Where is the US economy headed?

Spent too much on the war...Agree and Congress approved every dime and then some.

Prop up housing?? No, that started under Clinton and Congress expanded it and failed to provide oversight to Fannie and Freddie.

GWB went around about HOME Ownership.



Convenient right wing short term memory.

So, you never heard of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1992? Maybe you were not born yet.

http://money.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977461051

This just establishes a starting point and EVERYONE IN GOVT ignored the problem until it blew up about a year ago.

Does that mean that GWB is a follower of Democrats? Anyway, Clinton had a surplus during his administration so even with the spending there was a surpus not so with the dumb ass GWB.

Yea, that's it.

USA TOTAL CIVIL EMPLOYMENT HISTORY 2001 TO 2010.


IN 2008, BUSH'S ERRORS CAUSED THE ECONOMY TO START TO DECLINE.

IN 2009, OBAMA'S ERRORS CAUSED THE ECONOMY TO DECLINE FASTER.

IN 2010, OBAMA MAINTAINED THE ECONOMY'S DECLINE INSTEAD OF CORRECTING IT.

OBAMA, NOT ONLY REPEATED BUSH'S ERRORS, HE EXPANDED AND ADDED TO BUSH'S ERRORS!

Come on now. Be fair. New jobless claims fell this month.

I guess there is no one left at the Census to lay off !

I do know that Clinton wasn't president in 1992. Did you know that?

Yea, the one expanded by Clinton in. Remember?

"In 1995, as a result of interest from President Bill Clinton's administration, the implementing regulations for the CRA were strengthened by focusing the financial regulators' attention on institutions' performance in helping to meet community credit needs.

These revisions with an effective starting date of January 31, 1995 were credited with substantially increasing the number and aggregate amount of loans to small businesses and to low- and moderate-income borrowers for home loans. These changes were very controversial and as a result, the regulators agreed to revisit the rule after it had been fully implemented for seven years. Thus in 2002, the regulators opened up the regulation for review and potential revision.

Part of the increase in home loans was due to increased efficiency and the genesis of lenders, like Countrywide, that do not mitigate loan risk with savings deposits as do traditional banks using the new subprime authorization. This is known as the secondary market for mortgage loans. The revisions allowed the securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages. The first public securitization of CRA loans started in 1997 by Bear Stearns. The number of CRA mortgage loans increased by 39 percent between 1993 and 1998, while other loans increased by only 17 percent.

Other rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks. By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market. Thus leading us to the problems of today.

Just like all other administrations, the effect of a presidency often isn't felt until after he leaves office. Clinton reaped the benefits of the Reagan/Bush era, and George W. Bush, is having to deal with the problems created by his predecessor and are now coming to fruition."

http://money.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977461051

Hey, all those jobs are coming back.

In 2020

Nope...the real answer in "not in the foreseeable future". any American who still believes in long range forecasts of any kind after their record of a nearly 100% failure rate is a damn fool.

I agree with Hawkeye (man, that's twice in one day...) It's going to take much longer than 2020.

I have several observations to make.

The first is perhaps there was a surplus during the Clinton Administration because we were not at war then. I have run that past several former legislators, a retired physics professor and a journalist who all looked amazed and then said I may be on to something.

The second is that we as a nation have put too much emphasis on retail as a source of income without the support of manufacturing. Yeah, I know all the righties hated the hippies but the hippies I knew were into creating small businesses that sold high quality goods, from soups to photographs to printed matter to clothes. Most people on the left thought that we would become a nation of craftsman who made exquisite things. We also wanted shared time jobs which will come about because there isn't enough work to go around.

Anyway, back to the emphasis on retail. What did george bush say when he finally deigned to visit Ground Zero? Take your family and go shopping. Wow! That is the finest manifestation of family values I ever heard. Cloaca.

Anyway, yesterday, I received a catalog from Crate and Barrel. I remember when there was one C & B store in Chicago and they sold unique, interesting and useful items that featured good design. As Chicago was always a tourist and shopping mecca, visitors to Chi-town in the late 60s and early 70s made pilgrimages to C & B. Now, C & B is almost as bad as Starbucks and The Gap. Ugh. I looked through the catalog and decided there was one item I would consider buying. I have actually considered this item for several years but, as I have existed without it, I guess I don't need it.

When I worked at Williams-Sonoma, a coworker commented on a part of the W-S empire, Pottery BArn. "I really don't like the things they offer. they look like things I liked when I was just out of college. At 45, I want nicer things."

The look of these mass market home furnishings and kitchen goods store is just that: mass market. They offer a few colors and limited style choices. People who work for those companies can not afford to buy their goods but they have managed to push out the small independent kitchen ware stores that were so interesting.

Until the market offers something better, the US economy will be in the doldrums.

Yeah, it was the hippies that we should all look to for inspiration, the potheads from the 60s. No wonder the Democratic Party of today is the leftist radical mess that it is, the potheads put on suits and ties and they now run the Democratic Party. If your posts were not so sad, you would be funny, pom.

P.S. I guess I was not part of the in crowd, but I never knew a single hippie that ever produced diddly squat, and they still haven't.

okie, You fail to understand the simplEst of concepts; the hippies generation also helped our country become the superpower of this world. DUH!

Those of us who finished our education and found employment were some of the best years of our lives after the depression.

You missed all the progress our country enjoyed during that period, because you have no ability to realize history in the way most of us actually lived it.

Nonsense. Well, maybe the hippie generation, or the generation that the hippies belonged to, but not the hippies, ci. I realize I did not know all the hippies, but of the hippies that I have known, few if any ever produced anything much of significance to this day, and most are now either on disability or they are no longer alive due to some kind of substance abuse.

Ah, stereotypes! There were so many hippies who never took any drugs. A great many of the back to the land people did not, although many did. A lot of hippies were into organic food and the environment and never put chemicals into their bodies. There were hippies who meditated and practiced yoga. There were hippies who joined the Religious Society of Friends and lived a cleaner, healthier version of American suburbia.

today, there are many right wing kids who use heroine and cocaine.

No No No I meant the census jobs were all coming back in 2020. Ya gotta either get a sense of humor, or stop with the partian and out of context quotes.

i.e. it was a joke.

The CRA had nothing at all to do with the financial crisis of 2008. This is a long-standing accusation from the right-wing with no basis in fact.

Cycloptichorn