Is the American economy heading toward a recession? ABC World News business correspondent Betsy Stark talks about the disappointing report that the nation only added 18,000 jobs last month.
Bill Blakemore: Betsy, is 18,000 far off the mark of what is considered healthy?
Betsy Stark: Oh, it's way off the mark of what's considered healthy. You need about 100,000 jobs to just absorb all the new people who come into the job market every month looking for work. So this really is a bleak number. And the other thing that happened was there was a 3/10th of a percent jump in the unemployment rate to 5%. So put those two things together and it's really flashing recession.
Housing slump, credit crunch, pricey oil - I'd be surprised if we're not going into a recession ...
Link | ABC World News Webcast homepage
Do you think we're heading into a recession? and why?
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Of course, when Clinton was President, an unemployment rate of 5.6% was reason for ecstasy. Unemployment rising to 5.2% from 5.0% under Bush is a harbinger of doom. By any measure used to judge the Clinton economy, the Bush economy is booming, but you'd never know it from the media and most commenters.
This feels different to me. Talking to a number of small business owners, they're ALL telling me that sales have been dismal and that a significant recession is coming.
I do love a previous post where Acris stated they had seen it coming for a few years. That is too funny. I see the mental giants are out and about.----------
Hahaha....that's exactly what I was thinking too. If we end up in recession 5 years from now, do I get points if I say "I've seen it coming for the past several years!!"
Recession is two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth. There's no indication that this will happen this year, though there are a few (just a few) warning signs. 5% unemployment is still extraordinarily low. All this speculation does no one any good. And those who make laughable statements that we are headed for a crash obviously have absolutely no knowledge of economics or history. We didn't even have a crash as a result of Sept. 11 (though the markets were hit pretty hard).
That's what none of them really want to admit.
That's why they have to keep lowering the dollar, in hopes that people around the globe would buy more American.
But then that oil price hurts. It makes everything in America that much more expensive for Americans. It may be cheaper to buy the dollar for strong foreign currencies, but man, let's just take a look at the big picture.
We'd be lucky if we can get past this without a major slump.
I hope we can get past this lull without a major drop.