2nd Half of Year Recovery

One month down, five more to go.

U.S. Economy: Growth Rate Falls Short of Forecasts (Update3)

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy shrank at the end of 2007 and grew less than forecast in this year's second quarter, signaling that the country is in worse shape than investors had anticipated.

``We're in a recession,'' Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``It's going to widen, it's going to deepen.''

Any word on the when the 2nd half of year recovery will recover? It is like we've sent a rescue team out to save the stranded mountain climbers and now the rescue team itself needs saving. Surely we can send out a few more helicopters to drop some freshly printed cash on them. If we do it enough times, they can burn it to keep themselves warm until the storm passes.

``Exports are making the difference between a near recession, or mild recession, and a deep recession,'' Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight Inc., a Lexington, Massachusetts, forecasting firm, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. ``We don't really see a recovery until some time in the spring or summer'' of 2009 for the economy, he said.

It is almost like the growth in exports is somehow related to the growth in the decline of our dollar (see "weekly view" chart). Yeah, almost exactly like that. Therefore, one would imagine that in order to keep the growth rate up in exports we'll also need to keep the growth rate up in our own currency destruction. We'll know we're doing a good job on this front if oil continues to cost significantly more than the year before. Even with the recent pullback in oil prices, lookin' good so far! Oil averaged just $64.20 a barrel last year.

Initial claims for unemployment insurance jumped by 44,000 to 448,000, the Labor Department said today. The department tomorrow may say payrolls declined by 75,000 in July, bringing total job losses so far this year to over 500,000.

Perhaps an increase in government jobs can help offset those losses.

California cuts 20,000 jobs over budget stalemate

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday axed 20,000 temporary state employees and slashed the pay of 200,000 more workers in the latest twist to a budget stand-off.

Then again, maybe not. It would seem 220,000 government workers suddenly feel the urge to spend less. This no doubt marks the bottom in California's real estate market.

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