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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Friday, May 13, 2011 at 00:58:42 :
In Reply to: Off-topic Question about the economy... posted by Mark Michaels [173.16.83.105] on Friday, May 13, 2011 at 00:22:52 :
I don't know. That's a big question, and the answer depends on where you are and who you ask. Go to the big cities on the coast and it looks like everyone's rolling in dough (at least the young people), even though the price of an average house has "plummeted" clear down to $300,000. Around here, the economy never really recovered from the Hunt brothers' silver crash and the closure of Bunker Hill, so the only sign of "recession" is we don't have the Californians coming up here buying up property like a few years ago.
According to the government, the unemployment rate is below 10%, and yet they also say only 45% of working-age Americans have jobs. How can unemployment be 9% when 65% of us don't have jobs? According to Ben Bernanke, who's supposed to be a whiz with money, there's no inflation. But the price of gas is almost twice what it was last year, copper is 4 times what it was a few years ago, and food is probably half again what it was a couple years ago on the average. How can there be no inflation? Congress is arguing about whether or not to raise taxes a little bit, when even if they upped the top bracket to 100%, it wouldn't cover the deficit. 40% of what the government is spending this year is borrowed money. Same last year. I don't need a degree in economics to know this can't go on forever.
I go to Seattle, or Portland, or even Spokane or Missoula, and the freeways and mall parking lots are jammed with shiny new cars and trucks. It sure doesn't look like any sort of recession to me. I don't know where everybody's getting their money, but plenty of people seem to still have plenty of money. I remember in Seattle during the Boeing Recession, view homes in good neighborhoods were sitting unsold for a year with asking prices of $20,000. I remember many stores having signs in the window that said "No Help Wanted". It's a strange recession.
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