Decade of Decline

Is this the Decade of Decline?

I’m going to keep this simple and let these pictures do much of the talking. 

Normally after a recession, there is a rebound. But after this last recession the U.S. has not been so fortunate. Unemployment, median income, insurance rates, housing, Gross Domestic Product (the sign of economic strength) are all sluggish if not declining.

As a result, promises by politicians and economists could be better viewed as entertainment and not reality. Here is reality:

Unemployment – Summary: There has been a bumpy positive road to new jobs; however, the majority of those jobs are coming from lower-wage occupations.

Median Income -  Summary: The average U.S. family makes less than it did 20 years ago.

Insurance rates – Summary: U.S. insurance rates have risen in all but a few states…despite President Obama’s promise in February of 27, 2008.  “If you’ve got health insurance, we’re going to work with you to lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year. And we will not wait 20 years from now to do it or 10 years from now to do it. We will do it by the end of my first term as president of the United States of America.”

Here is a more detailed example of the State of California.

Housing – Summary: Housing sales haven’t seen it this bad for decades and affordability is in decline. The first is new home sales, the second is an affordability index.

GDP – Summary: real GDP is trending downward.

In the next graph, pay particular attention to the dotted line (real GDP growth).

As a result, there has been an anemic recovery at best. The rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer and a hollowing out has occurred in the middle. Shame on those who are in power.
I've noted in previous post http://www.garyriedl.com/2012/09/and-for-his-next-trick.html that jobs are a sign of a recovery (not low wage jobs). The Federal Reserve has been pumping billions of dollars per month into the economy as a way of propping it up from its wobbly foundation. It can't continue indefinitely. But when it stops, the U.S. has got to be in better condition to recover. 

So for all you people who voted for the last decade of economic policies, I recommend some serious introspection. It may be that many had good intentions, but these good intentions allowed the rich to become the greatest beneficiaries in the last several years at the suffering of the middle class and poor.

The links below include the sources for the images above.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/28/how-the-recession-turned-middle-class-jobs-into-low-wage-jobs/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/02/job-losses-gains.png

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/29/chart-median-household-incomes-have-collapsed-during-the-recession/

http://qz.com/125222/the-typical-us-family-now-makes-less-than-it-did-when-the-berlin-wall-fell/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/11/02/obamacare-will-raise-average-health-insurance-premiums-by-32-for-21-million-people/

http://easynomics.com/tag/new-home-sales/

http://thoughtstate.blogspot.com/2011/02/chained-to-real.html

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/brian-pretti/fixing-payroll-problem

http://thecivillibertarian.blogspot.com/2013/07/obama-who-you-going-to-believe-me-or.html

Brrrrrrr!

Global Warming: The end of a beautiful relationship

        I’m not a scientist. But when I see a curious correlation, I can't help but to hypothesize. I had written this article back in 2009 (which even I was skeptical about). But since becoming aware of the news on polar climate (see links below), I believe my idea has credibility.

        Ice core samples have shown that Co2 goes up a few hundred years after temperature goes up. Why? Know one knows. However, if they are related, then current day Co2 could be high not necessarily because of anything man has done, but because of the medieval warm period that ended around 1600AD. Additionally, since the medieval ice age followed after the medieval warm period, we may also see a corresponding drop in Co2 and temperature in the future.

        Should we care about Co2? Is what we breathe out really horrible? Besides, plants love it. More plants mean more oxygen for us and more food on our tables. But let’s set aside Co2 and address global warming.

        The world news has not been diligent about reporting the fact that in the last decade, there has been more cooling going on*, and coincidentally with virtually no sunspots. What do sunspots have to do with it?

        Sunspot activity means more solar wind pushes out and around the Earth to force away the cosmic rays that bombard the earth. These same cosmic rays stimulate cloud activity. When there are more sunspots, low cloud condensation nuclei formation decreases, more clear sky increases the incoming radiation to, paradoxically, elevate gaseous water, the most important part of the greenhouse effect. Thus, more heat.  When there are more sunspots, the earth warms, and ultimately the oceans will warm up and create more Co2. Sounds like global warming, eh? Well, hold on a minute.

        When the oceans warm, they stimulate what is known as the ocean conveyor system called the thermohaline circulation. This ocean conveyor is a process where warm salt water moves heat from the equatorial zones and up to the north where it cools. The cool salt water then sinks down and flows back to the equator. Fresh water is provided by northern ice melts, and mixes with the salt water. When the mix is heavy with fresh water, the water sinks less and slows the ocean conveyor process down.

        When the fresh water ice melts too much, the ocean conveyor will slow down and restrict the warm southern waters from circulating to the northern regions of the earth. In the near future there will be a tipping point in the ocean conveyor system where it will shut down and start to reverse, allowing the north to cool again.

        Remember I said that there could be a correlation between the Co2 drop and the medieval ice age. We are near that event. My hypothesis is that when the ocean conveyor slows and Co2 starts to decrease, look out…This could be the beginning of a new ice age.

        During 1645-1715, few if any sunspots were seen, and Western Europe entered what is known as the Little Ice Age. So if the sunspots activity increases, it may contribute to a warm decade; but in the long run it will assist in the acceleration of the ocean conveyor process to what I believe is the tipping to cooling. With this in mind, I believe we’re due for a cold century.

 

Gary Riedl 12/1/09 rev3

 

The Arctic: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/And-global-COOLING-Return-Arctic-ice-cap-grows-29-year.html 

Antarctica: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/09/19/antarctic-sea-ice-sets-another-record/

       

*Over the last six years, global temperatures from satellite and land-temperature gauges have cooled (-0.14 F and -0.22 F, respectively). Ocean buoys have echoed that slight cooling since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deployed them in 2003.

 

 

Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas," asserted climatologist Luc Debontridder of Belgium's Royal Meteorological Institute. "It is responsible for at least 75 percent of the greenhouse effect.