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On average about 90,000 jobs were added by the private sector by July 2010. 125,000 jobs have to be created on average each month for the job numbers to keep up with growth in population. And most of these jobs were created in March and April of 2010 when the economy was doing better. The 8 million jobs lost in the recession still remain to be recovered. And employers who have raised funds at low interest rates -companies like IBM paying 1% for $1.5 billion in bonds issued- are holding off on hiring in the current economic uncertainty. Worsening the situation is the cutbacks in state and local governments with layoffs of 48,000 workers. Even the $26 billion aid package passed in Congress for state governments will not help make a serious impact, considering the budget problems facing state governments. An example is Seattle, which has used its rainy day fund to bridge a $40 million gap in its 2010 budget. It faces a $56 million gap in 2011.

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Ford gains market share in California, as Toyota and Honda's share of the market declines. Ford's market share is up 2 percentage points on the east and west coasts compared to 5 years ago, according to R.L. Polk data. The Ford Fusion sales for the first half of 2013 are up 18% over the prior year and exceed 300,000. Growth in the coastal U.S. markets comes from the 2013 Fusion, the C-Max, hybrids, and the redesigned Escape. Cars and crossovers are especially important in coastal markets. In the past Ford depended mostly on SUV sales in the midwestern markets with imports dominant in coastal markets. This is now changing with models like the Fusion and hyrids introduced by Ford. With it the image of Ford is also changing, as buyers in California are among the most affluent and culturally influential in setting trends.

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Economist Paul Krugman points out the risks of a trade war in the tariffs announced for steel and aluminium by president Trump. Yet he accepts that he advocated stronger action on China's currency in 2009-2010 when the U.S. economy was weaker. In the past on the TPP agreement proposed by president Obama, Krugman said that it would have an insignificant impact as most of the gains on trade were already made. Here Krugman is critical of the language used by president Trump about trade wars being "easy."  This is taken out of context though as president Trump is saying that it is easy in the context of a country enjoying a $100 billion surplus with the U.S., because that country is going to have incentives to maintain a good trading relationship with the U.S. Essentially this means that the steel industry in the U.S. benefits. China also benefits as it closes many of the older steel plants that led to overproduction. This would reduce overcapacity in China's steel industry, a problem China's economic planners see as a priority. China already is making the shift to higher technology products and this process will be accelerated, as it puts less emphasis on steel and metals as it did in its earlier stage of development. As a result contrary to textbook economics this has the potential to be a win-win solution for the U.S. and China in the long run. So little was done under the Bush and Obama administrations to manage trading relationships with other countries so that the interests of small communities across the U.S. were protected from unfair trade- that Reagan administration trade expert Robert Lighthizer took up the cause of the U.S.,workers in these communities. Surveys showed U.S. public opinion also had shifted among educated, professionals and middle class on this issue by 2015, against unfair trade that hurt U.S. interests. Robert Lighthizer is now the Trade Representative for the U.S. in the Trump administration. Reports in the WSJ about the discussion within the Trump economic council, show Gary Cohn favored not imposing the tariffs on steel and aluminum. Lighthizer advocated the tariffs and was able to convince the president.  For Trump this presents a win-win situation, as a mild response by China -and other trading nations that have enjoyed a favorable situation in the past -with its huge surplus and favorable trading relationship with the U.S. would present a win for the president. Economist Krugman accepts this when he says tariffs in the current context of the trading field- that is more favorable to other countries- are not such a big deal, only the use of such policy that is likely to endanger world trade.  As in much of the debate that takes place this adds to the headlines today yet provides delayed and limited relief to communities across the U.S. devastated by world trade as documented by experts who studied trade patterns and their effect on regions across the U.S.  As the WSJ points out in one report the trade deficit itself may continue to grow under president Trump because of other factors. The U.S. dollar surged 8% during the last 2 years of the Obama administration with the economic recovery underway. With Trump's election win the dollar surged another 3%. This may play a bigger role in the direction of the trade deficit than the new steel tariffs announced by president Trump. Workers and unions matter. As TPP pushed by Democratic party president Obama was opposed by the unions, and by the auto industry (workers and auto companies) in the midwestern states which suffered a hollowing out in the last decade. A WSJ survey after the election showed Clinton received 56% support from union workers in 2018 compared to 65% for president Obama in the 2012 election. Some of that erosion in support may come from Obama's TPP stand fervently opposed by the unions and workers in the auto industry. A similar situation took place in Ontario with hollowing out of the auto industry in this large industrial state in Canada and led to the rejection of the Conservative government and election of the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau. This lesson is so far lost in the Democratic Party's debate.     ...

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Mexico has emerged as the world's fourth largest exporter of cars in 2012 after Japan, Germany, and S. Korea. Mexico is expected to surpass S. Korea in a few years. In 2011 2.68 millon cars and trucks were manufactured in Mexico. Honda, Nissan, VW and other companies are building new plants in Mexico. Exports in 2012 are expected to reach 2.14 million cars. With the increase in wages in China's auto plants Mexican wages are highly competitive with China, considering the proximity to markets in N. America and Latin America. Wages in Mexico are about $40 a day for assembly line workers. By comparison wages in China are about $3 an hour. Honda plans to manufacture its Fit small car in Mexico. VW executives say a VW car made in Europe is imported into Brazil with 35% duty, into the U.S. with a 25% duty on trucks, and this can be avoided by making automobiles in Mexico. The quality and reliability of vehicles made in Mexico compares well with vehicles made in Japan, according to Nissan, and productivity at plants is high. There is also good avialability of engineers and plant workers. The growing automobile production also means new plants of auto suppliers from Japan, Germany and other countries in a snowball effect as new auto plants open creating new demand for components....

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Nevada, Georgia and Alaska have some of the highest unemployment in the U.S. in July 2013. It grew by 0.3 percentage points in Georgia and Alaska. to 8.8% and 6.3% respectively. Nevada's unemployment is at 9.5%. North and South Dakota with the booming energy industry have the lowest unemployment at 3.0% and 3.9% respectively. The unemployment rate showed improvement in Mississipi declining 0.5% to 8.5%. According to the Labor Dept, 162,000 jobs were added in July 2013. The U.S. unemployment rate declined to 7.4% in July 2013 from 7.6% in June reflecting the increase in employed people as well as some who left the labor force. But the progress is uneven, as 28 states and the District of Columbia saw the unemployment rate go up in July 2013, 14 states showed it steady, and the rate fell in only 8 states.

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Automakers had U.S. sales of 1.2 million cars and light trucks in December, 2011, an increase of 8.7% over Dec. 2010, acccording to Autodata Corp. Total light vehicle sales for 2011 were 12.8 millon, an increase of 10.3% over 2010. Chrysler showed a 37% increase in Dec. 2011 over Dec. 2010, Ford 10%, and GM 4.6%. For 2011 Chrysler showed the biggest increase in sales over 2010 of 26%, followed by Ford at 11% and GM at 13%. Toyota's sales declined in 2011 by 6.7% to 1.64 million. Honda's sales for 2011 declined by 7.1% to 1.15 million. American manufacturers introduced new models in the small and midsize segments to take market share from the Japanese. Ford plans a new version of the Fusion and Chrysler will introduce the Dart in the small car segment. GM and Ford are forecasting auto sales above 13.5 million for 2012 in the U.S. market.

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A crisis situation exists in state revenue and spending needs. According to a Census Bureau report overall state revenue in the US dropped 30.8%, to $1.1 trillion, between fiscal 2008 and 2009. The gap between the spending needed to provide services in the recession and revenues is very large. States fiscal problems along with housing losses, will be the two forces acting as a drag to the US recovery in 2011-2012. State payrolls will be cut back and contracts to private companies reduced to cut spending. Declining federal help in 2011-2012, with the new focus on reducing the federal deficit, will worsen the situation. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, even with large federal help 46 states had to raise taxes and make cuts to close a combined gap of $130 billion in their current budgets. And next year 40 states already have projected gaps totaling $113 billion. Even as revenues drop, the Census Bureau report says the state government expenditures went up by 3% to provide essential services, safety net programs and education. Illinois has a budget deficit of 45 percent of its overall budget, according to the Pew Center on the States. In California it is equal to 13% of te state's total budget, and in Arizona it is 15%. For 2009 tax collections fell by 8.5%, and were partially offset by a 12.9% increase in federal help, which was a total of $477.7 billion, according to te Census Bureau report....

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The S&P is up 1.3% for the 1st quarter of 2014. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Tech IPO's, biotechnology stocks, solar energy stocks and junk bonds pulled back in March 2014 after what were seen as excessive gains in trading. In the bond market the Barclays U.S. Aggregate bond index was up by 1.8% in the 1st quarter, as investors responded to dampening economic news and the emerging markets crisis. Analysts point to the 10.6% rise in S&P 500 earnings in the 4th quarter of 2013 over the prior year quarter, as giving earnings a chance to catch up to the higher P/E's and boosting prospects of stocks in the latter part of 2014. S&P 500 stocks trade at 15.2 times the next 12 months expected earnings figures, according to FactSet, compared to 13.2 and13.8 average for the last 5 and 10 years.

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The 50 day Shanghai Composite index fell below the 200 day Shanghai Composite index in June 2011. This results in what is called a "death cross," or a long term bearish pattern. The last time this occurred in March 2010, the index went up slightly for a month before going on a 25% drop .

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Robert Doll, equity strategist for Black Rock, the world's largest money manager, says the growing population of the U.S. will drive economic growth in the next decade compared to Japan and Europe. He says that over the next two decades the U.S. work force will grow by 11%, Europe's will decline by 5%, and Japan's will decline by 17%. China's population growth will be only slightly more than that of the U.S. during that period and Doll expects China's growth to slow. He sees America as the best bet in a bad neighborhood. Higher immigration in the U.S. is a huge positive, as he points out economic growth is simply the product of the change in the size of the work force multiplied by its productivity. And America's productivity is good enough compared to other nations, is how Doll sees it. In 1995 the U.S. produced 25% of the world's goods and services, it was still 25% in 2010 says Doll. Other economists have pointed to this and observed a similiar pattern for most of the twentieth century. Doll sees this pattern continuing. India's population will show signficant growth and he sees greater opportunity there for long term investing. Doll sees a decoupling between U.S. stock markets and high unemployment. Most of the large U.S. companies generate a large portion of their sales and profits overseas. He estimates 40% of the business of these companies is overseas. Doll's estimate is for 70% of the incremental earnings growth of the S&P 500 companies coming from overseas markets. He also expects higher inflation with the Fed keeping it from getting out of control, and deficit cutting efforts to cut some trillions over the years. He sees favorable prospects for equities based on the money growth being strong and credit markets being good....

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Ford's downsizing of its Visteon auto parts operations and sale of Visteon plants as part of its restructuring effort under Mulally and Fields. The downsizing of Visteon and the way it was handled helped Ford avoid the bankruptcy experienced by GM, say experts.

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According to the Labor Department nonfarm payrolls went down by 131,000 in July 2010. 71,000 jobs were added in the private sector and 143,000 temporary census workers were jobless. For June data, a revision shows that payrolls declined by 221,000 and not by 125,000 as previously reported. Overall for the first 7 months of 2010 the US had 100,000 jobs added a month on average, which will not make a dent in unemployment. Unemployment remained at 9.5%. In addition to poor rate of job additions in the private sector, the budgetary situation of states and local governments is exacerbating the situation. 48,000 jobs were lost in state and local governments in July. 45% of the unemployed or 6.6 million Americans were jobless for more than 6 months, making finding a job more difficult.

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After major declines in production in 2011 following the tsunami and earthquake, Japan's big three automakers are rebounding quickly in the domestic market. Toyota says its sales in April tripled to 107,826 in April from the prior year and exports increased six fold to 180,050. Nissan says domestic sales increased by 64% to 39, 413, and exports tripled to 52,660. Honda says domestic sales doubled to 55,500, and exports triped to 217,977.

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The National Association of Realtors reports that sales of previously owned homes dropped by 27.2% from June, to seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million homes. House prices gained ameasure of stability in 2009, after dropping since 2006. Now that measure of stability may be lost as house prices weaken. The expiry of a home-buyer tax credit was expected to dampen sales but not by this much. Paul Dales of Capital Economics expects a further drop of 5% in house prices. Combine this with sluggish consumer spending and prospects of deflation in 2011, a weak Obama administration HAMP homeowner relief program, fading stimulus and the likelihood of no further stimulus because of deficit fears; and the picture shows serious problems. The underlying picture of housing is not changing. One in four homeowners with mortgages owe more than their house is worth. Banks are handling over 5 million loans that are delinquent, if these loans are modified or short sales are permitted by banks, there would be support for housing prices. HAMP has failed in this regard, see the link to this....

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The average U.S. light vehicle price was $30,303 in April 2012, up $1219 from the prior year. Incentives were also lower, down $146 to average of $2,446, according to TrueCar.com. This is happening even though cars account for a greater portion of sales of light vehicles. Used cars and trucks prices increased by 3.2% in March over the prior year, according to the Labor department data. Pent up demand is part of the reason. Another reason is the discipline exercized by auto manufacturers, especially the Big Three, in not letting supply exceed demand and therefore not having to offer higher incentives to get rid of inventory. These practices of oversupplying the market hurt the Detroit automakers in the period before bankruptcy, especially GM. Increases in used car prices and higher prices of new cars create a virtuous cycle for automakers to support higher margins. With the high retirement and healthcare costs reduced through bankruptcy and new agreements with the UAW, the Detroit automakers are now better positioned in the market to sustain margins by limiting production to demand. ...