Major financial number(June)s show cautious optimism

[code RED]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090720/ap_on_bi_ge/us_economy

Here in northern California(yes THAT California), there has been a noticeable(albeit) slow Resumption of NEW home construction ! Travel along Interstate I-80 heading towards Nevada reveals a lot of new construction( stimulus money I believe) and the waitress's at the many Sacramento area restaurants that I patronize are Grumbling about working too many days in a row, (although not quite ready to declare "their" recession over)

One particuliar good family restaurant/waitress complained of working too much(six days a week)( it was her Only job).
When I replied.."well look at all the (tip) money your making", she agreed, but responded.."I'll trade a hundred bucks in tips for two days off per week"(their shifts are 6.5 hours per day)

I really believe that I'm starting to see signs of grudual/positive movement.

 

[southwind]

According to your figures , she's not even working enough hours (6 days X 6.5 Hours = 39) to be considered a Full-time employee and shes complaining ?

BTW...........glad to see my money is doing someone some good ! Now where's my bailout ? :blink:

 

[code RED]

According to your figures , she's not even working enough hours (6 days X 6.5 Hours = 39) to be considered a Full-time employee and shes complaining ?

BTW...........glad to see my money is doing someone some good ! Now where's my bailout ? :blink:

I didn't interpet her reply as "complaining"........complaining.
(Virtually all waitress's don't work an eight hour shift nationwide.)

I interpeted her reply to mean she was doing Good monetarily. California, like a few other states(I know Connecticut as well, because my neice is at school back there) pay waitress's/waiters/bartenders minimum wage(+8$ per hour) PLUS tips.

A person working 6 shifts, in a busy restaurant, should be making close to $1,000 a week(combined)
I believe that is over $50K a year(in bad economic times)

And as to the restaurants that I frequent(and thats many), I Don't see a recession as far as the crowds go. Sure there's slows patches here and there, but again the volume is acting like folks have $$ to go out to eat.

 

[freedom]

hi i thought i would comment on your thread about the june numbers and the state of housing in cali ....

I think all of the stock numbers are "played" with .. the facts on the ground don't support real stock market strength ...

Take for instance what you've seen with the new homes being built in norther cali ... you think it'stimuls ... well if it is ,then that's an artifical act ... The last thing our country needs right now are more houses ... we've just gone through a housing bubble and the answer to fixing our econmic problems is not to build even MORE houses , but to get rid of the stock of homes that we have left ..

Right now alot of banks are just sitting on forclosued homes , so the market isn't even being subjected to the full force of empty houses ... not to mention that here in arizona , i know people who've bought destressed homes ONLY to see the prices of other distressed homes nearby sell for even less a few months later ...

Chew on this , if we are still losing at least 400K a month in the jobs market , how many of those people will in turn end up losing their homes ? The direction we're going with job losses is going to mean ever MORE forclosed homes ..

Until employment stablizes we won't see an end to forclosures , and we need employment to turn so we can bring back credit into the market ... sure some people can get credit , but it's not the majority anymore ..