Darrell Maclean of SMI Reports On The Economic Missteps That Could Signal A Gloomy Rest of Year.

Aug. 9, 2011 - PRLog -- First, I was appalled at the mishandling of the debt ceiling debacle and the lack of understanding of the need to get our economy back on track and focused on growing job opportunities.  Of course, making sure the country did not miss a debt payment was critical, but so was showing the world that we were doing things to get our economy back on track, and doing something to stimulate the economy and jobs. It is likely that the consequences of this inaction will be a downgrading of the USA debt ratings in the next few months (happened on Friday 4th August 2011).  We have already seen the stock market react to the latest economic news and take 10% off its last high in April this year (Thursday, August 4, 2011). However, it is only fair to say that the stock market decline was more a reaction to the economic news from Europe that Italy and Spain will probably need help with their debt situations, than just the impact of the US debt ceiling deal. A further 5% decline occurred on Monday August 8 2011.

As the Economist magazine pointed out this week, the world’s largest economy needed to show it was serious about its flagging economy by demonstrating how it would collect higher revenues and cut spending. It fell woefully short of this.

Surprisingly the latest employment figures from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics was not as bad as everyone thought for July 2011.  Although the unemployment rate was little changed overall at about 9.1%, the non-farm payroll jobs increased by 117,000. They reported that most of the job gains came in the health care, retail trade, manufacturing and mining. Jobs with the government continued to decrease. Admittedly, job gains need to be increasing north of 200,000 per month in a sustained fashion to start to regain ground, but the prediction for July was even lower than the 117,000.
Visit: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Interestingly, consumer confidence for July increased slightly by 1.9 points to 59.5, but this was measured before the debt crisis and stock market crash, so we may see this reversed in the month of August. CEO confidence was down 12 points in July, and this may worsen with the latest news.
Visit: http://www.conference-board.org/data/consumerconfidence.cfm  

In summary, we are seeing weakness in Europe, a persisting weakness in the USA, and no real plans to orchestrate a recovery. While the political rhetoric in the USA focuses on job creation, it is tough to see what concerted bipartisan effort is being made to create the right environment for further growth. One can only conclude that the economic climate for the rest of this year remains gloomy.

Southern Middlesex Industries is an Environmental Remediation company and a tracker of suburban economic indicators with an outstanding reputation throughout New England.  SMI has over 25 years experience and expertise in industrial and suburban contaminant removal and safe disposal, including asbestos, lead, mercury, pcb’s, refrigerants, mold and has expertise in building demolition, selective interior demolition and general contracting services.

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Southern Middlesex Industries, Inc., (SMI) is an Environmental Remediation company with over 25 years experience and expertise in industrial in the safe removal and disposal of asbestos, lead, mercury, mold, pcbs and other environmental contaminants.