Economy bottomed out? Some purely anecdotal news

One of my favorite indicators is the local Barbershop gossip. Last monday the owner of a barbershop was playing in my foursome and I asked him his take on economy from talking to his customers. He said in the previous week no less than 4 of his customers lost jobs and looking for work. That is the most he has ever seen! Next is the news from my own relative. He has won awards for several years as one of the top performing salesman in a fortune 500 outfit. His current position was district sales manager. Guess what? he just got laid off after 29 years with the company! My own take is any gains in corporate earnings are due to layoff related cost reductions and decline in US $. Outfits like IBM, Intel etc have huge amount of sales from abroad and when the profits from those countries are converted to the cheaper dollars, the profits are magnified. Unemployment of course is a lagging indicator. But until the picture improves there, housing is unlikely to improve which was the trigger for the economic tumble.

No talk about worries about getting sick or swine flu? That's all I hear about.

The people I speak to are cautiously optimistic but, they work for the banks and hedge funds. These folks are either direct or indirect recipients of stimulus monies. My conclusion from all this is there are two countries right now. "Main Street" and "Wall Street." "Wall Street" had a scare and some "culling of the herd" but, ultimately, doesn't seem to be all that damaged at this point. I know a few who are still playing golf or whatever but, it's not like they can't afford to buy a loaf of bread and some jam if you get my drift. I've been thinking about turning those guys on to the yahoo finance or the silicon investor boards where the real money makers are.

Edited by milbank, 16 October 2009 - 08:56 PM.

My conclusion from all this is there are two countries right now. "Main Street" and "Wall Street"

I concur with that. However there is NO need for Wall street if Main street goes away.
Wall street is mainly a service industry and as such depends on the real wealth
creators....Agriculture, Mining, Manufacturing and creation intellectual & entertainment products.

If Wall street goes away, Main street will survive.
If Main street goes away, Wall street will go away also.

deleted duplicate post

Edited by pdx5, 16 October 2009 - 09:27 PM.

My conclusion from all this is there are two countries right now. "Main Street" and "Wall Street"

I concur with that. However there is NO need for Wall street if Main street goes away.
Wall street is mainly a service industry and as such depends on the real wealth
creators....Agriculture, Mining, Manufacturing and creation intellectual & entertainment products.

If Wall street goes away, Main street will survive.
If Main street goes away, Wall street will go away also.

"Main Street" will never go away. The ownership/control will change.
Think pre-1920th century England.

New York City is an excellent example. When I came to town around 1980, there were plenty of "mom and pops." Now it's KMart, Walmart, Barnes an Noble and Home Depot. I came after the "Mom and Pop" grocery was history. I'm barely scraping the surface with those but, you get the picture. You heard of the family farm? That's just about gone the way of the "Mom & Pop" grocery.

Edited by milbank, 16 October 2009 - 09:48 PM.

not ON wall street, but, i just hear of a friend who is a PM, has been a morningstar top analyst for numerous years in his industry, 15 years at one fund after, what, 10 in a different one, just got laid off - he said they are having the younger managers run it - after he trained them - because they are "cheaper". this MF is a household name one of the 10 biggest, but yeah, it is buy side, and the MF investors are just soon to be poor Americans! should add that two people with service businesses near my mother in Fairfield County are both 9 months behind on the mortgage and have already let go most of their staff. not bankrupt not foreclosed, but how many others out there are there, and when will it happen? also in Fairfield, it is like other places, a realtor said banks are not foreclosing, they rather the people stay in the homes and maintain them - there is no market, and even in FF it is possible to negotiate a 50% deal on some properties. So, no, it hasnt bottomed out yet.

Edited by dasein, 16 October 2009 - 10:03 PM.

Definitely has bottomed out. BUT I don't see it yet turning up on a major upswing....maybe a U-shaped recovery, though I'm in camp of "economic retracement rally" to be followed by double-dip starting 2nd half of 2010. My own take...from the depths of the energy trading arena...the employment front is definitely ticking higher...more calls from headhunters/recruiters in the last several weeks than I've seen since the summer of 2007 and at least a few on behalf of some of the major banks (now apparently well capitalized)....

energy trading has ticked up? that is one of the darling areas, energy traders, derivative quants, there is still demand for that, but that is no where indicative of the general economy, not even plain vanilla brokers are getting hired, and as noted, anything about retail investments is going lower. you need to get out more often;)

You don't like unions? You don't like collective bargaining? You think it has killed capitalism? In the next 20 years one of two things is going to happen. . . . Either the standard of living for the BRICs are going to come up to our level or we are going to go down to theirs. It's called "globalization." You and yours will have as much leverage power with your bosses regarding pay and raises as they will with theirs. It's been in process since the end of the second world war. It started going into high gear about 35-40 years ago. The reality of it has just begun to become undeniable, even to the most ardent defenders of our so called "free market" system, with this phase of the ever enlarging boom and bust, debt based system. We're talking "wealth transfer" here. Of course "Main Street" will exist but, it will be under "Wall Streets'" thumb.