In 2014, US economy began shaky, finished strong

[mylindaelliott]

I know the things you are telling us are true. I also know the news is telling us things are getting better and better. Unfortunately I don't see it a lot. The people I know are still having a lot of trouble. The only thing good that seems to be happening is the price of gas coming down.

I wondered about the shopping for Christmas too. Businesses and restaurants were far less busy than I would have thought. Maybe like someone mentioned to me more people were online shopping. I'm not sure.

 

[HELLOnamesdana]

It's nice to know that even though 2014 started off not so great with the economy, it ended pretty well. Of course the gas prices decided to stay super high when I was buying gas five days a week for my brothers car to drive around town, and the second we both go away to college I come home from school to see the gas prices have decreased dramatically! It's really great to see, but dang couldn't it have been this low when I was purchasing gas so often?!

 

[xTinx]

Considering the horror that the US had gone through 2008 onward, 2014 was a marked improvement. I do think that "2.65 million jobs over the first 11 months of the year" and a declining unemployment rate will pull the economy back to number 1 this year or early next year. Next, US needs to learn a thing or two from Germany's social market economy and cut back its welfare programs (not do away with it) to encourage more people to participate in the economy.

 

[Peninha]

Any reason as to why gas prices are so ridiculously low ? I just filled up my tank and paid $2.57/gallon.

The gas prices are getting so low because the oil production doubled causing the price to drop to half. Has the gas price dropped to half as well? Of course not, they just drop a little...

 

[Peninha]

It's good to see that things are picking up. We have had a similar economic downturn in the UK, but there doesn't appear to be much recovery yet. Hopefully things will improve.


Yes, hopefully this will be the case. Things are tough right now, we can only hope the economy continues to improve.

I don't if the fact that the oil production has increased has something to do with it because the economy is something extremely complex, but as long as there are more jobs things will get better.

 

[galmal]

—INTEREST RATES DROP

Even as the economy has strengthened — usually a sign that interest rates will rise — it's become easier to borrow. More loans mean more spending and faster growth. Rates have declined even though the Fed ended its program to stimulate growth by buying billions in Treasury and mortgage bonds each month.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has slipped to about 2.27 percent from 3 percent when the year began. The average 30-year fixed mortgage is 3.83 percent, down from roughly 4.5 percent a year ago.

They say this as if it's a good thing. What they fail to mention is that, while low rates are good for borrowing, they destroy those of us who have saved over the years, and hoped to be able to retire on our investments. When the highest rate you can find on a CD is 1%, there's no way that you can save enough to ever be able to retire. My parents (in their 80s) had saved about $1 million, which should have been enough (and was enough 15 years ago) to live comfortably. But in the past 6-8 years, with these wonderful low interest rates, they aren't making enough to get by, so they've had to tap into the principle just to survive. They are now in the very real possibility of outliving their retirement savings. We need to get out of the mindset of borrowing and start saving. Keeping interest rates low only encourages people to take on more debt than they can afford and negatively affects those that save. Not good!!

 

[fire421]

I think the economy is getting better but slowly. The drop in gas prices shows that. I just wish the economy was better where I live, I am a college student and can't get employed because no one is hiring.

 

[003]

It's US. Not that I am confident with US and that I think that it's just invincible. But US is the country to which all countries depend on especially those developing ones, that growth in the economy of the different countries is just beneficial to US. So it's not really US that has had great improvements in the economy. It's other countries.

 

[drc65]

We need more production jobs for it to start growing again. The US economy can't sustain itself on a mostly service economy.

I think in 2015 the US economy will continue to grow. I'm expecting that production jobs will increase and the electronics industry will look for US workers. Could be wrong, just speculating.

 

[vegito12]

I think there needs to be changes with how money is spent and, the stocks can go up and down and it was good the economy did well for the year 2014 and ended well. There needs to be more better jobs, and job security as having a job that is not paying well is not going to work for the employees and will start to show less productive work as if not paid well than no need to do good work for a low wage they getting. Even the oil prices have gone down which is good, will have to see how that goes and how long will it last and will people be surprised if it goes up or goes lower only time will tell.

 

[freeofcharge]

This is the beauty of free market capitalism. Adversity breeds creativity after all. The past 5-6 years of economic downturn have really forced both businesses and consumers to become smarter and more creative about how we're using our resources to do business. Finally after all of this time I think the storm may finally be perfect enough to get us out of this funk!

 

[gmckee1985]

I know that Ive definitely changed my spending habits since the recession. Im sure a lot of people have done the same thing. I think theres a lot of pent up demand in the economy. Low energy prices and rising economic confidence is definitely good news for the economy.