What is the true state of the American economy right now?

[NewsCenter28]

GDP is forecasted to grow at least 20.5% in Q3, the Dow is near record highs today, retail sales and consumer confidence reports are stronger than expected plus the official unemployment rate has fallen 4.5% since May with around 8 million new jobs. However, weekly jobless claims are consistently elevated, but falling, at historic levels, states and cities are facing cataclysmic losses and there is the worst pandemic in US history underlying everything.

So with so much conflicting data, can someone with more knowledge than I tell me what the fuck is going on with the economy right now?

The answer to this is likely to dictate the outcome on Nov. 3.

[elleng]

1. NOT an economist, imo it/we are awaiting freedom from covid (and tramp, of course,)

at which time things will explode (in a good way,) providing big chance for Prez Biden to be rewarded (while helping us all recover from tramp years.)

[Laelth]

2. I anxiously await a knowledgeable response.

From my point of view, things are bad, and they’re getting worse, not better. The stock markets are smoke. I don’t even pay attention to them, but over half of the people I know are struggling, financially. About 25% are facing eviction/foreclosure in the next couple of months. That same 25% is behind on one or more of their essential bills. There are, basically, no decent-paying jobs to be had. Some of them are turning to “Door Dash” or similar self-employment gigs. It’s ugly, and it looks like it’s only going to get worse for a significant percentage of the American population.



-Laelth

[Eko]

3. Bout to drop like a hammer.

The unemployment money the federal government gave out stimulated retail purchasing, that ended for now but another problem is running out of inventory to sell. My store is at lower inventory levels than I have ever seen with vendors not being able to replace it till October. Im hearing the same thing from others in different retail and sales. Too much of our stuff comes from Asia, they were closed down and it takes months for them to ramp back up and ship it to us. I seriously hope I'm wrong, but the store is below inventory levels I have ever seen even after Christmas and our deliveries are paltry.

[House of Roberts]

4. Second quarter GDP was NEGATIVE 33%.

Third quarter GDP measured against the second quarter is a red herring. Measure Q3 against last year's Q3 for a more realistic comparison.

[JI7]

5. shit

[roamer65]

6. On the knife's edge of a currency crisis.

Gold and silver are the barometers of dollar devaluation.

[Frasier Balzov]

9. Bitcoin and other cryptos are also headed higher.

[roamer65]

13. Not surprised one bit.

[Awsi Dooger]

7. It's the totality stupid

The economy is not going to dictate the outcome this year, let alone one quarter's worth.

Opinion of the incumbent and his economy are established by mid summer. That is always the reference point that historical models use. I've posted that here for 18 years.

[Wounded Bear]

8. It's on life support, literally...

the Fed has been propping up the stock market all year. The consumer economy is trashed.

Gonna be a rough next few years.

[canetoad]

10. The true state of the economy

Lies not in the GDP and Dow, but in the minds of people who can't pay their bills, rent, mortgage and buy food.

[dalton99a]

11. Trump trashed it.

[kentuck]

12. In my opinion...

A lot of the money, that was supposed to go to small businesses, went to larger businesses that were on Wall Street. They have successfully bought back most of their losses with the free money from the stimulus, in my opinion.

Also, many workers were laid off temporarily and had to return to work after a few weeks off, it would appear? At one time, it was reported that there were 40-50 million workers that had signed up for unemployment. How many of those received the stimulus?

They are reporting an unemployment rate of just about 10.4%. They believe if they can get that number to single digits before the election, it will be very beneficial to Donald Trump and the Republicans, in my opinion.

Did all of those 40-50 million people go back to work? How many would have to be unemployed to equal 10.4% unemployment? How many workers in the workforce? About 160 million? Ten percent of that would be approximately 16 million people.

Was Trump correct when he said the "real unemployment" rate is about 30-35%?

[kurtcagle]

14. I had a conversation with a senior analyst with Morgan Stanley a few nights ago

His take? September is going to be brutal.

The stock market is where it is right now because there is quite literally nowhere else for investors to go. Commercial real estate market is collapsing, the number of houses where mortgages are more than 90 days in arrears went asymptotic (it took about six months for this to happen in 2008, July it literally jumped to about 35% of that, and I expect that by November it will be 150% of the mortgages in arrears). Right now, people are selling and others are buying like mad, but I think it's mainly to get out of pricey city rates while money is once again "free". By November, a lot of those same people are going to be cursing for locking themselves in at the top of a market.

The ADP numbers are probably more accurate than BLS right now (I am not trusting ANY numbers coming out of the Trump administration) and they indicate that the rise in re-employment basically stalled in July (up about 145K, which is on the low side normally, but abysmal right now given unemployment), and many places that had been struggling by the second week in July (which is when the cutoff for the August report likely have begun layoffs again as the the Covid-19 reports spiked in the latter half of the month.

Note that not everyone is in agreement with that. Several others were crowing about how they think the market can and will go higher, with the DJIA even surpassing the 30K mark. It's worth noting that the USD continues to weaken against the Euro and other currencies, and it is this as much as anything that's pushing the equities markets up.

Shipping is slowing, and as was pointed earlier, inventory on shelves is beginning to run low, thanks to Trump's tariffs.

[smirkymonkey]

15. +1000

Thanks for posting this.

[Squinch]

18. Nice. Thank you. And I think we should all adopt your use of the term "re-employment" to

replace the term "new jobs" or whatever the GOP is calling it.

[SiliconValley_Dem]

16. jobs numbers were better than expected but still not good at all

gold has been surging for a reason--Fed may lower interest rates and/or inject money i to the economy.

The economy and stock market are on a knife edge and could quickly enter correction territory.

anyone predicting such large GDP gain is likely pulling figure out of their ass

[Luz]

17. They have taken unemployment away from 30 million

workers. When I had a few dollars extra to spend, I've spent locally to support my community. Now that's dried up and I'll be lucky to make rent again. My new motto is "if you can't eat it, don't buy it".
I predict Sept and Oct will be devastating for many families and small businesses that have been barely holding on.
I will never, ever forget it was McConnell and trump* that put me here personally, and us here as a country.

[struggle4progress]

19. "The economy" is an abstraction: different people experience different "economies"