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The revised GDP estimate for the first quarter is out and it ain't pretty. The contraction was more than expected (1% vs. 0.6%). Corporate profits were also down.
With the economy and jobs as they are, and both the dems and repubs, in leadership positions, seem to think we need more imported laborers, what about all the tens of millions of out of work Americans??? This is why so many incumbent politicians need to go back to their civilian jobs, provided they ever had one in the first place, they have no sense of priorities.
It makes no sense, we have millions of unemployed Americans, and the government is pushing for more low wage immigrant workers, who will only take our jobs and lower the pay scale for everyone else. Why pay an American $60k a year when you can hire a foreigner on an H-1B visa for $40k. Why hire an American carpenter for $30 an hour, when you can hire a foreigner, who is here illegally because he's violating our immigration laws, for $8 an hour?
The case being made for expanding H-1B visas is that we need more engineers or health care providers. Don't we have any engineering or medical schools and colleges in the US? Don't we have thousands of out of work doctors, nurses and engineers right here in the US?
My husband used to be a carpenter. People who hired cheap, illegal laborers have killed that industry. When I hear people say that the "undocumented" only take jobs that Americans refuse to do I want to smack them upside their uninformed noggins.
Looks like I read the information wrong. Thanks for pointing it out. But I will note that your quotations use the words "likely" and "only" in its forecasted growth of "only 2.4%"...... which is not exactly a resounding prognositication of good news.
2.4% is decent. Not booming, but decent. Bush's "good years" were mostly around 3% (2004 was his best year at around 4%) before the GDP started falling off a cliff in 2007.
2.4% is decent. Not booming, but decent. Bush's "good years" were mostly around 3% (2004 was his best year at around 4%) before the GDP started falling off a cliff in 2007.
Ken
You cannot compare past GDP numbers anymore Ken.
GDP got revised/rewritten last July and automatically bumped the number up by 3%.
"...GDP growth in the second quarter should bounce back to a rate of 2.5% to 3%, from a weather- and inventory-related slowdown in the first quarter. Given the anemic first-quarter growth of 0.1%, economic activity is likely to grow only 2.4% for the year as a whole, with a much stronger second half gaining at a pace of around 3%.
Momentum is picking up this spring. Disposable income adjusted for inflation grew a strong 3.8% in January through March. Consumer confidence is bouncing back, climbing above the level it held before the government shutdown and winter weather took a toll. Motor vehicle sales are strong. And an index of manufacturing purchasing managers’activity points to strongly expanding output. What’s more, new unemployment claims are running at a very low rate and retail sales have rebounded. The pickup in these March and April indicators supports the belief that winter weather was responsible for most of the depressed economic numbers for January and February..."
Every four to six years, the U.S. experiences an economic slowdown. It happens like clockwork. The current bull market is now in its fourth year.
How does the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) feel about the U.S economic outlook in 2014? Pessimistic. The CBO expects the U.S. economy in 2014 to remain moribund...
This year’s short-term and long-term economic forecasts are substantially worse than last year’s, even though the economy performed better than expected in 2013. What changed was that the C.B.O. economists essentially decided that they would no longer treat the recent years of poor economic performance as a sort of outlier. They have seen enough of a slow economy to begin to think that we should get used to sluggishness.
They think that Americans will earn less than they previously expected, that fewer of them will want jobs and that fewer will get them. They think companies will invest less and earn less. The economy, as measured by growth in real gross domestic product, will settle into a prolonged period in which it grows at an average rate of just 2.1 percent. From 2019 through 2024, job growth will average less than 70,000 a month.
Facts and reality never factor into the memes RWNJs tell each other.
The weather is at most a minor factor, but our economy is so fragile that a little snow and cold can exacerbate an already sluggish, morbid economy. Our economic growth has been mind numbingly slow, and has created too few jobs. That is the reality that we live in, wake up and take a good look at it.
If half the country is paralyzed and trapped at home, they aren't buying things.
It shifted the spending but the focus is always on retailers.
Who benefited from the polar vortex:
Auto places, oil/gas companies, winter apparel companies.
They didn't go to Target and Macy's and JCPenneys.
And the experts predicted only a 0.2% decline in the GDP because of it.
They said spending shifted, not halted due to the polar vortex.
You cannot compare past GDP numbers anymore Ken.
GDP got revised/rewritten last July and automatically bumped the number up by 3%.
First off, that 3% boost was applied RETROACTIVE back to the 1920's - so YES you CAN compare to past GDP numbers.
Secondly, the SIZE of the ECONOMY was boosted by 3%, NOT the GDP GROWTH RATE. Those are TWO DIFFERENT things.
Ken
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