Everywhere I looked I saw construction. LOTS of it! New apartments, retail, a hotel, and more than a few new office buildings. Yes, I know Dallas and Houston and Austin and Texas in general are doing well, but I suspect if you paid attention when driving around Atlanta or Chicago or Boston or Denver you'd see something similar.
Either our economy is turning the corner as I write this *fingers crossed* or it's close at hand and these forward-looking companies are getting the jump on their competition.
So, does Obama get credit for this? Who knows. I'm of the opinion the President can sit in the Oval Office late at night eating Cheetos and watching porn and he'll still get the credit for or the blame for whatever happens, whether he deserves it or not. In most cases whatever a president does, for better or worse, isn't obvious until years later.
You can credit Obama or the Easter Bunny or Batman for this light at the end of the tunnel, I don't care. I'm just glad to see these encouraging signs.
S
EDIT....from USA Today:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Existing home sales jumped 7.8% in August to the highest level in more than two years, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
In an earlier report, U.S. builders started work on more homes in August, driven by the fastest pace of single-family home construction in more than two years.
Guess I should move to Texas then. I think it's always kind of funny around the Detroit area when I see a new building being built because it's not like there aren't still thousands of unoccupied buildings that would be perfectly good. As a society we're so wasteful about land usage.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good sign. The excess in the market has been gobbled up. Leading indicators such as transportation (Fedex) is an example still tells us things are somber...I have loaded the bus for quite some time on stocks and so far it has been good. When everyone starts talking about how easy it is then we have a problem....
ReplyDeleteI'm noticing signs of economic improvement here in Portland as well.
ReplyDeleteEven when the depression was at it's worse there was a 90 minute wait at Red Lobster on a friday night. Guess that is the differance betweek 1929 and 2010...soup lines were replaced with Red Lobster.
ReplyDeleteRed Lobster does have really good biscuits.
DeleteI heard this news today, too. Even here in Florida, which experienced a larger real estate bubble and bust than many other places, we see some positive signs. They just announced a new outdoor shopping mall in my town - hopefully, some decent-paying construction jobs will follow.
ReplyDeleteCareful optimism is in order.
You are 100% right, the President will get blame or credit for whatever is happening at the time, no matter who he is.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I'd give the president credit right now but if it is him I say about time.