Where is the US economy headed?

if you want to have a laugh , a chuckle and wonder "has this happened before ? " , you migh want to read : "ONLY YESTERDAY " - an informal history of the nineteen-twentes by FREDERICK LEWIS ALLEN .

reading just chapter XIV : AFTERMATH - 1930 - 31
will provide some food for thought ... and may entice you to read the whole book at your leisure .

the book was written in 1931 , so it's not some historian looking back after 50 or more years trying to analyse that period of time .
i bought it for 50 cents at a jumble sale - and it's been worth more than that to me <GRIN>

i've found out that one can read it right on the internet - quite surprised .
haven't checked every single word but it seems to be complete - the chapters are all there and so are the beginning and end paragraphs ..

link :

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/ALLEN/Cover.html

for your entertainment i'll give you a para from the last chapter of the book :

Quote:

The great American public was just as susceptible to fads as ever. Since the panicky autumn of 1929, millions of radios had resounded every evening at seven o'clock with the voices of Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll, better known as Amos 'n' Andy; "I'se regusted" and "Check and double check" had made their way into the common speech, and Andy's troubles with the lunchroom and Madam Queen had become only less real to the national mind than the vicissitudes of business and the stock market. In September, 1930, the Department of Commerce had found at least one thoroughly prosperous business statistic to announce: there were almost 30,000 miniature golf courses in operation, representing an investment of $125,000,000, and many of them were earning 300 per cent a month. If the American people were buying nothing else in the summer of 1930, they were at least buying the right to putt a golf ball over a surface of crushed cottonseed and through a tin pipe.

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financial crisis , economy slumping ... ?
i think you americans are trying to convince us that life in the U.S. is really tough .
you almost succeeded ... ...
hbg

Quote:

Rich get richer: Yankees add Burnett to Sabathia
By RONALD BLUM " 9 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) " Forty-two players lost their jobs, many let go by teams looking to cut costs.

No such money worries for the New York Yankees, who made another splashy addition to their starting rotation Friday by reaching a preliminary agreement on an $82.5 million, five-year contract with A.J. Burnett.

Just two days after striking a $161 million, seven-year deal with CC Sabathia, New York added Burnett to a rotation that also includes holdovers Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain. The Yankees are hoping to re-sign Andy Pettitte and have looked at Ben Sheets as an alternative.

"I can sense the excitement and the confidence that's spreading around the entire organization about what we're getting done and what we may get done still," Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner said earlier Friday, before Burnett's decision became known. "A rising tide lifts all boats, and the confidence and the excitement right now among the team and the organization is contagious."

can't you SENSE THE EXITEMENT ?

(i know this may sound like rubbing salt into a wound ... hope you'll still talk to me . hbg)

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@hamburger,

Even when the atom bomb is dropped, it takes a few seconds before the shite hits the fan.

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@cicerone imposter,

A lot of hours have gone by since you predicted the Dow "below 8000 tomorrow". The ci. bounce.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

A lot of hours have gone by since you predicted the Dow "below 8000 tomorrow". The ci. bounce.

I noticed that too, spendius, but I did not bring it up because I did not want ci to tell the world how I lost my brain and how clueless I am about the economy, and how much of a genius he is. I wonder if he will tell you that instead?

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@okie,

What's the matter with you guys? Just because I guess what might happen to the stock market for any day, it's only a "guess." Nobody on this planet can predict what the market will do - irregardless of their education or experience.

If you get your head out of your arse, you would understand these simple concepts.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

I admit I can't predict the stock market, but I can predict your posts pretty well, ci. Your last one went down pretty close to predicted.

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@okie,

Good for you! What have you learned? "Nothing."

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Good evening to yall. It appears that the price of oil today closed at $39.99/barrel, despite the pledge by OPEC to cut production by 2.2 million barrels a day. I hear that the oil producing countries frequently "cheat" on actually making the cuts. There appears to be a supply glut right now as demand for oil continues to drop. Land facilities for storing it (in the U.S.) are filled up and tankers laden with more are anchored at sea.
Some analysts predict it might be 2 years before oil creeps up to $60.
What happened to the "Drill, baby, drill" mantra from a few months ago and the demand that more off-shore sites be turned over to big oil?

Source: npr.org "All Things Considered" 12/17 Story entitled Contango

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@realjohnboy,

rjb, They make threats that have no teeth; if they drop supply, they don't get the money from oil sales. There are oil producers ready to sell if others wish to cut their production. Simple supply and demand issue. Demand is way down, and will remain down. If they wish to cut production, they only lose their share of the market.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

What have you learned? "Nothing."

Not at all. We learned that anything that can't be backed up with evidence is "garbage". You said the Dow would be below 8000 and you had no evidence. We now have evidence that it was double garbage. It was a " guess" and a wrong one too.

We hope no a2ker sold short on your advice.

Why do you post double garbage ci. whilst bollocking others for only doing single garbage. Are you looped? Do you just blurt out the last thing you saw on TV?

Try three pints a night of 3.8%. You'll be as right as rain after a course of that.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendi, You failed to read my subsequent post concerning my predictions about the stock market. Go back and study it hard, so you'll remember it in the future.

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@realjohnboy,

an efficent economy needs to have predicitable prices...400% fluxs in crude prices over six months are intolorable. Yet another way that slaving to market dynamics hurts everybody. Is there anyone left who will argrue that the current level of speculation should continue to be allowed? Our parents had it right, in critical markets regulated monopolies is the best structure.

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@cicerone imposter,

Study what? You with no shirt if you put your money where your mouth was. No thanks.

If you didn't your prediction was gratuitous.

Who reads subsequent posts when they have rushed off to get on the good thing.

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@spendius,

You were a "guru" don't forget and a just hatched might be impressed.

In fact, by stating you were a guru, in the face of an avalanche of contradicory evidence, A2K was dealing in garbage by your own scientific principles.

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@spendius,

spendi wrote:

Quote:

If you didn't your prediction was gratuitous.

Here's a clue for you (remember it if you can): All predictions about our economy are "gratuitous." There is no one on this planet who can predict what will happen to our economy in the future, and that includes the stock market.

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@cicerone imposter,

Oh, I know that ci.

But only a very small number of the planet's population do predict the market.

And you were one of them. So now you have admitted posting gratuitously. Which means "asserted without proof or cause. i.e. garbage.

Shame on you.

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@spendius,

You have finally "learned something."

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@cicerone imposter,

The Bush administration is now talking about a "soft landing" into bankruptcy for the Detroit auto companies. Funny; it's really a joke.

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@cicerone imposter,

I am not so sure, c.i., that the White House is eschewing the notion of an "orderly" bankruptcy for the auto companies. It has been a week or so since the Senate balked, and Mr Bush is still reviewing the options. The idea that now seems to be in the forefront is a federal cash infusion for a few months with a car-czar overseer to evaluate a plan that could well include bankruptcy filings.
If I were to predict what might happen, I would suggest that scenario. I realize that the odds of getting a prediction right are much less than the 100% scored by scornful "Monday Morning Quarterbacks." So it goes.

PS: Oil fell by 9% today? $36.40?

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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