Thursday, January 31, 2013

Worst Recovery Ever, Or It May Never End

We have been tracking the Recession using the St Louis FED statistics and comparing them to past recessions. This one is a mess, and as I have indicated it is due completely to the incompetence of economists and the current Administration. Let me recount the stats.
Industrial Production is slowly improving but with increased productivity there will most likely be little or any increase in employment.
Income is just collapsing. Not only is it below the past recessions but it is widening.
Employment is heading back down again. This is a result of the lowered production and the increased productivity.
Retail Sales remains fixed at the average most likely driven by Government supports but these will diminish and drive them down also.
The GDP Stats are horrifying. We are now consistently below what was the worst. This sets a new low. There is minimal improvement from a year before the beginning of the Recession.
The PCE portion of the GDP is above. It is dropping quickly. That is a sign that the non-government sector is starting to fall off.
Private Investment remains on average, but it may also start to stall.
Government Consumption is now below the start of this process. Not unexpected since we are out of 2 wars.
Exports are doing well as are Imports.

Overall this is still quite a mess and they folks keep going off the cliff with no notice of what is happening.