The Recession’s Not Over Till It’s Over

It’s Over:

GDP growth is on the rise (since 1st quarter of 2009). Have lots of free time? Read the government report.  The United States Gross Domestic Product is worth 14093 billion dollars or 22.73% of the world economy,

Deflation has stopped, maybe (inflation was negative the last 3 quarters)

Job unemployment decreases have slowed

Tourist arrivals are up (depending on who you ask). Of the major markets, Japanese visitor expenditures soared up 41 percent over last year, to $147 million, though the daily spending by these visitors dipped from $274 per day to $271.

Hawaii housing inventory (months supply) bottomed out and is on the rise. Check out this interesting heat map on Trulia.

The number of single family home and condominium sales bottom out in January 2009 and have risen since then (and so has the median home price).

It’s Not Over:

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 125,000 in June, and the unemployment rate edged down to 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Buried in the jobs report

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged
workers in June, up by 414,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not
seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently
looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.

GDP growth rate is not strong enough to add jobs. It must be well over 5%; 8% says we are OK for future growth. Basically we need to hit 8 to make up for the lost growth we suffered. More than you wanted to know about GDP.

Tourists aren’t buying much (just rooms)

Housing starts bottomed out (lowest production since the “Dustbowl”

Consumer Confidence

The ratio of debt to the gross domestic product would rise to 102 percent by 2015 from 93 percent this year.

More than 12 percent of all home sales in Hawaii during the first quarter of 2010 were foreclosure sales

Bottom line:

We are at the bottom of our usual 10-year cycle. It bottomed out in 2009 and will most likely peak in 2019 (Yes, prices will double again from today’s prices, as they have in the previous cycles).

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.