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It appeared to me that the economy peaked at the start of the 21st Century. In March 2000 the stock market started to crash and the unemployment rate started a general increase. The boom of the 1990s were over. I will call the start of the new century (January 1, 2000) the peak for America and it has been downhill ever since.
Many people on message boards say that America will never have 1990s type prosperity again, and it is downhill from here, unless you are an elite.
Will the economy ever come back to year 2000 levels for the Middle Class?
None of the above. The economy will get very bad in the near term and there will be much pain and suffering but things will start looking up in a decade or so, once all ther turds have been flushed and we remake our economy in new and exciting ways.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chango
None of the above. The economy will get very bad in the near term and there will be much pain and suffering but things will start looking up in a decade or so, once all ther turds have been flushed and we remake our economy in new and exciting ways.
Well, depends what you classify as middle class. Nobody I have met making more then minimum wage through people making low $100k's have considered themselves anything else.
If you look historically at the stock market, it goes through these huge booms for 10-15-20 years, then takes years to consolidate. But then eventually it booms again.
-1920's boom, followed by the 30's and 40's
-1950's and 60's boom, followed by the 70's and early 80's.
One reason why I havent been in stocks in the 2000's. Might be 20 years before the market comes back in inflated adjusted terms. Although the 90's boom was more exacerbated by phony accounting, inflated earnings, option expenses that werent counted, etc. The 1990's prosperity was more of a mirage than people realize. But more pain to come before things turn around.
there have been no market gains, and that is why they needed a bailout!!!
if i go by what the federal reserve chairman said today, i would say that IF WE STAY ON THIS COURSE america's best days are now officially going to be behind it. i can only hope that someone will understand the insanity of debasing your own country's currency and encouraging capital to leave our country!
our government leaders will not prosecute the looters and will not stand up for its own currency. (obviously more concerned with the "global" agenda than the "united states" agenda)
government is hand in glove with the criminals on Wall St. They are blowing up future tax revenues like there is no tommorow, destroying our currency and robbing the savings (by way of inflation) of those who have responsibly saved. What more is there to say?
What is sad is that the ignorant populace continues to be enamored by the same old Obama chants... "We can", "We will", "We must" blah blah. The President and his cronies have no intelligent plans, throwing Trillions to bail out those who have robbed the country through fraud is not a plan.
My take on this may be a bit different. We were very fortunate to have the standard of living we had for over 60 years(WWII to present). I hate to say it but an average person having a 2200 square foot home and two cars in the drive and all the modern fixtures can probably only be sustained for so long. After WWII it was if all the stars were in perfect alignment for a middle class high standard of living. But, as they say, nothing last forever. All the factors in play now indicate that the middle class standard of living will be in decline. With rising federal debts, medicare and social security obligations, competition from emerging market nations, loss of industry and unions, declining natural resources and so on, it is almost a giving that our standard of living will decrease. I believe once we decided to dive head first into the global economy we sealed our fate and we will decline to the world mean standard of living if we like it or not.
This default answer of "well, things go boom and bust in our economy, they always have so the sun will always shine tomorrow and therefore this is a temporary hiccup" is so laden with kool-aid is not even funny. That's one lazy way of dismissing the problem. Things don't go boom and bust in our economy "just because". They need bubbles for this to happen. If you are content living under a currency-debasing inflationary bubble-dependent economy, i.e. you like to miss the forest for the trees, then fine, the above answer is par for the course.
If you actually understand the anatomy of why our monetary system works the way it does, and more importantly, for whom it works for, then you'll come to the quick realization that absent a fundamental change in our monetary policy, and the political implications that has for our "economic partners", we are very much past the apex in the American Economic Case study. Combine that with the changing demographics (boomers eventually dying off, hispanic birth rates accounting for the majority of replacement value where other demographics are unable/unwilling to keep up) and increasing insolvency of attaining or maintaining a middle class tax base, and you get 2040 America: no SS, no medicare, widespread income gap, pockets of high income earners surrounded by millions of working poor, widespread expatriate communities/retirees....i.e. Brazil. That is certainly not what this country's social experiment was striving for 200 years ago; it only took us that little, Rome and Spain lasted a lot longer.....
Good, bad or indifferent we are on our way to the Europization of America, thought that today seems rather strange to the over 40 crowd, and disappointing to the under 40 crowd. Make no mistake, the good days are gone for the median american, the median wealth attainment for the median guy in 30 years looking at his parents as precedent will seem anti-climatic and lack luster. You won't starve, but you're certainly worse off than your parents everything else equal.
Moping and crying going on around here we got to many grown men acting like little girls.
It isn't that bad! It isn't that great but not that bad either.
I answered "Yes, the recession will end soon and things will be great in a few years" not because I believe the recession will end soon (it won't) but in 2011 things will start to turn around as long as we do not allow our nation to be transformed into some sort of socialist, communist cesspool freak of nature.
Imagine the economy much worse than today but without a safety net. No welfare or social security and no food banks.
As bad as 1935 was ten years later we won a world war, then just 15 years after that we were putting men on the moon.
What is hardship today, not being able to pay for your internet connection? Oh, boo hoo! Worried about the little ones being all traumatized come Christmas because they won't be getting the latest $400 video game whatever?
Geeez, people crying because they don't have medical insurance but in 1935 they didn't have medicine as we know it today either.
Tell you what, to many of you guys are crying like little girls and that is what has me concerned.
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