Recession over?

[THUMPER20X]

3 months of growth. I dunno, I think its gonna be a 12month assessment to be sure.What do you think?

[patriotpa]

Nope! Not over yet! Dig in...it's gonna be a looong fall.

[CDN SS]

No, my wife just found out her job could be in jeopardy due to the economy which would mean no Camaro for me.

[Gibby]

Canada is now OFFICIALLY out of the recession!

I hope you guys are still investing! There is a lot of $ to be made.

[CanadianCamaro]

You guys must have a pretty weak definition of being "out" of the recession. The Canadian economic situation is no where near as dire as south of the boarder. None-the-less the current business thinking is we will be seeing a mix of negative indicators over the next several months and then a slow recovery thereafter.

[DGthe3]

Recession: 2 consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. Therefore, once you have a quarter with growth you are out of recession. Being out of recession does not in any way indicate that things are fine because revenues will still be down substantially from where they were, unemployment will be high, and all the other symptoms of a bad economy will still be present. However, since this is economics, facts don't matter too much, merely the perception of the facts. Being out of recession will have a general positive impact because people will believe that things are fine even though nothing has really changed. They will then increase spending (both personal consumption and business expenditures) thus pulling themselves out of the no-longer existent recession. This is very similar to how recessions generally start: people fear one is coming so the stop spending thus causing the recession they feared.

The causes (and solutions to) recessions do have basis in reality, but for Canada the basis is America. When they buy our stuff, things are good. When they don't, it gets tough. We weren't hit as hard as they were mainly because our banks were smarter. But we won't be in the clear until the US begins to recover because our primary and secondary industries are extremely dependant on them.

[Partick]

Well I don't know about all that economics/Wall Street BS, as a small business owner I can tell you from the seat of my pants the recession in the real world is far from over and the people I've had to layoff will disgree as well. We provide engineering services to some big corporations (Chevron, Kaiser, Valero) to name a few and they have without exception pulled back on planned expenditures and show no sign changing course. Our work is usually anywhere from from 1-3 years ahead of actual project implementation and there is very little upfront work out there right now which means they have no plans to spend money anytime soon.

This has nothing to do with who is President, it's the result of unfettered greed that has finally caught up with us. jmo

[PAUL SS]

I have been seeing more positive reports in the news lately. It used to be that everything was negative. It may not be over but it looks like there are signs of improvement.

[GTAHVIT]

Just an obligatory note.


Please no politics.

[PAUL SS]

Politics? I thought this was economics.

[CanadianCamaro]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

Recession: 2 consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. Therefore, once you have a quarter with growth you are out of recession. Being out of recession does not in any way indicate that things are fine because revenues will still be down substantially from where they were, unemployment will be high, and all the other symptoms of a bad economy will still be present. However, since this is economics, facts don't matter too much, merely the perception of the facts. Being out of recession will have a general positive impact because people will believe that things are fine even though nothing has really changed. They will then increase spending (both personal consumption and business expenditures) thus pulling themselves out of the no-longer existent recession. This is very similar to how recessions generally start: people fear one is coming so the stop spending thus causing the recession they feared.

The causes (and solutions to) recessions do have basis in reality, but for Canada the basis is America. When they buy our stuff, things are good. When they don't, it gets tough. We weren't hit as hard as they were mainly because our banks were smarter. But we won't be in the clear until the US begins to recover because our primary and secondary industries are extremely dependant on them.

That's a good definition from a textbook perspective - which I do agree with largely.

Originally Posted by Partick

Well I don't know about all that economics/Wall Street BS, as a small business owner I can tell you from the seat of my pants the recession in the real world is far from over and the people I've had to layoff will disgree as well. We provide engineering services to some big corporations (Chevron, Kaiser, Valero) to name a few and they have without exception pulled back on planned expenditures and show no sign changing course. Our work is usually anywhere from from 1-3 years ahead of actual project implementation and there is very little upfront work out there right now which means they have no plans to spend money anytime soon.

This has nothing to do with who is President, it's the result of unfettered greed that has finally caught up with us. jmo

And that's a good definition from a business owner's perspective - which I also agree with.

For every "positive" sign in the media you can find 3 negative ones. This is largely hype but unfortunately it's what drives peoples thoughts. Reality is, it ain't over yet, the fat lady is out to lunch somewhere and won't be back for a while.

[GTAHVIT]

Originally Posted by Paul SS

Politics? I thought this was economics.

But you may be surpised at how quickly the tide can turn around here...

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by CanadianCamaro

For every "positive" sign in the media you can find 3 negative ones. This is largely hype but unfortunately it's what drives peoples thoughts. Reality is, it ain't over yet, the fat lady is out to lunch somewhere and won't be back for a while.

This past year has really made me question the intelligence of the media. They act as though they have no influence, yet its clear they play a huge role in controlling peoples perception of events. Therefore, they either are stupid for not even realizing the consequences of their industry, or they are stupid for not really caring about the consequences of their industry.

Why can't there be one network that ignores irrelevant celebrity gossip, attention seekers, and pointless filler like a family of ducks crossing a road. Why can't they just present unbiased facts within a context that puts things into perspective. Need filler? Bring out one of your on staff experts to give background info on a current topic. Is that really so hard and undesirable?

Rant over

[sen10l]

One thing you must understand about the market - by the time the media has wind of movement, it's already too late. People make money on the stockmarket by investing before the media finds out.