Saturday, September 08, 2012

The economy is doing what?

Many people talk about the "poor economy", but which economy are they talking about?

The business section of the 2012-09-05 Star Tribune had four pieces of contradictory information on the same page.

"Markets mostly down amid gloomy reports on U.S. Economy"

"U.S. auto sales hit three-year high"

"Construction spending dropped in July"

"Home-price index posts strong rise"

But the story on construction spending is mixed.  There was "a big drop in home improvement projects" but "spending on construction of single-famiy homes and apartments increased again".

The real story is that we have a continually changing economy.  Lots of jobs don't even exist anymore or the "efficiencies" have become so great that fewer people are needed to do the work.