And you don't think this recession (soon to be depression)...(sm)
Posted By: Just the big bad on 2008-11-10
In Reply to: DHL ruined Airborne all on their own. - Oh Please.
has anything to do with it? Hey, that's what republicans want, big business to grow fast--no regulation--me, me, me...
How about all those families that are going to suffer from this. Did they ask for it too?
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I meant recession, not depression. nm
Change recession to depression and I'll agree with you.
They just signed America's death warrant.
war, depression, recession, collapse of financial system, people losing
homes, natural disasters unattended to, collapsing bridges, earmark bridges. Address those first, save flag for later.
Question regarding possible recession?? s/m
With the "bubble bursting" in regards to the housing market and rising fuel prices, do you think a major recession is on the horizon in the US?
I definitely think so, but was wondering what others think?
The Whiner's Recession
Senator McCain and his friends no doubt still believe that the economy's fundamentals are strong, but Friday's jobs numbers clearly show how bad things have gotten. The 6.1 percent unemployment rate reported for August is almost as high as the worst levels from the last recession. A broader measure of labor market weakness, that includes people who can only find part-time work or who have given up looking for jobs, is higher than at any point in the last recession.
When the labor market weakens, workers have less bargaining power with their employers. As a result, wages are trailing more than 2 percentage points behind inflation over the last year.
Wages are virtually the entire income for most workers. If the purchasing power of their wages falls by 2 percent, this is the equivalent of a 2 percentage point increase in their tax rate.
This is worth thinking about. Most workers in the country have just seen the equivalent of a 2 percentage point increase in their tax rate, and it has gotten almost no attention. By contrast, Senator McCain is claiming that the economy will collapse if we increase the tax rate by 3.6 percentage points for people who can't remember how many homes they own.
It is easy to understand how a typical family experiences real hardship when their wages don't keep up with the price of food, gas, and heating oil. It's a bit harder to understand how the folks who can't keep track of their homes will suffer by restoring tax rates to the Clinton-era levels.
This brings us to the other important point about the Friday jobs numbers. The economy is in bad shape and getting worse. This disaster is happening while we are experimenting with the tax policies advocated by Senator McCain. We have an economy that is now shedding jobs at the rate of almost 100,000 a month. There is no prospect of turnaround in sight. We could have half a million fewer jobs by the time the next president is sworn into office than we do today.
This is the Bush-McCain economy. Senator McCain may have forgotten, but President Bush already tried his economic policies and the results are not good. We have just been through a business cycle in which the wage of the typical worker and the typical working family fell. This is the first time that has ever happened.
As bad as the situation is, it will surely get worse as the recession deepens. Wages and incomes will fall further behind inflation as the unemployment rate continues to rise. By contrast, the Clinton-era tax rates were associated with the most prosperous period since the early seventies.
As I have written many times, Clinton's policies do not deserve all the credit for the prosperity of the late 90s, and President Bush's polices do not deserve all the blame for the economy's poor performance in the current decade.
However, it strains credulity to argue that the Clinton-era tax rates are a recipe for stagnation, while the Bush-McCain tax cuts for the rich are the road to prosperity. When he pushes his tax cuts as a remedy for the economy's ills, Senator McCain is effectively imitating Groucho Marx's famous line: "what are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
At this point, McCain should be embarrassed to even say that tax cuts for the rich help the economy. Tax cuts for the rich help the rich, they don't help the economy. It's that simple.
This economic catastrophe was many years in the making. There is no painless way to recover from the collapse of the housing bubble and the correction from an over-valued dollar. We do know that Senator McCain's plan to keep giving the rich more money is not a road to prosperity because that is exactly what we have been doing.
We can't know exactly how Senator Obama will address the economy's problems if he takes office in January in part because we don't know exactly where the economy will be. However, a plan that focuses on supporting ordinary workers and promoting clean technologies, is likely to produce much better results than policies that are focused on redistributing even more income to the wealthy.
http://www.truthout.org/article/the-whiners-recession
That happened to me the last recession we had...
and it took a good 6 years to right itself after the economy straightened out. And when it did...money went right into a CD. I don't mind a little in the market but I am not young enough to wait several years for rebounding again. Sigh.
I'm sure a lot of us knew a recession
was coming long before the "experts" knew it. All they had to do was to be Americans who were trying to fill up their gas tanks, feed their families and try to hang on to their jobs. I just read an article the other day where someone in the government finally admitted that we've been in a recession that they believe will last another 14 months. (Can't remember who said it; will try to find the link.) This is after months and months of denials, although most everday folks felt like they were in a recession long before hearing it "officially."
If they are only now admitting to a recession, that tells me that we're in the beginnings of a full-fledged DEPRESSION.
Add terror threats, a war between Iran and Israel and the USA, perhaps provoking a terror attack (real or "false flag"), people becoming so poor in this country that their fear is replaced with anger, and voila!! The US soldiers that are lying in wait for us to "misbehave" as tensions arise so they can keep us in line, just might have their work cut out for them...especially if we suffer another attack on our soil.
We've got crooks running the Treasury Department, all chosen from the same failing companies for which they worked.
The Wall Street "crisis" came on so quickly and so urgently that nobody knew what to do.
Well, Bush knew what to do. First, he hired Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs fame, the company that received a $3 billion payout, who then went on to appoint Michael Alix to "oversee things." This is the same Michael Alix who was in control of "overseeing things" at Bear Stearns (we remember how well that whole Bear Stearns thing worked out.) Paulson then went on to appoint Neel Kashkari (another Goldman Sachs graduate).
Bush has selected these men, either personally or through Paulson, because he knows that THEY know how to play the system and accentuate the greed. He hired people who aren't on America's side at all. They're part of Bush's "Haves," and the rest of average Americans -- the "have nots" -- aren't even in the picture, except as it pertains to how much money has been stolen from our accounts. Bush has always has been about greed. He still is. When a government begins to buy banks, it's at the very least socialism (if not, more accurately, fascism). For all intents and purposes, this money could easily be in Bush's pockets. We don't and won't know this because this particular sweetheart deal came with NO oversight and NO transparency as conditions on the part of Bush. By the way, Bush bought a ranch in Paraguay.
Basically, Bush had a lot of knowledgeable, independent people who had NO conflict of interest from having been senior executives of the failed companies from which he could have chosen.
Instead, he chose those who were at the very top to the crooks (if not the crooks themselves.)
In short, Bush hired the foxes to watch the hen houses. No doubt in my mind that Bush's pockets are going to be pretty full soon if they're not already.
The arrogance with which these auto executives presented their testimony is reminiscent of all the arrogant people who surround themselves with the Arrogant-In-Chief.
In the middle of all this, though, I do see somewhat of a silver lining. The less money people have to spend, the lower prices will be forced to go -- all that supply and demand stuff.
Enter Obama's "bottom-up" theory. Once the lives of the least of us can improve a bit, that will hopefully trickle up to everyone else.
I also heard an excellent idea on TV recently: That every single CEO of a company should NEVER earn more than the President of the United States. I kind of liked that one. 
P.S. I apologize if this post doesn't make any sense. I'm very heavily medicated right now and probably shouldn't even be at the computer. I've tried to write this as coherently as I could. If I failed, I apologize.
Hope you all have a great evening. 
Worried about a recession?? Here's the solution s/m
With Recession Looming, Bush Tells America To ‘Go Shopping More’
Today, President Bush held a news conference where he discussed the “way forward” for the economy in 2007. Renowned Morgan Stanley economist Steven Roach says the the “odds of the U.S. economy tipping into recession are about 40 to 45 per cent.” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that “the odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1,” that the U.S. will teeter toward a recession in 2007. Bush’s solution? “Go shopping more.”
Michigan is in a one state recession. sm
The big 3 are tanking, our unemployment numbers are higher than the nation as a whole, jobs are leaving like the spring thaw, and who does Obama pick as part of his "Financial Advisory Committee"....none other than our wonderful governor, Jennifer Granholm. She can't advise her own state let alone the country. She now says that we have to cut the budget even more than last time. There isn't a whole lot left to cut. Our education system is absolutely the pits, Detroit is bankrupting us all, and she gets picked for part of the financial advisory committee. Makes me wonder what's going in Obama's head.
Oh well, at least I have a trade I can take with me where ever I go. The ultimate in healthcare portability.
Recession, Suicide and Tips from the Government!
This isn't terribly reassuring! 
Government website now offers 'suicide warning signs' for victims of recession
John Byrne
Published: Tuesday March 31, 2009
When the government starts warning you not to commit suicide, you know things have gotten bad.
The US Department of Health and Human Services now has a webpage for the current recession, "Getting Through Tough Economic Times." Headlined under the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (www.samhsa.gov/economy/), the guide offers tips on "how to deal with the effects financial difficulties can have on your physical and mental health." The site went public Tuesday.
The remainder of the story is at: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Government_website_offers_suicide_warning_signs_0331.html
The Great Recession. American a thrift nation.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891527,00.html?cnn=yes
Sometimes we change because we want to: lose weight, go vegan, find God, get sober. But sometimes we change because we have no choice, and since this violates our manifest destiny to do as we please, it may take a while before we notice that those are often the changes we need to make most. We ran a good long road test of the premise that more is better: we built houses that could hold all our stuff but were too big to heat; we bought cars that could ferry a soccer team but were too big to park; we thought we were embracing the simple life by squeezing in a yoga class between working and shopping and took an extra job to pay for it all.
Now we're stripping down and starting over. A platoon of TIME reporters and pollsters fanned out to every corner of the country to measure — anecdotally and empirically — what's changed in the way we set our priorities and spend our money since the Great Recession began. Most people think the pain will be lasting and the effects permanent: only 12% expect economic recovery to begin within six months, half believe it will be another year or two, and 14% believe we are at the start of a long-term decline. (See TIME's special report on how Americans have adjusted to the recession.)
Our institutions watch for economic vital signs. But maybe, for individuals, the sickness is what came before — the hallucination that debt would never need to be repaid, that values only rise, that bubbles never burst. When the markets collapsed, that fever broke. In our assumptions and attitudes and expectations, the recovery is already well under way.
Talk to people not just about how they feel but about how they're living now, and you hear more resolve than regret. Nearly half say their economic status declined this year, and 57% now think the American Dream is harder to achieve. And yet pain and promise are a package deal; even after all this, fully 56% believe that America's best days are ahead. It would be nice if it took something short of a heart attack to get us to work out, eat better and spend more time with our kids. But in the end, where we wind up matters more than how we got there.
Unlike any other downturn since the 1930s, this one has affected everyone, either the fact of it or the fear of it. Even when prosperity returns, 61% predict, they'll continue to spend less than they did before. Among people earning less than $50,000 a year — roughly half of U.S. households — 34% have not gone to the doctor because of the cost, 31% have been out of work at some point, and 13% have been hungry. At the same time, 4 in 10 people earning more than $100,000 say they are buying more store brands, 36% are using coupons more, and 39% have postponed or canceled a vacation to save money. Forty percent of people at all income levels say they feel anxious, 32% have trouble sleeping, and 20% are depressed. After a season of big news, of war and storms and swindlers, pirates and poison peanut butter, 43% are watching the news even more, taking the medicine even if it tastes bad because skipping it could be risky. (See the worst business deals of 2008.)
The calculus of life suddenly offers new equations. Insurance agents see clients raising their deductibles to lower premiums, or skipping collision coverage for older cars so that they bear more of the risks themselves. Twenty-seven percent have raided their retirement or college savings to pay the bills. Violent crime may not be up, but fear of it is: 40% of people say that since the downturn began, they are more worried about their personal safety. Gun sales at large retail stores have jumped 39% this year, according to the SportsOneSource, a research firm that tracks the sporting-goods industry, and shops are reporting ammunition shortages; they can't keep up with demand.
For all the reflexive analogies, this is not the 1930s, when Babe Ruth took a $10,000 salary cut (roughly what A-Rod earns per swing) and New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker told theaters to show only cheery films. And yet we're channeling our grandparents, who were taught, like a mantra, to use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without. Now, if you can make it, you don't have to buy it: just replace the lawn with a vegetable garden, eat your fill and then store whatever is left. Sales of canning and freezing supplies rose 15% during the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year. Cough- and cold-remedy sales are down 9% because you can make your own chicken soup; vitamin sales are up, maybe because you hope you won't need to. Common sense is back in style, meaning we're less willing to buy what we can have for free: bottled-water sales have dropped 10%. The 137-year-old Los Angeles public library system set record highs in circulation and visitors. And film and camera sales have plunged 33% this year, because who would want this winter in their album?
There's a natural longing to find the upside in the downturn. A college-admissions officer, watching families reassess their means and ends, suggests that maybe the insane competitiveness will recede. The yoga instructor says living more simply relaxes us, as if the entire country needs to slow its breathing. The buyer at the used-car lot feels both frugal and green: that hatchback isn't used, it's "pre-owned," and this counts as recycling. The discount shoppers view their task as a scavenger hunt and take a certain pride in finding the bargain, cutting the deal; 23% of us are haggling more, a profitable contact sport.
No one wishes for hardship. But as we pick through the economic rubble, we may find that our riches have buried our treasures. Money does not buy happiness; Scripture asserts this, research confirms it. Once you reach the median level of income, roughly $50,000 a year, wealth and contentment go their separate ways, and studies find that a millionaire is no more likely to be happy than someone earning one-twentieth as much. Now a third of people polled say they are spending more time with family and friends, and nearly four times as many people say their relations with their kids have gotten better during this crisis than say they have gotten worse.
A consumer culture invites us to want more than we can ever have; a culture of thrift invites us to be grateful for whatever we can get. So we pass the time by tending our gardens and patching our safety nets and debating whether, years from now, this season will be remembered for what we lost, or all that we found.
And George kept up with those "we are not in a recession" speeches, hilarious but tragic....nm
nm
George Soros is having "a very good recession". Made $2.9 billion.
So, this "man of the people" who funds the loony left and wants all the rest of us to be communists rakes in $billions from the recession. He's out there picking up stuff at bargain-basement prices just like JP Morgan and his kind did.
Disgusting.
Nation has lost 4.4 million jobs since recession began in Dec. 2007
Unemployment rate soars to 8.1 percent
Employers resort to even bigger layoffs as they scramble to survive
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
updated 8:02 a.m. CT, Fri., March. 6, 2009
WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs.
Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department's report shows America's workers being clobbered by a relentless wave of layoffs.
The net loss of jobs in February came after even deeper payroll reductions in the prior two months, according to revised figures. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and another 655,000 in January.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs, more than half of which occurred in the past four months.
Employers are shrinking their work forces at alarming clip and are turning to other ways to slash costs — including trimming workers' hours, freezing wages or cutting pay — because the recession has eaten into their sales and profits. Customers at home and abroad are cutting back as other countries cope with their own economic problems.
With employers showing no appetite to hire, the unemployment jumped to 8.1 percent from 7.6 percent in January. That was the highest since December 1983, when the jobless rate was 8.3 percent.
All told, the number of unemployed people climbed to 12.5 million. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for "economic reasons" rose by a sharp 787,000 to 8.6 million. That's people who would like to work full time but whose hours were cut back or were unable to find full-time work.
Meanwhile, the average work week in February stayed at 33.3 hours, matching the record low set in December.
Job losses were widespread in February.
Construction companies eliminated 104,000 jobs. Factories axed 168,000. Retailers cut nearly 40,000. Professional and business services got rid of 180,000, with 78,000 jobs lost at temporary-help agencies. Financial companies reduced payrolls by 44,000. Leisure and hospitality firms chopped 33,000 positions.
The few areas spared: education and health services, as well as government, which boosted employment last month.
A new wave of layoffs hit this week.
General Dynamics Corp. said Thursday it will lay off 1,200 workers due partly to plummeting sales of business and personal jets that forced it to cut production. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., and Tyco Electronics Ltd., which makes electronic components, undersea telecommunications systems and wireless equipment, also are trimming payrolls.
"This is basically cleaning house for a lot of firms," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. "They are using the first quarter to cut back employment and figure out what they want."
Disappearing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench, driving companies to lay off workers. It's a vicious cycle in which all the economy's negative problems feed on each other, worsening the downward spiral.
"The economy is in a tailspin. Businesses are jettisoning jobs at an unprecedented pace," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research.
The country is getting bloodied by fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises_ the worst since the 1930s. And there's no easy fix for a quick turnaround, economists said.
President Barack Obama is counting on a multipronged assault to lift the country out of recession: a $787 billion stimulus package of increased federal spending and tax cuts; a revamped, multibillion-dollar bailout program for the nation's troubled banks; and a $75 billion effort to stem home foreclosures.
Even in the best-case scenario that the relief efforts work and the recession ends later in 2009, the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing, hitting 9 percent or higher this year. In fact, the Federal Reserve thinks the unemployment rate will stay elevated into 2011. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013.
Businesses won't be inclined to ramp up hiring until they are sure any economic recovery has staying power.
The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and it will probably continue to shrink during the first six months of this year.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress earlier this week that recent economic barometers "show little sign of improvement" and suggest that "labor market conditions may have worsened further in recent weeks."
Consumers’ growing frugality has hammered automakers, among other industries. General Motors Corp.'s auditors on Thursday raised "substantial doubt" about the auto giant’s ability to continue operations, and the company said it might have to seek bankruptcy protection, sending its shares below $2.
Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association, said his group’s members are reporting record increases in deposits. Government figures show the savings rate jumped to 5 percent in January from zero last spring. That’s the highest rate since 1995 and a much faster shift than he had expected, Hampel said.
Consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of the economy. It topped out at 71 percent in 2005, Hampel said, but will likely drop by 2 to 3 percentage points over the next few years.
Increased savings can actually lower economic growth. Economists call it the “paradox of thrift”: What’s good for each of us individually — being thrifty, limiting our spending — can worsen a recession when everyone does it all at once.
Hoffman said about half the 6.2 percent drop in economic output last quarter was attributable to lower consumer spending.
Actually, it might very likely to into depression anyway,
is not so all-powerful that they can put the brakes on something that has taken on a life of its own. Unless the cogs that drive this economy are retooled (and that would mean the way banks operate, loans are made, homes are bought and sold, and priced, stocks are valued and invested in, yet), American workers/investors are going to come up with more realistic and less-speculative ways to make their money work for THEM, and not just some rich guy sitting on his 40-foot yacht.
If a depression is what you want...YES.
Obama is your man.
Oh, no ...DEPRESSION is exactly what we are
nm
I believe we will go into a depression
regardless of which idea they go with. I really don't think there is anyway out of this.
You know what really bugs me....and this is kind along the lines of the topic of equal pay........
If a caucasian male is making more money for doing the same job as an african american, by law the african american has the right to sue for legal pay. I'm cool with that. If you do the same job and think you deserve the same pay....more power to you. If an african american is making more money for doing the same job as a caucasian, the caucasian has no legal rights to sue for equal pay. I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound equal to me.
can you spell depression?
x
Yes, I think there is a depression coming if it isn't already here. sm
I live in Michigan, on the west side of the state, but nonetheless in Michigan. We are so tied up in the auto industry that if the Big 3 crash and burn, Michigan may well just cease to exist. We have had 3 auto parts plants close down, Steelcase and Herman Miller are cutting jobs, because people are not hiring, so why make all that office furniture. There is nothing incoming to help take up the slack. Then, I heard on the news this morning that the city of Detroit has now appealed to the feds for help to bail it out. Detroit IS big 3 auto country. If Detroit tanks, so goes the rest of the state. Kwame Kilpatrick fallout not withstanding.
I like to think that as long as people get sick, I will have a job because I do acute care. And we all know that there are people who use the ED as a PCP. Hopefully my doctor in AZ can help me out, but he is a specialist, so who knows.
My 403(b) has lost half of what it used to be, and then I hear that they have suspended the sales of MRE's. But I think that is just over-excitable hype.
However....I have a feeling that the "Great Depression" 2008 style is coming. I don't think the "End Times" is coming, but something has to give or the United States of America will become another third world country.
Michigan is in a depression.
I was born and raised in Michigan. Your state has been hit hard. I live in the Northwest and in my neighborhood, I have 8 new families who have moved in and guess where they are from? Michigan. A lot of my family members in Michigan believe that the Oil companies should bail out the 3 car companies, not from taxpayers money. Family members do not seem to care if the car companies fold because they are already in worse shape. My cousin, last family relative working for the GM, took an early retirement package given to him 2-3 weeks BEFORE the financial crisis hit US. He was very lucky. I have family members considering moving to the Northwest and 1 family already is here and just love it.
depression statistics
This sounds familiar:
http://eh.net/Clio/Publications/unemployment.html
I guess my depression medication
must be working because I am happy to see in our lifetime that a woman and an African American can run for the presidency and possibly win. Times are changing. People are opening their eyes to a new day. Maybe we won't see a change in the economy in the near future, but we should all do our part to at least try to put lawmakers into office who have the peoples' best interest at heart. We pay taxes and these elected officials work for us. We can start by putting state representatives in office who will work for us in Washington. We voted for them and we can fire them. They work for us. We do have a voice.
All getting so depression. I doubt there is a single
nm
strategies for coping with the depression
I am paying off debt. Made my garden bigger. Planted some fruit trees. Stocked my pantry. But I don't want to take in any relatives......I would rather pass out free zuchini.
If we are in a full blown depression...(sm)
then I think the number of illegals coming into the country will lessen. If we can't offer them anything better here why would they come? I think there will be more pressure on the ones here because they will be competing for jobs. When Americans can't find jobs, I think they will be more likely to point out illegals or suspected illegals to lessen competition.
Another book about the Great Depression
The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. I'm about halfway through it now and it's amazing - it could have been written about the last several years instead of the 1920s.
The people during the Great Depression were more self-sufficient that we are. sm
They could make a loaf of bread and farmed. They bartered for goods and services. They also had sound money (gold and silver) unless they left it in a bank deposit box or were duped into letting it be confiscated.
Thanks to the amended version of the Patriot Act, it is against the law to hoard food and water. Bank runs or inciting bank runs is a felony. Imagine that, it is against the law to try and protect your money. These crooks have everything covered.
Per the experts, we officially went into a depression today...nm
.
poll: how many think we are headed for another great depression
me for one
It is not HATE, it is love of country and depression
nm
Tent cities=Great Depression
Go to timesonline.co.uk and search for California tent cities. The homeless shelters there are OVERWHELMED and turn away as much as 200 people A NIGHT!!!! There are over 300 people living in one tent city ALONE! And these are not bums or derelicts, these are low to middle class income people who had been living paycheck to paycheck as most americans do, and lost their jobs and cannot find work.
Gee, and when was the last time this country saw tent cities like this? The Great Depression.
The unemployment rate in California is over 10% and has risen to 15% in some of the hardest hit states in the country. To say that this has been fabricated and that there is no crisis is just more of the republican elitist socially darwinistic pile of horse @!$%# that has been pervading the GOP.
It's time for all of you hard right conservatives to pull your head out of the sand and take a really good look at what YOUR republican president did to this country in the course of 8 years. Obama inherited one of the biggest messes in this country's history, and you are pssed off that he hasn't "fixed" it yet?!! Are you kidding!? He's been in office for not even two months. It took the Great Depression over a decade to be resolved, and your screaming over 2 MONTHS!!!!!!????
There are a lot of people hurting. And guess what, the CEO @!$%#s that helped cause the mess are laughing all the way to their bank accounts in Grand Cayman and couldn't give a @!$%# about the rest of the country. And who helped them get their egregious bonuses and compensation? Hmmmm, couldn't be the republicans that were in power for HOW LONG!!?? I'll tell you: from 1994-2006. Hmmmm, just long enough to deregulate the banks and lower the taxes on the wealthy enough to create the largest income gap in this country since the Industrial revolution.
The republicans f'd up big time. That is why they lost control. And they are continuing on that same wretched path with NO IDEAS on how to fix the mess they are mostly responsible for creating. Except tax cuts for the wealthy. The GOP mantra. It's BS and you all need to stop buying into the rhetoric.
I am hoping with all my heart that Obama is a successful president and is doing what needs to be done to rectify this nation. Yes, he may fail. That is a risk you take with ANY president. But if any of you have even half a functioning brain you would wish for success as well. His failure will mean the failure of our country. And I don't know about you, but I certainly hope I never see that day.
McCain's top economic advisor says we are in a "mental depression" sm
and additionally says that we are a nation of "whiners.' McCains top economic advisor is Phil Gramm.
How do you feel about these remarks? Additionally have you or someone you know been experiencing tough times in the last year?
I feel no hope, but a huge depression coming.
it is going to be a long, crazy, up and down, scary ride. I do not see any hope, but failure for this country. Will NEVER be the same. You all who wanted change are going to get it. I am not sure what change the O keeps talking about, but it does not sound good to me at all. I want to have hope, but I cannot stand who the O picked for Chief of Staff. Hiliary Clinton stated yesterday, IN HER OWN WORDS, were not good about him at all. The only vocabulary that he has coming out of his mouth is 4-letter words. He is nothing but a JERK. So I guess that means we all can act like Rahm Emanuel and maybe we all can get somewhere in life? I do not think so, but that is who the O picked. I guess I should read DickMorris' book when he worked with President Clinton and Rhambo who is not very trusthworthy individual. It seems to me is psycho. Starting to stock up on paper products, toilet paper, paper towels and even tampons since paper products were hard to find during the depression. If the car companies do not get bailed out, look out country. I do have mixed feelings about bailing out car companies though. I wish we could, but then it will be bailing them out for the next 2 years and then next in line will be airline companies. WE DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO DO THIS.
Book about Great Depression, 1928 and 1929.
BOOK: The Crisis Of The Old Order By: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
In 1928 and 1929, the nation had reached, it seemed, a permanent plateau of prosperity. Businesses expanding. Foreign trade growing. The stock market was continuing to rise. And national leadership could not now be in more expert or safer hands. "I have no fears for the future of our country," said Herbert Hoover in his inaugural address in March 1929. "It is bright with hope."
There remained a few discordant voices, anxious in the main over the stock market boom. In spring 1929, Hoover summoned a special session of Congress to deal with these issues. The session was not a success. The Board's purpose was to control the flow of commodities to the market; one provision was to control temporary surpluses. The session adjourned from April to November without taking action on the tariff. Hoover wanted state public lands and reclamatin projects and related irrigation matters be withdrawn from national control and states to manage these affairs then Federal Government. President's attitude toward utilities regulation was similar.
Yet most Americans remained more interested in teh stock market than economic question and the few interest as now beginning to turn into concern.
Early 1929, Federal Reserve Board under pressures of NY Federal Reserve Bank, finally consented to warn member banks that they should not lend money for speculative purposes. But did not work. Some argued that a restrictive policy might well induce deflation. The board felt it created "a state of mind which breeds depression." It was certainly true that reducing the interest rate was a clumsy way of combatting THE BOOM. As long as the stock market offered highest returns, it was bound to have first call on funds. Higher interest rate would have slowed down investment, cause capitalization process and bring down prices of ALL CAPITAL ASSETS and thus discourage investment. President Hoover did nothing as he was preoccupied with his own mind and watched the Board run the course.
CHECK THIS OUT!!! Finally by summer 1929, some danger signs were apparent, STARTLING DECLINE IN BULIDING CONTRACTS. Residential construction for the entire year SANK. CONSUMER SPENDING WAS SLACKENING. By midsummer 1929, building began to fall off, wholesale commodity prices dropped. In August, Federal Reserve Board finally agreed to raise to 6 percent. In September Stock Exchange price were at the highest. On October 23, PRICES STARTED FALLING. WALL STREET WAS SHAKEN. Anxiety was suddenly infectious. As panic spread, stocks dropped. Hoover stated, "The fundamental business of the country, that is production and distribution of commodities is a sound and prosperous basis." As prices held for a week, bankers QUIETLY fed back into the stock market that they had bought on Black Thursday for further future storms.
Banks protected themselves against their customers. On Monday, new explosion of gloom and panic happend. General Motors stock lost nearly 2 million. It soon was an avalanche, vast numbers rushing to get out of the market. By noon, 8 million shares traded hands and by closing time, Exchange had broken all records with 16 million shares. By mid November the financial community began to survey the wreckage. New York Stock Exchange had fallen 40 percent in value.
CAUSE OF THE CRASH: Management's disposition to maintain prices and inflate profits while holding down wages and raw material prices meant that workers and farmers were denied benefits of increases in their own productivity. Decline of mass purchasing power (like our real estate in 2005?) as goods flowed out of expanding capital plant in ever greater quantities, less and less cash in the hands of buyers to carry goods off the market. Seven years of fixed capital investment at high rates had overbuilt productive capacity and had thus saturated the economy. The slackening of the automotive and building industries. Businessmen trying TO SAVE THEMSELVES COULD ONLY WRECK THEIR SYSTEM. Representing the financiers, it had ignored irresponsible practices in the securities of the markets. Ignored the weight of private debt. Result was both class and national disaster.
Counterinsurgents thrust nation into full blown depression.
How is that possible? Looks like we still have quite a ways to go before we hit the Rovian rock bottom.
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