Where is the US economy headed?

It has fixed alot. Belief motivates. If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. Unless we believe in the correct foundational principles, we have indeed lost our way, and we are destined for the trash heap of history.

Obama's foundational beliefs are the primary problem as is that of the Democrats in Congress.

It is not the actions of government that will bring back the economy, it is the American people. The American people need to have politicians in Washington that will not steal and plunder them, as they are currently tryin g to do, and that will not spend every last cent that they make and that their children will make in the next generation or two.

I should qualify what I said about actions of government. Government should referee the situation, but should never get involved in playing the game, and that is what Obama is trying to do, make the government a player, and not only that, the only player.

shared belief has held people together, motivated them to work together, to solve large problems which are shared by many. Okie, your "I am a kingdom unto myself" narcissism shreds most of the value of belief.

It is Obama's narcissism that is the problem, not mine. I believe in America, capitalism, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and I believe those are the things that have made America great. It is evident that Obama does not. Obama is a Marxist sympathizer and dictator wannabe, motivated by his narcissism.

I addressed this to all but, perhaps, it should be addressed to okie.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the real wages of the bottom four quintiles (in other words, 80% of the working population) have remained flat since the late 70s while the top quintile soared.

Government had nothing to do with it unless it was the relaxation of governmental regs under reagan . . . a period when the national debt increased . . . sorry, did it double or triple?

Consider, too, that lobbies are the fourth branch of government and are more powerful than the three allowed by the Constitution and than the people. The last time the people of the United States exercised any power was in the ending of the VIetnamese War.

Consider that what is happening today is not socialism but its opposite.

plainoldme, hello.
You may wish to consider the possibility that earnings are flat in the lower rungs of society because of the stagnation of earning power there due to factors like too many people competing for low wage jobs, such as jobs at McDonalds, Wendys, and places like that. Nobody should expect to earn great money without the training or education to satisfactorily perform more highly skilled jobs. So, I would challenge you to check out the statistics of the work force, what percentage hav college degrees now as compared to the late 70s? In other words, what kinds of jobs are the people doing in the bottom 80% of the working population, as compared to the late 70's?

Also, what impact has illegal immigration had on wages? That would be another area of study for you.

You also make a few out of the blue statements, like the relaxation of government regs causing what you perceive to be wrong, and the national debt, but you seem to ignore the current explosion of national debt. Also the statement about lobbyists and the Vietnamese war, both of those statements are pretty much unsubstantiated. Plus the statement about socialism, if you are talking about Obamacare, it is most definitely socialism or even Marxism, to each according to his need.

It seems obvious you have swallowed the liberal line and merely parrot what you have heard, with little evidence to back up your statements.

Let The Gnashing Of Teeth Begin...
Oh, woe is we, the President is about to take us one giant step closer to the Socialist state he so proudly advocates.
Donald Kohn (67), vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, announced his retirement today, effective in June. This will give Mr Obama the opportunity to appoint 3 new members to the 7 member board in addition to Daniel Tarnilo, the law professor nominated and confirmed by the Senate last year.
The other 3 members, including Ben Bernanke, the chairman, were nominated and confirmed during President Bush's terms.
Bernanke was reconfirmed for a 2nd term a month or three ago by a Senate vote of 70-30, which seems big but it was the narrowest margin in Fed history.
The Federal Reserve Board is supposed to be non-partisan but in D.C. nothing is non-partisan. Mr Obama will, if he decides to make nominations prior to November, face Senators attempting to score points. In addition, if he chooses candidates with a background on Wall Street or from banking, there could be backlash from the public. The safer bets would be to select people from academia.
I suspect he will choose to fill 1 seat (bringing the total to 5) before the election and will leave the other 2 vacant until next year.

Often, a business owner can increase his personal income from his business by increasing his number of employees, and paying them the same as he pays current employees to do the same kind of work. In that event, the business owner's income can increase without any employee's income being increased.

In that event, the business owner is rewarded with his increased profit for hiring more people. The new employees are rewarded with their new jobs. The current employees are rewarded with increased job security.

That's not a bad deal for any employee! In fact it's a good deal for every employee!

Good evening. The unemployment numbers came out today. The one that is quoted most in the media (U-3) shows that the rate remained at 9.7%. A net total of 36K jobs were lost in February. Certainly not good, but also not as dismal as it has been.
I haven't yet found the U-6 stat which reports underemployment. I did see that the average work week and wages fell a tad.
In a separate report, it appears that consumer borrowing in January rose by almost $5bn, led mostly by auto sales (up $6.6bn). Credit card debt declined by about $1.7bn.
Economists had expected a decline in borrowing of about $5bn.

Actually, the fact that ONLY 36000 Americans lost their jobs is good, according to Harry Reid.



I doubt that it is a good thing to the people that lost their jobs, but it must be a good thing for the dems that people are still losing their jobs.

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/7963

oh, give it a rest, mm. No one is saying it's a good thing people are losing jobs, but it's a likely sign that unemployment, which is a TRAILING indicator has bottomed out, and employment is likely to go back up, like the rest of the economy.

I posted his exact words, and he DID say it was a good thing.
Now he may not have meant it that way, but we can only go by what he said.
We cant read his mind.

Tho the "only" and the two succeeding sentences don't exactlhy help oyour case, mm.

Lots of those folks have college degrees and then some! Listen! I have two master's degrees, one from Harvard, summa cum laude. Since graduating from the Big H in 1998 through 2007, my average annual gross earnings fell just under . . . ta da! . . . $15,000!

I worked two, sometimes three jobs at a time, and never at McDonalds!

A teacher today might make $40,000 but when that salary is adjusted for inflation and all the other changes, that teacher made what a teacher in 1975 made.

The chart took the changes into consideration.

ANd you missed the point . . . the bottom four of the five quintiles of society is 80% of the wage earners.

I looked back at the post that was questioned. I clearly stated that bottom four quintiles had stagnant wages.

How many fail to understand that a quintile is one-fifth or 1/5 or 20%?

Four quintiles then are four-fifths or 4/5 or 80%.

Four fifths of all American wage earners covers many, many people who have degrees: bachelor's, master's and Ph.D.s.

I 'swallowed' no 'liberal line.'

It is a fine day in Charlottesville, mild enough that we were able to prop open the doors to my store for a couple of hours.
Segueing right along, the FDIC Friday closed the doors on 4 more banks; relatively small ones in Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Utah. The total for the year is now 26 vs 140 in all of 2009. The FDIC projects that the pace of closings will accelerate due to underemployment, continued low prices in the housing market and the ****-about-to-hit-the fan situation in the commercial real estate market.
The cost to the FDIC related to these 4 banks is just over $300M.
In 2009 the FDIC ran a deficit of $21B and saw its reserves fall to $66B. To replenish the reserve fund, banks must prepay their contributions in 2010 for 2010-2012, which will bring in $45B.
Some folks contend that this is inhibiting the banks' ability to make loans. That could be, I guess. But bank lending fell almost $590B (7.5%) in 2009 vs 2008. There is more going on, I think. We have talked about this before, but I think the banks are low-balling their potential loss exposure on the loans already on their books.
Final note. When the FDIC shuts down banks on a Friday, they tend to reopen on Monday due to a shot-gun wedding with another bank. But the FDIC could not find buyers for the banks in Maryland and Utah and will wind those operations down. That indicates to me that the value of the loans on their books is very, very bad. The impact on customers, the psychological and perhaps the temporary financial, is not good.

Sometimes it's not bad loans that make a bank an undesirable acquisition. If they got in the position of having to sell certificates at above market rates. Nobody wants to take on the obligation.

True enough, Roger, but the "excess interest" on CD's seems to me to be quantifiable and the FDIC could build it into the hit they are taking. Putting a value on the loans outstanding (the bank's assets) is a really spongy undertaking.

I hadn't considered the quantifiable vs spongy idea.

the pink elephant in the room is how is it possible for capitalism to function going forwards now that transparency has been lost and no one cares much about getting it back? Hell, we cant even get credit default swaps out of the darkness and onto a central exchange, even after that lack of awareness of risk (because all deals are secret) lead to the great recession which might still become the next great depression.

The problems are well known, and we have a good idea about the solutions, but absolutely no will to fix the problems.

Banks and other businesses are cutting back or failing, because the Obama-Dinos have successfully discourage increased investment by and in the private sector.