Recession

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet — one-tenth the size of the average new American house — and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap — that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

The Federal Reserve Board announced Thursday that it terminated an enforcement action against Baltimore-based Harbor Bankshares Corp. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond issued the action in July 2010, reaching an agreement with the holding company to take steps to shore up its finances. The company, parent of The Harbor Bank of Maryland, agreed to comply with consent orders from other regulators as well as not to pay dividends, take on more debt or redeem shares without the approval of the Federal Reserve Bank first.

Numbers fly around like bats in the attic when economists try to explain to us why a recession they claim ended in June 2009 feels like it is still hanging on. Economic indicators. Corporate earnings reports. Gross domestic product. The relative strength or weakness of the dollar. Import-export imbalances. Jobless claims. Jobs created. Housing starts. Commercial vacancy rates. Consumer confidence. Savings rates and the percent of our income that goes to paying finance charges.

Recession being the bane of piano retailers, it seems wholly remarkable that Harry Cohen and his son, Lou, decided to start selling Baldwins and Wurlitzers in 1937 - the year the economy relapsed toward the end of the Great Depression. But somehow the Cohens survived the recession of 1937 and 1938. In fact, the family business, founded in Philadelphia, thrived through three generations and extended into three states. Hundreds of families in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland bought new and used pianos from one of the Cohens over the years.

T he faltering economy hit Baltimore's arts community hard this year. The cruelest blow came in May, when the Baltimore Opera Company was liquidated, right down to sets and costumes in storage and posters on office walls. Various factions of board, staff and patrons should have come together to find a way to save the historic company, but the odds were formidable. Drops in attendance, contributions and endowment fund values (for those fortunate enough to have endowments) caused many organizations to face staff reductions, pay cuts and furloughs, postponed or canceled events.

Here's a real-world reality check regarding the consequences of random, across-the-board, federal spending cuts that began on Friday. My younger daughter is a civilian employee of one of the armed services. Last week, she received her letter of notice to furlough. She was planning to do a full kitchen remodel in her home, but even though the sequester was not a fact as yet, she decided to put off her plans due to her expected loss of income when faced with a one-day-a-week furlough.

President Bush and his economic advisers maintain that the recession is over, this week citing an upward trend in the gross national product as hard evidence of recovery. Yet, many Americans sense that the recession is not over and that the economy has sunk back down in recent months.Do you believe the recession is over? And do you believe that the economy is better, worse or unchanged in the past six months?Please let us know your opinion by calling SUNDIAL, the $H telephone information service of The Baltimore Sun. The call is local and must be made from a Touch-Tone phone.

Michael von Clemm, chairman of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets, has some gratuitous advice for George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot: "Don't win the election." Anticipating a continuing global recession marked by falling asset values and excess production capacity, he sees the next four years as burdensome for government leaders in all the industrial democracies.Their eyes on the White House, all three candidates are paying Mr. von Clemm no heed. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Perot have no hesitation in trashing the economic situation they hope to inherit from President Bush, but they have faith in their proposed remedies even if these remedies contradict one another.

Rock 'n' roll won't save your soul, and it probably won't save the economy. But it offers a glimpse of the off-again, on-again recovery and at least one bright spot in Maryland manufacturing. Thanks to its own moxie, a rebound from last year's economic crash and what's maybe a glimmer of permanent economic recovery, Paul Reed Smith Guitars has seen recent sales volume get louder than a Carlos Santana solo. "It's a knock-on-wood experience for me," says Jack Higginbotham, PRS president.

From: Angela BeltramEllicott CityThis letter is in response to Scott Miller's letter to the editor, ("Beltram: foot in mouth," March 17, The Howard County Sun.)Scott Miller must be the only person in the United States who doesn't know that we are in a recession.R-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N is defined as "a slowing down of commercial and industrial activity marked by a decrease in employment, profits, production prices and sales."Mr. Miller, let me refresh your memory: Who has been in the White House since 1980?

That's right, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., blame the subprime crisis on poor people ("Did we learn from subprime crisis?" April 21). Government over-extension of housing funds to marginal buyers is only one small part of why the crisis occurred. Instead, let's put the blame where it really lies. That would be in the repeal of Glass-Stegall which enabled banks and insurance companies to become gambling establishments, the fraudulent and illegal bundling of good loans with bad while rating these packages triple-A, the teaming of Wall Street and insurance companies which encouraged credit buying and subprime loans, the ignorance and collusion of ratings agencies, and finally the intentional laissez-faire "putting the foxes in charge of the hen house" attitude of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Four years into a so-called recovery, and we're still below recession levels in every important respect except the stock market. A measly 88,000 jobs were created in March, and total employment remains some 3 million below its pre-recession level. Labor-force participation is at its lowest level since 1979. The recovery isn't just losing steam. It never had much steam to begin with. That's because so much of our debate over economic policy has been beside the point. On one side have been Keynesians -- followers of the great British economist John Maynard Keynes -- who want more government spending and lower interest rates in order to fuel demand.

It's one of the ironies of the art world that major cultural institutions like the Baltimore Museum of Art are home to priceless collections of paintings, sculpture and other works by the world's greatest masters, yet they often struggle to come up with money to fix a leaky roof, pay the electricity bill or hire staff. We'd hesitate to guess the value of the BMA's holdings, but surely the total must reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet no museum that valued its reputation could sell off a Picasso or a Matisse every time the basement flooded or a heating and air-conditioning unit failed.

Home sales numbers released Wednesday for March offer an early indication that this spring might be the best selling season since the recession, provided that there are enough homes on the market to keep up with demand. Last month, Baltimore-area buyers entered into more than 3,200 contracts to buy homes, the first March to surpass that mark since 2007, the year the recession began, according to data collected by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the region's multiple listing service, and its affiliate, Real Estate Business Intelligence LLC. The number of homes that went under contract last month was up 5.6 percent from March 2012, RBI said.

More than five years after a financial crisis ravaged the U.S. economy, the Baltimore Museum of Art has finally run out of options. Museum administrators announced Monday that after exhausting other cost-cutting measures, they have laid off 14 employees, or 9 percent of the 154-member staff. The cuts, which affected 11 full-time and three part-time employees, took effect immediately. The job cuts are needed to make up a projected deficit of more than $500,000 by July 1, according to museum director Doreen Bolger, and to accommodate a budget that is shrinking by $1 million from its current level of $12.9 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

Not too long ago, Carroll County faced a problem: Rapid growth had brought crowded classrooms to the northeastern part of the county, and planners expected many more homes to be built in the area. "At one point, they were 400 kids over capacity at North Carroll High," said Bill Caine, facilities planner for the school system. It seemed inevitable that a new high school would be filled within a few years, so the county decided to build Manchester Valley High, which could accommodate 1,300 students -- at a cost of $80 million.

Baltimore's economic performance over the last year ranks it 179th among the 300 largest metropolitan economies worldwide, according to a new report that describes the region as "partially recovered" from the last recession. The Brookings Institution's Global MetroMonitor study, to be released today, looked at growth in employment and gross domestic product in metro areas internationally. Only two of the country's large metro areas cracked the top 50 - Houston and San Jose - and just three (Dallas, Knoxville and Pittsburgh)

Here's a real-world reality check regarding the consequences of random, across-the-board, federal spending cuts that began on Friday. My younger daughter is a civilian employee of one of the armed services. Last week, she received her letter of notice to furlough. She was planning to do a full kitchen remodel in her home, but even though the sequester was not a fact as yet, she decided to put off her plans due to her expected loss of income when faced with a one-day-a-week furlough.

Behind the counter at a convenience store in Princess Anne, Elvira Orellana worked 72 hours a week, making sandwiches, cleaning the kitchen and ordering the ingredients to prepare oxtail, curry chicken and cheese steaks. Her employer paid her $648 a week — $324 less than she was owed under laws that require that workers earn time and a half for clocking more than 40 hours a week. When she complained, Orellana said, her boss threatened to cut her wages and then fired her. Orellana's case, which she won in federal court, illustrates a problem that historically has been more pronounced in the wake of recessions.