Thread: We’re on the verge of a great, great depression.

Told you so at least a year ago.

Getting out of Afghanistan now would save about $500 billion a year for a start.

"What we’ve got right now is almost near panic going on with money managers and people who are responsible for money," he said. "They can not find a yield and you just don’t want to be putting your money into commodities or things that are punts that might work out or they might not depending on what happens with the economy.

"We need to find real yield and real returns on these assets. You see bad data, you see Treasurys rally, you see all bonds and all fixed-income rally and then the people who are betting against the U.S. economy start getting bearish on stocks. That’s a huge mistake."

Stocks extended losses after the manufacturing fell below expectations in May and the private sector added only 38,000 jobs during the month.

"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything," Yastrow said. "We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236764

Originally Posted by frodo

Told you so at least a year ago.

Getting out of Afghanistan now would save about $500 billion a year for a start.

Perhaps we ought to allow the depression to happen; maybe even allowing the monetary system to collapse so the dollar is revalued. That way we could start all over again from the bottom and work our way back up, remembering what it took to bring us down in the first place.

Originally Posted by gamewell45

Perhaps we ought to allow the depression to happen; maybe even allowing the monetary system to collapse so the dollar is revalued. That way we could start all over again from the bottom and work our way back up, remembering what it took to bring us down in the first place.

No offense meant to your opinion, but so many would suffer horribly. It is sad we have been here before, no one wants to see this happen again. I believe that if our representatives would have the balls to make serious cuts in the budget, this could be allieviated. It would be a horrid day in our history, this is why I continually push the representatives to CUT< CUT< CUT!!!

Originally Posted by algranny

No offense meant to your opinion, but so many would suffer horribly. It is sad we have been here before, no one wants to see this happen again. I believe that if our representatives would have the balls to make serious cuts in the budget, this could be allieviated. It would be a horrid day in our history, this is why I continually push the representatives to CUT< CUT< CUT!!!

While it might cause suffering, it would bring almost everyone down to one level playing field; sort of like resetting the clock to zero and start all over again.

The problem is that the money is there; its all how they spend it. With extreme draconian cuts, the government could end the deficit in 2-3 years, tho' our military would literally be reduced to a mere skeleton force, with a majority of the defense left up to the states. Eliminate all foriegn aid, get rid of serveral government agencies, such as the department of transportation, dept of agriculture, TSA, dept of commerce, Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco; Dept of energy, Nuclear Regulatory agency, Bureau of Land Managment, ect; all these and others could be handled on a state by state basis. It'll work, just that the government nogs won't admit it.

Originally Posted by frodo

Told you so at least a year ago.

Getting out of Afghanistan now would save about $500 billion a year for a start.





http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236764

Got to love it when the anti war try to protest the war using the whole budget scare tactic. Especially when there are plenty of wasteful socialist programs that c kould be cut without cutting military spending to get us back on track.

Originally Posted by frodo

Told you so at least a year ago.

Getting out of Afghanistan now would save about $500 billion a year for a start.





http://www.cnbc.com/id/43236764

Behold, the prophet! Funny about prohets, they are never right. Wasn't it only a week or so ago a self appointed prophet of doom was proven wrong, again, and immediately changed the end of the world date to November.

Getting into a time machine an unelecting George Bush is the way to fix your country's problems. But Dr Who doesn't seem available when you need him does he?

Take your false prohecy and sit on it please. Nothing is inevitable except if everyone reacts like you and just sits there wringing their hands crying "Oh woe is me".

Very sad to see people reduced to this level of post.

I'm not even the prophet, just a reporter.

You started digging the hole you are in when you elected Reagan.

The problems you have are what are called "structural" problems. You are not collecting enough tax from the very wealthy and redistributing it. What then happens is that the very rich then engage in what are termed "rent seeking" a form of economic behaviour that is a form of taxation by the rich on everybody else - for example, excessive speculation in commodities that drives up prices.

The idea with redistributing money from the very rich towards the rest of society is that it speeds up the velocity of money - how fast money is converted into goods which are then sold at a profit and the money recycled. The poorer people have no choice but to spend what they receive.

This is basic economics that you can look up yourself.

However the biggest structural problems you face is with your economy. Thirty year of special deals - corporate rent seeking behaviour, have made your industries inefficient, fat and happy - and highly uncompetitive, and it has nothing to do with wages paid either.

By structural, I mean propping up industries that should have gone bankrupt which makes it difficult for new and innovative industries to take their place.

For example the American steel tariff, kept the steel makers in business but made steel cost more for other American businesses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Un...s_steel_tariff

As another example, American refusal to take climate change seriously and restructure industry accordingly will make you even less competitive in future.

It's all quite simple really. The funniest part of it is that American economists know exactly how to cure these problems but your legislatures won't allow it because they are owned by big business.

The verge was a few years back...

Originally Posted by Courtney203

Got to love it when the anti war try to protest the war using the whole budget scare tactic. Especially when there are plenty of wasteful socialist programs that c kould be cut without cutting military spending to get us back on track.

Really!

I mean, we have MILLIONS of ELDERLY and DISABLED people we could cut off and starve before we had to touch the Afghanistan war budget.

Heck, if we entirely cut off college scholarships and loans maybe we can afford to start a small war in Somalia again, or Syria!

These wasteful "socialist" programs are NO PLACE for our tax money to go, especially when it could be spent in such a positive way bombing and destroying villages and people in the ME!

Originally Posted by gamewell45

Perhaps we ought to allow the depression to happen; maybe even allowing the monetary system to collapse so the dollar is revalued. That way we could start all over again from the bottom and work our way back up, remembering what it took to bring us down in the first place.

I agree. I was against the bailouts right from the beginning; because it hasn't fixed the problem. The problem was irresponsible specualtion and poor regulations with zero accountability. And that is exactly why we're headed for a great depression.