So I saw this article over at ZeroHedge this afternoon and it kinda made me go hmmmmmmm.
To be honest the map looked pretty accurate for Missouri and Illinois but Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa appeared way out of bounds according to my observations of traveling through large sections of those states over the last year.
Of course the article at Zerohedge doesn't have a link to the original report and it doesn't mention what four economic indicators the National Association of Counties used to make this map. Even going to the NAoC's website didn't turn up a web view-able copy of this report for 2015 but I did find the PDF version for the 2014 report.
So it turns out that two of the four indicators namely Job growth and County economic output are pretty well tied together Rural farming counties in the Plains states had a bumper year agriculturally speaking. Last time I was up well into Nebraska which was in late November they were still going "balls to the walls" harvesting and several of the locals I talked to were saying they doubted they would get it all in before the real cold hit.
Missouri and Illinois on the other hand had terrible years agriculturally speaking due to the Spring deluge of rain that didn't end until July. The epicenter of which was less than 60 miles East of my location that culminated with over 22 inches of rain above normal for the three month period. Southeastern Missouri counties had a good year from what I hear (Might check with SwampDog to be sure) and so as I said the map makes perfect sense to me.
Unless by some extreme stroke of luck no county outside the major government and/or educational centers are doing well at all. The best a county could hope for in 2015 was two promising economic indicators out of four due to agricultural or energy sector production and the attending job growth associated with it.
Housing prices and salary seems to be unattainable indicators for almost all but a very small percentile of the total US counties.
Folks it's been over seven years now and actual raw numbers still show no economic movement back to pre-08 numbers without a direct government pipeline feeding that area money.
I was going to do a post mentioning the lack of rail movement and dry bulk sea traffic once again but catching this map over at Zerohedge made me change direction. If this ain't enough to convince you to get your preps in order then I doubt anything will.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!
It seems like every recession that hits this area (no matter what happy news stories are made up) drops every thing down another step on the stairs to the cellar. The economy almost gets a foot up on the next step but another recession comes and knocks it back down even further. The problem is that we are running out of steps. Employers are pulling out and the governments are still putting in new sidewalks because if you build it they will come. Too many people saw that movie that are now running things, field of dreams was a fictional story.
ReplyDeleteJasper county is probably skewed by the tornado recovery.
ReplyDeleteI havent seen anything like that for the UK, I think our government looks at house prices and sales and unemployment for signs of recovery but they dont break it into areas, if London is doing alright its assumed the rest of the country is alright, very much head in the sand.
ReplyDeleteRemove agriculture and Oil and I should think a lot of that falls away.
ReplyDeleteAS T.B. above alludes to, removing the gas and oil fracking economic impact which has dried up will change the states from North Dakota to Texas to a non-recovered status. I know that down here in Texas we are currently in another housing bubble situation as the number of people relocating here is mind numbing. Maybe we would still be in a recovered status but the cost of living has gone up an inordinate amount. I guess that limiting the factors in a study is an easier way to show the masses that everything is hunky dory and the big ole pie in the sky is still there for the taking. Sorry for the mini rant but it helps lower my blood pressure. Keep up the fight as that's what we are currently in, a fight for our way of life.
ReplyDeleteWhile Anchorage & south-central Alaska looks strong on the map, we have some 9,000 fewer federal employees than five years ago. Although few are crying over that; just sayin'. But with oil dropping from $110/bbl to $30 lately, I think the cracks (wherever they may be) will become quickly apparent. Let's see how that map looks in another 12 months.
ReplyDeleteEmployment is a lagging indicator. It's not so lagging that it has no predictive value on the front end, but it isn't much help on the back end.
ReplyDeleteI saw the freight-shipping items at Mish: scary stuff.
Looking at Pennsylvania and Ohio, to my eye the blue matches up pretty darn well with the Marcellus shale region. And I think the effect is two-fold: not only the initial boost from the gas drilling boom, but a lingering afterglow from low natural gas prices. Once that peters out, we'll be left with decades if not centuries of mess to clean up.
ReplyDeleteI live in an area in PA that is booming with shale, but the people are all from out of town. It is creating a huge mess out of our roads. I wonder what happens when they leave.
DeleteThe farmers made good yields, but did not make any profit. From what I can gather through the grapevine, half of the farmers in the area failed to pay out on all of their expenditures. Most of those farmers don't owe a lot of money, but the pattern is telling. I expect the same results next year, so look for more farm sales next year.
ReplyDeleteHere in the UP of Michigan recovery is an oxymoron. We weren't doing all that well in the first place. Our Children move away because there is no real work here. The number of abandon small business's grows every day. The small towns have no local business. The buildings are literally hunks. Many homes are in the same condition. While all of that is bad, for me its not so bad because less sheeple to deal with.
ReplyDeleteCarl in the UP
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