kid"is this yet another 'news ad' for fagans?? the lone gm dealer in town?? hmmmmm"

Sure seems that way.

janesvillean - the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes thousands of price indexes. They call the price index minus food and energy the core index, and it this index that is most often used in newspaper headlines and graphs and seen by consumers. I believe it is the CPI stat you most often cite. Your naive belief in, and extensive use of government provided statistics, including unemployment and inflation, amuses me.

The economy has turned a corner. Really. 95% of society has not a clue as to what is coming down the pike.We are not going to like it.

Unemployment benefits are not how the unemployment rate is determined. The rate remains high during a recovery because discouraged workers re-enter the labor force as soon as they sense that hiring opportunities are increasing. Most recessions end with a housing market recovery, but that isn't available this time because of the high inventory, so a jobless recovery is essentially what we are seeing.
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lovemycountry, you do realize that there are two separate measures of CPI, right? Core CPI does not include the more volatile food and energy prices, making it less worthwhile for forecasting, but the complete CPI figures have always been available for anyone who needs them. Your conspiracy theory amuses me.

The reason we are seeing a "decrease" in the unemployment rate" is because people are losing their unemployment benefits. They are no longer in the unemployment count.

So, yes, less people collecting unemployment benefits, but they are still unemployed.

janesvillean - just so we agree... stagflation is a combination of price inflation and high unemployment. Prices are now rising on everything including gas, food, heating oil, tuition, rent, utilities, etc. In fact, base commodities for the last 10 years have increased by 10% annually, with the trend continuing. The only thing that has deflated are home prices, because of the recent mega bubble still hissing. Unemployment is remaining high, with no apparent end in sight. So, exactly why won't this current stagflation continue ? By the way, CPI is near worthless after having been "altered" over the years by politicians for their benefit. The CPI doesn't even include energy or food anymore. Per capita income continues to drop, just like the '70's. As I wrote, government liabilities are resulting in massive money creation ($20B+ in the 1st week of this year from QE2 to start). That will result in continued higher prices, a faux stock market rally, and high employment. It's not a prediction, it's already happening.

"is this yet another 'news ad' for fagans??"

My thought exactly when I first saw this story.

It also would be nice for the Gazette reporter to do some better research -- just because you type Janesville into Monster.com and get 600+ results does not necessarily mean there are that many jobs posted in Rock County/S. Beloit/Roscoe/Rockton.

I performed a similar search this morning and examined the results. In the past 60 days, there have been roughly 80 jobs posted within a 20-mile radius of Janesville. The remaining 525+ are listed as "jobs near Janesville," with most of these being in the Madison area. Of course there are going to be more jobs listed for a larger metropolitan area.

No -- I dont agree with what your assesment of Vert's comments.

I believe what he is saying is that the free market must be allowed to work. That the individual is a better judge of WHAT to spend the money on and that collecting more taxes, distributing the money and regulating the %^%% out of business is NOT the correct approach. From what I see, we are headed towards an incredible inflationary period. Hyper inflation? Not sure. But are costs are increasing and the TRUE inflation rate is increasing all consumable costs (gas, groceries). The government borrowed money to stimulate the econmoy and placed each citizen in debt to the world. Obama , Reid and Pelosi, couldnt balance the their own checkbooks, the states the represent nor the fed budget. I would rather grow my own food as to be in debt to China. We need to retunr to personal responsibility and get away from this social justice theme... soialism/communism -- what ever you want to call it, does not work, never has, never will.

'Now, people are making their trade-ins earlier, and many of them are trading in imported cars'

highly doubt more imported cars are being traded in on domestic than normal. not sure why thats even mentioned...unless of course they are counting all the gm trucks traded in that were built in mexico as imports.

is this yet another 'news ad' for fagans?? the lone gm dealer in town?? hmmmmm

freedomfighter608, thanks for being open to reviewing your post.
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gmaof3, we haven't been in recession for 19 months.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-rece...
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lovemycountry, there are many things to be concerned about in this middling recovery, but stagflation is not one of them. I could go into the economic reasons for this, but it seems to be a fear held even by the highest solons of developing nations these days, so you're excused. But trust me on this: just because the worst economic times most of us remember are the problematic 1970s does not mean we are replaying those times. There are other ways to be miserable.
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vatoloco, the answer to your question is in your question. You say people would have spent down debt (or saved, which is the same thing, essentially), instead of spending it on goods. The stimulus was -- except for the tax cuts -- designed to be SPENT on STUFF like highways. This contributes directly to the economy's health and prevented unemployment from soaring to 11 or 12 percent. If that had only been tax cuts, we would have improved our savings rate, but still seen skyrocketing unemployment because savings does not create jobs.

The obligatory upbeat economic story to start the new year. Don't want to include economic data that may paint an accurate outlook...unemployment benefits running out, massive personal and commercial debt with interest rates heading up, 40M people in the U.S. now using food stamps, commodity prices rising sharply, record home foreclosures still escalating, bankruptcy rate up again, oil prices heading up and away. Rising prices for things we buy and flat per capita income bringing 70's type stagflation, new and improved for 2011. Consumers have reason not to be confident - our federal government has racked up $99,200,000,000,000 in unfunded liabilities. That's our future (not a prediction, it's happening as you read this). Taxpayer liabilities and money printing causing higher prices and fewer jobs.

Well, I sure couldn't tell we were in the midst of a recession when I was Christmas shopping! Stores were PACKED and loads of money was being spent.

Janesvillean, after reading it again, yes I did. I quickly ripped it off before we went out to eat, but the restaurant was closed. It is my fault for not reading it closer.

I think you missed the point of this article, which states that unemployment remains high and discusses consumer confidence much more than jobs. The St. Mary's hospital represents a significant investment in the community for years to come. Given what the county has been through, stemming job losses is the start of good news. Not great news -- just the beginning of a glimmer of hope.
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If you want to argue against things that the article did NOT say, well, that's your business.

Um, lets get something straight here and this will not come from the media. As of last year, Dean's/St. Mary's is not going to hire new employee's and the Janesville school district will be laying off tearcher's, aides, etc. They are not considering layoffs, even not figuring in attrition and retirements. As long as foreclosures and houses still on the market are still high, along with house values still in the dumps in Janesville, our local economy is not recovering.