Double Dip or Bump in the Road???

[DRILLINDK]

With the lackluster economic data last week it seems like the doom and gloom talk is heating up again. What say you?

[Mr Nice Guy]

Trying not to pay attention to it. Holding steady in current investments.

Im focusing on school and increasing my earning potential as well as managing personal finances.

[maat55]

IMO, there has been no recovery to begin with. Yes, stocks have risen due to fed manipulation and companies trimming the fat, but overall, we are not going anywhere quick. The fed has done all the damage it can do and companies have no incentive to grow.

I'm just looking at this time period as a buy in the slump period. As usual, the market could go either way on future news and occurences based on the herds(We the People)optimism or lack there of.

[DRILLINDK]

The current struggle to add jobs brings up bigger implications for the flailing housing market. The recent report on jobs reflects the underlying reality that the recession is still ongoing for many Americans. The recession officially ended in summer of 2009 but this is really only because of the expansion of GDP that was juiced by large investment banks leveraging cheap money from the Federal Reserve. Some of this money trickled into the housing market but here we are facing a double-dip in housing and a possible double-dip for the economy. The quality of jobs being added is also a hindrance to potential home price growth. The 54,000 added jobs fell well short of the 150,000 baseline figure just to keep steady with demographic growth. Then you have places like McDonald’s going on hiring sprees but how is this good for home values? The Great Recession is looking a lot of like the Great Depression in duration even though official GDP figures reflect a different story.

[DRILLINDK]

Trying not to pay attention to it. Holding steady in current investments.

Im focusing on school and increasing my earning potential as well as managing personal finances.

This is the best time to be improving your skills and going to school! Way to go my friend!

[Mr Nice Guy]

This is the best time to be improving your skills and going to school! Way to go my friend!

Thanks! Hopefully in soon time i'll be able to come out swinging with the rest of the bulls!

I did throw a percentage of my IRA into a short-term bond fund with decent yield as a safety measure (to answer your original question.) For some reason I even second guess myself on this move too lol (i'm a worry wart.) Basic financial literacy will tell you that bonds are safer than stocks.... But as I read deeper into it, the talking heads come out like the devil on one side of my shoulder and tell me "Those bonds can't keep up with inflation buddy!" Lol, investing is truly a fine balance of education, and heart and wits!

[mcfroggin]

Isn't every dip just a bump in the road? I think it will sink a little further before bouncing back.

[feh]

Bump in the road.

[maat55]

The current struggle to add jobs brings up bigger implications for the flailing housing market. The recent report on jobs reflects the underlying reality that the recession is still ongoing for many Americans. The recession officially ended in summer of 2009 but this is really only because of the expansion of GDP that was juiced by large investment banks leveraging cheap money from the Federal Reserve. Some of this money trickled into the housing market but here we are facing a double-dip in housing and a possible double-dip for the economy. The quality of jobs being added is also a hindrance to potential home price growth. The 54,000 added jobs fell well short of the 150,000 baseline figure just to keep steady with demographic growth. Then you have places like McDonald’s going on hiring sprees but how is this good for home values? The Great Recession is looking a lot of like the Great Depression in duration even though official GDP figures reflect a different story.

Neal Bortz noted today that of the 500k or so jobs added since the official end of the recession, 90%+ have been temp jobs. This is due to companies are confused as to what it means to hire someone now.

[disneysteve]

Isn't every dip just a bump in the road?

Exactly. Every correction or recession is, almost by definition, a temporary phenomenon, to be followed by a recovery. Then later to be followed by another correction or recession and then another recovery. That's how the economy operates.

The problem is when a recession hits at the wrong time for your personal finances, like just after retiring. Then you might not ever recover fully or may need to go back to work for a time to catch back up.

For those of us who are 15 or 20 or 30+ years from retirement, what happened last month or this month or next month is just a blip on the radar. By the time we retire, it will be a distant memory.

[maat55]

Exactly. Every correction or recession is, almost by definition, a temporary phenomenon, to be followed by a recovery. Then later to be followed by another.

For those of us who are 15 or 20 or 30+ years from retirement, what happened last month or this month or next month is just a blip on the radar. By the time we retire, it will be a distant memory.

Not all corrections end the same. Government intrusion will usually prolong them. We are experiencing another( Great Depression,Japanese lost decades) of these long drawnout government caused downturns. Stocks did not recover from the 1929 crash until 1954. The current Fed manipulated spike could very well be correcting soon.

If I were someone near or retired, I would be implementing plan B. Plan A(quick recovery) is not likely.

[Frugal]

I say the whole concept of a "double-dip" is a joke, we have been flat-lining economically for longer than the government-paid economists and think tanks want to admit. Those of us who like me are still unemployed can relate to this fact. The government think tanks and Federal Reserve 'economists' (I use that term loosely) answer to the people that pay them. The government does not want people to think we are in a depression or deepening recession; that dampens the specter or rather illusion of "progress", and also tends to deflate poll numbers for certain future presidential candidates in 2012 (namely, the one currently in the White House!).

Food prices are only going up, not going down. Pay rates are not increasing, and federal gov't employees mostly have at least two-year wage increases and/or freezes on COLA. The price of gas is going up, and the price for my cotton shirt at Walmart continues to rise past previously reasonable levels. I, the average American, cannot hardly stretch my dollar to make ends meet, and my dollar is being stretched about to the breaking point where I find it no longer buys anything of value at the local, Chinese-product-stocked Walmart. I find it even more difficult to find job openings than a year ago, and yet "they" say we are in recovery (e.g., those in positions of power who are not hurting economically like the rest of us, and want to increase their popularity ratings and create the illusion of "progress" and "economic CHANGE".

That's my vent. We are not in economic recovery, and never were to begin with. "Double-dip recession" is a misnomer, and implies that there was at least a temporary to partial recovery.

p.s. I agree with what Maat said above...

[Mr Nice Guy]

Conservatives wouldn't admit that we were in recovery even if we truly were, because of who is in the white house.

And the same for liberals, but vice a versa.

Its also interesting to get the opinions on the current economic status from those who are employed and those who are not.

Its so hard to understand where we are economically right NOW. There is no overall indicator of health, it is a mix of information. Time will tell, certainly. The Consumer Confidence Index has been rising in an uptrend over the past year, but on the contrary, most recent home purchases were from investors and not buyers. Who really knows lol.