Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 31, 2009
1. The banks are hiding losses and are feverishly downsizing to maintain their capital ratios. Extremely tight lending standards will continue to crimp the ability of consumers and small businesses to borrow and spend in 2010.
2. The Obama Administration is focused on reducing the federal budget deficit. They believe the forecasts calling for an economic recovery next year. Hence, there will not be a new major stimulus program passed in the first half of 2010.
3. Residential real estate prices will continue to decline next year. The plunge in November new home sales showed what will happen to the housing market when the benefits of the tax credit are removed. The extension of the tax credit is set to expire at the end of April, just when the selling season begins in earnest.
4. State and local budgets will continue to be squeezed by declining tax revenue. The federal government will not bridge the deficits even with the stimulus money focused primarily on providing aid to states, municipalities, and school districts. New York has joined California in the ranks of states with a serious budget crisis.
5. Many of the unemployed are running out of money. Millions of people who have been hanging on by a thread will slip into extreme poverty in 2010. The continued spending from savings and extended unemployment benefits will cease.
6. Deflation has gained a global foothold in almost all of the industrialized economies. Should a V-Shaped recovery fail to materialize there could well be a significant sell off in most economically sensitive commodities significantly exacerbating deflationary pressures.
7. Concerns over Sovereign debt kicked off by Dubai and quickly spilling into Greece will spread. This will force national governments that have been propping up spending and bailing out banks to retrench.
8. Beggar thy neighbor strategies are rapidly spreading as protectionism naturally gains sway. The U.S. has already entered into a tariff tiff with China; first over tires and now over steel.
9. Political uncertainty in the U.S. surrounding the impact of the health insurance bill, the potential impact of global warming legislation or regulation, and the possibility of a change in the balance of power in Congress after the mid-term elections will leave business leaders cautious during the duration of 2010.
10. Confidence remains low despite all of the Kings Horses and all of the Kings Women trying to put it back together again. Should several of the above trends worsen confidence could collapse completely in 2010….what then?
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 29, 2009
The objective of this blog is to advocate for the unemployed and find a macro-solution to returning those willing and able to work to decent jobs. I am strategically using a three-pronged approach which includes analyzing the most recent economic reports to gain insights into the outlook for unemployment, putting forth creative solutions that can improve economic growth, and holding Congress and the current Presidential Administration’s feet to the fire to prod them to do all they can to improve the potential for the unemployed to find meaningful full-time work. Most of the time it seems my message falls on deaf ears. Yet I know there are many out there like me who feel passionately about finding a way to restore the American dream to so many families who are suffering. I think we all know someone who is unemployed through no fault of their own. Most of us couldn’t say that two years ago. Yesterday I found a visual image of the pain many of these people feel when I saw the movie Up in the Air. In the movie George Clooney works for a firm that professionally fires people for large employers. It shows person after person being confronted with the horror of losing their job. These individuals feel dismayed, betrayed, and frightened for their family’s economic future. Since I am not a brilliant writer of prose I will simply highly recommend you see this movie to heighten your insight into the number one tragedy facing Americans: unemployment.
In the movie George Clooney’s character spends a lot of time flying. Unfortunately, the 2010 outlook for the unemployed is that they will remain grounded. There is no wind coming from Washington to lift their wings. Economic growth remains anemic and yet Congress and Administration are more concerned about the federal budget deficit than they are with providing enough stimuli to the economy to return the unemployed to work. And the Federal Reserve actually seems intent on ending quantitative easing in the near term. They all appear to believe the economy will magically return to growth on its own despite extremely tight credit conditions and an over built housing market. Sadly, they also appear content with the status quo and the concept that some pain now is necessary to provide creative destruction. Herbert Hoover and his advisers felt the same way and believed the same things.
President Obama has the power to make a real difference in the lives of the unemployed. He can lead our nation out of this economic morass and return the legions of the unemployed to dignified jobs. But he has to feel passionate about the issue. It can not be just another thing on his to do list. He needs to feel the weight of the unemployed on his shoulders. He needs to feel their pain. If he took on the greatest challenge of his Presidency with passion he would see success transcends political partisanship, personal friendship, and his pre-conceived notions about what his Presidency would be about. It is about jobs whether or not he is willing to rise to the challenge. If he is serious he will quit playing the blame game, he will fire Summers and Geithner, and he will jettison his notions about what America cannot do. Rather than preaching to us about the limits of government he will extol the wonders of the American spirit. He will ask employers to hire people. He will ask employers how the federal government can ease their burden to put people back to work. He will ask for Wall Street to fund real innovation rather than financial gimmickry. It starts with finding a new Presidential adviser unlike Larry Summers who believes the greatest economic innovations in America include the electric light bulb, the telephone, and the computer and not generally accepted accounting principles.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas to everyone. The weatherman has decided to send a smile across the face of many children with snow. The great thing about snow is it is free and all the kids can play in it regardless of their family’s income. The snow will cause some people not to make it to the mall to buy that extra present for their loved ones. It will not deter someone like me from heading out to do all of my Christmas shopping in one day. By the way it is not expected to snow in Waco and the roads are in great shape. The snowy cold winter will raise the price of natural gas, coal, oil, and ultimately electricity bills. One of the hidden sources of extra cash for most families has been lower than normal electric bills due to depressed natural gas prices. Going forward this extra source of income will disappear and it will further dampen consumer spending, credit payments, and business bottom line profits. This is unfortunate because the economy clearly needs all the help it can get.
The originally reported third quarter GDP growth of 3.5% has been revised down to 2.2%, of which 1.8% represented cash for clunkers. Predictably new home sales which are based on contracts signed and not closings plunged 11% in November. This is because the first time home buyers tax credit required purchased homes to close by November 30. In December mortgage purchase applications for homes have dropped significantly and it looks as though the resurgance in home sales has faded. The bottom line is federal government support is the only thing holding up the economy. Unfortunately the Obama Administration believes they have succeeded in avoiding another great depression and are busy taking victory laps depsite an unemployment rate of 10%.
Going into 2010 the economy will face the headwinds of hundreds of billions of dollars of adjustabe rate mortgage resets, higher natural gas prices, and further cutbacks in state and local government spending. Additionally, if the healthcare bill passes in something close to its present form tax increases will hit consumers and businesses in 2010 and additional health insurance spending will not ramp up until 2014. For all of those furious about not having the health benefits in 2010 they can blame the deficit hawks. These same hawks are holding back any signficant further economic aid from the federal government. The Obama Administration is going to allow taxes to rise in 2010 and does not plan to offset it with corresponding spending. This is the same type of blunder FDR made in 1937 causing a big leg down in the economy. No matter how one feels about the health bill, from an economic standpoint it is imperative for any tax increases to be offset with federal spending or the economy will suffer. President Obama needs to quit playing budget games. If he is going to tax us in 2010 to provide health insurance for million of Americans, then those people need to get the insurance in 2010 and not 2014.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 19, 2009
It’s been a rough few weeks for the Obama Administration. Healthcare legislation hangs by a thread in the Senate. The President had to personally broker a non-binding deal with no specifics on global warming with the Chinese and then fly ingloriously home early in order to beat the largest snow storm to hit D.C. in years. Yet nothing may throw a fly in the Presidential ointment more than the sudden resurgence of the dollar. The Obama economic advisers led by Geithner and Summers have convinced President Obama that the best way to create jobs is to become more like China by consuming less and exporting more. The easiest way to mimic China is to devalue the dollar against all other major currencies, including the Chinese yuan. Yet China stiffed the President on his request to let the value of the yuan rise against the dollar. Now the markets are stiffing the Administration’s grand plans to let the dollar slide thereby juicing exports because of the realities of the global economic meltdown. Dubai kicked off a global re-evaluation of the fundamental soundness of sovereign debt and suddenly the dollar looks like gold compared to the euro, the yen, and the pound.
In Europe the situation in Greece is rapidly deteriorating. The costs of issuing new Greek debt is rising fast. The people have taken to the streets in the form of “demonstrations.” The credit rating agencies have just lowered the rating on Spanish backed mortgage bonds. Spain has over 1.5 million empty homes, the highest per capita ratio in the world. Ironically Spanish banks were one of the few to avoid saddling themselves with American subprime mortgages, yet have saddled themselves with their own Spanish mortgage nightmare. Austria has had to nationalize banks with deep ties to the troubled Eastern European economies such as Hungary. Suddenly the world is looking at the euro and they are not seeing Germany and France, they are seeing Greece, Spain, Austria, Italy, and Ireland. Japan is mired in deflation with an aging population and federal government debt close to 200% of GDP. The cost of issuing 10 year Japanese debt is suddenly rising as well. In Britain, for the first time ever tax receipts were less than one billion pounds over the costs of social programs alone leaving almost nothing for defense, infrastructure, and interest on the debt. Comparatively, the U.S. looks like the land of milk and honey.
The Obama Administration had better wake up. We need to re-ignite internal demand in the U.S. and not count on Spain, Greece, Britain, Japan, and Dubai to buy more goods and services from us. The latest word is the President is willing to use about $30 billion of unspent TARP funds to bolster small business lending. While this is a step in the right direction, $30 billion is but a pittance compared to the $2 trillion of capital cut out of credit cards and the constant closings of community banks that loaned hundreds of billions of dollars directly to small businesses. Never mind the too-big-to-fail banks allowed to escape the TARP so executives could be paid more while the banks lend less. Small businesses create 75% of all of the new jobs in America. President Obama needs to quit thinking small and start thinking big. For starters he should tell Geithner and Summers to not let the door hit them in the back on their way out. He should forget about deficit reduction. He should take all of the remaining TARP funds and create a Small Business Bank of the United States. This government owned bank could then leverage $300 billion into $3 trillion worth of loans to small businesses. Now that would be change we could believe in.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 16, 2009
The Bernanke led Fed is divided. Some want to render more aid to the economy now. Others wish to withdraw support and head off future inflation. Both sides have agreed in a grand bargain to wait for more data and to wait until they have to make a real decision. The deadline is March 2010 when the current round of quantitative easing is scheduled to end. That is when the Fed is scheduled to end its purchases of Agency debt and of Agency issued mortgages. Until then they neither have to end or extend quantitative easing. The Fed is watching unemployment and capacity utilization. Between now and the end of March the private sector and the state governments will shed more jobs. The predictions by the leading economists are for the real economy to begin to add private sector jobs in the first quarter of 2010. It’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is the federal government will add almost one million temporary jobs to work on the 2010 census. But all of these jobs will end at the end of 2010. The Fed needs to back these jobs out of the next few unemployment reports to get a clear picture of where the economy is heading. Otherwise they may make a decision based on a false reading of economic vitality.
The CPI report showed the core rate of inflation is currently zero. This in spite of the dollar declining gold led rise in November oil prices. That trend has already reversed and the dollar has bottomed in the near term. It’s not because the U.S. is doing so much better. It’s because the veil has been lifted on the euro and the reality of the economic calamity facing countries like Greece, Spain, and Ireland has been laid bare. The CPI reports will soon trend negative. It is only the cold winter that is holding keeping the price of oil from collapsing. It is certainly not economic activity.
The Fed is definitely behind the curve. But it is not the inflation curve they are behind, it is the deflation curve. Prices will keep falling in housing and real goods in search of demand. The banks continue to tighten credit. The Obama Administration has chosen politics over economic substance in allowing Bank of America, Citi Group, and Wells Fargo to exit the Tarp. Despite raising money the capital ratios of all three of these firms fell when the Treasury redeemed its preferred stock. The deleveraging continues and even fewer loans will be lent to consumers and small businesses in 2010, despite the pleas from the President. The Fed needs to look at the big picture and needs to quit waiting and start printing more money ASAP. Manufacturing activity is already slowing down in the U.S., Germany, and Japan. And Christmas sales at the retail level are looking to be weaker than expected. Come January the false dawn of economic revitalization will become self evident and the Fed’s hesitancy will cost it valuable points in confidence. If the Fed had moved today to up their quantitative easing program businesses may have had the confidence to keep workers on and perhaps even to attempt to expand. But because the Fed is blinking employers will blink too. Unfortunately the Obama Administration is not only blinking on job creation, they are blind.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 13, 2009
The readings on the economy are tricking policy makers into thinking the economy has bottomed and a slow recovery is under way. But this false optimism is based on misreading the tea leaves. The recent readings on the economy such as GDP, the November unemployment rate, and the November retail sales report are signaling to policy makers that all is calm. They are misinterpreting this to mean the coast is clear. In fact the economic reports are flawed and are disguising the second half of the storm that will soon hit in full force driving the economy down in what has come to be known as a double dip. The growth in third quarter GDP benefited almost exclusively from an auto industry that had practically shut down in the second quarter and got a boost from cash for clunkers. The November unemployment report was a rogue number not supported by any other measure of the nation’s unemployment rate. Finally, the growth in retail sales is based on higher gasoline prices and not on an increase in demand for more gallons of gasoline. Imports of oil in the U.S. have declined by over 1 million barrels versus a year ago. Ironically the lack of demand for imported oil is considered a sign of economic growth in the GDP report, go figure. Reality will soon bite hard as the credit collapse enters phase II tomorrow.
Dubai is under the gun and will probably allow Dubai World to default on $3.5 billion worth of bonds. This wake-up call has forced the rating agencies to stop seeing no evil and opening their eyes to the risks of the debt of some countries like Greece. These countries are not Zimbabwe, nor Iceland, and the problems they are facing are legion throughout the world. On the Main Street stage the big banks acknowledged they are shrinking their loan portfolios to small businesses and consumers in an attempt to deleverage. We enter 2010 in worse economic shape than we entered 2009.
How will the Obama Administration respond in an election year if the economy heads south? They have backed themselves into a corner by declaring the recession is over and by declaring every positive signal in the economy as a sign the failed stimulus bill is working. Does President Obama have the political courage to go back to Congress and say he and his team were wrong and the economy needs a lot more federal spending when he has been out preaching the virtues of deficit reduction ala Hoover in the middle of a depression? I hope so, but I doubt it. Instead I look for 2010 to be a year of significant political and social upheaval as rising unemployment frays the fabric of American society. There are rays of hope. Paul Krugman has kick-started the conversation about the benefits of the Fed printing money to lower unemployment. Additionally, Harry Reid has kick-started the conversation on lowering the eligibility age for Medicare. The genie is out of the bottle on both of these once taboo subjects. Printing money, lowering the retirement age, and fixing the banks for good are the three keys to ending the depression. As they say two out of three ain’t bad.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 11, 2009
In this morning’s New York Times Paul Krugman called on Ben Bernanke to ratchet up the Federal Reserve’s efforts to create jobs by printing $2 trillion. Krugman says the economy needs to create 300,000 jobs per month for the next five years in order to create the 18 million jobs necessary to return to full employment. The Keynesian econonomist ruefully acknowledges the appetite for a full scale fiscal assault on the economic crisis doesn’t exist in Washington and he is turning to Bernanke and monetary policy as the nation’s best option to create jobs. Krugman states “the most specific, persuasive case I’ve seen for more Fed action comes from Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed staffer now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Basing his analysis on the prior work of none other than Mr. Bernanke himself, in his previous incarnation as an economic researcher, Mr. Gagnon urges the Fed to expand credit by buying a further $2 trillion in assets. Such a program could do a lot to promote faster growth, while having hardly any downside.” While Joseph Gagnon is on the right track he underestimates the size and scale of quantitative easing necessary to end the credit crisis. Consider that Goldman Sach’s estimates that every $1.4 trillion worth of government securities the Fed purchases is equivalent to lowering the Fed Funds rate by 1%. Goldman further estimated the Fed Funds rate needs to be lowered another 6% in order for monetary policy to have enough teeth to get the economy moving again. The Goldman study estimates the Fed needs to print $8.4 trillion.
While I think Mr. Gagnon’s estimate is way too low and that Goldman’s estimates are also too low I am thrilled that Professor Krugman has kick-started the debate about why isn’t the Fed printing more money and just how much money does the Fed need to print. My own estimate is we should start with $10 trillion, though it will probably take $20 trillion, and virtually eliminate all of the outstanding U.S. Treasuries. This shock and awe strategy would restore confidence because the federal government would be almost debt free. It would also mean our President wouldn’t have to go to Asia and bow down before his bankers. And, it would free the Congress from concerns about the deficit allowing them to send the states the estimated $350 billion they will need over the next two years to close their budget deficits.
Imagine a world where the too-big-to-fail-too-yet-too-broke-to-lend-banks have no risk free Treasuries to invest in and are forced out on the risk curve with no option but to lend again? It is up to the Fed to take the “hide the money under the mattress” Treasury bonds away from the institutions. We have seen several Treasury auctions this month where the winning bidders accepted zero interest just to know their money was safe. One auction had demand for over five times the amount of Treasuries auctioned even though there was no interest to be earned. If I ran an institution I wouldn’t want my money in a maybe too big to fail bank, or in Dubai or Greece either. For those worried about the dollar if the Fed takes the plunge you can bet the Japanese and the Brits will be quick to follow. We are in a global debt-induced deflationary depression and it is up to the U.S. to lead the way out. Mr. Bernanke, to whom much is given, much is required.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 9, 2009
President Obama has decided to use the $200 billion in unspent TARP funds to fund his jobs initiative and to reduce the deficit. The TARP fund is growing as the Treasury has allowed Bank of America, and will soon allow Citigroup and Wells Fargo, to repay the TARP funds they received. The President wants to focus on capital gains tax cuts, jobs tax credits, home insulation tax credits, increased SBA funding for small businesses, and some further aid to the states for shovel ready infrastructure projects as his main thrust on improving the unemployment picture. The Administration continues to argue the stimulus plan has been successful and has generated 1.6 million jobs, which is true as long as one closes their eyes and ignores the 7 million jobs lost and the failure to create the additional 3 million needed jobs to keep up with population growth. Another major stimulus plan is not in the cards. The President’s jobs plan is focused on politics and not on economics. The President wants to argue the stimulus plan was a success, that he is concerned for the unemployed and willing to provide some additional aid, and that the deficit will be reduced by returning some unspent TARP funds. The problem is the Treasury is allowing the banks to repay TARP by delevering their balance sheets by shrinking their loan portfolios. Hence hundreds of billions of dollars are not being lent to small businesses and consumers so these banks can repay their TARP funds. This is just one more example of coddling Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It would be much better for the economy to force the banks to keep the TARP funds and lend them rather than to have them returned and to put forth wasteful job creation ideas like an employers tax credit and a cut in the capital gains tax. The vast majority of these tax benefits will go to successful companies that were going to hire people anyway.
Meanwhile, the Administration needs to understand the federal government’s economic actions are not occurring in a vacuum. The states are projected to run budget shortfalls of over $350 billion in 2010 and 2011. The size of the additional inefficient federal spending for jobs is only a fraction of the size of the cuts coming from state and city governments. The loss of bank credit for small businesses combined with job cuts from state and local governments dwarf the size of the additional help President Obama is offering with his minimalist new initiatives.
It is past time for President Obama to fire Summers, Geithner, and the rest of his economic team and to bring in people who understand we are still in the midst of a global economic meltdown. We need the federal government to spend a lot more money and we need the Federal Reserve to print a lot more money or we will see a massive double dip in the global economy similar to the second big dip in late 1931 that eventually drove the unemployment rate to 25% in 1933. The collapse of Dubai is not happening in a vacuum. All of a sudden Greece has been downgraded and Spain has been put on notice by the rating agencies. The credit markets are tightening up again as reality sets in and the bear market bounce ends. We need reality to reach the Whitehouse so they recognize their shrewd TARP moves are taking away more than they are giving.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 5, 2009
Many people believe major government policy errors such as attempts to balance the budget in 1937 worsened the effects of the Great Depression. The reported drop in the November unemployment rate from 10.2% to 10% comes at a critical juncture and significantly raises the risk the Obama Administration and the Fed will repeat the past and fail to provide the additional stimulus and quantitative easing the economy desperately needs. The mistake they will make is to believe the headlines in the November unemployment report which showed a loss of only 11,000 jobs, a .2% improvement in the U-3 rate, and an upward revision for September and October is a sure sign the economy and the jobs picture are on the verge of rapidly improving. What they will miss is the November unemployment report is an outlier and its conclusion that the jobs picture and the economy are rapidly improving are not supported by all of the other measurements of the November unemployment picture. For starters, the unemployment report’s own measurement of those unemployed 27 weeks or longer rose by 293,000. Additionally, the Labor Department dropped another 100,000 discouraged people out of the workforce and failed to add any workers for population growth. How did we only lose 11,000 jobs when so many people joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed and so many others simply dropped out of the workforce? ADP measured a loss of 169,000 private sector jobs and TrimTabs measured a loss of 255,000 jobs. While the four week moving average of weekly jobless claims did improve to 481,250, it is still a number that normally portends 6 figure job losses. The November ISM Services number weakened and reported continued softness in employment. Plus, November retail sales were soft and gasoline usage remains moribund in the U.S.
The Christmas season is a time of big swings in employment as temps are added in October and November and big layoffs occur in January. The Department of Labor statisticians use seasonal adjustments to smooth out these wide up and down swings in employment. One of the big factors in the adjustment is recent trends in the same month in the preceding years. November is always a big hiring month. But last year the economy lost 610,000 jobs in November in the post Lehman collapse. This data-point lowered the normally expected November hiring trends in the seasonal adjustment factor and gave an artificial boost to the seasonally adjusted jobs number. Hence the report showed the biggest adjusted gain in temporary workers in 5 years even though retailers were preparing for and getting a lean Christmas selling season. The November jobs report has given a false positive reading on the economy.
The Obama Administration and the deficit hawks in Congress will now proclaim the policies put in place to date have been sufficient to revive the economy. Never mind those policies were supposed to keep unemployment from rising past 8% and it is now 10%. The same wonks that missed the severity of the economic downturn are missing it again. Similarly, the inflation hawks on the Fed will now eschew further quantitative easing measures and will crowd out weaker private borrowers in 2010. Because these leaders saw a mirage of hope they will ignore data indicating all is not well and will wait for the next mirage. Hooverism reigns in the Whitehouse and minimalist ideas like cash for caulkers is all we can expect from here on out.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 2, 2009
Tomorrow the Whitehouse is hosting a jobs summit designed to come up with creative ways to create jobs. It most likely will turn out to be a colossal waste of time. Platitudes like we should focus more on exports are not going to create jobs. Neither will a job creation tax-credit create positions companies either don’t need filled or can’t afford. Who would create a $30,000 job to get back $3,000 on their taxes? America already has the greatest entrepreneurial spirit in the world. We also lead the world in inventing new and better products. China may make stuff but we create stuff. Yet you cannot start a new small business if you cannot access capital. The banks have extremely tight lending standards and are cutting back on credit cards. Many small businesses use the owner’s credit cards to fund operations and provide liquidity for the business. And it is scary to start a new business when consumer spending continues to drop. Surprisingly small business owners say access to credit is a big problem but it isn’t their biggest problem. Their biggest problem in this downturn is sales. Demand has simply dried up. To create jobs we will need to open the credit markets back up to consumers and small businesses and we will need to restore confidence to spur spending.
The credit markets could be fixed quickly if we had a Treasury Secretary who had the guts to walk into the Whitehouse and tell the President he needs to spend what little political capital he has left on fixing the banks so they can resume normal lending again. But confidence is a tricky thing to restore once it’s been lost. We run the risk of creating a Humpty Dumpty with consumer spending if we don’t act soon to restore economic hope and swagger to the American populace. Rhetoric alone isn’t going to get the job done. Consumers need to see action and need to see something tangible that they can count on.
What we need to do is lower the age for Social Security and Medicare to age 60 and give everyone on Social Security a 20% raise. This will cost $400 billion per year. We would instantly and dramatically lower the unemployment rate if we could encourage people in their early 60’s to retire. Most of the extra Social Security money would get spent increasing revenues for companies which could then afford to hire more workers to keep up with increased demand. It would also lessen the anxiety over retirement funding sources for many people in their 50’s increasing their confidence to spend. The younger workers would also gain confidence and they and their friends move from the unemployment lines into the jobs of the recently retired. Despite the ranting of the deficit hawks America can afford to do this. The federal government is spending an additional $100 billion annually right now just to pay for extended unemployment benefits. Then one has to add in the costs of having an extra 10 million people on food stamps and millions more on Medicaid. Not to mention the direct loss of tax revenue from the unemployed and the indirect loss of tax revenue from decreased consumer spending. We need the President to step forward and tell us what we can achieve rather than telling us that we have to hunker down and live within our means.
