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U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

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Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#151

Post by RankingMember »

dudul wrote: post #112
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

And this post is why I get so infuriated when I see all the blue-checkmarks on Twitter, calling people who want to go back to work "Selfish, stupid, idiot, etc". People don't want lockdown to stop because they need to go to their hairdresser, or because they need to go hangout at the pub, or whatever idiotic reason these privilege a-holes put in their tweets. People want to get back to work , because they need money…

The essential motivation for people to want to feed their families/pay bills is completely logical, but it's important to keep in perspective that the virus doesn't care about any of these things. We don't need to look too far back in history to see that ending isolation in a pandemic too early can have huge consequences (much bigger than an economic slowdown/unemployment).

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#152

Post by Causality1 »

iambateman wrote: post #4

I understand that the economy and the market are different but I'm so confused. The S&P is up ~12% this month, despite massive unemployment, a shrinking economy, and serious long-term questions about the outlook. Is most of the 12% just market speculation that the virus issue will pass without a long-term earnings hit?

The top percent have spent the last fifty years severing worker productivity from worker compensation. In doing so they have made the stock market less and less related to the status of the average American. Only the two wealthiest people I know cared at all when the initial covid panic dropped the market by thirty percent.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#153

Post by bachmeier »

quickthrowman wrote: post #111
bachmeier wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Government policy, both current and expected future. I want to add emphasis on (2). The effects are not spread out uniformly across all businesses. The hard hit businesses including restaurants, bars, and hair and nail salons have seen almost all of their business evaporate. You're not going to find the corner nail salon in the S&P 500.

Where do you think those small businesses buy their supplies/inventory from? The employees of these businesses also consume products from large cap companies. Who is going to buy things if they’re out of work?

Absolutely. There will be some of those effects for sure, and they'll be pretty big. They will nonetheless be nothing compared to the small business owners that have bills to pay but no money coming in. Microsoft, on the other hand, is facing more of a blip.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#154

Post by throwaway2048 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #116
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

It might help to remember that a recession is economic decline over a period of time, so a steep decline over a very short period is not considered a recession. As we move into a longer period of time (in the past, the rule was two quarters, but that doesn't seem to be a "rule" of the definition anymore), it starts to officially be considered a recession. So it's not that it was being dismissed as not significant bef…

I'm sure the technical definition of a recession makes him feel much better.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#155

Post by balls187 »

dudul wrote: post #112
nimbius wrote: post #98

This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…

And this post is why I get so infuriated when I see all the blue-checkmarks on Twitter, calling people who want to go back to work "Selfish, stupid, idiot, etc". People don't want lockdown to stop because they need to go to their hairdresser, or because they need to go hangout at the pub, or whatever idiotic reason these privilege a-holes put in their tweets. People want to get back to work , because they need money…

On the flip-side, putting all businesses in this situation means most of us are in the same situation; and every market/industry needs to work together to get out of this crisis.

If no one can pay their mortgage, loan holders HAVE to make exceptions.

That shared spirit of sacrifice isn't a reason to institute lock down orders, but my opinion is that it will allow us to lesson the economic damage long term.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#156

Post by obblekk »

grey-area wrote: post #22

NB this is for the first quarter of 2020, which had hardly any impact from Covid-19 - lockdowns mostly happened late March and the start of April. So the second quarter will be a better reflection of the impact of shutdowns and changes in consumer behaviour/travel, but we won't see figures for that for a while. Almost more worrying, 20% of the value of the S&P 500 is now concentrated in the top 5 tech stocks, which a…

Vulnerable, yes but the google earnings from yesterday show even in advertising, there seems to be a temporary floor.

Entirely possible the floor is a temporary illusion and falls out over next 3mo, but the market is betting that won’t happen (I don’t know why, I’m not an expert on ads)

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#157

Post by Tistron »

cpursley wrote: post #121
hnarn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

In Scandinavia we've had some sort of pragmatic market socialism, not much central planning but reasonable redistribution in various ways. Seems to work fairly well, although large parts of it has been (and is being) dismantled by the liberals (those are the right here, not the left).

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#158

Post by dudul »

spaceribs wrote: post #147
dudul wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this post is why I get so infuriated when I see all the blue-checkmarks on Twitter, calling people who want to go back to work "Selfish, stupid, idiot, etc". People don't want lockdown to stop because they need to go to their hairdresser, or because they need to go hangout at the pub, or whatever idiotic reason these privilege a-holes put in their tweets. People want to get back to work , because they need money…

blaming "Blue Checkmarks" for the fact that people are being victimized by capitalism during a pandemic makes me sick to my stomach. What a hopeless year this has been.

People victimized by capitalism (and I totally agree that this is the current situation btw) don't need to be called names or selfish, or idiots, by people who are not victimized.

I'm blaming privileged people for lecturing and gaslighting people who are not as privileged.

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#159

Post by owenwil »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #39

I wish I could say I disagree, but to be perfectly honest, I was fully expecting a recession last year. As someone may have already mentioned though, between FED basically keeping the market afloat, stimulus working its way through the economy and dollar still riding as a safe haven, it is not that surprising that US economy did not crash, while a good chunk of population is at home and out of commission. The thing t…

> The thing that worries me is that by attempting to prolong it as long as we are, we are basically setting up a stage for a greater depression

Killing thousands of people in the name of the economy would also set the stage for an even longer, deeper recession...

Re: U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

#160

Post by School-Cotton »

res0nat0r wrote: post #120
dudul wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this post is why I get so infuriated when I see all the blue-checkmarks on Twitter, calling people who want to go back to work "Selfish, stupid, idiot, etc". People don't want lockdown to stop because they need to go to their hairdresser, or because they need to go hangout at the pub, or whatever idiotic reason these privilege a-holes put in their tweets. People want to get back to work , because they need money…

I understand their thinking because not working is causing a massive amount of collateral damage, but the virus doesn't care about any of that. If everyone goes back to normal too early, this all just starts over, and folks are forced to be inside even longer, there's just no way around it.

This is wrong. We are not forced to be inside because of the virus. It would have been totally possible to have this pandemic going on with zero lockdowns, which would have probably led to worse health effects, and less-bad economic effects.

It's a pet peeve of mine when people claim that we must lock down or that the virus is forcing us to do this or that, as opposed to it being a political choice based on tradeoffs.

In fact, I predict that after things open up, they will not shut back down, no matter how bad the second wave of the outbreak gets. People simply won't accept it.

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