This recession/ Depression has caused major disruptions and disasters for the banks, the automobile manufacturers, the insurance industry, as well as energy producers, but very little attention has been paid to arguably the largest industry in the United States.
I am talking about construction.
Every business begins with some attention to real estate, location and construction either past, current or future.
Commercial real estate including industrial, office, hotels, restaurants, and even parking facilities, are necessary considerations involving economic expansion.
When the economy is healthy, construction is expanding, and hundreds of thousands of new jobs are created.
When the economy is stagnant or falling, construction becomes stagnant. The depth of the recession helps to define the degree of stagnation.
Despite the optimistic mutterings of the ” experts and pundits” this is a deepening neo- depression.
Besides commercial construction, there is also infrastructure and residential .
Much of the funding for roads and bridges was supposed to come from the “stimulus” package, but the pragmatic observations are much of the money is being diverted to other applications by desperately insolvent governments, with many projects being delayed by governmental red tape, and laborious allocation bottlenecks.
The sub prime fiasco has resulted in the cessation of much new residential construction.
Defaults and foreclosures are far more prevalent than renovations or new construction in the residential market.
There is a national network of independent businesses, ranging from a Home Depot, to the small local tile installer, who account for millions of jobs.They supply, install, build and maintain the flow of residential and commercial constrction.
The sad reality is that most of these businesses are in dire financial peril as a result of this widening depression. Many of them are in real danger of going out of business, with a resulting tidal wave of new job losses.
Most being independent entrepreneurial business people , their cry of impending disaster is barely heard by the national scene, but these people are the backbone of our economy and provide the true job creations in good times and job loss in bad.
Now is bad, Very bad, and the impending crash is totally unanticipated by the National pundits.
As they are forced to close in ever increasing numbers, the unemployment figures will expand exponentially.
Look out below!!!