What consumers speculate about future employment is more or less irrelevant, in that employment rates are a lagging indicator. Employment in no way predicts either an expansion or a recovery; it can only show you what happened 6-12 months ago.

This is counterintuitive to most people, but it's a time-tested axiom of economics. The stimulus may or may not be working, but consumer confidence and employment rates are about the worst ways possible to try and discern it.

The main problem is that Obama is following the same game plan that Bush and Clinton had of using the federal government to regulate the US labor markets using regulations like H-1B to drive up labor supply and thus drive down wages. This is part of Reagan's trickle down economics which clearly works very well for those at the top.

Obama is just doing the same thing with a nice smile and great talk. Talk talk talk. But the policy is essentially the same. We get lots of regulations but no benefits.

A lot of people are just receiving their property tax statements which are based on the value of their homes from three years ago. Mine has gone up more than 10% this year even though my house value has dropped by quite a bit.

That's taking money away from savings or from spending in the local economy so is it a surprise that everyone's bummed out considering the high unemployment rate, the hiring freezes and the furloughs at so many businesses?

California is considering IOUs. The Obama stimulus package is (Federal)government coming to the aid of (State)government. Sure we avoid furloughing more state employees, and avoid early release programs for criminals, (more unemployed hits the rolls) but that in no way suggests there is any new job creation, which is far more important. One pundit warns that displaced Auto Workers will sabotage the July 2 numbers. Certainly Health Care reform will trim a few excess jobs. As for Consumer Confidence, let's guess that 50 will be the new 100.

I doubt that Arnie could away with the sort of demagougery Reagan used. Welfare Queens in Cadillacs? Hey they can make anything out of bronze.

"What consumers speculate about future employment is more or less irrelevant, in that employment rates are a lagging indicator. Employment in no way predicts either an expansion or a recovery; it can only show you what happened 6-12 months ago."

But uh...how can people who are out of work pay their mortgages?

Without decent-wage jobs being created, isn't the housing/finance/debt problem going to become that much WORSE as all the folks who've been laid off finally tap out?

Two weeks ago I saw it reported that 1/8 of all US households are more than 60 days late on mortgage payments (or in default/foreclosure). And there are basically no jobs right now to help any of these households out.

I think what you say has PREVIOUSLY been true, but the situation we're currently in is rather novel.

Everything is going to get a hecka lot worse. Doesn't matter which "indicators" you want to look at. There's just no good news from ANYWHERE.

...is where are all the rah-rah Obamabots now? Why are they MIA? Shouldn't they be clogging the blogosphere with assurances that "everything is going fine" and "Obama's plan is going to save our economy"? Or did all that fire and passion die out after the checks stopped coming in and they had to get real, paying jobs?

Peeps are so gullible. But, as the Big O's (alleged) idol said: "You can't fool everyone all of the time". Looks like fooling time has run out...

Unfortunately, there is no escaping the coming Great Depression in these US of A. It will pretty much be every man/woman/family for themselves, and damn the rest. And -- although the US powers-that-be are constantly attempting to push the story that this country will weather it better than the rest of the world -- the truth is that this country will suffer much more, to the point that social instability will be the "new normal". Don't believe the "party line" that the rest of the world will continue lending us cheap money forever. They are merely keeping us from crashing immediately while they prepare the foundations for their own financial infrastructure, independent of the US. When those structures are in place they will stop buying our bonds, dump our dollars and the price (in US dollars) of imported oil will shoot through the roof -- bringing what's left of our tattered economy down with it. Of course, the US elite won't mind -- they've already stashed their riches overseas and have the second (and third) passports ready. They aren't stupid.

Prepare for it while you can. I give it a couple more years -- maybe four at the most. You will always reap what you sow. And, boy, this country has sown some pretty toxic stuff over the decades.

I have, unlike the President and congress, read a great deal of the stimulous. It is impossible to think that it is intended to help the economy. Each state receiving money will be mandated within two years to expand welfare to such an extent that we will all fail like California. Then another crisis/opportunity for centralization of power will force Obama to decimate states rights. He doesn't make mistakes - he makes trouble.

You might have a better case if you, despite all the reading, could spell "stimulus."

The ARRA is too recent to discount is as a failure. But I don't see how a second cash enema is going to do much. I'm more angry at the Fed, Treasury, and the outgoing administration's insistence (remember?) that everything was going to crash and burn within hours if Hank Paulson didn't get almost a trillion dollars to hand out to his Goldman &c. buddies on Wall St. plus sink 350 billion into AIG to prop up their crimes.

Too big to fail? Try it, Hopey. And yeah, I'm pissed that the Obama response is no different than the Bush one: just keep throwing money at it, esp. to those who need it the least.

And while I was just hired after being laid off since mid-February, it resulted from the only interview I managed to score after sending out hundreds of resumes and applying for as many specific jobs. This was a fluke. Nobody I know who was let go has found a new job. If there is a recovery on paper (and in the accounts of giant industrial investors) it's quite likely to be another jobless one a la post-2001.