Nothing Funny About a Lackluster Recovery

   As far as my industry, we are working more and getting paid less.  Years ago companies had employees that where sent to the site to do the estimating. Today on the job site you will see the owner as the estimator, project manager, and laborer.  No one I know of is looking to hire, which leads to the question of how long will the government extend unemployment benefits until they change the name to welfare benefits.


From the pages of Industry Week:

The International Monetary Fund warned on Oct. 6 that the United States was staring at a sluggish recovery from severe recession in the face of weak consumer spending and high debt. Growth in the world's largest economy slowed to 1.7% in the three months to June from a 3.7% pace in the first quarter, and key indicators suggest "a weak recovery in coming quarters," the IMF said in its latest economic forecasts.
After contracting 2.6% last year amid the global recession, the U.S. economy is poised for growth of 2.6% in 2010 that slows to 2.3% in 2011, the Washington-based agency said.
The IMF projections, published in its latest World Economic Outlook, slashed 0.7 point and 0.6 point off the 2010 and 2011 forecasts, respectively, marking the two sharpest downgrades of any economy since the July WEO update. "Much of the weakness of this recovery is due to sluggish personal consumption -- by far the biggest component of U.S. GDP," the 187-nation financial institution said.