I think the reason that that is less common is more the fact that people are more mobile than that they're continually selling houses to cash out the value in them.

 

I really like my current job.  I think that puts me in an enviable minority.  Even saying that, though, there's no way that I can guarantee that I'll be at this job--or even in Akron--for 30 more years.  So much can happen in 30 years.

 

Also, even if I *were* to stay in my current job for 30 years, I probably would end up buying multiple houses in the area, simply because the house that I'd want as an associate with young children is different than the house that I'd want as a partner with older children (or high school graduates), client and firm entertainment obligations, and so forth.  In order to even make the attempt at making the first house I own the last house I'd own, I'd have to significantly overspend today in order to get a place that I could grow into as my professional and personal lives inevitably change.  I'm not going to do that, and I would advise anyone else against doing that.  I see nothing wrong with a young person or couple buying a starter home (or simply renting for a long time, for that matter, which is what I plan on doing) and then upgrading a few years down the road.

This is pretty amazing. Poor Newton, IA:

America's Downfall Pt 3- Economic Ghost Towns

Amazing they still call it a recession.

If your world is limited to Newton, IA, the "local domestic product" may still have been falling well past the time the national recession ended, even using official economic definitions.

 

Also, while the political class may want to be able to trumpet the fact that the recession has ended, there's an almost equally unflattering word for what we have now, too: stagnation.  We may be growing slightly again, but we have insufficient growth to generate jobs either for those who have lost them or for the new entrants to the labor force due to our growing population.  The difference between that and a real recession is going to be imperceptible to many people--particularly in areas that were disproportionately hard-hit by the actual recession.  You can't re-lose a job, after all--but it can stay lost.

If your world is limited to Newton, IA, the "local domestic product" may still have been falling well past the time the national recession ended, even using official economic definitions.

 

Also, while the political class may want to be able to trumpet the fact that the recession has ended, there's an almost equally unflattering word for what we have now, too: stagnation. We may be growing slightly again, but we have insufficient growth to generate jobs either for those who have lost them or for the new entrants to the labor force due to our growing population. The difference between that and a real recession is going to be imperceptible to many people--particularly in areas that were disproportionately hard-hit by the actual recession. You can't re-lose a job, after all--but it can stay lost.

 

Bingo, well said.

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

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/01/12/obama-teaches-bush-how-to-create-jobs-creates-more-in-2010-than-bush-did-in-8-years/

 

You may have heard the news by now (it’s pretty big news) — new info out by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 1.1 million jobs were created in 2010 under the Obama administration and a Democratic (though, severely obstructed) Congress. That’s more than the 1 million jobs the Bush administration created in total in the whole 8 years it was in charge of the U.S.

 

In December, the U.S. economy saw an increase of 113,000 private sector jobs, which resulted in the unemployment rate dropping from 9.8% to 9.4%, the steepest drop in one month since 1998 (when Clinton was president).

 

 

 

How Do Clean Energy and Environmental Policies Influence the Economy?

 

Counter to what many Republican politicians will have you believe, clean energy and environmental policies are job creators, not job killers.

 

As we’ve reported numerous times here on Cleantechnica, clean energy investment creates many more jobs http://www.greenforall.org/resources/summary-of-research-on-the-job-creating-potential/download [pdf] than dirty energy investment. Studies have found that “the solar industry creates 5.65 jobs per million dollars in investment, the wind energy industry 5.7 jobs, and the coal industry only 3.96″ and “wind and solar energy generate 40 percent more jobs per dollar invested.”

 

I’ve also covered the fact that environmental regulations create jobs and benefit the economy, and not only in the long term. Yes, EPA regulations that Republicans consistently claim will hurt the economy actually help it.

 

Concerning transportation, investment in high-speed rail is projected to generate billions and billions of dollars in economic growth and create hundreds of thousands of jobs according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

 

http://earthandindustry.com/2010/07/u-s-mayors-high-speed-rail-would-bring-billions-of-dollars-to-cities/

 

Additionally, I recently covered over on our sister sites Ecolocalizer and Planetsave, respectively, the news that bicycling is a significant boon to the economy and that twice as many jobs are created for every dollar spent on bicycle or pedestrian projects than for every dollar spent on road projects.

 

http://planetsave.com/2011/01/10/investing-in-bicycling-creates-jobs-improves-economy/

 

Important Media rights/terms of use: http://importantmedia.org/about/legal/

Even if that is true, it doesn't address the issue of where the investments in those green energy technologies comes from.  If it comes from the government, then the government is destroying jobs elsewhere in order to feed money into the green machine, because it has to confiscate that money from someone else.  If the "dirty energy" investment did not involve taxing/borrowing and spending, by contrast, then the jobs created there are not going to be at the expense of other productive enterprises elsewhere.

 

In addition, characterizing the statistics the way that RAEL does is trying to make a virtue out of a vice: Just look at the first paragraph of the PDF you linked:

 

As compared to traditional fossil fuels, the renewable energy sector is relatively labor-intensive, requiring a larger number and wider variety of jobs in areas ranging from manufacturing, construction, and installation to ongoing operation and maintenance.

 

That is certainly a very credible assertion.  It is also not exactly an unmitigated positive, to put it mildly.  It is precisely for this reason that renewable energy remains significantly more expensive than conventional energy.  This, in turn, drives up the costs of doing business for other energy-intensive industries, including heavy manufacturing.

 

Through my work, I have had the opportunity to become somewhat familiar with the cost structures of several mid-cap regional manufacturers.  I am understating the case when I say that even small increases in utility prices can have absolutely brutal impacts on their cash flow, including their ability to hire new workers and invest in new equipment.

 

Solar and wind energy may well be the future--but they are not yet the present.  The last thing we need to be doing in a time of economic stagnation is forcing up utility costs and forcibly reallocating capital from where it would be directed by the free market to where the rabid environmentalist lobby wants to direct it.

The investment comes from utility rate payers, not from "confiscation".

 

It is not accurate to compare solar energy prices against coal fired electricity that comes from generating plants that have already been amortized/paid for.

 

First Energy ratepayers have been screwed by the huge cost overruns and interest from Davis Besse, Perry, and Beaver Valley nuke plants.

Are these utility rate payers forced to pay more because of government intervention to force companies to build more expensive and less efficient energy portfolios, i.e., renewable mandates?  If so, then I stand on my assertion.

 

Solar's day will come.  There is no need for counterproductive government intervention to try to hasten that day.  We are <a href="http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4083736/Analyst-Solar-approaching-grid-parity-in-U-S-">not that far from grid parity</a>.  Solar today, however, is like the personal computer in the early 80s.  There are definitely people who recognize the potential (and others waving it away, and those people are likely to be eating their words in 20 years), but its potential is still just that--potential.

The investment comes from utility rate payers, not from "confiscation".

 

It is not accurate to compare solar energy prices against coal fired electricity that comes from generating plants that have already been amortized/paid for.

 

Yes it is.  A kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour.  The market price a good or service commands is independent of whether the company offering it is still paying down debt.  Granted, electricity is a heavily-regulated market and energy companies will use their debt burdens as a part of their lobbying efforts to regulators to allow them to increase rates.  However, in a competitive bidding process, I'm not going to pay more for electricity just because the plant is still paying off loans than I am to pay more for a car just because the car company is heavily indebted.

The investment comes from utility rate payers, not from "confiscation".

 

It is not accurate to compare solar energy prices against coal fired electricity that comes from generating plants that have already been amortized/paid for.

 

Yes it is.  A kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour.  The market price a good or service commands is independent of whether the company offering it is still paying down debt.  Granted, electricity is a heavily-regulated market and energy companies will use their debt burdens as a part of their lobbying efforts to regulators to allow them to increase rates.  However, in a competitive bidding process, I'm not going to pay more for electricity just because the plant is still paying off loans than I am to pay more for a car just because the car company is heavily indebted.

No.  It is a regulated monopoly, not a "competitive" bidding process.  When Perry and Beaver Valley came online in ~1987, First Energy rates increase by ~6 cents/kW*hour.  Those "stranded" costs are still in our rate base.

 

Cost estimates for new coal fired plants have escalated into the billion dollar range.  That's why coal fired plants keep getting canceled. They surely cannot provide electricity at 3 cents/kW*hour like the old, fully amortized coal fired plants.

 

BTW, the 2008 electricity bill has capped costs of renewable energy at 3% of other generation.  That was a point that Governor Strickland had to make to ignorant (and dangerous) Kasich during the gubernatorial debate.

 

"Confiscation"

I'm too tired to continue this (and I stand on my previous point, so anything more I say would be repetitive).

"A kilowatt-hour is a kilowatt-hour."

Not really.

Is that kilowatt-hour during peak load periods, or low load periods? Is it absolutely imperative that it not be interrupted or can it tolerate interuption? Is it tied to the grid, or mobile? Is the demand constant, or fluctuating? Where is it located?

 

Ad advantage of coal-fired generation is that the coal can be stockpiled, and the output of the generation can be adjusted to meet a changing demand. This is much, much harder to do with wind or solar. Wind or solar, when used as a supplement to coal, may be nearing grid-parity, but wind or solar without backup by coal is a completely different story.

8th&St.:

 

I agree with the point about peak vs. off-peak generation.  However, I think that we're a lot closer to storage technologies (the largest remaining roadblock for intermittent-generation technologies like wind and solar) that are dense and cheap enough to be commercially viable than you think.

 

I'm not sure I'm following your point about wind/solar as a "supplement" vs. "without backup" vis-a-vis coal, especially when talking about solar.  The price and the output of a rooftop solar array (commercial or residential) are essentially independent of whether the building is connected to the grid (and what the blend of coal, hydro, nuclear, etc. power is coming through that grid).  Why would their grid-parity be compromised in the absence of fossil fuels undergirding all/most of the grid?

 

  Most electric power provided in this country is "on demand," meaning that if you turn the light switch on at any hour of the day, any day of the year, the lights come on. You don't have to order the electricity on a schedule.

 

  Not all electricity is provided this way. Large, industrial users of electricity often pay a slightly lower rate in exchange for the utility company being able to dictate the hours that power will be available. In the event of a very hot summer day, for example, when most residential customers have their air-conditioners running full blast and the power company is experiencing a high peak load, the power company can ask the industrial user to shut down to conserve power.

 

But on a day to day basis, the power company can simply take a number of generators online or offline to adjust for the load. For a coal powered plant, the rate that coal is burned is roughly proportional to rate that power is produced, and the coal is burned at different rates during the day.

 

Solar and wind do not have that flexibility. A windmill produces power only when the wind is blowing. Solar photovoltaics produce power only when the sun is shining. I am aware that there are experimental solar power plants that use the sun to produce molten salt at very high temperatures, and the heat stored by the salt can be used to power turbines overnight, but most forms of solar power only work when the sun is out.

 

So, the typical power consumption chart shows peak periods during the hot days of the year, with peak power around mid-day.

 

But the power production chart for solar or wind is something completely different: peak power produced when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

 

So, what if I want to turn the lights on in the middle of a windless night?  Or alternatively, and this can be just as bad, what if I <i>don't</i> want to turn on the lights on a sunny windy day? Where does that power go?

 

The answer, so far as technology is advanced today, is that solar and wind comprise just a small percentage of total power. Solar and wind can supplement coal, reducing the demand for coal slightly, but solar and wind are NOT responsive enough to meet an ever changing demand. You can't turn the sun on when you need it, or turn it off when you don't need it, and (so far) you can't store excess power for when you need it. But you can adjust the rate that you burn coal as necessary.

 

Another approach might be to manage the demand. That is, maybe someday we will only be able to use electricity when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing. In that case, we will just have to go without on windless evenings.

 

Of course, there are other ways to store power. For example, you might be able to power your refrigerator during certain parts of the day, and the cold stuff in your refrigerator will stay cold long enough until electricity is available again. Same with heating or cooling your house.

 

Water can be pumped into a reservior when power is available, and drawn down when it is not.

 

But today, the majority of appliances and users of electric power are not set up to manage the demand. Appliances are set up for plug-and-play: you plug it in, and it works when you turn the switch on. People are used to this convenience. Certainly it's possible to charge varying rates by the hour of the day, like the phone companies do, but we are not there yet, and the infrastructure is not there. Considering that it could take 20 years to turnover the current fleet of appliances, managing the demand with new technology is not something that can be done quickly.

 

Besides all of that, the grid itself helps smooth out peak loads, because while you turn your washing machine on, someone else on your street might be turning it off.  A single array of photovoltaics with a single washing machine does not have this advantage and requires a more robust storage system.

 

The building where I work has a very extensive solar photovoltaic array, and a very high-tech storage system that makes ice when the power is available and uses the ice for building cooling when the need arises. This system costs probably a million dollars or more. Compare that to a standard heating and cooling system that costs much less. Solar and wind energy are not free.

 

Incidentally, nuclear energy is also less responsive than coal. You can't adjust the power production as fast as you can with coal.

Good analysis, Eighth and State.

 

In California, homeowners use telephone-line-controllable air conditioners that allow the power generators to turn off their air conditioners for an hour or so during peak use periods.  It is ultimately cheaper than building new generating plants that sit idle most of the time.

Counter to what many Republican politicians will have you believe, clean energy and environmental policies are job creators, not job killers

 

China is going to be the big green energy manufacturer, not the US.

 

Interestingly, the Germans are going green, too.

That’s more than the 1 million jobs the Bush administration created in total in the whole 8 years it was in charge of the U.S.

 

 

The chart you posted only goes back to, say, 2007.

 

And can we keep politics out of this thread?  There are enough "political" threads on this board already.

8th&St.:  I think we might be using different definitions of "grid parity."  You're talking about the technological capability to replace the existing grid in its entirety.  The article I posted and I are talking about the price per kWh of electrical energy generated, and I think that is the accepted definition of grid parity; at least, that is the way it has generally been used in the scientific press.  You started talking about cost at the end when you started talking about your building's PV array, which cost around $1m.  The point I was making is that the price for such an array is coming down and its conversion efficiency is going up--and the storage technologies necessary to smooth out the intermittency of the generation is also improving, though that was a separate and secondary point.  A rooftop solar array for the same building today might cost only $750,000.  Soon, it will be $500,000, and I expect that within a decade or so, it will be $100,000 or less.

 

Eventually, I really believe that rooftop solar will simply become so cheap and so clearly cost-effective that it will become standard in all new construction.

 

    Indeed solar photovoltaics are becoming less expensive all the time, but the solar panel themselves are only half the picture, because you also need battery storage, inverters, regulators, or whatever it takes to make the power usable. Now if your refrigerator, for example, was connected directly to your solar panel and was able to use the power as generated and store the rest in ice to make it through the rainy days, then all those middle steps could be removed, but we are still a pretty long ways off from that, since refrigerators are designed for plug and play.

 

As long as the life cycle cost of coal is less than solar, users will tend to opt for coal. If the price of solar comes down while coal goes up, they will eventually reach parity, but the price will be higher than it is today. That's a step backwards, not forwards. If solar ever comes down below today's price for coal, then that will be a great breakthrough indeed.

 

In southwest Ohio, the local power utility offered a plan to save a little on electricity costs if you added a device to your air conditioner that would turn it off for 15 minutes at the command of the utility during peak periods. It was not popular.

 

I think that in the background of the U.S. economy, higher energy costs are prohibiting growth moreso than any monetary or political policies. During the 1960's, the number of automobiles on the road doubled, and between 1960 and 1980, overall energy use doubled. Today, the number of automobiles on the road is declining for the first time since records were kept. (I can't say how long that trend will hold up.) This isn't necessarily bad, but since transportation is 10 to 20% of our economy, it does not bode well for the economy.

 

Maybe we need to start measuring happiness instead of GDP.

Indeed solar photovoltaics are becoming less expensive all the time, but the solar panel themselves are only half the picture, because you also need battery storage, inverters, regulators, or whatever it takes to make the power usable. Now if your refrigerator, for example, was connected directly to your solar panel and was able to use the power as generated and store the rest in ice to make it through the rainy days, then all those middle steps could be removed, but we are still a pretty long ways off from that, since refrigerators are designed for plug and play.

 

Battery storage is definitely the bottleneck today.  We agree here.  The difference is that, based on the scientific press that I follow, I don't think we're more than a decade or two away from commercially viable energy storage that will surmount that obstacle, and we're even closer to grid parity in the generating apparatus itself (i.e., the panels) as well as transportation options that will use that electricity rather than fossil fuels (i.e., electric cars).

 

As long as the life cycle cost of coal is less than solar, users will tend to opt for coal. If the price of solar comes down while coal goes up, they will eventually reach parity, but the price will be higher than it is today. That's a step backwards, not forwards. If solar ever comes down below today's price for coal, then that will be a great breakthrough indeed.

 

That would be fantastic, but you don't actually need to set your standards that high.  As long as the convergence (between the falling price of wind/solar and the rising price of coal/oil/gas) happens before a severe fossil fuel price shock, the economic effect will still be positive, on balance (though less so if solar/wind 2025 is less than coal 2011).  One reason that we weathered the commodity shock of the mid-2000s better than the America of the 1970s did is that we are simply a wealthier country in 2006 than we were in the 1970s.  Even the recent recession has not significantly changed that, though it has obviously been painful.  Likewise, barring truly catastrophic governance (always a possibility, admittedly ...), a war that we lose, or something similarly dramatic, we can reasonably expect that we'll be wealthier (and therefore able to handle slightly higher baseload energy prices) in 2025 than today.  As long as the growth in energy prices doesn't significantly outpace the growth in the economy overall, we're not losing real ground.

 

Maybe we need to start measuring happiness instead of GDP.

 

Not that a job at the Department of Happiness doesn't sound great, but I think the measurement difficulties there are prohibitive.  We measure happiness in rough terms every two years at the ballot box.

I think that in the background of the U.S. economy, higher energy costs are prohibiting growth moreso than any monetary or political policies.

 

It was the "energy crisis" caused by higher oil prices that helped cause the economic malaise of the 1970s.  It compounded the inflation that was setting in at the tail end of the Vietnam era. 

 

This oil price shock combined with aspects of the 1960s counterculture and the ealry environmental movement to create a sort of "Green/Sustainable Living" subculture or cultural trend somewhat similar to what we are seeing today...though that era was more "low tech/grassroots" vs the high tech solutions being explored in our time.

 

 

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

We are tip-toeing into the market and I'm counting on that shadow inventory to flood in this spring, especially if the data from late last year and early this year is remotely positive. This will be a buyers' market for a long time to come.

Job growth potential has a lot of headwind going into 2011.

 

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 Board’s 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...

 

 

Job growth potential has a lot of headwind going into 2011.

 

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.

Actually, paradoxically, the unemployment numbers can actually get worse even as the economy gets better, for the reverse of the reason that unemployment numbers can get better even as the economy gets worse.  When people get discouraged enough that they leave the workforce entirely, they no longer count in unemployment figures.  By contrast, when the economy starts to show faint signs of life again and entices people back out of their homes into the workforce again, we may go through a period where employment is growing but people seeing that and beginning to seek work grow even faster.  (This is a possibility, obviously, not a certainty.)

 

Moral: Never put all your trust in any one statistic.  (In fact, one should reserve a healthy amount of skepticism even after reviewing entire libraries of statistics.)

New-home sales rise to 329,000 in December

Pace reclaims highest since April, but housing market still weak

 

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of new single-family homes rose almost 18% in December to the highest rate since last spring, but builders in 2010 still suffered through their worst year in modern times."

 

“The impressive increase in new home sales in December is mainly due to the rush to beat the deadline of a tax credit in California,” the firm Capital Economics said in a report. “Without that boost, new sales would have been broadly unchanged.”

 

"Whatever the case, new home sales in 2010 ended up at the lowest level since record-keeping begin in 1963." 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-new-home-sales-reach-329000-rate-in-december-2011-01-26

Hiring forecasts on the upswing

 

WASHINGTON — Industry economists say the U.S. economic recovery is gaining strength, with more firms expressing positive hiring plans than in over a decade.

 

A survey from the National Association for Business Economics finds that economists are more hopeful about overall economic growth, the job market and demand for companies' products and services by many measures than they have been since the start of the Great Recession.

 

Economists forecast U.S. growth on upswing in 2011

 

"They expect the economy to grow at an annual rate of 3.2% to 3.4% each quarter this year. That's up from quarterly median forecasts of 2.5% to 3.3% in an October survey.

 

"This growth is now becoming self-reinforcing," says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. "Businesses are going to take their stronger sales and begin to hire more aggressively, generate more income, and we're off and running."

 

Looks like the recovery...such as it is...is locking-in.  Based on the runs I've been doing on BLS monthly employment numbers for Ohio (which are a lagging indicator) I don't see any evidence of an economic deterioration for the past year.  The final two quarters parallel 2009, and are somewhat not as good as typical second-half numbers for Ohio in the mid 2000s, prior to the employment weakening that set in in 2007.

 

So this, for me, confirms we have reached bottom, when it comes to employment numbers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm very optimistic about the economic recovery taking hold and seeing some stable growth, but I'm concerned about the rising cost of fuel limiting the growth.  It does seem that people may be better prepared to weather high fuel prices than they were back in 2007, but it will hit certain industries hard regardless.

The rising cost of fuel is definitely a concern; indeed, rising commodity prices across the board are a concern for businesses and consumers alike.  Consumers care not just because it makes the job market weaker but because it also affects the price of food at the grocery store.  That eats into the "real" effectiveness of any recovery.  (After all, if you get a 0% raise but your expenses go down 2%, you're in a better position than if you get a 3% raise but your expenses jump 6%.)

One conversation I've been having with friends lately is that a sustained economic recovery with modestly higher fuel prices might drive residential development more in the city and inner ring suburbs than outer ring suburbs.  Just a thought.

I think that is more than a thought.  I believe we have seen that trend really pick up ever since we started flirting with $3 per gallon during the Bush years.  Now, when young families are considering the exurbs like Solon, which boomed unbelievably during the 1990's, the cost of their commute is at the front of the conversation.  Before the hike, nobody really gave it two thoughts.

Unfortunately, in a city like Cleveland, there needs to be more than just the penalty of higher gas prices to force people to live closer to the urban core.  Especially families with children in school.  Perhaps if Cleveland and/or inner ring suburbs could come up with some incentives to attract families to relocate closer inward, it could start a trend that might gain a little momentum.

I think it is more likely that people will seek to live as close as possible to their jobs, which does not necessarily mean they will live in the historic cores of cities. Suburbs with large employment bases will only increase in popularity, while those w/out will likely decline in value. In Cbus for instance, the northern 'burbs from Dublin to Westerville will do fine, but the southern 'burbs especially off to the SE and SW will have a harder time.

If everyone's going to move near work, then Beachwood will need a lot more housing pronto, and Cleveland will be emptier than it already is.

Yep.

Cleveland as a whole might lose even more, but downtown Cleveland (as opposed to all the outlying neighborhoods of Cleveland) might gain, since that's still a place where jobs concentrate.  The same could be said of Akron.  There aren't all that many jobs downtown here--but notwithstanding that, there are even fewer residences, so a land use rebalancing that brought people closer to where they work would bring many more residents downtown.

 

The main impediments to that remain those that I've identified before, though, and termed the three S's: size, safety, and schools.  Some of the attorneys in my office have 3+ children still living at home.  Four-bedroom places are rare downtown, and even those that have that much space might not have much more than that for a family room, living room, game room, or similar place for casual evenings.  Safety is still a concern, though this has been getting better (and I hope this positive trend continues--I was pleased to see crime rates on most fronts drop even during the recession).  As for schools--well, that may be the most intractable issue of them all, especially for those who aren't Catholic and therefore are often disinclined to send their children to Hoban, Walsh Jesuit, or SVSM.  (I know those schools take non-Catholics, but non-Catholic parents might not want it anyway, even though they're good schools.)

If the price of oil and commodities continue to rise they will clearly hurt the economy's recovery efforts and will cause more unrest around the world (people don't like it when they can't afford to eat). High oil prices have several times put the economic into a recession and as we near the $100 price tag, that danger grows.

 

What I continue to hope for and slowly I am seeing (at least in some parts of the country) is the move by people to live closer to work, use transit, walk/bike, reduce the size of their living spaces and the amount of income they are using for that shelter. I think all these things are very positive for our country over the long haul but, may prove not as good for exurbia/suburbia and even metros that have not incorporated more compact, sustainable mixed use environments. I also think that metro regions that are on the frontline in developing these types of environments and have mass transit systems well underway, will out perform the metros that lag behind in these efforts.

Moving in the right direction. It takes about 150,000 to consume the incoming workforce each month. Note that December's numbers were readjusted downward by about 50,000 jobs, which puts job creation down about 60,000 from December to January.

 

U.S. private-sector payrolls up 187,000: ADP

 

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Private-sector employment rose in January, and “strength was evident” in all major industries and sizes of business, according to Automatic Data Processing Inc.’s employment report released Wednesday."

 

"For December, ADP reported that private payrolls gained 247,000, compared with a prior estimate of 297,000."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-private-sector-jobs-up-187000-adp-2011-02-02

If TARP wasn't enough, try another route to transfer wealth. We talked a lot about this several pages back, and I tried to show that bailout mania is still underway (despite reports about how TARP was winding down), it's just taking a different path. The end result is that the taxpayer is holding the bag and Wall Street gets to report some very nice profits. Of course this is small potatoes compared to what they are doing with the FED discount window. That is the mechanism being used by Wall Street to send commodity prices up and is causing inflation to become very real around the world on most needed items.

 

THE PERFECT BAILOUT: Fannie And Freddie Now Send Taxpayer Cash Directly To Wall Street

 

"And they're still sending billions of dollars of taxpayer cash directly to Wall Street, in what might be described as the "perfect bailout."

 

"Fannie and Freddie got a "blank check" from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner at the end of the financial crisis. This blank check allows the housing giants to lose as much money as they want, with the taxpayer footing the bill.

 

Fannie and Freddie use much of this money to buy mortgages from Wall Street at what may be grossly inflated prices.  This is a super arrangement for the banks, because they get to unload all their terrible mortgages at prices that won't produce losses. And it's fine for Fannie and Freddie because, well, because they have the blank check.

 

But of course there's no free lunch. And in this scheme, the US taxpayer is, as usual, footing the bill.

 

In other words, Fannie and Freddie are now doing what the Treasury wanted the original "TARP" bailout to do--use taxpayer money to help banks clean toxic assets off their balance sheets.  Unlike the original TARP, however--which justifiably outraged taxpayers--no one knows or cares about what Fannie or Freddie are doing.

 

So, it's the perfect bailout."

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/535882/THE-PERFECT-BAILOUT%3A-Fannie-And-Freddie-Now-Send-Taxpayer-Cash-Directly-To-Wall-Street

While may things factor into these types of events, weather, growth of demand from emerging markets, etc. It is hard to ignore the mass printing of money by the FEDs to keep interest rates low in the US and the cheap access to money by most major wall street banks (that is being funneled into the commodities market) are also affecting inflation on these items as well.

 

World food prices at fresh high, says FAO

 

"World food prices rose to a record high in January, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

 

The FAO Food Price Index, which measures the wholesale price of basic foods within a basket, averaged 231 points last month - its highest level since records began in 1990.

 

It was up 3.4% from December, the seventh monthly rise for the index."

 

"The index is now higher than June 2008 when the cost of food sparked violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Haiti and Egypt."

 

"The high price of food is thought to have been a factor in recent political unrest in both Algeria and Tunisia in the form of anti-government demonstrations, protests which have spread to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12354402

 

 

This type of payroll increase won't cut into the amount of people unemployed, matter of factor that number will grow if payroll numbers don't increase significantly. Add in that the total number of jobs created was revised down for 2010 by 150,000 and the data no longer looks so rosy. It takes about 1.4+ million jobs per year just to keep up with new entries into the job market. 2010 only created 950,000. At this rate we could have an unemployment number in a year or two of 5 or 6% and still have more people unemployed than we do today.

 

Some other quick data from this report:

U6 (a better stat for how many are unemployed):

grew to 17.3%

For a quick reference: During the Great Depression:

1931 - Unemployment was 16.3%

1933 - Unemployment peaked at 24.9%

Not say we are in a depression, but the numbers are starting to not look so good.

 

Total number of employed in 2010 only grew by 790,000 (after they revised the year total down by 483,000 - WOW That is a MAJOR miss by the numbers) way below what is needed just to break even.

 

Jobless rate falls to 9.0% as weather hits payrolls

Nonfarm payrolls increase by just 36,000 vs. expectations of 140,000

 

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. unemployment rate fell unexpectedly to 9.0% in January, a 21-month low, as nonfarm payrolls rose by a surprisingly meager 36,000 jobs, the government reported Friday."

 

"The level of employment in December 2010 was revised down by 483,000."

 

"Before the revisions, the estimates suggested that over the past year 1.1 million of the 8.3 million jobs lost during the recession had returned. Now it appears that only 950,000 of the 8.6 million jobs have been recovered, Ashworth said."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-unemployment-falls-to-90-on-few-new-jobs-2011-02-04

Another look at unemployment stats in graphic form.

 

SGS is basically how the government kept unemployment stats before 1994. So if this was the 80's or early 90's (before they changed who was added into the unemployment figures) the government would have reported about a 22% unemployment rate for January 2011. Hopefully this gives a little better historic perspective of where we are right now and how it compares to the past.

 

 

 

 

 

WOW :-o

 

This is a jobs depression and the biggest power grab in history (bank bailouts and the continued public money flow into toxic assets). The government needs to stop blowing smoke up our asses, and the media needs to start headlining these U-6 and SGS numbers. It almost seems like their job is to just repeat press releases.

Look at that spike in 2008.... regardless of which calculation you use.

 

22% seems rather high though.  I know a lot of people.... familt, friends, etc of all classes, ages and backgrounds.  I am trying to rack my brain right now and all I can think of is 3 people that are unemployed (not including stay at home moms).  One friend just got laid off and is hot on a couple leads, one friend is laid off seasonally like every year, and a cousin of mine got axed from his factory a few months ago and has had trouble finding another job.  But that is out of hundreds.  Sure, not everyone is working the ideal job, but they are working nonetheless.  Maybe I'm just lucky.  Anybody here that can actually say that 1 out of every five people they know are legitimately (not volitionally) unemployed

22% seems rather high though.  I know a lot of people.... familt, friends, etc of all classes, ages and backgrounds.  I am trying to rack my brain right now and all I can think of is 3 people that are unemployed (not including stay at home moms).  One friend just got laid off and is hot on a couple leads, one friend is laid off seasonally like every year, and a cousin of mine got axed from his factory a few months ago and has had trouble finding another job.  But that is out of hundreds.  Sure, not everyone is working the ideal job, but they are working nonetheless.  Maybe I'm just lucky.  Anybody here that can actually say that 1 out of every five people they know are legitimately (not volitionally) unemployed

 

The same is true for me, but I think that has something to do with our education level and the circles we run in.  Even though "all classes" are represented in our samples, the proprotions might be skewed.

I think Hts and 327 are both somewhat more annuated members of the UO community than me.  The jobs impact has been skewed towards the young (as well as to the truly old--those past or very near retirement age).  I actually know a number of people from my law school graduating class that were unemployed for a least a time, though most have found their way into other positions now.  Following my high school friends on their Facebook feeds, I can say that I know a goodly number of people in the blue-collar world who have gotten the axe as well (though nothing like one in five, of course).

 

I sometimes wonder if the official figures (and the SGS stats, just in a different way) suffer from both underreporting *and* overreporting.  For example, if someone is a handyman doing odd jobs and just barely able to scrape by, but isn't employed by anyone else full-time ... does he show up as employed, unemployed, or neither (i.e., outside the official workforce)?  I honestly have no idea.