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The Mortgage Mess (sub-prime, option ARM, cash out refinancing, etc.)
Depreciating home values
Credit card debt, pay day loans, title loans
The price of gas heading up
High student loans folks can't pay back
Inability to file bankruptcy due to tightening rules
The Credit Crunch that started in August
The increased price of groceries
Longer commutes as folks bought homes far away from jobs
The health insurance problem (too expensive, lack of)
Seems like a house of cards.
Not a very perfect storm (except for the negative press coverage)... some things are OK…
- Low unemployment
- continued strong GDP
- improving exports
- reduced deficit projections two years in a row
...
The cretin Bush has added $3.4 TRILLION to the national debt during his disastrous presidency, from $5.7 Trillion to $9.1 Trillion in SEVEN YEARS!
...
Take a look at the constitution... all spending comes from Congress. The president either signs it or does not.
Not a very perfect storm (except for the negative press coverage)... some things are OK…
- Low unemployment
- continued strong GDP
- improving exports
- reduced deficit projections two years in a row
Things are not great, but not that stormy either.
At the risk of over-posting, but I take that risk often, there are of course some advantages to a weak dollar. Exports for example ... it would, um, be nice if we actually made anything anymore ...
The deficit is a total shell game. The cost of the wars are off-budget items so that the over $200 BILLION we are wasting annually killing brown people 10,000 miles is not included in the budget. Funding the wars is considered "Emergency Supplemental Spending" by Congress ... and is not included in the annual budget. We are also blowing FICA contributions. There is no SS "lolckbox" that criminal politicians like the disgraced Trent Lott like to refer to so often. When your kids apply for SS they will open that box and find a big fat IOU!
Strong GDP in part because major US companies are benefitting from the weak dollar because their profits abroad are converted at a premium.
Unemployment is indeed low ... and a lot of the pay is low too ... friend I don't know if you can make it on 10 bucks an hour, but half the work force does, somehow. I don't think that is at all positive.
The low unemployement number doesn't impress me very much since I know so many people who are way underemployed just so they have a job. Many of these college grads with these huge student loans may be employed, but they aren't making enough to pay on their loans and live.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,763,471 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by FarNorthDallas
The low unemployement number doesn't impress me very much since I know so many people who are way underemployed just so they have a job. Many of these college grads with these huge student loans may be employed, but they aren't making enough to pay on their loans and live.
That is becoming a problem. Lots of folks just take a job to have a job and it might pay crap.
I would be interested in your definition of "substantially".
We're headed into uncharted waters pal, and the Fed has its hands tied, although they have to ease a point ... and would I be correct in thinking you are long on mid-caps?
I don't think unemployment will go over 6%, I expect the inflation rate will stay around or below 5%, and I suspect we may have a modest to moderate recession, of which we've had over a dozen since WWII.
I suspect we may get some "cost push" inflation due to higher prices for oil and some foreign goods, delayed in the impact not being fully accounted in 2007.
The stock market, who knows? I can't predict year to year, nor can anyone. But I am fairly certain that the S&P 500, which ended the year at around 1470, will pass 2000 within 5 years.
But overall, I am not pessimistic about the long term at all.
that's so good topic
sometimes with some data, we can think about future and Predict
an important Government like USA and some country in Europe , talk about their Economy and the word economy
that can help us to know about it
next year I think we have the slow grow up in Europe Economy and $ go down in that time
but it depend on many thing of course
Take a look at the constitution... all spending comes from Congress. The president either signs it or does not.
Oh I don't think I've ever suggested that Congress is anything else but a bunch of greedy, corrupt and mostly useless bums. I have posted elsewhere that Reid and Pelosi are the two most worthless idiots ever to "lead" Congress, which is one reason that Congress' approval rating is at 11%! How much worse can it get when the vast majority of those who elected you hate your guts after only one year?
The problem is that we have mental midgets running government ... and don't even get me started on that idiot Henry Paulson, a man so brain-dead, so utterly incompetent that if your pet monkey was running the Treasury Department thngs would start looking up. That bald-headed Viagra commercial on legs has managed to talk the dollar down from par with the Euro to 40% lower!
Don't even get me started on Paulson ... that worthless bum has cost me over fifty grand this year alone.
2008 will not be some sort of financial apocalypse. There are market corrections that need to be made. For those of us not affected? I couldn't care less. I'll still be able to buy food and walk to work, the lights will be on and some people that should never have been homeowners will be severely affected.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
4,428 posts, read 6,509,244 times
Reputation: 1721
Yep
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zanman
Maybe I'll just invest in a bottle of decent scotch and a hooker.
Sounds good to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewToCA
I don't think unemployment will go over 6%, I expect the inflation rate will stay around or below 5%, and I suspect we may have a modest to moderate recession, of which we've had over a dozen since WWII.
I suspect we may get some "cost push" inflation due to higher prices for oil and some foreign goods, delayed in the impact not being fully accounted in 2007.
The stock market, who knows? I can't predict year to year, nor can anyone. But I am fairly certain that the S&P 500, which ended the year at around 1470, will pass 2000 within 5 years.
But overall, I am not pessimistic about the long term at all.
I not really sure myself about the unemployment rate. I'd like to know the real rate of lost of jobs in the U.S. And what I mean by this is how many Illegals are losing they're jobs in construction and all the work related to construction. Of course we'll never really know because nobody every going to report it. But I think the really rate would be a little higher than 6% if we report true job loses. But I do agree in the long term we will survive. Though I don't think we are going to be king of the roost anymore in 20 years or so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by coldwine
2008 will not be some sort of financial apocalypse. There are market corrections that need to be made. For those of us not affected? I couldn't care less. I'll still be able to buy food and walk to work, the lights will be on and some people that should never have been homeowners will be severely affected.
Life goes on.
Yeah pretty much. The only thing I don't like is that I feel that the U.S. dollar worth will be permanently diminished against other currencies. I like a very strong dollar even if it help with our exports.
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Yep
