Then he shook his head and said, “I feel sorry for my grandkids. Me, I’ve had a good life, and my sons all did pretty well, but my grandkids and other people’s kids, they’ll never have what we had.”

Less energy==less work/less product==less money/higher prices. I believe this is what happened in the 1970's, a consequence of US peak.

If the worst that will happen will resemble the 70s, I'll be happy. They weren't so bad, really.

Hell has frozen over!

Karl Denninger actually said a recent government economic report is good news!

>>> LINK <<<

LMAO, can't wait to hear how the "doom pumpers" spin this one!

Both sides are good at spinning...let's not get it twisted.

Wow I just got dizzy as all heck typing that

Hell has frozen over!

Karl Denninger actually said a recent government economic report is good news!

>>> LINK <<<

How much of this increase of GDP is directly related to all stimulus injected into the U.S. economy?

WASHINGTON – Fannie Mae is asking for an additional $15 billion in government aid after posting another big loss in the third quarter as the taxpayer bill from the housing market bust keeps rising.

The government-controlled company continued to see a dramatic surge of borrowers fall behind as the unemployment rate climbs. At the end of last month, about 4.7 percent of Fannie Mae's borrowers had missed at least three payments.

That's nearly triple last year's level. And the problem is worse in Florida and Nevada, where more than 11 percent of Fannie's loans are in serious trouble.

Seized by federal regulators 14 months ago, the problems at Fannie Mae and sibling company Freddie Mac have proven far worse than most experts had foreseen. Fannie Mae's request Thursday will bring the tab for rescuing both companies to about $111 billion. The government has promised up to $400 billion in assistance.

"There is significant uncertainty regarding the future of our business, including whether we will continue to exist, and we expect this uncertainty to continue," Fannie Mae said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a vital role in the mortgage market by purchasing loans from banks and selling them to investors. Together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.5 trillion. That's about half of all mortgages.

The two companies lowered their standards for borrowers during the real estate boom and are reeling from the consequences. High-risk loans, now defaulting at a record pace, have come back to haunt the companies. Worse still, the recession is causing formerly reliable homeowners with good credit to default.

Fannie Mae posted a quarterly loss of $19.76 billion, or $3.47 per share. The loss includes $883 million in dividends paid to the Treasury Department and compares with a loss of $29.41 billion, or $13 per share, in the year-ago period.

The results were driven by $22 billion in credit losses as the company continued to build its reserves for sour mortgages.

Thursday's request for financial aid — Fannie Mae's fourth — brings the company's total to about $60 billion.

Factory orders are up for the 5th time in 6 months. Looks like boom times are just around the corner!

>>> LINK <<<

WASHINGTON – Companies across the economy are finding ways to do more with fewer workers, dimming hopes that hiring will take off anytime soon.

Employers became leaner and more efficient in the third quarter. Wages, meantime, remain flat or falling. The result is that productivity — output per hour of work — jumped at the fastest pace in six years.

The good news for companies, though, may be bad news for the jobless. As long as companies can get their workers to produce more, they have little reason to hire — at least until consumer spending picks up. And the squeeze on incomes could depress consumer spending, putting the economic recovery at risk.
...
Productivity is the key ingredient to rising living standards. It lets companies pay their workers higher wages. Those increases tend to be financed by increased output, rather than higher costs for products.

But as they struggled with the recession, companies boosted productivity while continuing to lay off workers. Many produced more goods; others kept their output down but slashed costs. Companies kept wages down by freezing pay or imposing unpaid furloughs.

"Survival meant cutting costs as rapidly as possible and fulfilling orders with the fewest number of workers," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell last week, the government said Thursday, with a total figure that was below analysts' expectations.

There were 512,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Oct. 31, down 20,000 from a revised 532,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.

A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 522,000 new claims.

[...]

Continuing claims. The government said 5,749,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Oct. 24, the most recent data available. That was down 68,000 from the preceding week's revised 5,817,000 claims.

[...]

Except the consumer has been bled dry.