Where is the US economy headed?

you are welcome. I am neither a good speller nor very careful about spellcheck

You ought to get used to condescension then, because those things are the very basic of what adults are expected to do in society, Hawk.

If you can't get that **** right, nothing else you say really matters at all.

Cycloptichorn

Oh PLeeeease....your mind was never open enough to take seriously what I say, no matter how I say it, or how well I argue my case. Losing a lost cause is not all that devastating.

This is actually incorrect. I didn't always have such a poor opinion of you; it was developed over the course of the last couple of years as your posts became increasingly divorced from reality, and begin to reflect your internal issues much more than anything you were actually writing about.

Cycloptichorn

Bullshit, I have never once seen you have respect for anyone who does not agree with your political views, by that I mean your liberal ideology.

You rationalize excuses to cast off all that you were never willing to seriously consider in the first place. In this way your fantasies and proclivities are safe from unwanted intrusion.

I'll leave it up to the reader of this thread to decide whether or not that is true. Suffice it to say that your judgment on this issue isn't exactly taken as the gold standard.



After reading the various threads regarding women's issues that you've been a part of, I would strongly advise against ever admonishing someone elses 'fantasies and proclivities,' Hawk.

Cycloptichorn

There is a reasonable chance that the right will regain control of the country in 2014. I think this would be disastrous. Consider the pending expense of the baby-boomer retirements, the mountainous debt, the lack of ability to create wealth in the country, etc. There is nothing proposed by the right that will effectively deal with these problems. The future for the USA will be quite bleak should the right regain control.

Advocate, lets be realistic. You speak of mountainous debt and the lack of ability to create wealth. I agree with that, and what we need are conservative policies to encourage an economic atmosphere that will stimulate the private sector to produce more and create more wealth. Face it, the public sector is not efficient to create wealth, and it never has been anywhere it has been tried. That is why Obama's policies are failing. The Republicans do not equal one to one to perfect conservatism, but at least they give us the best hope in that regard. That is my opinion, and I think that is increasingly becoming the opinion of more and more people in this country. We will see if that is true in the upcoming elections.

One example of how conservatism works was Newt Gingrichs congressional intitiatives that helped balance the budget and actually accomplish something I had never witnessed before I saw it happen with Gingrich. I am speaking of welfare reform, wherein the program was actually made more efficient, and as I said, that was one of the few times or only time in my entire lifetime that I had ever witnessed that to happen with any federal bureaucracy. And that was accomplished with some very simple reforms, one of them was that a welfare recipient had to actually come in and be interviewed, to which many never showed up, simply because the recipient did not exist or was dead and the benefits were being collected by someone else, or they were fraudulantly receiving the benefits for some other reason, or they were in fact able bodied or something else. It is amazing that something that simple would accomplish so much, but it isn't amazing when you actually see how much waste and corruption exists with some federal programs.

GWB brought this mess and stop pointing at Obama. You are ethics challenged.

The time is far past the point that Obama's failed policies can be blamed on Bush. In case you haven't noticed, it has been almost two years since Obama was elected. Compare Obama's unemployment numbers to the average of Bush's, try that for starters. Bush's averaged 5.2 % and it was still less than 6% when he left office. Obama's numbers approach a doubling of that.

To be productive and create wealth, you need people working. That would be one basic principle to understand, talk. People working also increase tax revenues.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100123163209AA2ahTb

It is a big hole created by GWB and Obama had nothing to do with it. Wall Street executives are all pals with the Bush crowd and you are just a pawn for their tricks.

I think we should all know now that the melt down had much to do with the housing industry, people defaulting on loans with the subseqent effects of falling home values and all of that, which created a domino effect throughout the economy. We also know, or should know, that Fannie and Freddie played a huge role in that meltdown. We also know that some managers and executives that reaped tens of millions at those institutions have never been held responsible for their corruption in those operations, which included cooking the books to hide their financial mess. We also know that certain ones of those are friends of President Obama, including one Franklin Raines, and I for one am still waiting for these people to be brought to justice. It is doubtful it will ever happen, especially as long as Democrats are in power.

okie is challenged in more ways than just ethics.

You need to research Leo Strauss.

The economy is terrible for many reasons that are all part of the past.

1.) The returning GIs following WWII; the subsequent Baby Boom. Peace always brings a period of play and relaxation. It also brings a desire for luxury and wealth. With money from the GI Bill in their pockets, veterans were attending school, buying houses and making babies. The babies grew up and demanded houses of their own which fueled the Housing Boom.

There are other reasons, but it is nearly 1:30 in the morning and I will work my 14th day in a row. I also have to do something later today that I was pressured into. I am not looking forward to it.

Uh, bullshit. Totally.

This is a graph of the unemployment levels of 2008-2009, Bush's last year in office:



The rate when Bush left office was 7.6%. The current unemployment rate is nowhere near double that.

You need to realize that Bush walked out the door leaving a giant financial mess behind to clean up, the biggest of any of our lifetimes (unless you are older than I think you are). To claim that less than 2 years later we should have the whole thing cleaned up is just foolish.

I'm still waiting for you to tell me how McCain would have helped there be more jobs in the economy.... you made a big claim on that point and then never followed it up.

Cycloptichorn

Your post on the deflation of the housing bubble both blames the victim and demonstrates your inability to place that deflation within its proper social and historical context. The problem with housing began three decades ago and is largely due to social forces and the sort of people the hippies called "greed heads" who began taking advantage of the numbers of people seeking housing beginning in 1970 and continuing.

So, why are the wingnuts so unwilling to talk about Leo Strauss and his influence?

Cyclops, you are correct. I did post what I posted from internet information, but it turned out to be slightly off. I suspect they were referring to the annual average in 2008 being less than 6%, and it was in fact just 5.8% in 2008, as compared to 9.3% in Obama's first year of his presidency, so the I was basically correct in the overall picture of things, and I stand by it. When you look at monthly figures, here is what they are in this link, which shows 7.4% in the last full month of Bush's presidency, so you are correct there. However, if Obama had not been elected, I doubt the same figures would have resulted, even under Bush, because investors and employers react to future outlook and consumer confidence.

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=LNS14000000

Annual figures can be found here:
http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm

I have pointed the following out numerous times, that it is real and factual that businesses and investors respond significantly to future outlook and consumer confidence. For example, if they think future tax and regulatory actions, such as anticipated under Obama, are very negative, they will not only not invest as they would otherwise, but they will even begin to lay off employees. I believe this is what was happening in late 2008 and on into Obama's tenure as president. This effect in the stock market was known as the "Obama Effect." We saw the stock market begin to take dips when Obama gained the advantage over Hillary Clinton, then when the polls showed him winning over Bush before the election, then at the election, then at his inauguration, all of those events showed a dip in the stock market, and interestingly the same effect can be seen in the monthly unemployment figures.

I think I have told you many times why things would have been better under somebody other than Obama, such as McCain. If you had ever run a business, you would know this. Businesses and investors respond to future outlook and consumer confidence in the future. As outlined above, there was the "Obama Effect" in the market, starting when he gained the advantage over Hillary and continuing with his poll numbers predicting he would win, on into the eclection and his presidency. Look, no sane person would believe that a free market economy can flourish to its full potential under a president that lacks confidence and full belief in the free market economy. It would defy common sense, cyclops. At some point, you are going to have to face the reality of this fact, that Obama simply is not a full free market economy guy, and the economy will never flourish under him. In contrast, although McCain is not the best that we could have, he does actually love America and its traditions and spirit of individual liberty, including free market economics, and this alone would have gendered more confidence in businesses and investors.

It is interesting, and I have posted this before, I believe as the polls continue to show or increasingly show the Republicans will win this fall, the market will begin to move a little, and in fact that is what we might be seeing now. The irony of this, which I have pointed out before, if it moves too much, it might help the Democrats slightly, and then if the polls begin to reverse, the market may take another dip in response to that. So, this may be like a teeter totter which will go back and forth, depending upon where the economic outlook weight is shifting, and it will ultimately depend upon how the election plays out in November, that will bring about a significant impact upon investors and business owners. Just my opinion, but based upon that, I am not cashing in the mutual funds and stocks now.

It sure would be nice to get a response from Ican711nm on this matter!