Friday, September 20, 2013

How is your economy today? ... by gimleteye

Honestly, readers: if there is a shadow of a doubt that information on the economy is manipulated by public relations operating in the deep background (including government and media), consider the release of data on the poor performance of personal income growth and the decision by the Federal Reserve to continue its massive purchases in the debt market; a decision that threw a major curve ball at institutional investors.

Is the economy recovering or isn't it? What is your experience? Is your purchasing power greater today than it was five years ago? Or ten years ago?

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel like a serf

Anonymous said...

The Tea Party crazies will help you with that.

Anonymous said...

D E A D
B R O K E
from public library computer

Anonymous said...

We survive but collectively many are not. Miami-Dade county was one of the poorest areas of the country before the recession. The recession took its toll, and now there are many people who were doing OK before who are now struggling for daily existence. There are homeless people living all along US1. Some are living with family members in overcrowded living situations. Many people who never experienced unemployment or hunger, now have to struggle for food everyday. Many middle class people lost everything they had. For the haves everything looks rosey in Miami-Dade, but a closer look will reveal a different story. I am glad the federal government is continuing to help as another hit would be a disaster for many.

Anonymous said...

I'm financially going back to when I was in my 20's, struggling as a college student and I'm in my 40's now!

While government employees within County Hall fuss over pensions and heath care, I worry whether the Tax Collector is going to take my house along with the mortgage company which I can barely pay or whether I can go grocery shopping this week. I don't go out to a nice restaurant nor do I have any credit cards any longer. Don't even get me started on health insurance, I have none. I'm thankful I'm healthy (at least I physically feel fine)!

No, this economy still sucks and feels like 20 years of hard work has gone down the drain and then worse then that.

Anonymous said...

The key is jobs. Even if people don't make a lot of money, some money would provide basics, and they could help family members, friends, and others. The problem with the stimulus was the money never got to the people it was intended to help. It went to the usual suspects. So the needy got the full force of the recession. We had some big hits too. UM laid off 1,000 people, and many never got help from the state. Workforce South FL missed many funding opportunities to help people find jobs. A lot has happened here and our situation is quite fragile. Our leadership is focused on financial gain for themselves and no one is concerned about the community as a whole. I think when Clinton gets back in the Whitehouse, a WPA type program will emerge to help get this economy rolling again.

Anonymous said...

Interesting comments. I too think the economic situation is far more fragile ... there is an operative mind-set that the public can't take much more bad news and the newspapers and media follow along. Anyhow bad news is bad for advertisers. Truth hurts. But the powers that be can't keep papering over what has happened to the middle class. I heard one economist the other day say, as if shrugging his shoulders, there is no legislation that says there has to be a middle class. And in a sick way, he was right. Instead of confronting our disparities and the causes, we allow big corporations to invest in PACs and politicians who just shovel the pablum that best fits the results of focus groups. This is the one point where I agree with the crazy pop, Rand Paul: that we would have been better off in the end had the White House allowed the house of cards to fall. Instead we just built it bigger. I suppose they can keep this going on for a long while, and the words from the top will continue to be that we are experiencing a slow recovery, uneven, without admitting that the entire middle class is being pushed down. The people who object, as one observer noted above, are rushing to the Tea Party without understanding the Tea Party is in the back pocket of the same corporate interests who put the economy into the wringer: wringing profit for themselves and misery for the rest.

Anonymous said...

A house divided against itself cannot stand. The Tea Party is causing much pain to this country, and we as a country must focus on returning them home and find people who can lead the nation. Everyone is on edge and holding tight as we face another possible shutdown of the federal government, and a Congress not lifting the debt limit- all because Congress cannot resolve partisan fiscal battles. We already know the pain of automatic budget cuts from sequestration. So we are just holding on, praying that things don't get worse. As far as So. FL and the state is concerned, we need to let every member of Congress know, that if they destroy this country with this mess, they won't be going back to Congress.

Anonymous said...

Not sure what the answer is to correct. There are no jobs, college graduates are making sandwiches, personally maybe once a month we can go out to a decent dinner but everyone is struggling businesses are barely surviving.
The Fed pumps in $85 billion a month into the economy and the debt ceiling has been at the same number for five months. Employment is said to be down but the numbers show they are part time jobs. I think people have given up. The Tea Party recognizes that the Obama administration has no answers other than increasing the debt to push the economy via false stock and bond numbers and rewriting labor statistics. Financially October is a traditional month for bad news, get ready eleven days to go.
Can't keep throwing food stamps, free housing and free education at people if there are no jobs, somebody has to pay and there are far fewer in the workforce.
To my friends on here blaming the Tea Party and conservatives just answer the question who will pay?
If you took all of the 1% richest's assets that would cover running the government for 9 days, and then what after those 9 days, eventually you would run out of taxpayers. This is what happens when you elect a community organizer who was never accountable.

Anonymous said...

Obama has done the best job he could given the awful circumstances Bush created and left the country with. Remember Clinton created a surplus when he left the Whitehouse. Bush came in, spent the surplus, put us in debt, and left the economy in shambles. Obama came in, stopped the free fall, put us on his back and has been clawing us back in spite of massive Tea Party opposition. The answer to get us to the next level is to get the American economy rolling again. We have to start building things again, creating jobs for people. The idea is not to keep making the pie smaller and smaller, but making it larger and larger.

Anonymous said...

Miami-Dade is the top luxury car market in the United States. One quarter of Miami-Dade lives below the poverty line. 'nuff said.

Anonymous said...

Let them eat cake. How do you say, that, in Spanish?

Anonymous said...

In Miami it's "Que coman pastelitos!" ;-)

Anonymous said...

There are haves and have-nots here. The middle class is rapidly disappearing.

Anonymous said...

Bush? I thought the question was in the present. EOM, you need better educated readers.

Anonymous said...

I am retired on a fixed pension and run a small farm.My small income from the farm has gone down due to increased cost of fertilizer and maintenance. Also because of foreign imports hurting the market. Ten years ago I paid $1.59 per gal for gas. Today I paid $3.49. Groceries are way up.Taxes are up. Income down. I can't figure how the poor folks can survive. $22,000 poverty line? How can a family survive on it?

Anonymous said...

Many of those cars are rentals. As a matter of fact, I can't remember a car commercial that advertised cars for sale. They announce the amount down, and the monthly payment on the lease. I don't think they have any concept of owning a car and being debt-free. But for another population in Miami, given economic uncertainty, they only think in terms of buying a used car, owning it, and paying cash if possible because they can't deal with car payments with high interest rates. If you can't get a car, then it is a motorcycle or bicycle.

Anonymous said...

I think the car companies are offering six-year financing plans for new cars.

Pat said...

Obama has destroyed our economy and our nation. He has "fundamentally transformed" America from a rich country to a poor one.

On the upside, everyone will have free birth control.

Anonymous said...

Clinton left Bush with a $5.6 trillion debt. Bush left Obama with a $10 trillion debt. Obama has added more than $6 trillion. The national debt is now at $16.9 trillion. Put the blame where it belongs.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

a said...

i hope they dont raise the debt ceiling. someone needs to take away bobo's credit card.

Anonymous said...

We have now had four years in a row of deficits of $1.3 trillion or more, the highest in world history. Before Obama, the highest previous deficit was $458 billion, or less than half a trillion, in 2008.

Anonymous said...

Obama had to deal with the worse economy since the depression. He kept this economy going, in spite of no help and distractions from Republicans.

Anonymous said...

Economy must be booming if the House GOP, stoked by Tea Party activists, cut $40 billion from the federal food stamp program, tossing 3.8 million Americans out of the program come 2014. Right?

Anonymous said...

Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans, maybe we should start electing libertarians and Independents so we have diferent people to blame, or maybe we should be looking in the mirror to find the root of our problems. We all want a lot of things, but very few want to pay for them, we have to set our priorities as a society and face the fact that we have to pay for them, also,if we do not facilitate the developmente of a free market economy, with laws that protect the rights of everybody but do not dictate how to distribute the wealth, we will all end up poor and under the control of the ones who own the political and economic power.

Anonymous said...

How can people pay taxes when there are no jobs? The current administration has lost 1.9 million jobs.
Bush involved us in two wars due to Clinton's failure to take Bin Laden out. Obama inherited the housing crash from the Clinton administration who thought it would be a great idea to relax the rules for home ownership. Some people are meant to rent. Yes Bush gave us TARP which is proven to be a bank bailout and municipal bailout another bad move.
We actually need to come together, get some real ideas to spur job growth, the answer is not to keep robbing Peter to pay Paul. The animosity between all involved is not moving the country forward.
We need real jobs not Solyndra fakers and scam artists that sound good but perform badly. Pelosi, Boehner, Reid and McConnell need to get it together and present the president with solid fundamental job growth ideas. Get rid of the ACA ASAP. This nightmare will only make us a much worse off country financially.

Anonymous said...

Just surviving,
But really Gimleteye, ask this question again a Year after the quantitative & other easing chickens have come home to roost.
Just read a pension funding shortfall report about all states. I think only a used car salesman as POTUS is going to give us that warm and assuring feeling again.

Anonymous said...

Five years later and Odumbo's sheep are still blaming Bush.

Diggy said...

Employment gap between rich and poor highest on record

"The gap in employment rates between America's highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101036199

THANK YOU MULTIMILLIONAIRE OBAMA FOE MAKING THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER.

Anonymous said...

Well, thank goodness Obama has been there to keep us afloat. The question now is will the republicans shoot themselves in the foot in the next few days, or will they do the right thing by avoiding a government shutdown and lifting the debt limit. We need to watch closely how our members of Congress vote on these issues and let them know we will be working hard to insure they lose their seats if they fail the country at this critical time.

Anonymous said...

By his own admission, Bush took us to war to avenge his daddy. He said he "wanted to get Bin Laden for attempting to kill his daddy.".

Alex said...

Corporations got greedy. Every job is Off Shore. There is a fix. Stop importing from China. If we do not make it we do not get it. What made America great was we were self sufficent. We made our stuff and bought our stuff.Then a group of idiots told us it would be cheaper from somewhere else. What a lie.Now were digging our ports deeper to bring in more crap from somewhere else. Fracking is destroying our water.The big lie Natural Gas is the next Savior.We need to fess up and realize the Big Lie isn't working.No More Imports.This nightmare started long ago Reagan was an actor with dementia Bush was CIA. This country focused on a Blow Job. Frankly I was eating when Clinton was in office. So the spiral has taken some time but Corporate Greed is most of the problem and Corporate Welfare is another.Wars for no reason Wars for oil. America has been set up to fail on purpose some very greedy people are controling all Media. Instead of watching Dancing with the stars start informing yourself on whats going on and then act or or continue to be an idiot, believe the propaganda. Me I am hoping America wakes up soon.Stop buying the poison, demand Media tell and expose the truth, and stop watching so called reality TV ...............

Chauncey said...

Obama has been there to keep us afloat? LOL! We have all suffered through 5 years of failure by the worst president in history. Nothing but incompetence and scandals. Only a true Obama sheep would claim that things may be horrible but they could possibly be worse. Baaaa! Baaaa! LOL!

Anonymous said...

I'd love to watch something other than Dancing with Stars or Survivor; unfortunately folks like Frontline and other documentary producers aren't getting funding to produce documentaries about the pension crisis; the financial crisis; too big too fail; fracking; corporate welfare etc. Why would Goldman, JP Morgan or Exxon want to fund something that will damage their reputations?

Geniusofdespair said...

We have our share of trolls on this one. Chauncey as usual: Putz

Anonymous said...

Alex, I think you are right about sending our jobs to other countries. It killed jobs and economic growth here, so now we have the cheaper goods, but no one has the money to buy them.

Anonymous said...

How much longer will you keep blaming Bush? When will the president begin accepting responsibility for his failures in leadership?

Anonymous said...

History is one long thread. No presidential term stands alone. It stands on the frameworks, conditions, relationships, problems, state of affairs, and issues addressed by earlier administrations. If Clinton follows Obama, she will have to address and pick-up everything going forward. In fact Obama is setting the preconditions and agenda for her presidency, just as Bush did for Obama.

Anonymous said...

bad economy? ..bull! try going to the mall on any day of the week; I went to the Dolphin Mall and couldn't get parking, not even on the outskirts! The malls are jammed with people, all with bags in their hands, so they are purchasing! Last week I went to Disney and it was the same thing, full of people! Cruises are filled to capacity. I think the media wants to portray us is a worse economic situation than what the reality is. Take a walk in the Grove, Coral Gables or Oceandrive ...restaurants filled to capacity and have waiting lists.

Anonymous said...

There are two Miamis, the haves and the havenots. You see mostly the haves. Shopping centers are big social scenes and a lot of people go to them for socialization not to shop. Also remember we are a tourist area and many people come here from various islands and even other parts of the country to shop.

Anonymous said...

Government workers in Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami get paid 20% to 50% more than comparable private sector employees. AND they all get health care and Defined Benefit Pensions. Wow. Private sector serfs? Yup.

Anonymous said...

Normally, I don't go to shopping centers. I no longer enjoy being around crowds of strange people. If I have to go, I go at a time when I think there will be few people there, and my purchases are targeted and strategic, and researched before I get there. It is a quick in and out situation. Since my disposable income is limited, I make very few purchases, and they are all cash. I own my car. I paid off all my credit cards and cut them up so I could be debt-free and live within my budget. Who knows, tomorrow I may not have a job.