Bernanke, says the U.S.economy is on the cusp of a recovery
 

Dow hit 9500 today, thoughts?

artificial bear rally

he has been continually wrong from day one.

a recovery has been around the corner for almost two years now.

Looks like the recession is over. :upsidedow

Seems to me we are many millions of new jobs away from a recovery...

At the bottom? Maybe. On the cusp of recovery? Maybe. Could something else happen and make it even worse? Sure. Too much govt debt could kill the recovery. Many more foreclosures could too (A ton of ARMs are about to come due). Will we be back to where we were in a year or two? No, but in 10-15 years we could get there.

I guess it all depends on what he means. If he means that we are starting to head into a recovery, that could be very true. I don't think we are anywhere near getting back to where we were before all of this happened though.

All I can say is thank whatever god you believe in, or dont believe in, that Al Queda has not attacked us since the recession started :2 cents: :Oh crap

Stock prices also go up when dollar loses value. When our dollar was backed by gold it was $35 an ounce and now it is backed by faith and worth around $950 an ounce. People are still losing their jobs and homes.

World war 2 the people backed the debt with savings bonds, now the country turns to Japan, China and oil exporters. Americans never seen a rainy day so they spend more than they make. The debt clock is 11.7trillion and growing. The politicians have proven they do not know how to spend money to benefit the people.

We will never go back to the way things were. We are living in a false reality. It takes loans, cheap materials, cheap foods, cheap labor, credit cards to maintain the lifestyle right now.

I don't even know why anyone takes him seriously anymore.

I think he means we are seeing signs that indicate the worst has past, and it will only get better from here on. I hope so.

In the view of many, including myself, the worst is likely to come.

Read up on the 1930s depression...

Most folks are familiar with the big crash of October 1929, but few are aware the stock market over the following two years greatly increased, and then dropped even further by middle of 1932 than it had in October 1929...

It took till mid 1950s for the markets to regain the Depression losses...

Often money managers tout that people who stay in the market for the long-haul make money ... that may be true, but realize that when they say longterm, that's not 10 years, but more like 25, 50, or even longer!

There are two fundlemental types of recession / depression ... inventory based and debt based ... this one is debt based ... until the deleveraging is done, the recovery won't begin.

Here's the big question many have, including me...

Where are all the decent paying (as in $20+ per hour with good benefits) going to come from?

As of now, even manufacturing pay has "reset", so to speak, to around $14 per hour with few benefits, which is about half of what it once was.

Of course most manufacturing jobs have been outsourced, but so have many whitecollar jobs; most service-based jobs pay poorly. So again, where are all the new decent paying jobs going to come from?

And finally, keep in mind that net (which takes into account deaths / retirees, etc) job growth in the past decade was basically ZERO and yet the U.S. population grew by roughly 30 million in that same time; the working age population (after subtracting out deaths and retirees) is growing at 100,000+ per month. So not only do new jobs need to be created for all those currently out of work, but also for the 100,000+ new people entering the workforce each month.

In a consumer based economy in which many people have low incomes and lots of debt, there's basically only one direction things can go ... DOWN!

In my view, the bottom isn't anywhere near yet. When people are protesting in the streets every day, after numerous bloody massacres, etc then that may be the time when one can call it a bottom - we're not anywhere near it yet. But that's my dimes worth ... hope I'm wrong - time will tell.

Ron

The bad has not even hit yet.