Ill help you

Last 12 months they have made in sales 21.7 Billion dollars

that should take care of every store closing on your list plus a few 100 bills for me to wipe my greasy ass with

well now your last post is right on the money
google sowed a profet im sure yahoo is getting bought out .
oo i just love the net . lol yea the nets doing ok in this downturn lol.
no question about taht one .
but sadly the net doesent employ 100 million ppl so while the net is defintly doing ok its not going to help the averge person much .
mabby in 20 years aaaa the metrix lolol

samaticks yea yea bi know what EBAY accutly is .
but im an old timer and i have aloways loved the flemarkets and well come on surf EBAY its the worlds bigest What will you give me for my stuff sales lol way cool.
o ps to any who ever post on it be sure to put a minumal bid on your iteam. you mite end up having to sell thatAthantic antik from granma for a $ LOL

well mr bic man i seam to be derailing your post so this will be my last reply. old i admite to strengly enough i more into computers then spelling.
my spelling skills are so bad even spell check throws up its noexcistiance hands.
but when it comes to science and pcs i can ride with the well the top half.
anyway nice chating with you .Got to love this place

Their is certainly a degree of truth in your reasoning. I will only say this, if the job market does not improve it want matter how foreclosures factor in consumer spending. Many of these lost jobs will most likely not return and an economy base on spending will NOT LAST. We have lost our production edge with most of our factories gone or in shambles. Spending our way (such as our pathetic government) will NOT procure a reality that will last.

Bicman, had to wade in after seeing several of the replies here.

I seem to see a pattern in the numbers.

Let me put it this way, in the micro, companies that have been doing well have been stripping down to their profitable numbers. e.g. laying off and increasing margins.

Now, you can look at it in the macro the same way. The country of the US is stripping down to profitable numbers(companies) e.g. Amazon Ebay compared to retail giants.

Alright, I had both Keynesian profs and Austrian leaning in my Business Admin days in college. I use to argue with my Keynesian profs all the time about what is happening right now.

In the micro, people and business foreclosing, it is alright in the short and long term.

In the macro, large companies and countries foreclosing is nothing but disaster. Foreclosure is fine if foreclosure is allowed to happen and those assets are allowed to be absorbed by managers(governments) that are responsible enough to see the folly of runaway debt. But both you and I know, these huge corps and governments have hedged their bets by bribery and dare I say murder. I have seen quite a few lists of major players, I suspect, have been suicided.

The Global Economy is rife with pitfalls and landmines.

The countries that are doing well, right now, have insulated themselves from the international economy and have also hedged against falling economies(ours for one).

12 Trillion dollar US debt. Next years numbers are looking like the deficit will probably reach 2.5 Trillion. Now, with a 5% notes that is a 600 Billion dollar outlay/year on just the interest on our debt.

The healthcare fiasco is quite ingenious in the joke it pulls on all of us.

Some do not realize that the healthcare will not kick in for 6 years, BUT HERE IS THE KICKER, they will be instituting the taxation IMMEDIATELY.

Both you and I know if the government has to tax and spend on the debt, that money is no longer in the "Macro" any longer.

I think everything would have been fine if the asshats would not have bailed these incompetent companies and banks out. Let the economy find its equilibrium. But they like to modify and push and control. Hence the huge swings.

I wish my outlook was as good as yours, but I believe you will see a Depression(we are in one by the way-4 straight quarters of GDP decline-last quarter came 1 quarter too late) that makes the Great look happy.

Yes, people that are secure will not be affected as bad as say HANK.

That is what has happened in this world. People with the realization that wealth or value is not created by work, it is created by the money supply. Let money create your wealth and you will come out ok.

But you are probably missing the point that HANK, will be one pissed off mo fo when no jobs ever return to the US. EVER.

Why would anyone want to build in our country? What besides labor can we offer?

Out of control environmental controls. Soon to be business crushing. C&T
Crazy tax structures.
Corrupt unions and government bureaucrats.
Healthcare tax requirements that actually provide no health care for the next 6 years.

If I was a conspiracy nut, I would think this whole thing was planned.

If we compare the present economic trouble with history we would have finished the first downturn in the economy, probably more than halfway through the lull, and are about enter the next downturn, alla The Great Depression.
Dude, the whole country is broke, bankrupt or close to it. I mean cities, states and the Fed.

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
this isnt that.. i promise.. to state that is redic. dogg

I disagree. Might turn out to be incorrect but is not ridiculous. They've been calling this thing the Great Recession. Seems like media spin for a depression. It's the worst shape our economy has been in overall since the Great Depression. While we might very well come out of this in ok shape, I doubt we'll come out of this in better shape unless many fundamental parts of our society change. We need to trust bust the "too big to fail" companies, we need to bring back Glass-Steagall, we need better education to compete, we need our economy to be based on something besides massive citizen spending on crap, and Wall Street gambling and not producing anything of value.
We're not out of this yet, in the least. Even if you are right and we are on the upswing, the slightest disaster will set this whole thing off again.
You're only looking at number (such as amazon making a few more bucks) not realities like banks closing, shops closing, etc. As EndisNighe said, where are the jobs going to come from?

[edit on 30-11-2009 by really]

[edit on 30-11-2009 by really]

The amusing point to everyone still asserting that we are on the verge of recovery is that everything - from bank failures to jobs, are lagging indicators. In normal cases... they are, but this is not a normal case. About 70% of the US economy is based upon consumer spending.

You've got the same data I do - fewer jobs, fewer businesses (expect a lot fewer after Christmas), addition of many new taxes (varying by locality), lower Federal/State/County tax revenues come April - more government layoffs and reductions of services a la California, which incidentally is now projecting $21 Billion in deficits even after 3 budget revisions over the past year. At least 10 other states are in similar straights.

The only thing Bullish about this economy is that it's getting trampled by Bull.

In large part, I do 100% agree that there were a lot of people who got loans who definitely should not have. Absolutely, positively agree.

However - one component of the government bailout is that it makes it increasingly difficult for SMART companies to compete with STUPID ones - because it is the STUPID ones that were the beneficiary of hundreds of BILLIONS of SMART PEOPLE's $$$. Reward Failure and you will consistently get failure.

Moreover... we would be entering a Bullish phase IF those stupid companies were *allowed/forced* into bankruptcy - as many of those smart companies would have picked up the pieces. Government bail out effectively yanked "the spoils of beating bad business" from the victors. The only outcome of backing losers...is to consistently lose. It's not the money that is the problem - it is the people and policies behind it that determine success.

And by god, it sure as heck seems like this administration (and Bush's as well, as he put the ball in motion) is hell bent on failure. I hope it does fail in its efforts to fail... but I wouldn't bet a dime on it.

Originally posted by GreenBicMan

who's they?

internet doom people?

I'm curious, do you consider Jim Rogers and internet doom person?

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
'm Afraid The Next Downturn May Be Worse Than The Last One
"You have these huge problems of government borrowing, spending and printing, and taxing huge amount of money and we're going to pay the price for that before it's all over. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the next downturn may be worse than the last one because of the mistakes government make." in Channel News Asia

Since no one has mentioned this here as far as tax liability is concerned, but the hypothesis of disposable income of a homeowner vs renter posted by the OP is somewhat flawed.

The foreclosed homeowner, now renter, though paying less month to month on rent has lost the threshold of Federal tax write offs beyond that of the standard deduction.

Additionally, their rent, though only 30% less than they'd paid as a home owner is now also non deductible. In essence they are now paying more in Federal taxes due to lack of Federal tax write offs beyond the standard deduction against their taxable income.

On the otherhand, The homeowner would receive approximately 30% on every dollar above the cost of renting based upon (Mortgage interest and real estate tax deductions)as a tax refund adding to their overall annual disposable income.

And finally, the spending of disposable income at Walmart or Amazon does nothing but extract money from the local economy. Funneling profits to the stockholders and to China.

The loss of tax revenue now that their former home is now vacant, ie generating no tax revenue, directly impacts police, fire and school budgets in said community leading to additional layoffs of police, firemen and teachers.

Now these former teachers, firemen ad policemen are losing their homes. Not due to fiscal irresponsibility, but from lack of budgets and/or tax revenues.