Letters to the Editor
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Animal Spirits ?
Torture, two wars and threatening a third. I think we have seen enough "animal spirits" for now.
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it should already be over....
this recession should have been here after '01,when the evil Greenie lowered rates to stop a recession(and keep the right in office),and ended up destroying savers,and creating a new bubble so the next recession will be worse than it would have been.
capitalism is a creative/destructive animal,it has booms and busts.what we need to do is not to try to never have a recession(it just isn't how it works)but try to keep them shallow and help those who need it to get through.
but when we try to never have a recession,we end up with businesses that should go under stay afloat,and debts never get delt with.
the amount of folks being hurt by this recession will be much greater than if we had just lowered rates to 3% instead of 1% and taken our medicine at the turn of the century-we'd be on our way back up by now...
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The long term
A commentator this morning said that the Fed will lower the interest rate to reduce borrowing costs in order to encourage borrowing leading to more spending to boost the economy.
So in a country that already has a negative savings rate the way to move forward is to borrow more money!?
Let's party on. Because if we stop we might have to look outside and see that we are sinking.
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mewman
2001 recorded a recession which lasted till 2003.
This is a new one.
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War is good for the economy
But only for a little while
Bush was hoping war with Iran would carry him, and the republicans, through 2008.
Oops
Now it's time to pay the piper
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"Contract by an average 1 percent...Blah,blah,blah,blah".
If people like Dean Baker and Paul Krugman, and quite a few others are correct, the straights are a little more dire than that, and I think this is just the beginning.
There may be two silver linings in this grey cloud: first, when blame is assigned for all this, it is going to go to the Republicans and everything Republican; and secondly, there is a better than good chance we will end up with the Executive branch and both houses of Congress filled with Democrats (I know, they're not so great either). It's a crying shame we don't have the Warren court anymore.
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Same medicine at the mid-terms?
Recall the Republicans pulled out a few stops during 2006, including Goldmans (Paulsons old, Plunge Protetion Team leader, in the Presidents Working Group) rejigger of the commodity index, which helped drive gasoline prices lower ahead of the election. To really understand the nebulous world of government statistics, visit www.shadowstats.com. There may be a recession underway right now, if the revisions to the employment numbers continue to erase those rosy earlier projections. The Republicans will do everything to avoid the lable, recession, and the Democrats will appear petty and demeaning, to insist one exists. Very few candidates will campaign on Iraq, either. What are they going to talk about? How about the weather, Al Gore?
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USB wirte down
USB swiss bank just wrote down 10 BILLION more loses from th U.S sub prime leading market. Last month Abu Dbhabi investment acquired 4.9 stake n Citibank. Western banks outside U.S have been loaning us money, and now they are selling our debt to china and the middle East. The U.S. is on a downward slide thanks to conservative leadership
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Another Bush Recession
I know that there are arguments as to when the 2001 recession actually began. I personally saw it take place the day Geo. Bush walked out of the convention hall as the Republican candidate. The lenders and money people saw that we (the nation) were heading back to a resource based economy and the dot com bubble began to pop.
Now after years of jerking both the economy and the numbers around, after distributing the nations wealth up and out of this country. We are left gazing at the bare bones of the Clinton prosperity. Can we be saved? If we can call a recession salvation, maybe. It is a sure way to divest ourselves of this crappy Milton Friedman model of economics, where if you are poor. then it is because you deserve to be poor. And if you are rich then you get the governments largess.
One last point; The unemployment numbers are a jerk-off. A person is only counted as unemployed if they are drawing unemployment compensation. Once those payments run out that person falls off the official stats and is no longer unemployed. Now He is homeless.
footsore
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Hmmmm good point. On the other hand...
A recession will make it more difficult for politicians to bite the bullet on energy constraints and greenhouse gas emissions, and will stimulate protectionist and anti-immigrant sentiment.
On the other hand, if we're producing and consuming fewer consumer products due to a recession, doesn't that mean we're reversing the trends of overproduction and overconsumption that are powering the most dire forecasts for the environment?
If there was ever a time when we needed to learn to make do with less stuff, it's now.
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reexamin the thesis a bit
The US economy was soaring under the clinton administration. Usually, that is a really good thing for the president's party. Eight years of peace, prosperity, and easy money.
Somehow, in the face of this, the dems managed to shoot themselves in both feet and an elbow. GW got elected and here we are.
I don't think recession will have that huge an effect on the democrap v. rethug contest. Neither is liked. If we're lucky, we'll see the rise of a 3rd party - but not leiberman.
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Bring it on
nuff said
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The two bush* recessions
This will be two recessions under the bush* maladministration.
The first was the one they wanted and they so badly wanted it to start under Clinton. They were talking about it, declaring it in speeches and jumping up and down throwing tantrums to get it. Unfortunately for them the official start was March, 2001, clearly after young bush* had taken power so that the records will show that it was another bush* recession.
This second one is the one they don't want but are going to get anyway. The irony is that it is because of the actions they took to avoid/recover from their first one. Because the deflationary nature of the tax cuts they pushed through to recover from their first recession forced their randian lapdog Greenspan to push rates to zero to keep the country from totally crashing and get bush* reelected. We are now experiencing the wonders of the popping of a housing bubble enhanced by the predatory lending that only unregulated free market capitalism can bring. Such bountiful results from the wonders of the free market capitalism under Mr. bush* and the incredible monetary skills of Mr. Greenspan.
When we have elections and a new administration takes over we will all look back in wonder at the incredible experience we had when bush* was president.