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I'm not sure what the comment "you could've spent all on domestic projects and it would've actually benefited the country more" means in the context of WWII.
The point of the comment is that if anything it was the stimulus created by the deficit spending that helped not the war in itself. There is an idea held by many that the "the great depression" only ended because the war. The tacit implication being that the current problems aren't going to end until there is another such war. But all that is required is economic stimulus. Spending on domestic projects would actually be better for the country (in terms of its economy) than spending on war which is a bottomless pit.
I'm making no claim about what should have been done in the 1940's.
One thing is for sure Paulson giving large sums of money to his buddies who "know best" is far less efficient than actually using it to put people to work, especially to build something, make something, or fix something. At least you'll have something tangible to show for your $1.6 trillion dollars and people will have a job and money to spend so that the whole country doesn't continue to cannibalize each other through massive labor reductions.
Paulson would never let his peers suffer because of their collective bad judgment. After all they are "high level executives" and have country clubs, exclusive restaurants and Ivy League Universities to support.
I would have preferred the economic stimulus to be in the form of frozen mortgage interest rates and just a few thousand bucks to be spent by everybody however they wanted. As this is completely improbable the other alternative is to fix or replace all the bridges and other civil works we have been ignoring all these years.
PS - It is way past the time for "Panic". Now is the time to protect your income, reduce your debts and cover your a**.
PPS - In case you doubt the Dow Jones dropped nearly 8% yesterday!
Japan is suffering its worst downturn in 35 years. The British economy is facing its sharpest decline in almost 30 years. Germany is slumping at its worst pace in nearly 20 years. Meanwhile, the job market in the United States, at the epicenter of the global downturn, is the worst in decades. And emerging economies are contracting at a pace few had predicted just months ago. Even China, whose economy still is growing at a 6.8 percent annual pace, is grappling with vast numbers of the unemployed, raising fears of unrest.
The sharpness of the global slowdown has alarmed economists, who see no obvious engine for recovery.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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When in danger or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout!
Prepare as best you can, get cross-trained in something that will be recession-resistant like healthcare. Keeping a home with that money should have top priority over just about anything else.
Have some of your favorite foods set aside, especially imported things like coffee that might become scarce, and some staples as well. Be prepared to live with intermittent electricity. Remember that most likely your heat needs electricity to work, and your refrigerator.
I don't buy it. Recession, yeah. Depression? Personally, I don't think people will be boiling shoe leather for soup. I've been wrong before. I hope I'm not wrong now. Because those shoes most likely came from China... and are probably full of melamine and lead.
Who would have thought the writer of this article would turn out to be a pollyanna in retrospect? GD2 won't wait even another year, we're already starting to slide into it.
Because robbing Paul to give to Peter is a productive way to run an economy...
I'm afraid you have it backwards. It's the generals and the uber-rich that have been robbing US. It's OUR money. Trim the military down to a non obscene size (they can make due with $200. toilet seats instead of $800.) and return the money to the PEOPLE not the rich bankers that stole it in the first place. Give everyone in the middle and lower economic strata a $100k voucher and I assure you there will be a whole lotta spendin' goin' on on necessities like food and shelter not some general's $5B wet dream bomber. It would be a whole lot more stimulating than giving the rich crooked bankers more money to sock away and would cost a whole lot less.
Yeah, of course because the Mayans magically knew when the world would end. All that primitive knowledge and all....didn't their civilization die?
The 30 reasons aren't very interesting, nor is it obviously how they will cause a depression.
You are VERY ignorant. These people may have lived primitively but the amount of knowledge that the Mayans knew about the heavens is far more then we currently know; and that's with all or electronics.
Secondly, the you can thank the Spanish invasion for killing off most of the Mayans.
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