That's 10,000 more jobs than they posted last year at this time, marking a 14% year-over-year increase. The hires are for seasonal positions, but many are likely to become long-term employees.
Company officials say they are preparing for a busy spring selling season.
The chain is particularly sensitive to the fluctuations of the housing market. It cut 7,000 jobs and shut down several brands at the tail-end of the recession in 2009
Bottom line: The Bernanke manipulated housing boom is on. Any questions?
To RW, and all others willing to discuss:
ReplyDeleteHow long do you expect this boom to last?
I realize there is some overlapping with the question "When will the price inflation come in?" (BTW, my answer to that question is that it is constantly happening.) Given historical precedents from the Great Depression and the double and triple dip recessions that happened in the mid- and late- 1930s, we know that a manipulated boom built on the foundations of an improper recovery will be short-lived, while the consequences much worse than the original recession.
For what it's worth, I can't see the current boom go on any later than late 2014 or early 2015.
I read someplace that the biggest % gain in the history of DJIA was in the middle of the great depression...if memory serves July 37 to July 38' @ around %150....while the DJIA was going apeshit the companies on it actually were losing money!
ReplyDeleteThen the DJIA dropped again....
It seems reasonable to me that our fundamentals may be worse than that time period...and I see some correlations...but of course that is not definitive in any way...just observations on my part that may/may not be accurate...but in that context, why not guess 1 year?
I'm really interested in both Marc Faber and John Williams viewpoints right now....I don't understand the metrics that's causing them to sounds alarms(but really haven't spent much time looking into their methodology). I wish Wenzel would get them on, and soon.
Think of all the damage Greenspan managed to inflict lowering interest rates to 1 percent and holding them there for a year. The housing bubble bursting practically brought down the entire financial system.
ReplyDeleteSo what does Bernanke's ZIRP for the last four plus years have in store for us? It certainly appears as though all the funny money is jacking up prices throughout the economy: housing, bonds, equities, commodities, education, health care, insurance... It seems the only thing not rising is our standard of living.
When the next bubble pops, there is going to be untold misery throughout the developed world. These policies are insane. The people enacting them are insane. It's a train wreck of epic proportions.
Mass pension fund up 13.9% in 2012.
ReplyDeleteGo Ben !
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/02/06/massachusetts-state-pension-fund-posts-percent-investment-gain-for/RWqYGqGRTgHTXohTXJ7j1J/story.html
Well what I know about Home Depot is that they hire seasonal people in the for the Spring-early summer season. They have I believe 2500 stores, or roughtly 32 new employees per store. That seems about right, most of these people will work in the garden, loading, and cashier sections, and likely a lot will quit before summer, and those who don't will be laid off by August.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the broken window boom related to Hurricane Sandy at least in New Jersey, Queens, Long Island, and parts of Connecticut. I'm doing damage assessments and project that we'll be at it through the end of the year. My suspicion based on seeing damaged areas are that some people aren't even going to start going to start working on their summer properties until the weather gets warmer.
ReplyDelete