I dunno, Bing. Sounds to me like you’re asking us to keep emoting, but to do it in a positive direction. Because, if we really think about it, this country is in for a world of hurt for a very long time to come. Personally, I think a lot of that can be laid at the feet of those people who persist in emoting in a happy direction.

The big facts are these: the country as a whole is in debt up to its eyeballs, or beyond; and it will take decades, not just years, to work out of that, even if we start now. Too little work for too many people. A broken economic model killed by its greatest beneficiaries. A political system that . . . well, it’s just too damn depressing for even me to contemplate.

Funny how you chose a day when the Dow is dropping over 200 to post something so sunny and positive. Sorry to add to the fustian (had to look that one up, thanks for expanding my vocabulary).

Well, Bing, I recall suggesting a while back that the economy would start to recover in mid Sept of this year, so you’re making me feel clever this afternoon.

OTOH, I’ve at times bet the downside of the market, and when you suggest that I’d hoped to profit from the downfall of others, that makes me a sad panda.

Strictly speaking, I suppose you’re right. On the other hand, none of us can buy unless someone else has decided to sell, and vice versa.

The people who get crushed when a bubble market pops are often those who are playing the market on the “greater fool” theory. Sometimes they time it wrong. Others are the sort who buy with borrowed money, letting greed or stupidity blind them to the fact that leverage works both ways. Should I feel sorry for them?

I expect we’ll see consumer confidence and the job market starting to pick up around March of next year. Those generally trail GDP recovery by up to six months coming out of recessions.

Just my $.02.

Yeah, Steve, it’s kinda funny that on a day when the Wall Street Journal has a screaming headline that said “ECONOMY SNAPS LONG SLUMP” the street decides to take the rest of the decade off. I’ll refer you to my other blogs that suggest that the Street is a ass.

If anything can move freely, it can move stupidly.

Despite wall street, main street, CNBC, FOX, etc, etc, we have to be convinced that this still is THE greatest country on earth and we are destined to be THE leaders of the world because nobody, not even China or Russia, wants that, and nobody else can, we are a resilient nation, we are destined to lead the world.

“Gross Domestic Product expanded in the third quarter by 3.5%. Housing and consumer spending have hit bottom. We have a government prepared to offer creative incentives and stimuli to keep the ball in the air. Other metrics are in line with a generally upbeat weather report.”

You must be kidding right? The GDP was a one off from the cash for clunkers program that cost the taxpayers 24K per vehicle. And a goverment willing to offer creative incentives and stimuli..ROTFL. Is this synomous with goverment killing off the private sector and making every citizen an economic serf to the state? That’s the plan folks (health care, cap and trade, copenhagen summit, etc). I’m sure it will only get better from here on out.

The other metrics are theater for companies understating earnings so much that they can beat the already dismal expectations of the wall street analysts. Company X states they’ll lose 75 cents a share, analysts are looking for a 45 cent per share loss, and company X delivers a loss of 44 cents a share, and it’s go time on wall street. Oh happy days are here again

There will be no recovery without a job recovery, period. Sadly, most of these jobs are never coming back. They were in sectors that produce nothing and trade in fantasy (financials/wall street)and in service sectors that depend on the american consumer to keep buying at all costs. If this country ever ramps up starts producing actual goods again, and starts providing jobs, we might stand a chance. Relying on financials, and consumers (who make up 70% of GDP) to keep consuming when they are near broke or unemployed and broke is not going to get us to true recovery.

It should be remembered: the worst part of the 1929 crash wasn’t the initial crash of the market, it was the second leg down in 1931/32 after the corrective rally that did the most damage. Things certainly look similar right now.

Yeah, Bing. Life is good again. And we got all that free Cool-Aid… Nothing to worry about. Even if 4 out of my 17 friends are out of work for over 10 months(on average). And BAC is moving my job to Singapore in 2010. Just let me take another drag out of that roach. Yeah, Life is good again.

Believe in America’s limitless opportunity.

This still is and will always be an extrodinarily special place, and to bet against America and the turbine that is American business is a fool’s errand.

What we must do is return to bedrock values; faith, honesty, loyalty, hard work, innovation, thrift, competition, fair play and optimism.

For the benefit of generations yet born, we are Americans! Let’s start acting like it.

Is a growing operating environment one in which the White House claims to have saved/added one million jobs to prevent us from falling (prematurely) to 10.5% unemployment from the current 9.8% sweet spot? Hey Bing – how ’bout another double kool-aid?

Of course the WORLD IS ENDING just like your pal said,,,and we are getting out of the recession,,,it’s just that both are taking a long time,,,according to my calculations it is now a neck and neck race..

What we must do is return to bedrock values; faith, honesty, loyalty, hard work, innovation, thrift, competition, fair play and optimism.

For the benefit of generations yet born, we are Americans! Let’s start acting like it.

Posted By Paul, Miami, Florida

Geeeez Paul,,that’s a tall order you are asking people to do…how about just picking one,,,let’s say hardwork or thrift…maybe after that we could get everybody to try another one..

Then again I like your attitude,,if you are gonna dream, you may as well dream big,,I do it all the time..

Lets just all stop watching CNBC and their generally clueless prognosticators, pontificators and pundits. Lets also stop paying any attention to the egomaniac economists who have never had real jobs. The average redneck construction worker (and I r one) can tell you more than the experts who are overly educated tv clones.

Ah I feel better now

Wall Street is what it is: A house of cards, they promote the mystery of speculation, sooooo wellll.

CNBC and the likes slither in the negative glass half empty; like, sing us a country song and we’ll provide the glitch and glitter with a down beat, or beating.

The promoters will jump on the emotional roller coaster with: Bill Haley’s “Shake rattle and roll” and “Dim, Dim the lights”, while the beatnicks lull us with: “Walk right in, sit right down, baby let your hair hang down”.

Out culture is orchestrated with the up and down roller coaster ride of, “WALL Street”!

It’s time to get back to work and take a little risk. Those that do are going to reap some sweet rewards over the next 5 to 10 years.

Commercial real estate is finally cheaper (to lease or buy), it’s easier to find talented people than at any time since the early 1990’s and corporate clients are starting to spend again (even if consumers aren’t). If you have the financial ability, this is the time to expand your business.

I am seeing more business, albeit at lower pricing. Just like in other cycles, you grab the business when competitors are weak or stubborn, then get the pricing back in a year or two. Let’s get to work. And hope that protectionist/populist sentiment doesn’t get in the way too much.

Where I work, it seems the credo “If you don’t drag it or push it, it don’t move” is more often true than not…also history has shown me that emotion-based decisions are often suboptimal, and sometimes catastrophic…

I believe Wall Street is a wild greedy little child that should for the most part be ignored. Businesses operating on data-based emotionless decisions, towards the goal of maximized owner earnings, shall continue to prevail…”F” Wall Street (thanks Joe!)

How apt is your use of Hamlet’s line stating that “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”. Commonly misused, as it is here, it does not (in Shakespearian context) offer encouragement.

For Hamlet it reflects a desire to return to blissful ignorance, though perhaps that’s what Bing is truly encouraging us to do. T’is a silly thing to ignore reality, and there are indeed many things that are quite bad regardless of how we pretend to self-manipulate our perception.

Are there economic green shoots pushing through the wasteland? Certainly, but it appears that the pollyanna’s are ready to declare victory, and return us to the same fundamentally weak ‘boom and bust’ game, run by the same ruthlessly greedy scoundrels, if only we can have the pain go away for awhile.

And Paul, excellent speech. I agreed with most of it, except the ‘thrift’ part; Unfortunately, thrift will never feed the economic juggernaut required by business. Everybody’s got to borrow and spend like a drunken sailor to do that (god knows I’m doing my part in that respect).

I see no reason to believe that Hamlet meant his statement in a strictly negative sense. That’s why he was such a funny guy.

Well, all you bulls out there…let’s see what you do with the fruit of the ’sweet’ opportunities out there once materialized; are you gonna start spending, or are you going to keep preferentially moving your capital into each firm that announces a new wave of over-head reducing layoffs or plans to out-source labor needs to whatever hell-hole of a country that desperately allows you to pay their workers the very least (and don’t give me any of that bushwah about helping the world economy…you could really care less….you’d approve of child slave labor if you thought it would improve the bottom line).

When ‘rosy days’ return I hope you spread the cheer, rather than to keep hectoring your fellow Americans about their spendthrift habits…you know, the habits that fuel your prosperity.

I’m not sure that this positive GDP reading coming out on the 29th has a significance. Many ppl forget to ask the evident question: how strong are those dollars in which the current GDP is measured. How strong compared to gold, hamburgers or a Starbuck coffee? If you had had 20% inflation, the GDP reading would have been much better.
GDP is more and more widely rejected as a trustworthy index of real economic improvement. I am pretty sure that way too much importance is attributed to GDP readings.
Jobs and debt levels are that really count…
And in that field, I cannot see any improvement, only the opposite, sorry.
Far-fetched optimism won’t help this scenario

I second everyone who has posted against emotionalism on here.

This is an interesting inflection point in the recovery. The bears aren’t treed, Bing – there’s an awful lot of smart money out there still betting on the US economy to swoon again. And yes, it is smart money, backed by lots and lots of both dollars and analysts. In this kind of environment, it’s difficult to get an unbiased read of what’s going on – in-between self-serving politicos (whose job gains numbers, for those who remember back to the campaign, have fluctuated from 2.5 million to 3.5 million to 650,000 to, now, 1 million; when numbers are jumping around like this, my rule of thumb is to call it zero) to both sellside and buyside on Wall Street who need the pro-growth enthusiasm to get money back in the door.

So in this environment why not a challenge? Don’t post anything about the economy unless you have recent solid evidence of what’s happening in your neighborhood, up or down. Stop talking about what happened last March or last November or whenever, but now (remember the economy is a moving target). Peter Lynch talked about this sort of humble analysis in “One Up on Wall Street” – which is what this post could have been titled.

Personally I expect the 3.5% number to be revised down. Add the real growth number together with GDP inflation and US statisticians are telling us that price and wages of everything here in the third quarter was moving ahead by 4-5% on an annualized basis. I don’t know about you but I don’t see everything around me moving ahead like it’s going to be 4-5% higher a year from now. And full disclosure: Despite this, I still think we’re in a recovery.

That challenge goes to you, too, Bing. In fact, we could call this new service BNBC, though the last three letters might not fit.

To my brothers in Bing, Mike and Jack, beneath the scarred exterior of every cynic is the heart of a true believer.

I know, I am one; and incidentally, mi hermanos, neither of you attacked the premise of my argument.

And please, one or both of you object, for it will only prove my point.

And for our friend Bob in Budapest, facts are facts. It’s what you do with them that counts.

One man’s far fetched optimism is another man’s Apple Corp.

Hedge fund managers derivatives are like giant octopus sucker arms that suck the life out of the existing money reserves of the suckers looking for the gypsy’s promise.

They successfully sucked the funds out the retirement system, the banking system, savings and loan system, credit union system, corporate reserves systems, the government budget systems, and have completely decimated the U.S. Treasury department, Internal Revenue Service, and the Social Security Administration.

Those big sucker arms are just squeezing what’s left until they get every last penny available.

Our manufacturing is gone, our money is gone, all that we worked is being drained by those octupus arms of the hedge funds and derivatives.

Risk management seems only to work for the inside short sellers.

Follow the money stream to see where their pot of gold is deposited.

With that said, tis’ the season to be jolly. fool la la la fool la la la–Santa Claus is coming and so is global warming–season’s greetings and have a very enjoyable day!

Everyone should believe in something.

I believe I’ll have another drink

Thinking may be a stretch for those pontificating to us on television. The doom and gloom is a self perpetuating activity and unfortunately is what sells. There are a number of good things happening, along with some continuing bad ones. If people would just maintain some focus instead of panicking at every single move things would be so much nicer.

Paul, the good times aren’t over for good, but somehow we need to have Chevy corporations last at least 10 years like they should(I mean between bailouts).

“You must be kidding right? The GDP was a one off from the cash for clunkers program that cost the taxpayers 24K per vehicle.”

If cash for clunkers was our past quarter’s GDP, we must have the GDP of Tanzania or Elbonia.

As for the “$24k” per vehicle, that’s from a rather slanted piece that based that figure on the assumption of what would have been purchased without a good consideration of “when.” I believe the “when” was “in the coming year” … and a sale this summer instead of “in the coming year” was rather critical, IMO.

Looks like the industrial sector had some good news today, up more than predicted. Watch for transportation to follow.

Mike,

America’s best days are always yet to come; otherwise let’s just run up the white flag.

GM should have been allowed to expire; only Ford under the brilliant leadership of Alan Mulally should have survived the Motown Stomp.

Mike here’s the problem. Instead of the government forking out $24k to get us to buy a car, wouldn’t it be great if Chevy could start selling us a fully loaded car for $24k? Dare I dream $18k? But from what I can see, noooo. After feeding at the government trough, GM would now like us all to go out and buy the new Escalade, for $40k or so (nicely equipped), like it’s 2007 all over again. Meanwhile in other places around the world: Honda and Toyota look like they’re finally having a bit of a price war back in the (protected) home market; Europe and China are experimenting with battery stations instead of gas stations; you’ve heard of the Tata Nano – that’s a $2,500 car, folks, not a missing zero; all-electric cars should be on the road near the end of 2010. At some stage, I fear we’re going to have a massive shift in the paradigm of private transportation which will pull down the pants of our remaining Big Three, down to their red-white-and-blue skivvies. So what are they going to do then? (No bonus points for picking the obvious answer.)

A forward-looking car company might continue to cut costs, but not the Ford unions since, hey, the company is already doing so well! Meanwhile the Canadian union approved changes right away. You think they’re worried that with the loonie (the Canadian dollar) near one that someday we might not even produce cars North of the border? You betcha! The Canadians always understand the rest of the world so much better than us.