AZDavid

How do you rate the current economic conditions?

Exclude what you hear from the media. Chine in with your own experiences and observations.

manuelisfun

In Arizona or the US in general?

9KDropTopDream

I rate the current economic situation as dismal. Every time their is a sign of recovery, it takes a dip. I feel the housing market has leveled off from prices dropping, however that doesn't mean anything for recovery.

Unfortunately I am a hard worker and was able to keep my job in this economic time and keep in my overinflated home. Even with a successful loan modification which took 10 months, I basically received a refinance which saved a couple bucks, but did nothing for my home value being half of what I owe. This means if I lose my job, Im going to dump my house. The mindset of "it's going to recover" means in 10 years my home will be at its original value, where as everyone else in 10 years that lost their house will have their credit back and 100k in equity. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, I see the housing market will be negatively impacted for a long time.

The main factor for economic recovery is looking at the jobless rate. Even when reports of very small increases are given, this shows people taking part time jobs to put food on the table, Census hiring which is temp jobs, etc. Not back to work quality jobs.

Employers are giving employees the statement "you're lucky to have a job right now" instead of raises, working people longer hours for less money, not giving out cost of living raises, reducing holidays and benefits, and cutting staff. Even when the economy starts to turn, employers are now in the mindset that they can do more with less and will play this card for quite some time, thus making the recovery longer. People lost retirement funds and are staying at work longer, thus all the baby boomers aren't moving way to create other job opportunities for other people.

I'm happy to be employed and have a home. But I'm not able to have kids, go on vacations, etc.

I tried to display factual information and not just emotional.

S2KVITO

USA...is full of fail.

3en

I think a lot of people are still hurting, But I think it is more stable and will start turning up soon(1-2 years).
At work you can easily till who is new and who has been there since before the economic crash.
The new people are eager to work and help out. They are motivated and want to make money to get out of their current situations. They go out of their way to make sure things get done.
The ones that have been their wont do anything that isnt exactly in their job descriptions, They are bitter and very cynical. It could be that work has worn them in, but I think they also dont realize how lucky they are to be working and pay their bills.
I think its sad that a lot of people have lost their homes and the prices have crashed. But on the other side of the fence(which is the side im on) it is nice too know that I will be able to get a decent house in a decent neighborhood in the next few months when we start looking.
I still think the USA has a lot of potential for a person to have a life they are looking for if they work hard for it and arent looking for a hand out.

CodyLX450

I dont think anything has ever changed. The people that live in the TV convince people to be foolish with their money.

I remember hearing on the news where "experts" were suggesting people stop paying on their mortgage so it helped them file hardship papers and have a better chance when applying for a loan modification.

I also remember hearing similar "experts" tell people that they could always just leave their keys in the mailbox and let the bank take back the house.

It seems every day that one of the many forums I'm on has a post of people saying "I owe $XXX, but the house is worth less.....should I just let the bank take it and walk away?"

I have neighbors losing their house because they applied for to refinance and got a pre-approval (both were from BofA). Once they got their preapproval, they stopped paying on their original loan and kept waiting it out for MONTHS and inquiring on the status of the new refinanced loan. Apparently they went 8 months without paying their mortgage, and were SHOCKED to find out that BofA says they are no longer approved to refinance because they are so far behind, and they must come up with $25k+ by September or their house goes to auction.

Some other people I know bought a house way out of their budget when everyone could get a loan for stated income, and soon figured out it was too expensive to live in. They managed to get another house and everyone told them to just let the bank forclose on the old huge house. Everything worked out great for them like everyone said it would - that is....until they got a notice from the bank that was SUING them for the difference between what they had owed on the property, and what it sold for at auction.

People that walked away from stuff because they heard other people were doing it are going to end up in the same boat...in a world of hurt because the banks will and are suing people now for that kinda crap - and the banks will win. If you dont have money, they will put a lien on property or tax returns or whatever else they can get, and things will get much worse.

I have a feeling the banks and investors all knew this would happen and just sit back and watch so many people strangle themselves with debt and they're all laughing as their piles of money grow.

manuelisfun

I think the US is not on a good track because it has no manufacturing, a not so good labor pool, has too many people up top with concentrated riches making riches off of screwing other people, and a lack of common sense in the general populace.

Just my opinion.

The other day I was in Arizona and I could not believe that people were running their campaigns based on "Stop Obama". I mean, rather than focusing on what positive you can do, the focus is on trying to attack others' work.

Oh and another thing, SB 1070. Rather than working to address the "problem" -and notice the quotations around the word problem-, the mentality is to just push the "problem" somewhere else.

When it rains, it pours.

9KDropTopDream

I wish I could say that the new people I worked with were appreciative of the opportunity, but my first hand experience is that the work is stressful, and they have put their notice in after a month or so. I believe there are hard workers, and people that just dont work hard. In my life experience it's been 80/20. 80% on facebook all day, chatting, watching youtube, doing the least amount of work possible to get by.

I am ambitious, want to have things, and work my ass off because I want to be the best at what I do, not because I expect a handout in return. It's been my experience that the hard workers get rewarded with more work and responsibility, and the lazy people do less work and make the same. On the other hand, I do agree that I have also noticed some people that have been there longer that are resistant to any change, wont do anything outside of their set daily parameters, and aren't appreciative.

I have seen banks now that are trying to collect on homes for the difference lost, but not all, and a majority after not collecting send to collection agencies where you can settle for pennies on the dollar. OR the new thing is bankruptcy to get out of the banks new financial obligations. They are definitely making it harder to just flop out, which is good, because it will curve the easy way out that is making bank owned homes, and driving market price down. And Yes, Dont listen to "The experts". I do a vast amount of research and studying before I do anything, and always check sources to see if their primary, secondary bogus, etc. YES, I'm forced to snopes every other damn chain mail my mom sends me!

I do feel that people were definitely over spending. Having friends who made fun of my house, saying they could fit 4 of my house in their one, etc. When asking what their backup plan is, they just said "failure is not an option" and laughed. Now they no longer have a house. When times get rough, I try to pick up side jobs, rent out rooms, do whatever it takes. Other people would never share their house with someone, wont work over 40 hours, and rather just take the "easy way out".

To manuelisfun's point, I remember the Tsunami relief was on TV, and people there had Osama bin laden shirts on with negative US stuff.... Yet USA is their handing out relief and helping them out. Where was Afghan? Other countries don't put their resources on the line to help out others so they wont have to feel the additional economical impact. Is our help in aiding countries in crisis and being involved in other political conflict also another detrimental factor affecting our economy?

manuelisfun

I agree with most everything 9KDropTopDream said so far. Especially in regards to people being too comfortable in their routine and not actually trying/being forced to add more value into their work in exchange of salary/income.

And not to try to change the topic into so much an immigration/foreign policy discussion but I definitely think that the mentality of the US has not really been in fixing the system so much but rather focusing on the symptoms. That is, when there is actually an attempt to do something.

I sure do hope that this really hits hard on American's heads that times have changed. I think this will be the best for America's future and the population of the world in general will benefit if the US can get back on its feet. Unfortunately I am not sure what the US can do. Definitely bringing manufacturing back to the US and close regions like Canada/Mexico/Central America would help. Money gets circulated back.

The idea -at least- is that when people trade, both parties are gaining more value in what they get than in what they were giving up. It's good when trade stays local. not as much is wasted in logistics. And by locally it doesn't just have to be within the country. Like I said earlier, money gets circulated back. A lot of money flows back and forth between the aforementioned regions; Canada, USA, Mexico, Central America.

Sorry if anyone has trouble understanding what I said.

CBR2200

It is so hard to exclude what you hear in the media but I'll try.

I manage a pizza restaurant. Our sales are up from last year, which was down from the year before so we're basically flat for the last three years. Our operating costs have continued steadily upward with rising minimum wage, increased costs of goods, utilities, rent, etc. Our profit margin has been squeezed to death. We have cut benefits almost completely and replaced salaried employees with cheaper labor to compensate. If the trends of the last three years hold steady for three more years I doubt we will still be in business. There is precious little fat left in our P&L to trim.

My wife works at ASU. While she has been fortunate and deserving enough to earn several promotions in this tough climate, many of our friends have had their contracts not get renewed. It is a possibility every budget year that her contract end as well.

Our household income has decreased. Our retirement accounts have lost significant value. We are in no immediate danger of defaulting on any obligations, but we have decided to proactively change our lifestyle. We used to buy a new luxury car every year or so and carried several car payments at a time. Now we have a paid off Fit and Odyssey with no plans to sell or buy anything. We used to take trips to Hawaii, cruise Alaska, etc. Now we visit family for vacations. We used to eat out several times a week. Now we eat out several times a month. Essentially we've dialed back discretionary spending big time and save every penny possible for a rainy day and don't borrow money for anything. I think we are going to have a lot of rainy days in our future as a family, as a nation and as a world.

I fail to see how our current economic plan of raising taxes on already maxed out people and insanely massive government spending can survive long. At some point the USA's creditors and/or taxpayers are going to call shenanigans. Then we will be f***ed.