News, Specter: Nation on 'Brink of a Depression' (small business, visa, tax)

[Icy Tea]

Originally Posted by broadbill

Yeah? What was the right thing to do?

>>> How about actually trying to stimulate the economy immediately instead of spending obscene amounts of money on frivolous pork projects (global warming, green technology, increasing government payrolls to name a few)? Cut taxes. Cut deficit spending so inflation isn't a serious worry. Now Obama is pushing national health care and trying to make it a culprit of the economic downturn. WTF? How about getting a non tax cheat for Treasury Secretary, one that actually knows what he's doing? How about instilling some confidence in the government and our financial systems by making the Fed tell us where those hundreds of billions dollars were spent by the banks?( although maybe if we knew we'd really panic or revolt, but that's how bad our government has become)
We could have just left Bush in office with the job Obama is doing. He'd at least do nothing while Obama either does nothing or the wrong thing.

[HappyTexan]

Now China is using their stimulus money to really build their infrastructure. Sorry to say but I think China is going to come out ahead when this is all said and done.

Very little of our stimulus money is going towards what was promised..infrastructure.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by 70Ford

The S&P 500 has declined 63 percent in real terms since 2000, while in the 1929 crash the market fell 80 percent, peak to trough.

Shiller to CFOs: Quick Action Needed to Avert "D-word" - - CFO.com

If this is true we are all in big trouble. As soon as people got scared, they stopped spending. Some can't spend now since they don't have the money, and some have seen investments and retierment shrink badly and are saving to recoup, and in case their next. And some simply see it as a good idea. It is going to be a long road to convince anyone they need to buy fancy tv's or new cars. The lesson of buying carefully, using credit gingerly, and saving just in case drove one generation. No reason it won't come to drive another one.

[Bette]

Buy American

Turn OFF the TV (so negative, negative, negative you believe it after a while and doubt your own intelligence).

Everyone is good at something. Find it. Help someone. Volunteer doing something you love. That may become your new career.

Help a friend in need. Don't ask. Just do it. Take over dinner one night for them. Bake them cookies. Go somewhere; get outside; enjoy the weather if it is nice.

Remember, you are not alone.

[bale002]

Originally Posted by Bette

Buy American

Everyone is good at something.

Often it is really difficult to find basic products made in USA.

Instead of wasting resources on subsidizing inefficient housing for deadbeats, it would have been better to subsidize basic manufacturing and worker retraining: everyone is good at something and there are still comparative advantages in the basics.

But US policymakers are still hellbent on the debt-driven consumption model, at least for the time being. It does not inspire confidence among the productive.

They may change policy once they transform a critical mass of deadbeats into debt slaves and force them to work in factories at China-comparable conditions, and analogous expectations apply to retirees whose savings they have stolen.

I already have experience in a "third-world" country, so I know what to expect. It's not that bad really, provided that the social environment is non-violent.

Godspeed.

[hindsight2020]

Originally Posted by bale002

I already have experience in a "third-world" country, so I know what to expect. It's not that bad really, provided that the social environment is non-violent.

Godspeed.

You are not far off. People scoff at the idea of America having the social construct of Brazil, Venezuela or Argentina, but it really is not that inconceivable given our current woes. Obama's wealth redistribution is rather small in scale to overcome the running away of the rich class in terms of wealth accumulation rate vis-a-vis the lower end's ability to accumulate wealth, so that's a non-starter. Granted, the folklorical construct of America is rather different than Brazilians and Argentinians, but it is not at all impossible to draw parallels.

The biggest ingredient that would make this outcome possible is the endemic apathy of the American proletariat. I can totally fathom an environment where the proletariat accepts bitterly, but obediently, a status of perma-debt to live in no better standard of living than a "middle class" brazilian, with children on the basement well into their 40s waiting for the parents to die to inherit a house that's become unattainable on inflation-ridden wages. Oh wait, that's present day New England. Anyhoo, a society where the rich will continue to see a status quo standard of living, who will continue to lobby effectively in Congress and who will continue to hedge against the economic woes of the 90% below by exploiting the usual tax loopholes and schemes. Life will surprisingly be apathetic but stable. An environment where upward social mobility is a statistical impossibility, heck present day America largely is already, and where foreigners will own a large stake of the physical land of the coasts.

All of this at the price of the proletariat's ability to have buffalo wild wings and a free commercial broadcast of the Super Bowl (a corporate event for corporate customers, the proletariat TODAY can't afford to attend, ironically) to appease their dispossession. Congratulations, you just became Brazil, and your weather sucks compared to them.

America is currently torn between the tug of war of becoming a full fledged nanny state (ol Europe), or the 300 million people addition to the south american model of de facto economic caste system (Argentina, Brazil). Neither option is desirable to the peanut gallery, but since we value the material over the abstract, instant gratification over lifetime earnings, and actually consider apathy as a value (the 'i cant individually change things therefore its dumb to worry about it, and besides i have an iphone i cant really afford anyways but thats built-in into my life expectation, so we're doing better than ethiopia and therefore things are really not that bad here' mentality), we're destined to have the capital owners eat our lunch and hold our hands into chosen slavery.

Gen Y and Z *might* eek out a livable distant reduced version of the America people THINK they live in, but Gen Y kids and beyond? they're **cked...Brush up on that portuguese and spanish, it might come in handy.
The point of this post is not to hyperbolize but to illustrate that such outcome is already underway and that sitting on your hands and asserting such outcome is just physically impossible is not going to change the path we're already in.

[broadbill]

Originally Posted by Icy Tea

>>> How about actually trying to stimulate the economy immediately instead of spending obscene amounts of money on frivolous pork projects (global warming, green technology, increasing government payrolls to name a few)? Cut taxes. Cut deficit spending so inflation isn't a serious worry. Now Obama is pushing national health care and trying to make it a culprit of the economic downturn. WTF? How about getting a non tax cheat for Treasury Secretary, one that actually knows what he's doing? How about instilling some confidence in the government and our financial systems by making the Fed tell us where those hundreds of billions dollars were spent by the banks?( although maybe if we knew we'd really panic or revolt, but that's how bad our government has become)
We could have just left Bush in office with the job Obama is doing. He'd at least do nothing while Obama either does nothing or the wrong thing.

First of all, Obama been in office for 50 days....maybe give him a couple of more weeks before you b*tch and moan about the job he's doing? As far as I can tell, he's done more than Bush did in 8 years!

Second, those "frivolous pork projects" were added by Congress, not Obama...maybe if you had checked into the pork projects a fair amount of them is from Republicans as well as democrats. So you can't really blame Obama for that one...sure he signed the bill but Congress made it clear that the only way his stimulus bill was going to through was to have pork in it. Call your representative/senator if you don't like it.

As far as the other things, I'm under the impression that he plans to do most, if not all of those things so I'm not sure what you are complaining about.

Sure, pushing through health care reform might be a bit of an over-reach, but hey...I'm a fan of ambitious people.

Whadda expect, a complete overhaul of the government in 50 days?

[bale002]

Originally Posted by hindsight2020

Brush up on that portuguese and spanish, it might come in handy.

Not only have I already done that, but I already have a small dwelling ready in a relatively obscure "third world" country with nice weather.

Actually saw this coming in the 1980s-1990s and have long prepared, based on my perception of the apathy and culturelessness of what is quickly becoming the former middle class of the golden age US and industrial Europe.

Those days are numbered, even on one hand.

Freedom does not come from a constitution among men, an overload of materialism, or from arrogant power.

[geos]

Originally Posted by bale002

Not only have I already done that, but I already have a small dwelling ready in a relatively obscure "third world" country with nice weather.

C'mon, c'mon give us a hint! I know, Hawaii!!!

[geos]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Now China is using their stimulus money to really build their infrastructure. Sorry to say but I think China is going to come out ahead when this is all said and done.

The jury's still out on that one. China faces massive water shortages, and pollution and social unrest BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China 'faces mass social unrest'

The irony is American capitalist corruption and unbridled greed led to this debacle but we may come out smelling the least bad. Europe is a mess; the euro may crumble. The strongest countries may be the oil producers esp. when oil starts to take off again.

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Very little of our stimulus money is going towards what was promised..infrastructure.

I'm disappointed more wasn't apportioned to rail, the most energy efficient form of transport.