{"id":293,"date":"2006-09-09T15:40:29","date_gmt":"2006-09-09T20:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=293"},"modified":"2006-09-09T15:40:24","modified_gmt":"2006-09-09T20:40:24","slug":"maybe-im-missing-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/maybe-im-missing-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe I&#8217;m Missing Something&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com posted this howler today &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/inc\/headlines\/~3\/20014052\/pessimism.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fearing Economic Uncertainty, Companies Put Spending Plans on Hold<\/a>. Obviously, this type of story sounds like it will have an impact on our business for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The opening sentence:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Gloomy <font color=\"#ff0000\">economic reports<\/font> in recent months have many small and midsize businesses rethinking spending plans, a pair of new surveys show.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Most of the stories I have read have mentioned how strong the economy is right now so I was taken aback by this revelation. The rest of the article speaks to CEO&#8217;s slowing everything down this year. I went back and clicked on the link found in that first sentence that takes you to the &#8220;gloomy economic reports.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some of the &#8220;gloomy&#8221; economic data from those reports:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Year-to-date small business hiring is <strong>down .3%<\/strong> (not great, but it does not discuss large company or government hiring for the year)<\/li>\n<li>Incomes are <strong>up 7.1%<\/strong> from July 2005<\/li>\n<li>In July, personal consumption expenditures <strong>increased 0.8%<\/strong>&#8230;This represents the sharpest increase in consumer spending since January.<\/li>\n<li>U.S. chain stores reported sales <strong>3.6% higher<\/strong> than during the same week in 2005. In July, U.S. chain stores reported sales <strong>3.5% greater<\/strong> than the previous July.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I freely admit that I am a psych major so economics is a foreign language to me. This data all looks like extremely positive news and would seem to be supportive of an expanding economy. I expect hiring will continue at a strong pace for the remainder of 2006 in spite of these contradictory survey results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inc.com posted this howler today &#8211; Fearing Economic Uncertainty, Companies Put Spending Plans on Hold. Obviously, this type of story sounds like it will have an impact on our business for the remainder of the year. The opening sentence: Gloomy economic reports in recent months have many small and midsize businesses rethinking spending plans, a pair of new surveys show. Most of the stories I have read have mentioned how strong the economy is right now so I was taken aback by this revelation. The rest of the article speaks to CEO&#8217;s slowing everything down this year. I went back and clicked on the link found in that first sentence&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/maybe-im-missing-something\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-trends"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-4J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1813,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/12\/the-economy-has-to-be-bad\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":0},"title":"The Economy Has To Be Bad","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The economy is not in good shape right now, but the economic reporting by the \"mainstream\" media is abysmal.\u00a0 For instance, this article from CNNMoney.com shows the writer working hard to present the positive data are really being gloomy. The opening sentence sets the table for the writer's theme: Stores\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":784,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/does-gloomy-weather-impact-productivity\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":1},"title":"Does Gloomy Weather Impact Productivity?","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"March 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, according to an article on CareerBuilder. There are more numbers and stats in the article than you can shake a stick at, but I thought I would share a couple with you (FYI, it is cold and rainy here in Minnesota today). One-in-ten workers say that they tend to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1816,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/12\/more-bad-economy\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":2},"title":"More Bad Economy","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As a follow up to my earlier post, I give you this Inc.com article.\u00a0 The opening sentence: The economic crisis has kids worried about receiving fewer gifts this holiday season, according to Node Research. Where to start on that one?\u00a0 Could this be a push poll?\u00a0 Why even do this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2191,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/12\/a-real-economic-prediction\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":3},"title":"A Real-World Economic Prediction","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This story from abcnews.com carries some weight in terms of a real economic forecast.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t good: More of America's largest companies will shrink their staffs than will hire in the next six months, according to the latest survey of their CEOs. Nineteen percent of the CEOs expect to expand\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2031,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/06\/why-is-economic-news-always-surprising\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":4},"title":"Why Is Economic News Always Surprising?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Isn\u2019t this an old marketing trick \u2013 include \u201csurprising,\u201d \u201cstunned,\u201d or \u201cunexpected\u201d in a headline?\u00a0 It seems to me that every time an economic report comes out, we are presented with one of these words to describe the data. The latest example comes from cnnmoney.com today: U.S. construction spending unexpectedly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2135,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/10\/dont-trust-the-dow\/","url_meta":{"origin":293,"position":5},"title":"Don&#8217;t Trust The Dow","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have heard many cheerleader reports attempting to claim the recession is over and the recovery has begun.\u00a0 I\u2019m not so certain especially when these people note the stock market as the leading indicator.\u00a0 This article from CNNMoney.com explains why this cheerleader approach is flawed (my bold): Several experts point\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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