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At the Break, Hometown Team Leads

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How is that recovery going for you?  Overall, the first quarter of 2013 has been a decent one.  Nothing is moving very quickly, but we are seeing progress.  It’s time to check back on the predictions Barataria made for the year and see how we are doing.

Back at the start of the year, it seemed as if the recovery had something to prove.  2012 was not a bad year, but it was only the foundation of a recovery.  A little bit of faith that things were getting better certainly had  a lot to do with Obama winning re-election, among other things.  But 2013 is indeed shaping up to be the year the recovery starts to seem real.

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The Good, Bad, & Ugly

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Longtime readers know that one of the goals of Barataria is to report on news stories that haven’t made the mainstream nooze yet.  Today we have three that are developing into what may yet be the most important economic and political stories of 2013 – the good, the bad, and of course the ugly.

There has been a lot of good news lately on the economy, even as the rest of the world flounders a bit.  It’s that weakness that makes the potential bad news, especially as the world looks to us as a stable and safe place to park money.  But the ugly story comes out of the place we’re used to being a dim spot, the US Congress, supposedly working on an actual budget for the first time in four years.  Think their inaction could screw things up?  Oh, no – it’s what they are doing that is actually much, much worse.  So here are tomorrow’s stories as the develop today.

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DJIA: Yes and/or No

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) keeps setting new record highs.  Does this mean the Managed Depression is over?  The short answer is “yes”, but the long answer is “no”.

The case for a “yes” is that this is based on the solid progress that we have been waiting for, and it’s backed by some strong numbers.  The “no” is that we’re still judging ourselves against either the depths of the worst part of the depression, or in the case of the DJIA a 6-year old record – it should be about 30% higher or more in that time.  But what counts is that this is based on strong corporate profits at least as much as a lack of any other place to put money and the trends should continue – unless the Federal government does something stupid.  Where do you want to put your money on that one?

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Gets Warmer From Here

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The Superbowl is behind us, as are the depths of Winter.  In many ways the year really starts now that January is behind us and the plans for the year are set.  As we have come to expect since the real depth of the latest downturn, January 2010, there is good news always tempered with not so great news.

Jobs are growing, yes, but the shock was the downturn in GDP growth in 4Q12 – a 0.1% annualized loss.  Most analysts who didn’t see this coming (your humble writer included) expect this was due to uncertainty in Washington, a result that sounds like a cheap excuse.  But it’s all we have given that there really is no reason to expect that things are continuing to slowly, ever so slowly, improve.

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Keep it Going!

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The parties are over, and we got through the New Year and the Inaugural.  Everyone in Washington is back at work and ready to make great things happen.

Not so fast.  A lot has happened since the start of 2009, a convenient time to look back over the economy for a lot of reasons.  It was the start of Obama’s presidency, but more importantly it was when the financial collapse triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers really hit the economy in general.  It was the start of final phase of this Depression.  So how are we doing?

It’s worth looking back if for no other reason than to make a few predictions – or at least know what to look for in 2013.  Let’s break it down.

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