We hate to fulfill the stereotype of dismal scientists, but the news is bad: The economy is slowing sharply and may be in recession. The nation’s broadest measure of growth, real gross domestic product (GDP), grew a scant annual rate of 0.6 percent at the end of last year. Unemployment has risen, and job growth has slowed sharply. The housing… return to article
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Reader Comments (9)Page 1 of 1 pagesA lot of truth and good ideas here, but they do not address the underlying causes of our current predicament this long downward spiral was brought to us by political ambition and corporate greed.
Economic terms like Free Enterprise and Free Markets, Competitive Advantage along with promises of the benefits of cheaper consumer goods though Globalization have been perverted by those in power.
Skewed statistics and short term comparisons have ignored and avoided admitting the evaporation of our middle class and the shrinking of freedom which comes with the selling of our best jobs. Here again misrepresentation helped sell the idea by claiming to lift the foreign workers to our level as if the syphon would remove nothing here.
The current “stimulus” is the equivalent of giving the man with a hangover a bit of hair of the dog that bit him.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union left us with a “peace dividend” I have tried to convince candidates in each election year to create jobs, cut emissions, and save lives by adding an Interstate Passenger Rail System to our existing Interstate Highway Systemt. The response from my own representative was a form letter touting his voting record on pork projects in construction. Nothing from any candidate.
Post 9/11 was a perfect time to initiate such a massive project to ease our dependence on foreign energy sources and provide an emergency evacuation mode in case of man-made or natural disaster. As usual our “leaders” response was piecemeal, expense and wasteful.
The current government approach is more of the same which brought us to the sad state of affairs.
At 70 life is all reruns.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 12, 2008 at 9:00 AM The jobs created to repair and build infrastructure is an excellent idea,very reminisant to FDR’s CCC program.Alot of people were put to work and alot of much needed and beneficial projects were completed.
I do like the idea of poster whattheheck on the inter-state passenger rail system.Our rail system in this country is a total mess.The problem is that the railroads say that they were losing money,hand over fist in the past,which is why they pretty much dismanteled the passenger rail service in the continental U.S..
Posted by eddiemyboy1 on Feb 13, 2008 at 9:50 PM I too support income protection for workers and improved unemployment benefits. But I would feel better if there was also a discussion of the value of the American Dollars and almost the same thing, the value of the U.S. debts. Are these limiting factors or does stimulus create improved revenues that offset the problems with U.S debts?
Posted by natriley on Feb 14, 2008 at 3:05 PM Too many folks in East Texas, the richer ones that is, see any Government aid as welfare for the minorities. They want to see a Tax Code that takes the same amount from a minimum wage worker as it does from a multi-millionaire. Not same percentage, same amount. That would only be fair in their warped thinking.
Anybody who doesn’t have a substantial savings account is a wasteful spender. Just as all worker’s should have taken a job with a high pay scale and great benefits. The fact that there aren’t that many of those jobs to be taken is beside the point.. One wit was against any teacher pay raises because they knew what the job paid and shouldn’t expect any pay raises. ‘Course he expected a pay raise and a bonus every year, but that is different. That is what my late wife used to say when she was in the wrong about something.
We cannot expect anyone born with a silver foot in their mouth to have a clue as to how to manage an economy as diverse as ours is. Especially when he only takes advice from folks who only want to have it all for themselves.
Most that I have talked to have said that any rebate or stimulus check they get will go into savings, against a rainy day.
Me, I am on Social Security (less than $9600/year) with a gross income (net was less than $1000) last year of $2100. Thats two zeros, not three. So that lets me out of getting any check. But hell, when a man can make that kind of money, he don’t need any help, right?
Posted by farmer on Feb 15, 2008 at 8:17 PM natriley,
The U.S. dollar has been declining in value since the end of WW2, but in the past few years it has been falling at an increasingly fast rate.
There is nothing to support its value other than faith.
The long-standing reliance on the dollar as a standard of world trade has been eroded by a the tech bubble when stocks showing no earnings were bid to extremes and the housing bubble when over evaluation of properties and loose lending practices extended runaway consumer and (as usual) government spending.
The idea that the Federal Open Market Committee can control our economy has been widely accepted, but it is becoming clear that this myth depended also on blind faith. The Wizards, Greenspan and now Bernanke, are only as good as their ability to perpetuate the myth. Like the Wizard of Oz when we peek behind the curtain we find only ordinary men.
The stimulus of tax rebates is nothing more than an attempt to prop up the economic data by giving the consumer a mainline shot of cash to inflate away the boogyman until after the election in November.
The Fed is now caught between two bad choices — cutting rates to try to inflate away of huge debt — increasing rates to slow the debt growth and drive us into recession. Recession before the election will not be admitted regardless of what happens to jobs or consumer spending — It is unthinkable.
Recession, as a remedy, has now been avoided far past what a normal market could have swallowed without severe side effects.
The two extreme possibilities we face are hyper-inflation or (what Japan has been experiencing) market choking deflation.
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Farmer,Nice to hear from you again. With what I am seeing at the grocery store, not to mention the gas pump, I can see that your Social Security income leaves you with very little financial freedom. So many people can’t seem to understand what this is like. I often hear friends blaming consumers wanting cheap prices as the reason our jobs left the country.
When I was working I saw my manufacturing clients cut jobs, packaging costs, services and do anything it took to get Wal-Mart, K-Mart and other big box stores’ business.
It took about ten years, but eventually all those companies I had done work for forty years left the country, went out of business or left town when bought by bigger companies. We’ve lost more than 10,000 (just in our city) good jobs since NAFTA. Those people who could left for jobs somewhere else, but those who couldn’t sell their house or were too old (often called “over qualified") were forced into multiple part time jobs.
Now we’re hearing there is a shortage of trained manufacturing and construction workers and some white collar jobs (actually a shortage willing to work at todays wages) and we need to import them from other countries like Mexico and India (where U.S. pay looks rich).
Wal-Mart is in the unique position of being able to create their own captive customer base. They helped force jobs overseas and those who lost out MUST buy their cheap foreign goods.
Many people I knew for years were forced out of jobs they held since high school while the management received performance bonuses and huge stock option gains.
Isn’t it interesting how this was done under the calls for Free Enterprise and Free Markets, but now that the subprime loans and other bad economic policies have surfaced the Free Enterprise crowd is calling for government intervention and rescue?
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 18, 2008 at 9:13 AM Of course the War Budget adds to our credit crunch but the main reason is the fault of the Fed which borrows money by selling bonds to china and Japan to erase the deficit. Among other tings this causes inflation. The deficit doesn’t have to be erased. For that rationale ggo to mt personal website at <www.voicenet.com/~chseitz/economy-stupid.html>
Posted by chseitz on Feb 18, 2008 at 2:27 PM chseitz,
Yes, the deficit is not our real problem, nor is the debt. First of all the debt is measured in dollars which have no intrinsic value. They are only backed by faith and that is a growing problem. ("Blind faith” is no exageration.)
The immediate problem (well, one of many) for the investor and ultimately for everyone, is which will we face over the next several years inflation or deflation.
Sometime the world markets and currencies will readjust to the only truly “Free Market” reality of supply and demand. The entanglements which globalization has created make it much more difficult to determine. At the same time these same entanglements make it easier for the “experts” to conceal, misjudge, and manipulate with the aid of a know-nothing media in a state of continuous babbling.
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It seems to me there is a different sort of bubble which no one is repaired to deal with the burgeoning world population.
What we are just beginning to hear about is the demographic shift as too many of us (like me) have not died according to the schedule of the ‘50s and before. In addition we now have the capability to rescue at birth many with defects which would have eliminated them both physical and mental.
Genetic engineering discoveries are raising ethical questions which we could ignore when saving the less than “perfect” (used very loosely) specimens. This is a problem of the most developed nations, but increasing medical care availability will soon bring it to the front. These nations (The U.S. Japan, Germany, France and others) have inverted age majorities and thus the social programs like Medicare and Social Security are increasingly unsupportable.
How do we deal with issues of long term care for the old and infirm? Should we save everyone at birth? Will we impose restrictions on family size as China has done? Will we continue to provide (or even be able) for the mentally impaired? Criminals?
Not questions we can be comfortable facing and so, like those our governments have managed to ignore for so long, it will grow until the bubble bursts. In the meantime we’ll keep busy with less personal issues like global warming and radical religious groups and of course the latest meaningless scandals.
When I reread Huxley’s “Brave New World” a couple of years ago, I was struck by just how close we have been evolving socially to his insights.
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 22, 2008 at 9:30 AM For years I have talked to anyone who would listen to tell them that there are too many people for this planet to support,at our current lifestyle.
We are using up all of our resources(water,land,energy,food,oil,etc.)and there will be wars over all of these resources and there will be mass destruction of the human population.This will be the way that nature and man uses to balance the population.
I trully am not sure what we should do.I think that we have to have some way to allow families to have only so many children,but who is to make that decision and who would do it fairly?Who do we trust to make that decision,the government?I don’t think so,due to their past performances worldwide.Scientist?I guess the people could,but do we have the data we need and can we make the tough decisions.Can we take the pain of deprivation?We,most often,do not do what needs to be done for the benefit of all at some loss to ourselves.
It is going to be a rough ride and it is just starting.Don’t expect science to bail us out this time.We have depleted the soils,polluted our water and are engaging in genetic engineering of plants and animals,as well as cloning.These things will come back to bite us in the ass,because we are becoming desperate for food,energy,and clean water.We WILL do whatever it takes to get and keep our standard of living at its current level.
Posted by eddiemyboy1 on Feb 22, 2008 at 10:15 AM I am not german and I don’t know how or why there is a german flag at the end of my comments. I am an american and always have been.Hmmm?
Posted by eddiemyboy1 on Feb 22, 2008 at 10:18 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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