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We WILL have recessions in the future-it's the nature of economics. A recession is defined IIRC by 2 consecutive quarters of declining GDP. Only 2. What I think we will avoid is the lost decade from ~2007 until 2016. The DOW peaked in 2007 and took nearly 10 years to get back to that level. Now that we finally have a president with some business and economic experience in office, I don't see a disaster like that happening again.
For the first time in 30 years, we have a president in office that puts America and the American people first. That remembers who he is hired to work for. One that is putting economic policies in place at least aimed at helping us. One that is FINALLY dealing with the unfair trade practices of our largest trading partners, and working to put American workers and businesses on a level playing field with them.
Yeah I definitely feel better about the economy with Trump in charge , but on the other hand there can be great opportunities in recessions . real estate , stocks etc are much cheaper and often oversold and undervalued . Of course it was hard to get loans even if one had good income back then .
The old saying “buy when there is blood in the streets “ there isn’t much blood in the streets now .
The stock market is booming, but wages are stagnant.
QE. That's all it ever does. The most egregious example of QE perpetrated by the Federal Reserve in recent history? The $2 trillion bailout of Fannie and Freddie that never even paused for breath when it bypassed Congress and the Federal Reserve just did whatever the hell it wanted to do.
Always follow the money...
The cause was the Fed Gov forcing lenders to give mortgages to people who never should have qualified, and then forcing Fannie and Freddie to buy the mortgages, securitize them, and sell them as investments (MBS) to foreign governments and worldwide financial institutions and investors.
HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo (Clinton Admin) announced a $2.4 trillion mandate to Fannie and Freddie to buy loans from high-risk borrowers to expand home ownership. I'll post a link to the press release if anyone wishes, but anyone can easily google it themselves.
The Federal Reserve then had to buy $2 trillion worth of those Fannie and Freddie MBS to prevent the credit crisis from precipitating a full-blown global crash. But they did so with CREATED money. QE. Not money that actually existed. And it can never be reversed, still having a $1.74 trillion outstanding debt obligation 10 years later.
They'll roll off as they mature, paid or not. Meanwhile, the US$ was devalued by that $2 trillion in QE that can't be reined back in.
Proof that $2 trillion in QE was created to bail out Fannie and Freddie. The Federal Reserve STILL has $1.77 trillion worth of Fannie and Freddie MBS on its H.4.1.
Oh, and just for grins... Tens of thousands of mortgage borrowers, if not more, will get their homes for free as this all continues to play out and their mortgage debt just rolls off the Federal Reserves H.4.1, unpaid...
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,329 posts, read 54,358,694 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bawac34618
Let's refrain from blaming any politician at first. Let's talk about the current state of the economy. The media on both sides have generally pushed the narrative that it's booming in recent years. However, is that really the case? First and foremost, the only thing that has really boomed since the beginning of 2017 is the stock market. Everything else has continued humming along as it has since at least early in Obama's second term. We have nearly full unemplyoment but it doesn't feel like it. Wages are not rising like they should if the unemployment rate really was as low as the official number. This isn't a '90s economy. This is an '06 economy. It also doesn't feel like a 3% GDP economy. It feels more like 1-2%. I would say this economy is not bad per say but it's not as rosy as some would have you believe. I also think recession is coming sooner than people want to admit as well.
What are your thoughts on the current economy?
Considering we've seen an example of a runaway computer heavily influencing the stock market in the past, I don't think I'd look to it as such a good indicator of the overall health of the economy.
For what it's worth, Obama pioneered a lot of what you mentioned by allowing so many institutions to get bailed out that I argue should have been let go bankrupt. Quantitative easing and bailing people out just rewards the irresponsible.... better they get flushed out of the system. Blaming this entire "problem" on republicans is very short sighted.. this is a problem of both parties that seems to be a normal part of decaying empires if you look back at history. Hopefully history doesn't repeat...
I agree with most of this, but Obama didn't pioneer TARP and QE - he propagated it but George W and Hank Paulson pioneered it. I don't care how long the soup lines would have been - we should have let every Wall Street firm involved burn to the ground.
I haven't felt like the economy has been right since the housing bust
Ding! Ding! Ding! Read my post on how $2 trillion worth of arbitrarily created QE (which is NOT backed by US Treasuries or any other form of reliable/dependable debt) bailed out MBS investors (including pension plans/funds, 401Ks, IRAs, etc.), tens of thousands (or more) of lucky 5+ or 6+ years mortgage defaulters, but no one else.
I agree with most of this, but Obama didn't pioneer TARP and QE - he propagated it but George W and Hank Paulson pioneered it. I don't care how long the soup lines would have been - we should have let every Wall Street firm involved burn to the ground.
While I agree, as well, that's not even where most of the money went. Read my $2 trillion QE Fannie and Freddie bailout post.
I agree with most of this, but Obama didn't pioneer TARP and QE - he propagated it but George W and Hank Paulson pioneered it. I don't care how long the soup lines would have been - we should have let every Wall Street firm involved burn to the ground.
It would have hurt but we would be in a better position today if we had.
The industry I work in experienced a fantastic year and rewarded its employees with a pay cut. Which is a microcosm of the economy, imo. Great for for some, bad for most.
edit to add: I do not believe we live in a meritocracy at all anymore as even the most productive are not seeing their wages rise.
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