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The long term trends are not good. Fewer educated people having offspring. More Third World and domestic underclass people still having kids (often on our taxpayer dime). We are destroying our productive future for innovation by basically subsidizing the least successful of our society. It doesn't make much sense when the middle and even upper classes can't afford to have many kids.
The entire Federal budget within 20 years will have around 70 percent of all revenue collected going for just social programs (social security, medicare, welfare etc.). That leaves very little for infrastructure building, science, research, defense and even service on the exploding national debt.
The gravy train will come to an end. It probably won't be pretty either. Save your money, plan your own retirement and consider moving away from the large metro areas before the "Great Society" welfare checks begin to bounce. I wish I could be more cheerful, but the current trends look very bleak. And the powerful lobby for the AARP will not let us make some needed changes to the SS program before it is too late. We simply don't want to hear the truth. Even when the medicine now would be easier for all of us to handle vs 20 years from now when it is a full-blown crisis. And when 80 million long-lived Baby Boomers retire and overrun the system...
About the only cheerful news I can offer is the fact that the US dollar is becoming worth so little overseas. Eventually, our Rust Belt areas may see manufacturing return simply because our devalued currency makes enterprise here competitive with the rest of the world.
The long term trends are not good. Fewer educated people having offspring. More Third World and domestic underclass people still having kids (often on our taxpayer dime). We are destroying our productive future for innovation by basically subsidizing the least successful of our society. It doesn't make much sense when the middle and even upper classes can't afford to have many kids.
The entire Federal budget within 20 years will have around 70 percent of all revenue collected going for just social programs (social security, medicare, welfare etc.). That leaves very little for infrastructure building, science, research, defense and even service on the exploding national debt.
The gravy train will come to an end. It probably won't be pretty either. Save your money, plan your own retirement and consider moving away from the large metro areas before the "Great Society" welfare checks begin to bounce. I wish I could be more cheerful, but the current trends look very bleak. And the powerful lobby for the AARP will not let us make some needed changes to the SS program before it is too late. We simply don't want to hear the truth. Even when the medicine now would be easier for all of us to handle vs 20 years from now when it is a full-blown crisis. And when 80 million long-lived Baby Boomers retire and overrun the system...
About the only cheerful news I can offer is the fact that the US dollar is becoming worth so little overseas. Eventually, our Rust Belt areas may see manufacturing return simply because our devalued currency makes enterprise here competitive with the rest of the world.
Wow interesting answer to a serious thread. I'm truly afraid. Beings I'm only 19 I have to deal with all this depression related rif-raf. I truly hope things can turn around.
I'm going to quote what I posted on another (similar) thread...
Quote:
I don't think [the stock market] will crash...not to the extent of the Great Depression. Measures have been haken to prevent that from ever happening again.
And honestly, although the economy is bad, there are still enough people financially comfortable who continue to buy, keeping things afloat.
Oh, and it's predicted that the housing market will make a rebound by the end of 2009.
The long term trends are not good. Fewer educated people having offspring. More Third World and domestic underclass people still having kids (often on our taxpayer dime). We are destroying our productive future for innovation by basically subsidizing the least successful of our society. It doesn't make much sense when the middle and even upper classes can't afford to have many kids.
The entire Federal budget within 20 years will have around 70 percent of all revenue collected going for just social programs (social security, medicare, welfare etc.). That leaves very little for infrastructure building, science, research, defense and even service on the exploding national debt.
The gravy train will come to an end. It probably won't be pretty either. Save your money, plan your own retirement and consider moving away from the large metro areas before the "Great Society" welfare checks begin to bounce. I wish I could be more cheerful, but the current trends look very bleak. And the powerful lobby for the AARP will not let us make some needed changes to the SS program before it is too late. We simply don't want to hear the truth. Even when the medicine now would be easier for all of us to handle vs 20 years from now when it is a full-blown crisis. And when 80 million long-lived Baby Boomers retire and overrun the system...
About the only cheerful news I can offer is the fact that the US dollar is becoming worth so little overseas. Eventually, our Rust Belt areas may see manufacturing return simply because our devalued currency makes enterprise here competitive with the rest of the world.
Great post! I too am only 19 and I worry everyday about money. I just don't see how anyone can afford to have kids, a home, and two cars nowadays. Something needs to be done to change the direction we are going in because it's definitely downhill.
A total economic collapse is coming. What is an economic collapse? No one knows, we never had one. One who rips at statistics will say that the Great Depression of 1928 will look like a carnival compared to what we are in for.
[SIZE=2]In 1929, the debt ratio in relation to the Gross National Product stood at a healthy 16%. In 1990, the national debt increased to an alarming 60% of the GNP. The total debt of America is greater than the combined external debts of all the nations of the world combined. America's debt is 4.3 trillion dollars which is equivalent to a 270 mile high stack of tightly bound $1000 bills. Each mile representing the depth of the pit America will be unable to crawl out of.[/SIZE]
Housing? Gas? Layoffs? Cost of everything? Health care?
Historically when house prices rise to the point where few can afford them, then prices start to fall till salaries catch up. But salaries will no longer catch up. Getting a raise is something we will read about in history books some day. No one gets raises except for Union jobs or Govt workers and even those are shrinking. Some of the better companies toss a token quarter an hour per year to their best employees.
Again when you rip at statistics and numbers you will see that when comparing percentages of population in 1928 to 2008 you will see that there are more foreclosures today. In Las Vegas one out of every 44 homes is in foreclosure. Phoenix, Miami and San Diego is not much better. Can anyone comprehend this figure? One in every 44 houses is in foreclosure. Of the 23,000 homes for sale in the MLS, 62% of them are vacant (meaning bank owned or abandanment). All these people walking away from their homes will have that mark on their credit for 7-10 years. That effectivly takes them out of the home buyers market for 7-10 years. That is a whole lot of buyers.
Many of these people will have a hard time even renting with that credit. In the future, landlords and lenders are going to have to lighten up on issuing credit or there is going to be a whole lot of homeless people.
Credit card debt is at an all time high. Anyone have any idea how many people are using their Visa to buy food? Their debt is building and they ain't paying it off as fast as they are using it.
The time is near where a minimum wage earner who travels a half hour to get to work will have to do some serious math. When the gas goes to over $5/gal then it will cost more to buy gas to travel a 30 minute commute twice a day for 5 days a week then one can make earning $6/hr for 40 hours.
American car makers say they can only withstand one more year of losses and both Ford and GM say they will be done.
The fake phony illegal war? Almost 5000 dead? The cost? For what? To satisfy a Dictator who calls himself "The Decider"? The same Dictator who calls our Constitution "Just a G-Dam piece of paper? Yes the same Dictator who should hang from the same rope as Saddam.
Ten thousand nuclear war heads and the most technologically trained army in the world will not be able to stop America's economic disaster. An implosion that will come from the moral rot inside her heart. A physical army cannot stop the wave of spiritual destruction we are in for.
No, we're certainly not in that bad of shape at all. Compare now to 1929.....I don't see any similarities.
Exactly. People still have jobs. People can still live comfortably. Things are a little bit tight for the average American family, but most people haven't had to make any huge sacrifices. Our lives haven't been affected too dramatically.
Things aren't great, but we have to have hope. We have to try to make things better. If we don't, we're doomed by default.
The housing market is just a small piece of the puzzle. We aren't going into a Great Depression because of the housing market. We are going into it because of oil and gas prices. Under our best case scenario, we are looking at a decade of 30-40% unemployment as Americans adjust their standard of living appropriately. Basically a repeat of the Great Depression of not a tad worse. Worst case, and more likely scenario - 150-200 million Americans dead by 2020 and 4 billion dead worldwide. Those who survive will live in hell on earth. This isn't a game - the party is over. Mankind is headed not into another Great Depression but into another Dark Ages.
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