Dow grows 1300 in 8 years

We had a MAJOR recession at the tail end of the year 2000.  During that time we had a presidential candidate attempt to break the laws and take the presidency which put further strain and stress on the market.  Just as soon as it looked like things were bottoming out we had a major attack on American soil by a foreign party resulting in massive loss of life and significant financial repercussions.

However, the GDP has grown 3-5% annually since 2001.  We have seen a HUGE increase in the DOW since 2003 (about the time the tax cuts were put into effect and the borders were made a little more secure so people felt safer).  We have seen a record drop in bankruptcies.  We have a statistical negative unemployment rate (statistics say + or - 5% and the unemployment rate is 4.7% last I heard that means we statistically could be at -0.3% unemployment) which is the lowest it’s been in over 5 presidential cycles (not elections, actual administrations.)  The sub-prime market is getting hit, but it’s a mere fraction of the over all economic health of the nation, and to be frank, it’s called sub-prime because it’s very high risk.  And the fed interest rate is pretty low, all things considered.  At least it’s not in the 20%s like it was under a specific recent administration!

I’d have to say the economy is absolutely phenomenal all things considered!  Sure, I’m not making money faster then I can possibly spend it anymore, but just how high can oil and gold climb before it starts to plateau anyway?

BTW, interesting theory I heard:  Sub-prime mortgage defaults are so high because bankruptcies were made so hard to get.  What people are doing is getting a sub-prime loan to consolidate all their debts (cars, credit cards, student loans, personal loans, whatever) and then walking away from their homes.  It’s got less of an impact on your credit report then bankruptcy, still results in the loss of your house like bankruptcies do now under new regulations and you don’t have to pay 20% of all your debts (100% of student loans) like you do under the new bankruptcy laws.

If you take that into consideration, even the sub-prime mortgage mess doesn’t look too bad, really.  It’s just people who need bankruptcy protection finding a way out of the hole they got themselves into in a creative manner.  Proves they at least can think outside of the box!  Hopefully that means they can figure out what they did wrong and not do it again!

BTW, that’s 8131 in 2003 to 13043 in 2007.  5000 points in 4 years or just over 1000 a year.  I’d prefer 1000 a month, but to be realistic, the DOW’s been around longer then the Progressive Era and it’s ONLY gotten to 14,000 max.  That’s 110 years abouts or 127 points a year on average.  So I guess 1000 points per annum isn’t so bad after all.

@Smacktard:

1999- 11723
2007- 13042

without going into the politics of the isue I think we can all agree its been a dismal 8 years.
where do you guys think the Dow, the dollar, oil and housing are headed? wil the latest recals from china signal a consumer backlash? or are we too used to shoping at walmart?

all down the down the drain. the Canadian dollar is stronger than ours. gas is $3 a gallon. when I an almost 16 year old boy can remember when you could find it for $1. the forcloser rates are at their highest. Dow is just snialling along and we have all sorts of other problems too(our trade situation and  other foreign threats) . I don’t see any great improvement coming anytime soon. Its amazing with all the crap thats happened we still have the largest economy.

I didn’t offer an opinion on the 2000 election.  I was just stating that the FACT that one candidate attempted to ignore the US Constitution and declare himself the winner when the other candidate had clearly met the Congressional threshhold to earn the seat cast the economy into an even greater recession.

However, I notice how your political opinions have colored your entire post, dear.

You also failed to note that the NEW chapter 7 confiscates your home, resulting in a sub-prime mortgage default.  So you are counting it twice, basically.  If you take it out, then you will note that the Chapter 7s are actually way down for the year resulting in record profits for the credit card companies.  Actually, you have to pay back credit cards anyway under the new laws, you just don’t have to pay interest…gee, thanks.

But hey, Smacktard, it’s not like you arn’t known for your ability to spin a story better then anyone else’s tale!

Jen…  this is a thread that will be watched very closely for political commentary.  You have already crossed the line, but I do want others to have a chance to post here from an ECONOMIC perspective.  That is the only warning for PD in this thread.

Now, that being said…
Price of Oil:  Only one way that price is going:  Up.  USA will not reduce their demand for oil in the immediate future, but China and India are certainly increasing their demand.  And with no new major fields being developed, current fields producing near maximum capacity it invokes the first law of economics:  Supply and Demand.  I predict we will soon break $100 a barrel, and barring some huge change in the global situation, it will not come back down below $100 anytime soon, if ever.

The Dollar:  Continue to decline about another 10%.  The reason I say this is that the US has not yet addressed the core issues that are causing a deflation of the dollar, most notably run-away federal spending.  The effects of that are many fold and include the reliance on foreign markets to buy up US debt notes, which are becoming increasingly hard to sell on the global markets due to the massive long term liabilities that the US Government has on the books.

Housing:  The bubble markets will continue to drop for another year or 2.  non-bubble markets will be flat to having slight increases in value.  Also on the housing note:  In another 2 years the rash of shows on TV like “Flip this House” will go off the air because housing is no longer a hot speculators market segment and “flipping” no longer results in those high speculative price run-ups that fuel interest in it.

Inflation:  Will rise.  Actually I will go so far as to say that we are in for a period of STAGFLATION.  The inflation pressures are being fueled by the rise in energy and transportation costs as well as the devaluation of the Dollar which raises the cost of imported goods which the US has become increasingly reliant on.  The job growth in the US, while it has been steady, is based on weak economic factors that will be nullified by rising inflation, the lack of available credit for capital expansions caused by both the sub-prime write offs and the demand by the US Government for such a huge percentage of available lending funds.  Combine with areas of the economy that had been major drivers of it (construction as an example) now becoming drags on the economy…

Dow: Flat at best until November 2008.  The future of tax policy, trade policy, environmental regulation, government intervention in the Health Care arena, etc. are all in massive flux right now pending the outcome of the 2008 elections.  Until investors have a better handle on what direction the United States is taking politically, they will focus on short term investments of minimal risk and exposure.  We will likely see some short term (several weeks in duration) major fluctuations up and down over the next 12 months, but unless pre-election polling indicates a solid and significant probability as to what direction Federal Economic Policies will take following the election, there will be no major long-term changes in the Dow between now and November 2008.

I hardly see how mentioning that one person engaged in unconstitutional behavior and that behavior added to the recession handed forward from the previous administration to the incoming administration.  Especially considering that the original poster most clearly wanted this to be a political slam against the current administration given his time frame, which he probably forgot actually hits the last TWO administrations. :P

Anyway, the sub-prime market is just that.  Bad loans for people who are high credit risks.  If you make bad decisions, that’s your fault.

Not knowing for sure who is going to be president causes insecurity over what to expect in way of laws, law enforcement and policies which results in businesses playing a wait and see game, which is bad for the economy.

The dot.com bust and the Y2K swindles of the 1990s gave a teetering to outright downward DIVE (not even a spiral) to the poor sap who took over in 2001.

Bankruptcy laws changing, according to Legal Helpers and others stating that all bankruptcies except in extreme circumstances are now Chapter 13 only option bankruptcies puts incredible pressure on the private citizen.

Love the caveat of 125k homes.  Not a lot of THOSE around!  In my area there are NO HOMES AT ALL worth less then 400k.  Not a single one.  Since most bankruptcies seem to be in the major cities and since the housing markets in major cities pretty much prices you over 125k, then that’s a meaningless distinction being blown out of proportion in a vain and desperate attempt to save your argument.

And, I’d like to point out, that the federal statute strongly encourages the states (in other words, do it or no more block grants to your state) to stipulate that it’s 125k in ASSETS not just for your home.  That means an auction company comes out evaluates all your goods and determines the fair market value.  Anything over 125k is confiscated and auctioned and the proceeds (after legal costs) are distributed to your creditors.

My neighbor JUST went through this!  She’s now renting her home from the new owner that bought it at auction.  She lost half her wardrobe, most of her jewelry, etc.  Basically, she was left with her 10 year old car, enough clothes to go 10 days without washes, enough jewels to be used for job interviews, and $200 in cash for the first week and $200 for the next week.

She and I were talking about how much better off she would have been if she had just gotten a sub-prime HELOC at 13-17% bringing the debt to value ratio of her home up to 100% and then paying everything off, leaving the keys on the front stoop and finding an apartment to move too.

Jenn the economy is not reliant on just one man.  so please stop make refreneces to that. I am actually enjoying this discussion and would hate to see it closed.

@cyan:

Jenn the economy is not reliant on just one man.  so please stop make refreneces to that. I am actually enjoying this discussion and would hate to see it closed.

You’re right.  It IS related to executive and legislative administrations in part however.  And, the inference from the original post is that it was all due to one man.  I brought into the discussion the myriad of other aspects, the change in bankruptcy laws, the resulting impact on sub-prime loan defaults, etc.

BTW, you want to see oil prices go down, open up the northern Alaska fields and Gulf of Mexico fields to drilling by American companies.

You want to see oil prices drop significantly?  Repeal the taxes on gasoline.  Okay, that’s gas prices, not oil, but we’re REALLY only talking about the price at the pump, we’re not, as individuals, so worried about the price of oil per barrel as long as we, individuals, can get our gas at $0.89 a gallon again!

As for strengthening the USD, it would help if we actually produced in this country again.  That means cutting off imports from India, Thailand, China and Mexico.  Dollars (Yen, Euros, Pounds, etc) are tied to a nation’s productivity as well as solvency, stability and military strength.  It is not tied to how people feel about the spokesmen for a nation.  No one cared if Gorbachev was charismatic or not.  The Rubble was worthless because it had no produce to back it up.  The dollar was strongest when it was tied to the gold in our vaults because that was a tangible good not dependent on the strength of a nation.

As long as all of our products come in from over seas, the dollar will go down.  Well, it might have bottomed out.  It has some intrinsic value in that America is not likely to declare bankruptcy and be taken over by another nation and the dollar ceasing to exist as a monetary currency any longer.  However, we have been reduced to Canada’s level which just tells us we and Canada both need to work on reattaching some value to our currency.

I, for one, would begin as such:

End social programs.  That will help reduce our debt to income level. (If the states want to run them good, if not, so what.)
End taxation on citizens, change it to taxation on the states. (It’s a perceptive thing.  You get the same dollars, but the people don’t have to write a check.)
Restrict imports from other nations requiring nations that wish to import to also accept X% of exports from us.  Trade is bilateral, not unilateral.

Take surpluses and invest them into the economy.  Trick here is to ween the government off taxes and create a surplus which we can use as a foundation for the US Dollar.

You know, basically do at the government level what private citizens have to do at the private level to be considered credit worthy.

Actually Jen the time frame was simply drawn from the previous “market high” before the declines of 2000, 2001 and 2002 (which crosses 2 Administrations).

It is politically neutral in the time frame selection.

Next attempt to force PD into this discussion will result in all posts of the individual so doing being deleted from the thread
(I am attempting to let a serious economic discussion proceed while avoiding PD.  Some of you are NOT helping that happen.)

This thread will NOT be a Clinton/Bush bash fest!

You end social programs by legislating them out.  You’re “paying” into the program is really just a tax.  You do not build up any equity in the program, there’s no account number where a bureaucrat can sit there and say “Well, Mr. Smith, you paid in $10,000 over 10 years at 3% interest per annum that works out to $12,485.84 in total life time benefits.”

So it should be a relatively simple thing to just suspend the programs for the good of the nation.  Just declare a national emergency for fiscal responsiveness (trying to find non-politically charged words, so excuse the use of words that do not fit 100% into the slots.  Double standards are fun!)

Anyway, it’s my, and many economist’s, opinion that the current downturn actually started in 1994, 1995 and 1996 with governmental and business practices leading up to events like the 2000 election fiasco, the dot-com bust, WorldCom, Arther Anderson, Enron and other businesses having to completely over haul their records to accurately portray their assets instead of the shell game that became the standard in the mid 90’s. (Not a slam on any politician in particular, just a statement of fact that in the mid 90s big businesses began a shell game where debts were off loaded to companies they then had declare bankruptcy to keep the assets of the company looking better then they actually were, more solvent.)

Then, since everything was riding these three clouds of smoke:  The dot-com businesses who had no tangable assets to pay their debts, the Shell Game of big business (assisted by the Arther Andersan Financial Firm) and the Y2K scam and scammers when the smoke began to clear, the market started to correct.  This correction which would have eased sooner, say probably 2002, was compounded by 9/11 which took the recovery process and knocked it out again.

The market really started recovering in 2003ish.  But if you look over the life of the market, you’d get a pretty good picture of things, instead of looking at the micro-scale of just the past decade and a half (1994-2007.)

The DOW Jones started in 1884.  That means it has been around for 123 years.  The current close is 13,042.  13,042 divided evenly between 123 years is 106 points a year, on average.

In 2003, when I am claiming recovery began to occur after the business practices and events of the mid 90’s compounded by political and religious events of the late 90’s early Aughts (1999-2001 specifically) we began to see abnormally high rates of return for the DOW Jones.  From the high of 2003 to the high of 2007 we have seen a growth of 4,138.37 points.

December 11, 2003 DOW Closes for the first time over 10,000 at 10,008.16
October 9, 2007 DOW Closes at 14,164.53 for an all time high.

In 4 years we have seen an increase of 71% growth or an average of not 123 points per annum but 1034.59 points per annum!  That’s more then 10 times the growth as the life time average of the DJIA!

As for Gasoline, I think we’ll see $6.00 at the pumps if we don’t do something about the lunatic fringe groups in this nation.  We need to drill in Alaska and Mexico.  Other nations are drilling there and it’s our oil!  We NEED to build refineries, EPA standards be damned, who cares how clean the air is if we all starve to death or freeze to death because there’s no oil to use to ship the products or heat the homes?

Look, the Sierra Group and Green Peace and the rest do a service.  They make us aware of the damage we are doing.  But there is legislation from the Nixon Administration that forces us to account for the damage we are doing and take it into consideration as it is.  So we really don’t need Sierra or Green Peace and their sister organizations since it’s mandated by law that we do an ecological impact survey before we engage in any activity as it is.  (Not getting into the politics of the man, just making a relevant point about the repetitiveness of the organizations considering we already have laws on the books covering it.)

Sometimes the needs of the many really do out weigh the needs of the few.  It’s a shame and I feel sorry for the few who get shafted, but I think the lives and livelihood of men exceeds the livelihood of brown striped darter snails.

Get some refineries going, get our own drilling teams out there (remember, America used to be the number one EXPORTER of oil which is really how we made money in the 40s, 50s and 60s, it wasn’t refrigerators and cars, it was oil and steel exports!) to drill and repeal some taxes.

how can it not be a political thread?

smaktard is just like that laq. glib guy who came on only for politics.  they never play games.  havent you heard about the democratic grassroots losers who go to forums (any forum) and try to sway the electorate.  smaktard is just another one.  just as glib was when i called him out on it.

you can usually find these people out.

1. we have an avatar of the republican god reagan.

2.  the user of said avatar does not espouse any conservative values on threads and never has.  actually they have been the opposite.

3.  the war in iraq isnt a viable running stategy for the dems.  they have let the pundits and grassroots people know this, now they are trying to run the old “its the economy stupid”  that worked for clinton 1.

so to surmise, this whole thread is trying to lay fault for mishaps at someones feet. (bush administration)  but thats the unsaid part.  usually it means politics when someone gives a little “hey no politics, but lets get into a political debate”  at the beginning.

this guy is just trying to be smooth about the no politics and just economical aside.  but they are all the same.  losers who work (paid or unpaid) for some democratic get out the vote program.  just as that glib guy was.

think to the past.  when has smaktard ever come on to talk about non political subjects.  never, when we had PD, he was never on GD, or on a game post.  thats not his perogitive.

Balung, get with the game man, there’s this whole double standard thing.

Anyway, it is weird that someone only talks in PD/GD and never in games or in game forums.  Hence why he has no Bad Karma, no threads of his to give him bad karma!  (Karma isn’t working in the GD for some reason.)

I’m not talking politics, never was.  Some people, they know who they are, automatically assumed my statements were political when they were just a listing of forces impacting the economy of the nation.

But just because they cannot get their heads on right doesn’t mean I was talking politics.  Just means they are too small minded to comprehend that not everything said revolves around them and their skewed look at the world.

Anyway, no one has debunked any of the theories I’ve put forward on the economy, that must mean you all agree with them.

@Smacktard:

@Cmdr:

Especially considering that the original poster most clearly wanted this to be a political slam against the current administration given his time frame, which he probably forgot actually hits the last TWO administrations. :P

I’m not talking politics, never was.

please leave my thread. you contradct yourself, have nthing useful add and hve the colosal ego to assume that everyone who ignores you agrees with you.

sometimes its just not worth the time.

It is not a contradiction to point out that you were attempting to make a political statement and that I never was, dear.

And I’ve made about a dozen relevant and salient points about the actual discussion.  No one has countered them, so I have to assume that people agree.  One does not normally post a rebuttal when one agrees with what is said.

Oh, and use the spell check dear.  You’re undermining your credibility when you misspell easy words like contradict and nothing when the browser highlights them for you.

And, for the record, your header is erroneous.  The DJIA grew over 4000 points in 4 years.  Unless you purposely chose a time frame to put the worst possible spin on that you could think of.  In which case, you may want to say that in 126 years the DOW has barely averaged 120-125 points per annum in growth!  What a huge depression we are in!!!