Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 877 posts

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

#261

Post by theLotusGambit »

aphextron wrote: post #145
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…

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted…

Students attend school for 13 years. Let's say they miss out on 5/8 of a year because of this (I think the number is closer to 1/3, but it's not a big difference). So, instead of getting 100% of a "dismally low" education, they're only getting 95.2%. That hardly seems like a devastating loss to me, either from a knowledge or economic perspective.

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

#262

Post by ISL »

usaar333 wrote: post #241
ISL wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bet on the continued support of the market by the Fed. If you're interested in preserving purchasing power 15 years from now, would you rather hold dollars or things today? As a value investor, all of my theses were blown out of the water by the unprecedented Fed intervention. It is an environment in which the fundamentals are uncertain. I'm standing pat and waiting for things to make sense before moving agai…

> The trailing (!) S&P P/E is greater than 20 right now. The Fed is supporting prices above their historical mean/median of 15. It makes zero sense, from a financial standpoint, unless the market is pricing in substantial inflation. No, it's just pricing in low returns across all asset classes (to simplify, low interest rates) - assets are priced by excess returns not absolute. There's nothing unreasonable about a P/…

A fair point.

It is paradoxical that a sputtering economy can make equities worth more cheeseburgers, rather than fewer, but I see the logic. At some point, given the choice between a low-yielding equity and a cheeseburger, I'd rather have the cheeseburger.

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

#263

Post by drdec »

maram wrote: post #199
aphextron wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted…

> Missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. Which subject can they study at school that they cannot study at home?

TL/DR - Students in poverty lose more ground when not in school than other students. Having an extra three months at home will exacerbate this.

In the US we have a school system where the children are off from school for about ten weeks in the summer. Educators have tested the children at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year to study the effect of this.

Students with decent to above average socioeconomic factors tested at about the same level from the end of the year to the beginning of the next.

Students with poor socioeconomic factors tested measurably worse at the beginning of the next school year compared to the end of the previous year.

They also looked at the delta from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year. There was no significant difference in outcomes when socioeconomic status was taken into account.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000312240707200...

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

#264

Post by toomuchtodo »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #248
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…

> Lenders and banks were supposed to start going easy on loans but ive had two emails and a phone call about the loan for my Silverado this month and wouldnt you know, the caller was excited to mention my stimulus check. Don't settle for this. My niece had her car repossessed 3 weeks ago. They said for $18k cash she could have it. We told them to pound sand. She's borrowing cars and getting rides, but next week she'l…

> and I'm going to record a lien on it with the county so nobody can take it if things get worse and she has to declare bankruptcy

This is brilliant. I have never considered using such a tool in my travels, but have added it to my tool belt. Thank you.

> The rich get richer because they know how to take advantage of situations like this.

Preach!

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

#265

Post by ceejayoz »

maram wrote: post #199
aphextron wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted…

> Missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. Which subject can they study at school that they cannot study at home?

Some of them have essential workers as parents and are left unsupervised during the day.

Some have parents ill equipped to assist them with school work those parents never completed themselves. (Hell, I went to college, and my kids' math work is a challenge.)

Some have no access to internet.

I saw an article the other day (I'm unfortunately having trouble Googling it up) that said some school districts have 15-20% students they still haven't managed to connect to teachers yet.

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

#266

Post by rtkwe »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #63
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 things: 1. People keep saying about the market being up recently, but skip the part about it still being down about 10% since the start of the year. 2. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google account for 20% of S&P market cap. Most of those companies have been helped by the pandemic, or at least not hurt nearly as bad as smaller companies. 3. The market…

> 1. People keep saying about the market being up recently So, down 10% from the previous bubble. > 2. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies Good point. Dow is also up almost as much though. > 3. The market is always very forward looking. I may be cynical, but I see perhaps 2 to 3 years to regain the jobs we are losing, to see the employment rate return to earlier levels. That's years of depressed s…

It also helps that some of the worst hit sectors like restaurants aren't generally represented in the stock market.

And as always the stock market isn't anywhere near a holistic view of the economy, it just gets over used because it's a convenient constantly updating number that can get slapped beside any news cast or announcement.

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

#267

Post by matthewdgreen »

scottLobster wrote: post #14
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?

Best explanation I've found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ECqDaPjjV0 Can't post this enough these days. TLDR is that the stock market is forward looking. It goes up or down based on whether conditions are better or worse than EXPECTED. If reality is in line with expectations then nothing happens. If it's better than expected stocks go up, if it's worse than expected stocks go down. The current shitty economy has…

The last time the S&P price was at today's level, it was October 2019. The market is essentially saying that the forward-looking expectations of the companies in the S&P today are similar to what they were in October 2019. I'm not an expert here -- who knows, maybe they're right -- but I find that judgement very hard to take seriously.

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

#268

Post by eppp »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #248
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…

> Lenders and banks were supposed to start going easy on loans but ive had two emails and a phone call about the loan for my Silverado this month and wouldnt you know, the caller was excited to mention my stimulus check. Don't settle for this. My niece had her car repossessed 3 weeks ago. They said for $18k cash she could have it. We told them to pound sand. She's borrowing cars and getting rides, but next week she'l…

The used car market has been inflated for years. 100k+ mile vehicles selling for over half their new price makes no sense to me.

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

#269

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #208
maram wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. Which subject can they study at school that they cannot study at home?

There is very little that students can't study at home given at least some parental support. However, it's pretty clear that a significant number of students have basically given up on the school year.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN