ragerunner

No, it means that public sector layoffs will contribute to unemployment, not that there will be a slowdown in the private sector generting employment (albeit at a low rate vis a vis previous recoveries). Bloomberg: Leading Indicators Increase More than Forecast The index of U.S. leading economic indicators increased in December more than forecast, a sign the recovery will gather steam in the new year. The Conference Boards gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months rose 1.0 percent after a 1.1 percent gain in November, the New York-based group said today. The December reading, the sixth consecutive monthly increase, exceeded the 0.6 percent gain in the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. So we are continuing with this slow recovery... Public Sector layoffs may be high enough that even if private sector job growth continues at the 150,000 to 200,000 per month level, it may not be enough to lower the level of unemployed in 2011. To me that is a noticable headwind to improving the number of unemployed in the US.

Check out some of the inventory levels. If you own a home in some of those locations you are in for a noticable drop in value for years to come. Add in that this inventory is growing bigger by the day. Shadow inventory threatens housing recovery "There were 1.7 million homes either owned by the bank or in some stage of foreclosure at the end of the third quarter of 2010, according to a recent report by Standard & Poor's. It would take 44 months, at the current rate of sales, to sell them off -- a 25% increase from the beginning of 2010." "In Minneapolis, it rose 61% between Dec. 31, 2009 and Sept. 30, 2010, to 35 months from 21. Las Vegas went up 48% to 30 months supply, and Portland, Ore. jumped 47% to 45 months. In New York, foreclosures are relatively moderate, but many have gotten stuck in the pipeline. As a result, the state now has the longest shadow inventory list, with nearly 10 years worth of homes. Boston's shadow inventory is at 62 months and Miami's is 60." http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/20/real_estate/shadow_inventory_rise/index.htm?source=cnn_bin Job growth potential has a lot of headwind going into 2011. State Problems Risk Renewed Rise In Unemployment "New York State is likely to layoff 10,000 public service workers as part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to cut the New York’s deficit. The state’s budget problems may be worse than many others. But, there are a dozen or so states which are just as bad off as New York . California certainly sits in that group as does Illinois and Michigan. Among them, they could fire tens of thousands of people. Those figures do not include municipal or federal workers. Economists believe that the US recovery is well enough underway so that the private sector will begin to add jobs. It happened to a limited extent in the fourth quarter of last year. Some experts believe that American businesses will add an average of 200,000 jobs in 2011." Read more: State Problems Risk Renewed Rise In Unemployment - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2011/01/20/state-problems-risk-renewed-rise-in-unemployment/#ixzz1BbiMhPju

Speaking of Main Street and how its sees things. Consumer Confidence Slips Surprisingly on Jobs, Fuel Costs "Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly declined in January, reflecting higher gasoline prices and an elevated unemployment rate." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-14/u-s-consumer-confidence-unexpectedly-declines-on-jobless-rate-fuel-costs.html Good thing we had strong inflation in gas and energy cost or Wall Street would be choking on its cookies about now, with general retail sales having a significant drop. The truth to all of this is very simple, the money is just not there for main street, unemployment is still in recessionary levels and J6P is spending more and more for food, heat, gas and health costs. This means less and less for other items. Retail sales increase 0.6% in December Spending on goods and services up for the sixth straight month "Retail sales expanded 0.6% last month — slightly less than expected — as consumers spent more money at gas stations, online sites, drug stores and building-supply companies. Sales were up 0.5% excluding the volatile automotive sector, according to the Commerce Department." "Department stores recorded the biggest decline as sales fell 1.9%. It was the sector’s sharpest drop since December 2008. Other categories to post monthly declines in sales included electronics, appliances, clothing, groceries and liquor." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-retail-sales-climb-06-in-december-2011-01-14

Bingo, well said.

If that's the case, then people may need to be more willing to talk with their bank about a short sale or deed in lieu, particularly a short sale. You're right that it's not a bargain if you can't afford it--but sometimes that applies equally to staying *and* leaving, since "staying" means staying locked into mortgage payments that will devour your income for 20+ more years. Higher wages alone are not evidence of socialism; indeed, higher wages are one of the principal benefits of capitalism. However, while wages are a significant part of the equation here, there is also a difference between income and disposable income, which higher wages alone do not address. Unless we address the cultural misperceptions that cause people to overspend on real estate, all increased wages would do would be to encourage people to overspend even more on real estate. After all, if an "investment" is indeed a good "investment," you want to "invest" more in it. That would encourage someone to spring for a 4000sf McMansion when they have one kid (probably in his teenage years already and therefore moving out soon anyway) and no other particular real need for the extra space. Two points on this: (1) Merrill Lynch analysts have been wrong before. That's part of the reason they're no longer an independent company. (2) I understand that some small businesses borrow against home equity for startup capital. Maybe your local neighborhood pizza shop got started that way. However, people generally have to be fairly old before they have significant equity in their homes; young entrepreneurs in particular will seldom have access to that source of capital anyway. There are other sources of small business startup capital. Also, a great many small startups fail--meaning that even if it's true that a much larger portion of such businesses got their startup capital by borrowing against the owner's house, I'm not entirely certain that that's the greatest of positives. Many small businesses actually borrow against their business property (if they own). Since commercial re has dropped in value so significantly they no long can tap that option. Another place that small businesses go for loans is to State bonds (Private Activity Bonds). This market has all but dried because no one is willing to buy the bonds or the interest rate is too high on the bonds to make it feasible. Other sources for small businesses loans came from smaller, localized banks that don't have direct access to the fed window and are losing ground in their own industry to be 'big boys' and are struggling themselves. In the tech and bio industries many of the small start ups were accessing gazelle funds which have also seen their investment levels reduced significantly. While there are other ways for small businesses to access capital, may of the primary sources for small business capital have become very limited.

Small businesses on Main Street are being starved to death for funds, while the big boys get money on the cheap. Side note from the video attached to the article. In 1995 America's 6 biggest banks made up 19% of GDP. Today they make up 64% of GDP. Their ability to control Washington continues to grow rapidly. SIMON JOHNSON: Now US Taxpayers Are Subsidizing Goldman's Investment In Facebook--This Madness Must End! "Although most Americans may think that the financial crisis and Wall Street bailouts are now just an embarrassing and regrettable moment in the country's history, this is far from the case, MIT Sloan School of Management professor Simon Johnson says. In fact, the taxpayer subsidies for the major Wall Street banks continue to this day. These subsidies, professor Johnson says, take the form of special access to the Fed's "discount window" and ongoing, unwritten "Too Big To Fail" guarantees that the US taxpayers will cover any major losses the banks incur--by bailing them out all over again. These subsidies allow the big banks to borrow money at a lower cost than their smaller competitors, and, thereby, win market share and produce higher profits. Bizarrely, professor Johnson adds, the subsidies mean that the US taxpayer is even subsidizing Goldman Sachs' recent $450 million investment in Facebook, one of the hottest tech companies on the planet." http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/simon-johnson-now-us-taxpayers-are-subsidizing-goldman's-investment-in-facebook--this-madness-must-end!-535808.html?tickers=gs,skf,xlf,jpm,goog,xlk

Applications for U.S. jobless benefits rise New claims jump 35,000 to 445,000; paperwork delays cited "WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of U.S. workers who filed new applications for jobless benefits jumped 35,000 last week to 445,000, the highest level in more than two months, as a government official attributed the sharp increase largely to administrative backlogs. Still, the sharp rise in new claims, which had fallen steadily since last summer, is likely to put investors on guard following a disappointing December employment report last week." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-jobless-claims-jump-35000-to-445000-2011-01-13-840290

I have always felt that the US housing market must return to the historic balance between cost and income. This process is happening and will continue despite the efforts of the FEDs and many others to ensure otherwise. But this return to historic data will significantly hinder the economy's recover efforts. It comes down to having short term pain for better longer term economic stability. U.S. Foreclosure Filings May Jump 20% in 2011 as Crisis Peaks "The number of U.S. homes receiving a foreclosure filing will climb about 20 percent in 2011, reaching a peak for the housing crisis, as unemployment remains high and banks resume seizures after a slowdown, RealtyTrac Inc. said." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-13/u-s-foreclosure-filings-may-jump-20-this-year-as-crisis-peaks.html How a housing slump will slow the job train "It seems impolite to ask, what with employment growth sucking wind already. Companies added just around 100,000 jobs a month over the past year, a rate Fed chief Ben Bernanke dismissed Friday as "insufficient to materially reduce the unemployment rate." Not a pretty picture But it gets worse. Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch say one key to a jobs recovery is an improvement in housing -- because so much job creation is driven by new businesses that have in recent years been financed in part by home equity borrowing. This sort of job creation has been missing the last couple years, thanks to the housing crash. If U.S. house prices embark as expected on a new decline, the long-awaited hiring renaissance could be put on hold yet again." http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/12/how-a-housing-slump-will-slow-the-jobs-train/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/money_topstories+(Top+Stor

A step back to look how far US home prices have fallen from their peak. Home price drops exceed Great Depression: Zillow "(Reuters) - Home prices fell for the 53rd consecutive month in November, taking the decline past that of the Great Depression for the first time in the prolonged housing slump, according to Zillow. Home prices have fallen 26 percent since their peak in 2006, exceeding the 25.9 percent drop registered in the five years between 1928 and 1933, the housing data company said in a report on Monday. Prices fell 0.8 percent over the month." "Declines are accelerating, and it will take a while before falling unemployment and other signs of economic improvement support the market, Zillow said. Home prices fell at a 0.78 percent pace in November, the fastest since February 2009, the company said." http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70961E20110110 November home prices fall 5%, expected to fall more "U.S. home prices fell 5.1% in November from a year earlier and are expected to go lower as the housing market struggles to find its recovery, according to a report Tuesday. Real estate analytics firm CoreLogic said that single-family home prices declined for the fourth month in a row and at a faster pace. They dropped 3.4% in October year-over-year." http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-01-12-Homeprices12_ST_N.htm

One hand creates and the other hand buys. The Fed’s QE2 Traders, Buying Bonds by the Billions "Deep inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the $600 billion man is fast at work. In a spare, government-issue office in Lower Manhattan, behind a bank of cubicles and a scruffy copy machine, Josh Frost and a band of market specialists are making the Fed’s ultimate Wall Street trade. They are buying hundreds of billions of dollars of United States Treasury securities on the open market in a controversial attempt to keep interest rates low and, in the process, revive the economy. To critics, it is a Hail Mary play — an admission that the economy’s persistent weakness has all but exhausted the central bank’s powers and tested the limits of its policy making. Around the world, some warn the unusual strategy will weaken the dollar and lead to crippling inflation." "The smallest miscalculation, a few one-hundredths of a percentage point here or there, could unsettle the markets and cost taxpayers dearly. It could also embolden critics at home and abroad who say QE2 represents a dangerous expansion of the Fed’s role in the markets." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/business/economy/11fed.html?_r=1

Here is a quick snap shot of data for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP - food stamps) since 2007. 2007 - 26.2 million people received SNAP 2008 - 28.1 million people received SNAP 2009 - 33.4 million people received SNAP 2010 - 40 million people received SNAP I find this type of data another way to get a snapshot of what is happening on Main Street. Hopefully these numbers will start declining soon.

Most city data will start to be release around April.

America's housing bubble still deflating As they failed to spot the bubble, most economists seem oblivious of the threat of further market falls to come "How many economists does it take to see an $8tn housing bubble? The answer to that question has to be many more economists than we have in the United States. Very few economists saw or understood the growth of the $8tn housing bubble, whose collapse wrecked the economy. This involved a degree of inexcusable incompetence from the economists at the Treasury, the Fed and other regulatory institutions who had the responsibility for managing the economy and the financial system. There really was nothing mysterious about the bubble. Nationwide house prices in the United States had just kept even with the overall rate of inflation for 100 years from the mid 1890s to the mid 1990s. Suddenly, house prices began to hugely outpace the overall rate of inflation. By their peak in 2006, house prices had risen by more than 70%, after adjusting for inflation. Remarkably, virtually no US economists paid any attention to this extraordinary movement in the largest market in the world." "House prices in the United States are again declining and most of the economics profession remains clueless. The Case-Shiller 20-city house price index for October (the data is released with a two-month lag) showed a decline of 1.3% from September. This implied an acceleration from the prior month's decline, which is now reported as 1.0%. In other words, house prices are again declining at double-digit rates." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/03/useconomy-economics

I wonder how many of the 3+million that have exhausted their unemployment benefits this year and have fallen off the unemployment numbers found a job? or should a couple of million more be added to the total number of the still unemployed? Weekly jobless claims drop below 400,000 "Initial claims for regular state unemployment insurance benefits fell 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000 in the week ended Dec. 25, hitting the lowest level since July of 2008, the Labor Department reported Thursday." "In the week ended Dec. 18, the number of people who continued to receive benefits under state unemployment programs rose 57,000 to a seasonally adjusted 4.13 million." "Altogether, about 8.87 million people received some kind of unemployment-insurance benefit in the week ended of Dec. 11, on an unadjusted basis. That level was down about 35,000 from the prior week. Workers in states with the weakest labor markets can receive up to 99 weeks of unemployment-insurance benefits, while workers in other states are eligible for shorter spans of benefits. Around 3 million to 3.5 million people this year have exhausted their eligibility for unemployment-insurance benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project, a New York-based advocacy group." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/weekly-jobless-claims-drop-below-400000-2010-12-30

While this will still leave out a noticable chunk of the unemployed (those that don't collect unemployment benefits), it will show a better picture of what is happening on Main Street. Jobless report to include those unemployed more than two years "Until now, the unemployment reports did not include those who had been unemployed for more than two years. Now the jobs bureau will be keeping track of all of the long-term unemployed, and it could reveal the true depth of the economic downtown." http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/29/am-jobless-report-to-include-those-unemployed-more-than-two-years/

Feel free to use the photos. I help operate a facade grant program here in Colorado and we include signage in our funding package.

A little different photo thread. I focused on the signage that is located along the 16th Street Mall and the LoDo area. There are some pretty well done signs that really add some nice texture to the area. Thanks for looking.

Home Prices in U.S. Decrease More Than Forecast "The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values fell 0.8 percent from October 2009, the biggest year-over-year decline since December 2009, the group said today in New York. The decrease exceeded the 0.2 percent drop projected by the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News." (Funny economist at it again. - WOW, we are now talking about misses in general for several years. I think their projections have become irrelevant.) "A wave of foreclosures waiting to reach the market means home prices will remain under pressure in 2011, representing a risk to household finances." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-28/u-s-property-values-decline-more-than-forecast-in-s-p-case-shiller-index.html?cmpid=wsdemand

I believe this is one issue the FEDs can't resolve. Pensions will fall and states will default. All the FED can do is try and prolong the event, cover enough to control the damage and keep the potential anger in check.

What elephant under the rug? Coming to a state near you, very soon. State Budgets: The Day of Reckoning "It has gotten much less attention because each state has a slightly different story. But in the two years, since the "great recession" wrecked their economies and shriveled their income, the states have collectively spent nearly a half a trillion dollars more than they collected in taxes. There is also a trillion dollar hole iln their public pension funds." "The states have been getting by on billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds, but the day of reckoning is at hand. The debt crisis is already making Wall Street nervous, and some believe that it could derail the recovery, cost a million public employees their jobs and require another big bailout package that no one in Washington wants to talk about." "Whitney made her reputation by warning that the big banks were in big trouble long before the 2008 collapse. Now, she's warning about a financial meltdown in state and local governments." "It has tentacles as wide as anything I've seen. I think next to housing this is the single most important issue in the United States, and certainly the largest threat to the U.S. economy," she told Kroft." "California, which faces a $19 billion budget deficit next year, has a credit rating approaching junk status. It now spends more money on public employee pensions than it does on the state university system, which had to increase its tuition by 32 percent." "Arizona is so desperate it sold off the state capitol, Supreme Court building and legislative chambers to a group of investors and now leases the buildings from their new owner." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/19/60minutes/main7166220.shtml?tag=currentVideoInfo;segmentTitle

Something tells me winter will not be kind to most markets. Those that have even greater downward momentum may find winter even less kind to their housing market.

Where Home Prices Are Falling Dangerously In a number of major American cities, housing prices have taken a sharp turn for the worse. "No. 1: Cleveland The nation's most worrisome housing market saw prices drop a scary 3% in September alone, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller data. Like much of the rest of Ohio, Cleveland hasn't found replacements for the manufacturing jobs lost over the past decade starting from the 2001 recession. The unemployment rate in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, was 9.2% in April. These days it's at 9.7%. No. 2: Minneapolis Home prices have retreated here for three straight months, most recently declining by 2.1% in the month of September alone. The unemployment rate in the Minneapolis area is a pretty decent 6.7%, but it has increased from just 6.1% in May. No. 3: Portland In Portland housing prices fell by 1.9% in September, and home prices are down 3.6% in the last year. No. 4: Dallas The town's football team isn't the only thing sinking this fall. Home prices fell 1.6% in September after sliding 1.2% in August. No. 5: Phoenix The residential real estate market in Phoenix has cause for concern, trending downward by 1.5% in September and 1.3% in August. No. 6: Chicago After a nice run of five straight months of housing prices gains, things were looking up in Chicago. Then came a 1.5% decline in September. No. 7: Boston Home prices have inched up 0.4% over the last year, but Boston may not be able to stay in the positive column after declines of 1.3% in September and 0.3% in August. No. 8: Atlanta Home prices in Atlanta tumbled 1% in September and 1% in August. The residential real estate market is down 3.1% in the last year." http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/where-home-prices-are-falling-dangerously.html

True. I just hope that a larger percentage of the office market that is left fills up the urban core more so than the suburban office market.

Lets hope this is one trend that doesn't lose momentum.

Quick look at what is currently under construction or will be by next year. This will add another 48 miles of rail to the current 35 miles (83 miles total). Eight projects under construction in next 18 months: –West Corridor: more than 50% complete –ElatiLight Rail Maintenance Facility: currently –Denver Union Station: currently –East Corridor (to DIA): currently –Commuter Rail Maintenance Facility: currently –Gold Line: 2011 –Northwest Rail (to Westminster): 2011 –US 36 BRT Phase 2 Projects (Managed lanes from Federal to Wadsworth, Table Mesa Pedestrian Bridge and Queue Jumps): 2011 -Transit Hub at DIA; currently