ...... thanks--I think.

[Scott Campbell]

Likewise, the mortgage "crisis" is a "tempest in a teapot" promoted by the degenerate and biased media. Defaults are under 1%; Actual foreclosures are well under that. Some demagogues have actually compared this to the Depression when foreclosures reached 50% of mortgages. They were 2-3% for several years in the late70s/early 80s.

I believe defaults are way up. And credit has certainly tightened because of it. And I know some ridiculous lending practices were allowed that the industry never would have considered even 15 years ago.

But I'm not aware of the increase in defaults historical perspective.

[Scott Campbell]

Thank you, Scott. BallHawk, I haven't been around here long enough to know where you stand--and whether you were being sarcastic or not ...... thanks--I think.

Hell, I'm glad to see you. Now well probably argue like all hell on many subjects. But that's ok.

[texaspackerbacker]

Yeah, like I had as my signature one year, politics is the most fun thing going in the off-season. As I recall, I agreed with you more often than not in the old FYI days.

As for the mortgage "crisis", there are actually two separate but related situations: the slight downturn in real estate values AND the idea that a fairly large number of people are in default, and some actually getting foreclosed on.

The "downturn" thing is mostly confined to a few areas where the real estate "boom" was the most extreme--California, Florida, and a few (far from all) big cities. Most of the country is experiencing decent growth as usual. Even the areas of downturn will undoubtedly bounce back fairly quick.

The mortgage thing, as I said in the other post, is greatly exaggerated. It was worse in the late 70s/early 80s and horribly worse in the Depression. The thing is, interest is still extremely low--5.5-6% fixed rate, which means affordability--house payments way less than what rent would be for the same house. That contrasts with the horrendous interest rates of 12 to a high of 17.5% in the late 70s/early 80s.

Credit may be a little tighter, but only in comparison to the easy money of the last few years which some people blame for the current minor problems. With interest still as low as it is, it is still a great time to be a buyer and not too bad a time to be a seller in most of the country.

The fact that a lot of the crap from the media seems to indicate otherwise is just stirring up trouble to help the Dems and to make Bush, McCain, and other Republicans look bad.

[BallHawk]

Thank you, Scott. BallHawk, I haven't been around here long enough to know where you stand--and whether you were being sarcastic or not ...... thanks--I think.

No sarcasm involved. I was referring to a few threads on here where the statement was uttered "If Tex was here....."

Good to have you on board.