To Recover Or Not To Recover
There have been plenty of signals that the US economy is in recovery mode. Housing prices seem to have stabilized, the stock market has regained a lot of ground, some companies have reported better than expected earnings, some steel companies are starting some operations back up – yet amongst all this, unemployment is still way up, other industries such as paper mills continue to close up shops, thousands more workers are being laid off and the expected key point of President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight will be job creation. So, are we truly in a recovery? Or is this just a temporary upswing to be followed by another crash? Compared to recessions in the past few decades, this one seems to be clouded in unprecedented ways. So many conflicting indicators and opinions – which seem to prolong skepticism, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Tags: economy
January 27th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I suspect the paper mill article you pointed to is a red herring. When plants that primarily supply newspaper and phonebook paper are going dark, it is no really due to the poor economy. Rather, they are in the same position as the buggy manufacturers were a century ago. Just as that newfangled automobile replaced the buggy, the new media (including…Blogs!) is hastening the obsolescence of legacy publishers. I could go off on a rant here, but I googled up someone who has already addressed it better than I could : http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/v/a/vallor/2009/12/rip-the-legacy-media.php
What if Pacific Recycling is perhaps too reliant on those news-paper plants to purchase recycled paper? The buggy-whip makers of a century ago would have been able to offer some perspective.
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Considering the current price drops for steel and copper it ain’t looking pretty.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:31 am
It is to early to say if the economy is recovering. I doubt that it has the underlying strength that we all hope for. I would expect to see a bit of a plateau until 2012. Interest rate rises will unfortunately govern the recovery rate. As far as recycling goes, I still dont think that is being given the platform it needs to be taken seriously by the major countries.