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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

#761

Post by oarabbus_ »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #257
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…

Tech people will be hit much harder by this than they think. The STEM world is largely in denial because ultimately SV grew because of the last major recession. That won't be happening this time. Startups are having massive layoffs right now, and each week bring companies further and further down the chain lay people off. I strongly suspect we'll see more major layoffs next week. Most big tech companies are driven by…

>Finally in the Bay Area there's the looming problem that huge amounts of everything is paid for in RSUs (restricted stock units).

The FED and Treasury have "united" in some sense, and we have unlimited (trillions) QE flowing into equities. So unless the FED stops the money printing party, I'm not so confident this will happen.

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

#762

Post by alexilliamson »

mdemare wrote: post #485
School-Cotton wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, that number is clearly exaggerated. No current evidence supports the claim that a million people in the USA dying of covid is remotely plausible. Now to the substance of your argument: this has little to do with capitalism. If most people are not working for a long period of time, in any society, even a non-capitalist one, then that society will rapidly become dramatically materially poorer. We make cho…

Without a lockdown, most of the country will eventually be infected. NYC currently has 21000 excess deaths, so extrapolating that to the rest of the country would mean 21000*328M / 10M = 690,000 excess deaths. That's assuming that nobody else in NYC is going to die of Covid 19, even after lifting the lockdown, so this is an extremely conservative projection, and it's already close to 1M deaths. What's implausible abo…

I mean I agree it's plausible, but it also seems likely that it's more lethal in NYC because of population density.

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

#763

Post by mywittyname »

eppp wrote: post #369
slfnflctd wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense if the car tends to last 350k+ miles and has only been gently used. There are at least a few models that have pretty consistently been getting up to that or higher before major repair is needed since 2010 or so. I will say I think quality hybrids (again, gently used) are worth more than a lot of their counterparts on this point.

Gently used at 100k seems like a strong ask. I commute two hours a day and get around ~20k miles a year. The car would be five years old at the point of 100k. Quicker than that and the person that owned it drove the crap out of it. Plastic and trim is squeaking, stains, scratches, etc. I dont personally care about any of that but I expect it to be reflected heavily in the price. Then you look at the asking prices for…

Those SUVs were expensive new as well. If you head over to the new car lot, it's not hard to spend $60k on an SUV, even a domestic one with a Chevy|Ford|Jeep badge.

These are the kinds of vehicles that everyone wants to drive (along with trucks) and 72/84 month loans have been common for a while now (even for lightly used cars). So that sets price floor for trade-ins, since people can only roll over so much negative equity. Then you have to factor in that car sales in 2009-2012 were 50-60% of what they were in 2019.

So, demand is high, and supply is low. It makes sense that used SUVs are expensive. Once you start looking at less desirable models, like coupes and sedans, then prices drop considerably.

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

#764

Post by stcredzero »

ryandrake wrote: post #755
stcredzero wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only social unrest that has happened so far have been the protests about wanting to lift or ease restrictions on states, and they were widely panned as a bunch of nutjobs. It's easy to look down on people lower on the socioeconomic ladder. They're still human beings. They've been given this raw deal: For the greater good, you will now give up your job for an indefinite period of time, with no prospect of finding…

It would be much harder to "look down" on the protestors if their protests were backed by sanity. For every sign saying "I need to work to feed my family," you see 20 saying: * Coronavirus is a hoax! * Fake nurses! * 5G cellphones cause coronavirus! * Impeach Bill Gates! * Vaccines are poison! * Social Distancing is Communism! * Freedom!! There are reasonable arguments against the temporary shutdown, but the proteste…

For every sign saying "I need to work to feed my family," you see 20 saying...

Ask yourself this: Why is the media playing up those fringer crazies, and not covering the very poignant, socially relevant, and human angle of "I need to work to feed my family"? Then go and look up Manufacturing Consent. Here's how propaganda often happens in the West: Emotional manipulation is better than outright ham-handed Pravda-esque censorship.

BTW, you seem to have watched the same "All Gas No Brakes" YouTube video of the Sacramento protests I did. You name the very same nutcase signs as appeared in the video. There's part of your answer right there: If it bleeds it leads. Nutcase signs are easy to get viral sharing out of. They tick the humor and outrage buttons all at the same time.

Freedom!!

This is a good thing. If someone tries to associate freedom with bad people, it's because they want all the power for their own tribe.

Note this quote from a cousin comment: "People who are 'lower on the socioeconomic ladder' are the ones going on strike for PPE, hazard pay and sick leave that the media are dutifully ignoring." Please, ask yourself why the media are dutifully ignoring certain things.

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

#765

Post by jessaustin »

_iyig wrote: post #748
jessaustin wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unrest is what happens in Venezuela or Yemen, etc. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. "Unrest" in Latin America is caused by USA's off-the-leash unsupervised services. Venezuela's government is taking better care of its citizens than our government is taking of us, in this current health emergency. This despite the crippling sanctions and attempte…

>Venezuela's government is taking better care of its citizens than our government is taking of us, in this current health emergency. I've seen nothing to corroborate this. >Don't believe the war media; I recommend The Grayzone. Here's a video from last year of Grayzone founder Max Blumenthal cheerfully receiving honors from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has ruled that country by violence and decree since 2…

Venezuela is the watched pot: it should have boiled by now! Venezuelans haven't violently overthrown Maduro because they mostly consent to the results of two somewhat-democratic elections. He lets his supposed "rival" Juan Guaido prance about the country unmolested so all Venezuelans can laugh at the impotence of CIA. With continued sanctions and the price of oil at long-time lows, "natural" pressure on Maduro should be running hot. Instead, that same low price obliterates CIA's theoretical incentive to install a subservient petrostate. They've redeployed their ratfuckers to Nicaragua.

If a USA president had been subject to massive bias from nearly every news media corporation, he might be tempted to honor an independent news outlet that attempted to report with objectivity. Oh, wait... that actually happened this year, at the "State of the Union" speech.

When we fall into the trap of running to wikipedia every time we're confused by world events, we can't be surprised that the war media continues to lead us around by the nose. If we step back and see the pattern, we begin to discount every story that leads us closer to yet another stupid war. Every day this month, it has been obvious to non-Americans how deficient our system is. Every other nation on earth has responded more reasonably and more effectively to this virus. Venezuela is among those nations.

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

#766

Post by mywittyname »

dzonga wrote: post #733
Server6 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because of the long term 72-84 month loans. People are trading in used cars for close to the loan payoff amounts - which is still pretty high.

people can't afford cars, simple as that. otherwise loan terms wouldn't be 84 months.

Car manufactures favor margins over moving metal. They've learned that long loan terms don't reduce sales, as most people define affordable to be, they can afford the monthly payment.

And since manufactures own the lending arm, and the sales arm, they enjoy higher margins, plus more in interest payments. Not everyone is going to qualify for that 0% interest. Plus, it keeps dealers happy because they can squeeze in bullshit fees to pad the sale price.

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

#767

Post by makomk »

sixothree wrote: post #653
makomk wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can print more money, but we cannot print the things the money will buy . When the factories shut their doors and busineses small and large collapse and the food supply chain implodes, you can't eat money or shelter from the rain under money - and all that turning the printing presses up will do is to make it clear to everyone just how unreal money actually is. We know from other countries that's really hard to un…

And if those people are dying in droves? What then, who makes these things?

This isn't the Black Death. People aren't dying in numbers that would affect the overall workforce size. It's more like an unusually bad flu epidemic - the main differences being that the deaths are more biased away from people who aren't working anyway, and that we don't shut down the planet over the flu. There might be good reasons to lock down heavily, but that's not one of them.

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

#768

Post by esoterica »

fallingfrog wrote: post #592
a_wild_dandan wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone on Twitter described the stock market as a graph of rich people feelings and, facetious as that is, I wonder if there's truth to it. A market driven partly by emotion could mean a stock hysteresis where the market's long-term reaction lags behind the economic reality like you describe. The recent headline "16 million people just got laid off but U.S. stocks had their best week in 45 years" is the most mind-sh…

The other thing to remember is that nobody actually loses anything when stock prices go down. Everyone still owns the same stocks, in the aggregate, and no actual material property is lost. Just the valuation changes. To insist that valuations cannot be allowed to go down as a matter of government policy is totally bonkers.

> Everyone still owns the same stocks, in the aggregate, and no actual material property is lost. Just the valuation changes.

But the valuation is the number that actually matters, not the number of stocks you own. You can't buy food with stocks, you have to exchange them for money first. If the price of stocks goes down then you own less real value.

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

#769

Post by stcredzero »

mcphage wrote: post #744
stcredzero wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. And nobody wants to be forced to pick between that, and the very real possibility of getting sick For a lot of people, this is a choice they make every day, even predating the pandemic. It's an honest shame that people with your attitude weren't the ones running the protests, instead of people flying the confederate flag and wanting to get their hair done. It's an honest shame, that politics in 2020 is of…

> For a lot of people, this is a choice they make every day, even predating the pandemic. It is, but I'm not sure where you're going with this—are you implying that the pandemic hasn't drastically affected that decision? Otherwise: what are you saying?

Otherwise: what are you saying?

We're all human beings, regardless of "tribe."

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

#770

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

lisper wrote: post #480
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one knows what's the limit of "enough dollars". It's not infinite but it's very possible that enough money can be printed to provide ubi to the lowest rung of the society ad infinitum

There is no question that this could be done. In fact, I think that this is a fairly reasonable policy. It effectively amounts to a flat tax on wealth to fund UBI. Personally I would prefer a progressive tax to "flatten the curve" more at the top, but I'd settle for an inflation-based UBI. But that is NOT what is happening at the moment. What is happening at the moment is almost the exact opposite: money is being inj…

That's right. Trickle down economy is not ideal. It was a worthy experiment and it has failed. It's best to give MMT a shot and provide UBI to the lower rung of the society.
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