Lost in the 21st Century

This is good news…

The U.S. economy will create 2 million jobs in 2011, twice as many as last year, said Scott Brown, the most accurate forecaster of the jobless rate over the past two years according to Bloomberg News calculations.

Unemployment will end the year at 8.6 percent, projected Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates Inc., less than the 8.8 percent median forecast of 61 economists surveyed by Bloomberg from Feb. 2 to Feb. 8. It dropped to 9 percent in January from 9.4 percent the prior month.

President Barack Obama’s deal with congressional Republicans to reduce the payroll tax and extend Bush-era cuts will put more money in Americans’ pockets and spur demand, said Brown. The need to rebuild inventories as sales climb will give the world’s largest economy an added lift this year, he said.

“We’ll see consumer spending remaining pretty strong,” Brown said in a telephone interview from St. Petersburg, Florida. “Firms large and small won’t hire unless they see more demand.”

via Top Forecaster Brown Sees U.S. Adding 2 Million Jobs in 2011 – Bloomberg.

Interesting…

Make of it what you will….

Thanks, to my friend Kirk, for sending this to me…

Don’t look now, but the mass-elite customer is coming back. If three times is a trend, then we definitely have a trend of brands catering to high-end and aspiring consumers reporting impressive numbers.

On Wednesday, Polo Ralph Lauren reported that third quarter revenues rose 24 percent. Yes, sales in Asia were up. But the firm said “higher domestic and European shipments for our apparel products and increased domestic accessories shipments were the largest contributors to growth” in its wholesale sector. Sales at RalphLauren.com were up 33 percent. And in a move certain to warm the hearts of Muffy and Potter, the company announced a dividend increase and a $250 million stock buyback. It looks like more swells were donning Peccary leather gloves, a bargain at $399 (originally $599), to protect their hands as they drove in their BMWs. BMW this week reported that it sold 18,656 cars in the U.S. in January 2011, up 21 percent from January 2010.

And where were the BMW owners driving? Why, to the Whole Foods, of course. On Wednesday, Whole Foods  noted that discriminating food snobs had been flocking into its stores in search of arugula, heirloom tomatoes and cheeses with lengthy names (insert your own Whole Paycheck joke here). Total sales were up 14 percent for the quarter, and identical-store sales were up 9.1 percent. Not even food inflation could deflate Whole Foods’s earnings soufflé: EBIDTA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was up 26 percent from the prior-year quarter.

The current expansion has entered its seventh quarter, and the pace of growth is accelerating. But these businesses are growing much more rapidly than the overall economy. It’s common to speak of a two-speed recovery: the U.S. vs. emerging markets; business vs. consumers; Wall Street vs. Main Street; exporters vs. purely domestic companies; and comparatively rich vs. comparatively poor. Call them Bobos, Yuppies, elites, swells, toffs, or snobs. Just don’t call them frugal anymore.

The Panic of 2008 and the ensuing market crash were big blows to the self-worth, financial and otherwise, of high-earners. But they’ve benefited disproportionately from the policies and trajectory of this recovery.  It’s always been the case that it’s better to have more money than to have less, and to have more education than to have less. But this has been particularly true in the past two years.

via The Yuppies Are Back – Yahoo! Finance.