A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Our side is in a strategic bind. On the one hand, we want the economy to improve. Nobody likes unemployment to be this high, or growth this slow.
But on the other hand, it kills us that things might improve under this guy, when he's done everything he can to hobble the economy.
But on the other other hand, we need to digest the following indicators, and adjust our pitch to the moderate swing voters accordingly. Because the only way to win in November is for some of the folks who voted for Obama to vote for our side.
Two big items:
1. Walmart says that the economy is "back on track." From Forbes:
Americans are back in Wal-Mart stores, says CEO Mike Duke.
And expecting strong sales this year, Wal-Mart, a Dow component, raised its quarterly dividend 9%. “We are pleased that the strength of our financial position allows Walmart to again increase our dividend payout to shareholders,” Duke Thursday said in a news release.
2. Consumer confidence hit a one-year high in February. From Reuters:
Consumer confidence scaled a one-year high in February as optimism about the labor market offset concerns over rising gasoline prices, an independent survey showed on Tuesday.
The Conference Board said its index of consumer attitudes increased to 70.8 this month - the highest reading since February last year - from an upwardly revised 61.5 in January.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index rising to 63.0 from a previously reported reading of 61.1 in January.
"Consumers are considerably less pessimistic about current business and labor market conditions than they were in January," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.
"And, despite further increases in gas prices, they are more optimistic about the short-term outlook for the economy, job prospects and their financial situation."
So we're going to need to be pretty tightly focused, it seems to me, on jobs, debt, and government waste. And gas prices. Anything else I'm missing? Again, the key is to win back Obama voters. Anything else and we're just spinning our wheels.
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Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
And freight seems to be lagging. My leading economic indicator? It's easier to find a parking place at the truck stops each night. More empty parking spots means fewer trucks in service. Easier to park,..but there is a downside.
Oct '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Rob, I've been on the verge of posting something like the following for a couple of weeks:
Why are Republican candidates afraid to simply state the following, as many times as it takes to make the point; Recessions are always cyclic and we all knew that the up-turn would come, but this one is late and weak as a result of Obama's economic policy. The weakness is evident in the un-eveness off the recovery, with many sectors still not showing growth. For a truly robust and lasting recovery, business has to believe that government won't continue to interfere with burdensome regulation and taxation. My plan blah, blah, blah.
Trying to minimize every positive indicator is exactly contrary to conservatism and will transparently undermine us. The one aspect of politics people are paying attention to is how it affects their pocketbook, and if a smiling Obama reinforces their tentative feelings that things are looking up, they will likely stick with him.
Oct '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Have you noticed that our sour, scolding, judgmental president has been replaced by one that isn't afraid to affect the goofy happiness of the main character Xi in the Gods Must Be Crazy. It's uncanny. Someone in the administration must've had an epiphany that the cold gravitas wasn't working and talked him into the new character. No doubt it hurts his pride, but better than losing, you know.
This is my little conspiracy theory, so I'll put it in its own box down here for easy removal.
Edited on March 5, 2012 at 11:37pmMay '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
If gas prices rise to $5/gal. you can kiss any new jobs goodbye. The freight surcharges alone will eat up any profit to be made through sales. With the market as inelastic as it is right now, additional price increases to cover fuel charges will have to be offset by a reduction in another cost or costs. The most easily controllable cost is labor.
Feb '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
George Savage:Economy
Chronic joblessness, especially for your children.
Slight growth at the cost of a staggering, society-ending pyramid of debt that will need to be paid for by your children, with no way out offered by the president.
War on energy. EPA and coal; Keystone XL.
Government overreach
Obamacare: If you like the latest "contraception" controversy, get ready for lots more; inevitable when the law replaces the workings of the market and civil society generally.
Scandals
Fast and furious--intentionally arming Mexican drug cartels in hopes of creating more support for gun control domestically.
Solyndra and other clean-tech boondoggles. Even if you love President Obama, he's not much of a venture capitalist.
Others? · 27 minutes ago
Intimidation of dissidents, both through increasing government and institutional restraints on speech, and through governmental toleration of outright thuggish private behavior directed against regime opponents.
Jan '12
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
I don't think more people shopping at Walmart is a great economic growth story. I would add to Rob's jobs, debt, government waste, and gas prices, the energy industry in general. People generally associate higher taxes on big oil with higher gas prices so that isn't as strong of a political message for Obama as one would think. The natural gas find in North Dakota and Pennsylvania is a great story and Obama has nothing to do with it. People want domestic energy and they realize that Obama is against greater domestic energy production due to his veto of Keystone XL. Santorum and Gingrich are echoing this message, hopefully Romney will soon.
Edited on March 6, 2012 at 12:00amNov '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Could it be that conservatives are just to dumb to know when a golden egg is wrapped in a brown paper bag?
Take the Wal Mart thing. Especially if Wal Mart is way out ahead of the curve, as it appears to be. Laud it. Laud Obama's role in rescuing Wal Mart. Make him a hero. Not just any hero -- the Wal Mart Hero!. This should go across all media until the label sticks. He should be on Fox being congratulated for helping large employers like Wal Mart turn their fortunes around.
Wal Mart, for its part, should make Obama a guest speaker at its next shareholder's meeting, the toast of their annual banquet. And, of course, they should not change their business model one iota.
The point is ... the last thing Obama wants is to be paired up in the people's minds with Wal Mart. It actually might help him in the polls but it will lose him his key constituency in the street game of politics: the unions.
Aug '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Reuters has good news for Obama ? Stop the presses !
We can rely on lots of good economic news and little word of gas prices in the media for at least ...say... 8 months.
Mar '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Rob, I'll toot my own horn a bit and direct your attention to my post on this subject from last Thursday morning under the heading "that 'stronger economy' you keep hearing about". I presented some hard-to-refute data that contradicts the current "meme". I agree that we should not be rooting for bad news. But my point was/is that the economy is in a deep funk, not making material progress right now, and if Obama wants to campaign on how great things are, then we should welcome that debate.
on your two specific anecdotes: Wal-Mart's dividend policy probably isn't meaningful in this context. they raised their dividend 8% in 2008 and 14% in 2009, right in the teeth of the recession. and, check out this very good discussion on the uselessness of consumer confidence as an economic indicator. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/03/consumer-confidence-the-world%E2%80%99s-most-useless-economic-statistic/
Oct '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
A few more thoughts on the dishonesty and disingenuousness of trying to spin any good economic news as negative. It puts us where the left was during the Iraq war. You didn't have to be paying close attention to see that every disaster over there, and there was plenty, was happily seized on by the MSM to attack Bush and I think the backlash to this may have been a factor in his re-election. It is more distasteful in a war, of course, but partisans seen as trying to profit from the Country's misfortune are never going to look good, particularly if people sense that the misfortune is overstated.
It might be difficult to frame it honestly and not be spun by the other side, but if we are relentless and argue like Breitbart and Newt, we can prevail.
Edit: I think we need to adopt the position that of course it's coming back, that's inevitable, not even Obama can kill an economy like ours in one whack. He's doing his best, though, hence the slow recovery.This explanation covers both good news and bad, with the benefit of being true.
Edited on March 6, 2012 at 1:39amSep '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
I agree--and I think Cold Fish Obama is the real thing. There was a story from the 2008 campaign--wish I could find it--in which an average Joe saw The One on a treadmill one morning and had the temerity to say hello. Obama ignored him completely.
Obama has great personal charm when he needs it, and he needs it now. I hope the GOP nominee can get under Obama's guard and provoke him into acting as he truly is.
Edited on March 6, 2012 at 1:13amJul '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Rob, you forgot the collapse of housing prices. One of the benefits to being the challenger is the occasional, judiciously utilized, opportunity to point and blame without offering an alternative.
Sep '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Dave Carter
And freight seems to be lagging. My leading economic indicator? It's easier to find a parking place at the truck stops each night. More empty parking spots means fewer trucks in service.
That, my friends, is valuable intel.
And fuel costs are going to rise this summer. Whether the media covers it or not, people will notice, and the GOP needs to hammer the Democrats on this.
Sep '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Substitute "energy development" for "gas prices", and add the fundamental problem that the Administration has with small items like the separation of powers (his oft-expressed frustration with Congress), and the hostility toward religion's active participation in the public square (contraception mandate, ministerial exemption decision from the Supreme Court). It is a fundamental violation of the 1st Amendment to coerce a religious organization to pay for something that violates their clearly stated doctrine.
I agree that we conservatives have let ourselves get sidetracked by how the contraception mandate has been framed, but this isn't a pitch we can let pass.
Rather than just say "government waste" (although there's tons of that), let's change the conversation to be about the proper role of government. It may be a longer conversation (and you may be right that it has to wait until after the election), but it's one we have to have & keep having.
Jan '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
The pundits say that it isn't the actual economy, only the trend that matters.
So ... it took how many trillions of dollars to get a 0.3% "trend?" Thank God we aren't experiencing an actual recovery. That would bankrupt us.
Aug '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
I could have sworn that during Bush's Presidency, I saw the usual suspects argue that increased WalMart sales weren't good economic news. It meant that the average American was getting poorer, or his income was shrinking and he couldn't afford to shop at Target any more.
As for consumer sentiment: long argument short, don't even bother with it if you want macroeconomic trends. It's not true economic data, i.e. an objective measurement of something that already occurred. It's an indirect indicator of potential economic activity, and the best correlation you'll get out of it is minor ticks in retail stocks.
When it's an "economy, stupid" election, intangible numbers don't matter. How the economy feels to the voter matters; the strongest indicators for that feeling are the real wage index, and the broad measure of unemployment (not the narrow headline numbers that get mentioned in the first paragraphs of wire reports).
Nov '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
We have thought about this situation. The economy is in trouble, and could get a lot worse and people should be aware of this and why. We just don't want our customers to think about it. There it is. Also to make the economy more personal, our orders are up and more consistent this past year (but we don't rely on this). Our vendors seem to have more in stock too but the local hardware shelves are always half empty. We've done what most small businesses have done to get through it: think of ways to accomplish the next task and implement it quickly, working literally 24/7 without enough employees. We are nowhere near previous levels, and we have been blessed that some emergency didn't do us in as we have used our reserves and we are taking on no debt. Our bank will be happy that we will even make a profit this year. Then owing taxes we will perhaps even have to get a loan to pay them. Waiting, but thankful we are still in the game.
May '10
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Dave Carter
And freight seems to be lagging. My leading economic indicator? It's easier to find a parking place at the truck stops each night. More empty parking spots means fewer trucks in service. Easier to park,..but there is a downside. · 5 hours ago
When I went into training (in my former life) to be a stockbroker, a colleague had just come out of manufacturing. He said he could always tell economic swings by new orders for pallets (wooden bases for goods toted on forklifts). I would love to know that figure now. I think it's very much like your anecdotal evidence on parking spots, Dave. Extremely accurate
Edited on March 6, 2012 at 4:41amNov '11
Re: A Grab Bag of Good Economic News. Sort Of.
Here's another economic indicator. Last week, one of our dealers stopped in and started talking about how by July all will be well, because just like Jimmy Carter brought us out of that recession...that is when I made my excuses and went back to work. My husband put on his wolf grin and just kept saying 'we'll see'. The customer is always right, and were we supposed to argue when he was also picking up and paying for the goods he had ordered? Real Life is funny. I will admit he was on the road and had made good sales compared to last year. Overall I agree with Severely Ltd.'s post.