What the He## Happened to the Economy!

[Opinion]

It seemed the economy was ok several months ago?
So what happened?
I can think of several things:

The cost of the Iraq war putting the US in debt.
High gas prices hurting the economy and money going overseas.
The housing bubble bursting.
The Fed chairman panicking and stating the financial industry is in trouble, thereby causing a panic!
The potential for higher capital gains taxes means money is leaving the stock market and current money is being held out of the stock market.
General exhaustion of credit of the American consumer.

The perfect storm?

I heard a speaker on the radio today talk about how the world economy is tied into the US consumer. I think it is frightening that the world economy is dependent on the US consumer buying plastic junk from overseas. Like Chinese plastic junk and poisoned toys, food and medicine!

Well, this puts a slowdown on global warming and greenhouse gasses.

If the world economy is a house of cards of American consumers buying junk from overseas with credit then we need a new system!

Down with Capitalism!
Did I just say that!

Hippies mommy Hippies, they want to save the world but all they do is smoke pot and smell funny! Bonus points if you know who said that?

[aslan]

Originally Posted by Opinion

It seemed the economy was ok several months ago?
So what happened?
I can think of several things:

The cost of the Iraq war putting the US in debt.
High gas prices hurting the economy and money going overseas.
The housing bubble bursting.
The Fed chairman panicking and stating the financial industry is in trouble, thereby causing a panic!
The potential for higher capital gains taxes means money is leaving the stock market and current money is being held out of the stock market.
General exhaustion of credit of the American consumer.

The perfect storm?

I heard a speaker on the radio today talk about how the world economy is tied into the US consumer. I think it is frightening that the world economy is dependent on the US consumer buying plastic junk from overseas. Like Chinese plastic junk and poisoned toys, food and medicine!

Well, this puts a slowdown on global warming and greenhouse gasses.

If the world economy is a house of cards of American consumers buying junk from overseas with credit then we need a new system!

Down with Capitalism!
Did I just say that!

Hippies mommy Hippies, they want to save the world but all they do is smoke pot and smell funny! Bonus points if you know who said that?

Cartman.

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by Opinion

It seemed the economy was ok several months ago?
So what happened?

Did NOT seem like economy was OK - thats a Bushism.
Economy ain't been OK for 2+ decades. zg

[aslan]

Originally Posted by zengrifter

Did NOT seem like economy was OK - thats a Bushism.
Economy ain't been OK for 2+ decades. zg

Democrats say it was......................................... Republicans say it was
okay under Clinton............................................... okay under Bush

It wasn't okay under either!
that's a Bushism!

Hey! Why are you picking on Bush again. I thought you were an equal party hater. You could just as well call it a Clintonism! Or maybe a Clinbusism, or a Busclinism or a Georbillism. That's the ticket, a Georbillism! And perpetuated by all those Georbills (pronounced jurbils) running around the floor of Congress!

\

[cardcounter0]

It seemed the economy was ok several months ago?

Really? Could you find one economic or statistical measure that seemed okay?
Manufacturing index at 26 year low, Home prices down for 7 straight quarters, inflation increasing, record national debt and growing, record bankruptcy, record home foreclosure, increasing unemployment, lowest job growth ever, decreasing consumer spending, decrease in average income...

Just what part of the economy "seemed" okay several months ago?

[GeorgeD]

Originally Posted by cardcounter0

Really? Could you find one economic or statistical measure that seemed okay?
Manufacturing index at 26 year low, Home prices down for 7 straight quarters, inflation increasing, record national debt and growing, record bankruptcy, record home foreclosure, increasing unemployment, lowest job growth ever, decreasing consumer spending, decrease in average income...

Just what part of the economy "seemed" okay several months ago?

Stocks were good in 2007 and that's what people notice because they have an IRA. Most people who have a decent means of support don't notice unemployment, job growth, etc. But in retrospect you're right all the signs were there.

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by aslan

Hey! Why are you picking on Bush again. I thought you were an equal party hater. You could just as well call it a Clintonism! Or maybe a Clinbusism, or a Busclinism or a Georbillism. That's the ticket, a Georbillism! And perpetuated by all those Georbills (pronounced jurbils) running around the floor of Congress!

Bush: STUPID
Clinton: SLICK

[QFIT]

The economy started failing about 4-5 years ago. The credit crunch was predicted about the same time. There was no question that the administration concept of no regulation was going to cause a disaster even among most institutional investors. The concept of “self-regulation” is amazingly naive. It’s like saying that we should remove all laws and let the people “self-regulate.” It’s saying that the citizenry must follow laws, but most laws regulating business are somehow “bad.” Businesses are famous for terrible self-regulation.

Bush was a master at “self-regulation.” He put in charge of mine safety a mine owner against mine-safety regulations. He put in charge of government lands a person that gave a speech against federal ownership of land. We all know who he put in charge of FEMA. Department by department he put people in that did not believe in the very purpose of the departments or of any government regulation, or pure political appointees. He destroyed the government. And yes, I’m afraid that people’s actions do need to be regulated.

We have a new President-elect and hopefully we will crawl back to sanity. The hole is so deep it will take quite awhile. Unfortunately, some major players want failure. Rush Limbaugh has already blamed Obama for the economy calling it the Obama Recession, even though he isn’t even in office. Rush has sworn to fight the new government and wants it to fail. We will always have enemies like that.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by QFIT

The economy started failing about 4-5 years ago. The credit crunch was predicted about the same time. There was no question that the administration concept of no regulation was going to cause a disaster even among most institutional investors. The concept of “self-regulation” is amazingly naive. It’s like saying that we should remove all laws and let the people “self-regulate.” It’s saying that the citizenry must follow laws, but most laws regulating business are somehow “bad.” Businesses are famous for terrible self-regulation.

Bush was a master at “self-regulation.” He put in charge of mine safety a mine owner against mine-safety regulations. He put in charge of government lands a person that gave a speech against federal ownership of land. We all know who he put in charge of FEMA. Department by department he put people in that did not believe in the very purpose of the departments or of any government regulation, or pure political appointees. He destroyed the government. And yes, I’m afraid that people’s actions do need to be regulated.

We have a new President-elect and hopefully we will crawl back to sanity. The hole is so deep it will take quite awhile. Unfortunately, some major players want failure. Rush Limbaugh has already blamed Obama for the economy calling it the Obama Recession, even though he isn’t even in office. Rush has sworn to fight the new government and wants it to fail. We will always have enemies like that.

One of the lies spread about Republicans is that they are for no regulation. It was Bush himself who called for more regulation to rein in Fannie Mae all the way back in 2003 and then John McCain co-sponsored a bill to rein in Fannie Mae in 2005. Neither party would support these calls for restraint. Conservatives are against over-regulation, which serves to stifle commerce, but have always been for responsible regulation. Conservatives are also against state ownership of industry, variously called fascism, socialism and other names depending on the specifics. They fail everywhere they have been tried. So, Qfit got it right--it all started about the time Bush and McCain were ignored by both parties, and especially Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, who led the bandwagon for easy, unqualified home loans. Dodd and Obama, in fact, were the chief recipients by far, of money contributions by Fannie Mae. Yes, we are crawling back, but some of them are crawling back because they don't want the public to recognize that it was they who got us into trouble in the first place.

In all fairness, it will only be Obama's recession if he does what he promised to do in his campaign, namely, raise taxes and increase spending. Hopefully that was said just to get elected, and he will adopt a conservative policy that will turn things around.

It was interesting to hear on one of the hews shows over the last two days that Ireland, which had the worst economy of all the European countries, lowered its income tax rate from 48% to 12% and has now become the most thriving economy in Europe. It works. tax and spend does not. Neither does lower taxes and spend work, as foolishly tried by Bush. Spending restraint has to be part of the equation.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by cardcounter0

Really? Could you find one economic or statistical measure that seemed okay?
Manufacturing index at 26 year low, Home prices down for 7 straight quarters, inflation increasing, record national debt and growing, record bankruptcy, record home foreclosure, increasing unemployment, lowest job growth ever, decreasing consumer spending, decrease in average income...

Just what part of the economy "seemed" okay several months ago?

You overstated the case. No, the economy wasn't good several months ago. However, inflation was not yet problematic as it was in the days of Jimmy Carter with double digit interest rates, nor was unemployment in terrible shape since 6% has traditionally been considered full employment and it was lower than that then, and since 1945 there has been record national debt each and every year and growing, not to make light of the fact that it is preposterously high at the present time. Except for the real estate market, the American automobile industry, and gasoline prices, the economy was chugging along pretty well, considering there were two wars going on. Bush didn't cause the real estate bust, but he did try to get Congress to rein in Fannie Mae. Bush didn't cause the problems in the automotive industry; it's a problem that no one seems to know how to fix to this day. And Bush didn't cause the rise in gasoline prices, even though his buddies profited; but we do have to become energy independent, whether it means drilling, nukes or greater use of natural gas, for starters. Congress neds to get on the stick.