Look For An "X" Shaped Economic Recovery

X
Story Stream
recent articles

Will the economic recovery be enduring-V shaped? Collapse after a short time-W shaped? For the middle class, it may be none at all-an X.

By conventional wisdom, the housing bubble, credit crisis and collapse in consumer spending caused the recession.

With home sales rising, new cars flying off lots, and Wall Street profits soaring, analysts see an imminent recovery, but the economy is running on steroids.

About 90 percent of existing home sales are distress sales-foreclosures and homeowners in financial difficulties. New home purchases are juiced by the $8000 first-time buyer subsidy that expires December 1.

Summer car sales were pumped by cash for clunkers.

Regional banks are failing under bad commercial loans, and mortgage-backed securities purchased from Wall Street financial houses. In part, Wall Street posts big profits by shifting its debauchery onto smaller brethren, and the FDIC may run out of cash to guarantee regional banks' deposits.

Clueless behavior by big players is frightening. Automakers are boosting production, assuming car sales will continue at their torrid summer pace.

Wall Street is planning big year-end bonuses instead of shoring up capital for a possible second dip in the recession. The backup may be a Broadway lyricist to pen "Bail ‘em out again Ben."

Consumers, recognizing danger, stay away from the malls and seize what dollars they have.

The economy will be lifted by businesses rebuilding depleted inventories and replacing outdated computers and federal stimulus dollars. Those simply will not deliver annual GDP growth greater than 2.5 percent or many new jobs.

The stock market will rally with modest growth, because U.S. multinationals produce so much in Asia where growth is robust.

To Wall Street, the recovery will appear V-shaped, but for ordinary workers, it will be an X.

Unemployment will reach 10 percent, and stay there until President Obama stops obsessing about redistributing wealth by nationalizing car companies and health care and raising taxes on energy and the wealthy.

The country needs pro-growth policies-fixing the huge trade deficit and the banks.

Dollars spent on imports that do not return to purchase exports can't be spent on American products. That saps demand for American-made products, keeps factories and offices shuttered, and idles workers.

The trade deficit is mostly oil and Chinese consumer goods. Export more, import less, or the economy flops.

Without bank credit, businesses can't expand, entrepreneurs can't create, and workers don't work.

Obama dodges the toughest aspects of the banking morass. Compensation structures built on the too big to fail doctrine permit Wall Street to take huge risks, shift losses onto smaller investors and the government, and suffer too few consequences for their calamities. Until those change, Wall Street bankers will be too busy chasing rainbows to adequately reestablish lines of credit to regional banks essential for business expansion.

Buy only as much as you sell, reasonable pay for honest work, and let the reckless fail.

Old time religion? That's what made America great.

Peter Morici is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Comment
Show commentsHide Comments

Related Articles