Peacenik has followed Bonddad's coverage of the financial crisis for years. Peacenik has quoted Bonddad as the economy sank into depression. So, in the interest of fairness, Peacenik will post this article by Bonddad saying basically that the economy has bottomed out. But Peacenik doesn't really believe Bondad. And if you read the comments to his piece a lot of others don't believe him either. And what if this isn't the bottom? What if there is no uptick? What if Bonddad is wrong? What metrics do you measure a turn around by?
The Economic Free Fall Is Over
Gloom and doom is the way of blogs lately. Nothing is good; everything is bad. Unfortunately, lost in this translation is a set of monthly trends that shows the worse is over. Now -- this does not mean everything is roses. Far from it. As I have mentioned in the past the recovery will be weak with slow growth and high (7%-8% minimum) unemployment for the better part of a year. But the data indicates the worse is behind us.
Before I begin, let me make a few observations.
1.) There are two predominant ways to present economic data: year over year and month over month. Year over year removes seasonality. Here's an illustration. Suppose you are looking at the retail sector's employment trends starting in September and you see in increase in hiring. A logical conclusion is things are looking up because companies are hiring more. However, this excludes the possibility of a seasonal effect; namely that retail typically hires more people as the holiday season approaches. As a result, it's better to compare this September to last September -- this removes "seasonality" from the equation.
Read on...
The Economic Free Fall Is Over
Gloom and doom is the way of blogs lately. Nothing is good; everything is bad. Unfortunately, lost in this translation is a set of monthly trends that shows the worse is over. Now -- this does not mean everything is roses. Far from it. As I have mentioned in the past the recovery will be weak with slow growth and high (7%-8% minimum) unemployment for the better part of a year. But the data indicates the worse is behind us.
Before I begin, let me make a few observations.
1.) There are two predominant ways to present economic data: year over year and month over month. Year over year removes seasonality. Here's an illustration. Suppose you are looking at the retail sector's employment trends starting in September and you see in increase in hiring. A logical conclusion is things are looking up because companies are hiring more. However, this excludes the possibility of a seasonal effect; namely that retail typically hires more people as the holiday season approaches. As a result, it's better to compare this September to last September -- this removes "seasonality" from the equation.
Read on...
