HEY BAY CITY TIMES!
Stop With All The Economic Doom & Gloom

MyBayCity Columnist Questions Intent of Daily Newspaper's Article

May 15, 2008       Leave a Comment
By: Jerry Cole - Retirement, Investment

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Open letter to the Editor, Bay City Times

I was mystified and dismayed to see the front-page article in the Sunday, May 11, 2008 issue of the Bay City Times "Good economic news really more a mirage."


What is the point of the article? To make us all feel down? To make us all feel like we have been lied to or that we are stupid and can't really understand the data?

As Shakespeare said in Hamlet "there is nothing good or bad that thinking makes it so."

Perhaps the purpose of the article was to make us all believe things are so bad out there that a recession is inevitable and that a bad situation is going to get worse. If so, this sort of journalism is only adding gasoline (which we can't afford anymore) to the fire.

First off, the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent from 5.1 percent in March because during the first quarter of the year there were employment gains in such fields as education, health services and nursing, fields in which women gained 300,000 new jobs. While men lost 700.000 jobs in construction and manufacturing, and may have had to turn to part- time jobs, the fact is they are working and are, therefore, counted as employed . . .

Second off, it is ridiculous to state that productivity grew in the first quarter of the year at the expense of workers. And that the gain in productivity was primarily due to declines in hours worked. The very definition of productivity in business refers to measures of output from a production process per unit of input. Labor productivity is measured as the ratio of output per labor-hour of input. It is a measure of how much a worker puts out in an hours time and has nothing to do with the number of hours worked.

The article also states that the gross domestic product or GDP only grew by a "feeble" 0.6 percent rate in the first quarter of this year and that many economists and members of the public believe we are in a recession.

The fact is our exports are booming which helps our GDP. Exports are booming because the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates which in turn weakens the dollar and makes our goods and services more competitive internationally.

The accepted definition of a recession requires two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Despite the pain the country has endured in the last two quarters, there has been positive growth, albeit quite marginal. Some economists have now begun to ease back on their dire forecasts . . . Stock and credit markets have steadily improved.

So maybe the "mirage" is what the negative thinkers and nay-sayers are seeing.

This country and this city was built on the concept of we-can-do-it and we-will-do-it.

So enough of the negative jumble already

I invite your questions.

(The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and not Gen worth Financial Securities Corporation.)

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Jerry Cole - Retirement, Investment
Jerry Cole has been a Financial Planner for almost 30 years in the Tri-City area and holds and MBA from USC. More from Jerry Cole - Retirement, Investment

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