You seriously don't things are going to get a lot worse? Have some more Kool-Aid!

We have had recessions before and bounced back. That was when we still had a solid manufacturing base and could generate real wealth.

Our money is flowing out of the country like a gusher and the only money coming back is borrowed from places like China.

The only hope we really have is to develop green energy and fossil fuel alternatives. If we can't capitalize on that market, we are screwed.

There comes a point when things we see like 10% unemployment become the norm. Remember when gas got to $2 a gallon and we were all in awe? Guess what? $2 a gallon is a bargain.

I'm not the one wanting to play on fears but I am a realist. I can look around and see the trees for the forest.

I agree that Americans are irresponsible. The housing crash was a product of prices skyrocketing on homes, people using their homes like ATMs and dumb loans.

We have a lot more bubbles out there that are going to pop and the credit markets are going to get worse. Student loan defaults are going to rise sharply over the next few years, the ranks of the 99ers is going to continue to swell and more baby boomers are going to retire.

As far as oil prices, OPEC controls the supply to an extent but speculators helped drive the prices up. I don't recall seeing lines to get gas like the 70s.

 

I can't believe I'm readin' some of this stuff.

K-Mac, it's the liberals you love so much that started and continue the snowball we're all ridin' down the mountain. The housing bubble was thanks to the Clinton administration. Bawney Fwank played a big role in it too. The market just happened to pop under Bush's watch. The unemployment rate was risin' when Obama took office. However, we were all supposed to believe that the massive stimulus was gonna keep the unemployment below 10% (wasn't it supposed to get no higher than 8% or somethin' like that?). Well, that stimulus was a very expensive failure. The reason we keep needin' more money from China is because the Democrats can't stop spendin'! We've long been out of money, yet, they just keep spendin' like an irresponsible 18 year old with their first credit card.

 

a lot worse, maybe I cannot tell the future like you can ( or is that just supposition on your part ?? ).
Worse than the 30s ? You really don't know what caused it to get that bad do you ? The same things cannot happen as back then, guess your econ class from MBA school glossed over that part...


You really are a piece of work... Another great misrepresentation of the facts on your part. At best an overly exaggerated representation of the facts.
Trying to have an intelligent conversation with you is next to impossible.


Guess we are screwed, the US is way behind the curve on developing alternative fuel sources when compared to Europe.

It has been worse then that already. Same lines were tossed around back in the 70s and 80s.... Housing was at a dead stop from '78 to the mid 80s, just about like it is now. This was with mortgages in the 18 to 25% range, and no banks would write a note without at least 40% down.

No, you are doing a great job of playing on fears, with all the mis information and opinion presented as fact, and some of the fact completely misrepresented..You are looking at the forest from 1 side, and calling a 2' stick in the ground a tree.

There you go again, your MBA hard at work.
The prices went up why ??? Supply and demand. If the fed gov should do something about it with oil, why not houses too ?

Where are these lot more bubbles ? You talk in vague terms, just to incite fear.
Student loans cannot be defaulted on. They will accumulate interest and sit for a long term cook. Once the person starts earning again, the gov is going to get their pound of flesh.
No getting away from them, else every person leaving medical or law school would just file for bankruptcy and clear off 250K in student loans.

No OPEC controls the majority of the supply, and when they cut production, the price goes up with the same demand.
Do you really think CAN is going to sell oil below the prices derived from OPECs product schedules ?
Again Supply and demand pricing. Did they cover that in your great MBA class ?
The lines in the 70s were due to the supply being cut off by OPEC.
You do know it was called an oil embargo for a reason. It is also what caused the creation of the nation oil reserve by the feds, so it could not happen again.

You might want to get a refund on your MBA, the education is worth less than the pretty binder your sheep skin is in.

 

Sscully---I always thought it was the right wingers that were the fear mongers.

You can think what you want and I hope the future is as rosy as you seem to think.

As far as the student loan bubble, like it or not, it is real. There are students out there that are getting into big time debt with federal student loans (100K+) and have no chance of ever working. Many of the recipients are people who are already on disability or SSI and have been sold the dream of their world magically changing with a college degree.

No they cannot discharge the debt via bankruptcy and they can only garnish someone up to 15% of their wages/SS so it is likely they will perish before the debt is retired anyway.

Also given the heavy load some of these people are under with debt, it is causing them to default on other things too. You can't keep spending what you don't have.

I realize oil is sold on the open market but like an EBay auction, it is easy to run up the prices. The oil companies are turning record profits and of course they would never do anything to facilitate this occurrence.

In reality we are behind the curve on alternative fuels. Brazil is making most of their fuel from sugar cane which makes a much more potent form of ethanol than the corn crap we are trying to use. The corn crap we use costs more to produce and some argue it takes more fossil fuels to create/transport it than it saves.

In addition to that, most of the rest of the world uses diesel fuel much more because they are more efficient.

The bottom line is that it is not all that unfathomable that the current economic situation could become the new norm. After the Great Depression and WWII, we were the only unscathed country and were able to produce in our factories while the rest of the world was rebuilding. After the recession of the early 80's, we still had a good manufacturing base. The dot.com bubble wiped out the investors in businesses that had no backing but we bounced back. We really haven't had that resurgence since 9/11. The stock market went back up but the people aren't seeing the forward movement. Jobs and incomes are stagnant.

 

Hey K-mac, debt or deficit? Which one should we fix first?

 

K-mac, you just need to stop where you are at... it's not worth making yourself look any worse.

 

Clinton's National Homeownership Strategy Plan led to the housing bubble, which led to a huge reason why the country is in this. Clinton believed it was pretty much a right for every American to own a house, so they got "creative" in findin' ways to try to accomplish that goal.

 

People are fear mongers. The fact that you thought it was a single political party, might be you are waking up to the reality that another party has been hiding from you. This is pure speculation on my part.

I never said it was rosy, I work from facts at hand. You post a gloom and doom future ( which could be correct ) but string together opinion, mis represented facts and parallels that are not the same foundation to get there. You might as well bring in the economic situation from the dark ages in your road map to the country falling apart.

The "bubble" as you put it is not the same as the housing or consumer unsecured debt ones. Those the money is not paid back, and there is nothing to show for it ( aside from a bad asset on a bank balance sheet, or a write down ).
Where do you get your information; "Many " of them are on the government give away programs ? This is your opinion presented as fact, got any data to back this up ?
Above it was the "few" that are abusing the system is OK so those who need it can have it. Now you have many of the new grads with student loans are on the give away, sounds like more than a "few" people abusing the system...
I have to raise the BS flag, many of the new grads exiting with student loans are not already on give away programs.

While true, the items not being paid for have come to roost already. Already covered and already bailed out by the gov. This is verbal double counting of the housing bust.

That is supply and demand pricing, not speculation.
Very good, you finally got it. The price increases when the supply is limited ( eBay, 1 item or oil, finite amount of oil that month coming out of the ground ) and a lot of people want it ( eBay 30 people, oil every developed country ).
Look at that, didn't need to get your MBA to figure that out, just some simple logic using eBay as an analogy.
1 step further, when oil was over 120 / bbl, OPEC had to increase production to get the price down. They only thing they have is oil, everything else is shipped in, and they cannot subsidize feeding as many people as they have now, compared to the early 70s when the price to get goods into the country sky rockets. Sounds like the opposite of the general use of speculation to me. OPEC wants to keep oil below a top level due to the problem of the masses.

They are not, this is just false information.. You might want to try using google before posting your opinion presented as fact. The profits are up big from 2009, but far from record levels due to drops in profits in 2009 ( and 2008 compared to previous years ). XOM took it on the chin in 2009, with Walmart passing them in the F-100 list.
XOM ( and others ) might have drilled new wells, but do you think the new wells keeps up with the increase in demand ?

New normal, or just not the inflated high the US was on for 15 years. Look back ( again google is your friend ) this has been around before, and the 90's and early '00 was the exception. Too many people have short memories and cannot think past 10 years ago. This is close to the normal for the US, those who think it is new are either too young to know better, or just ignorant to history ( Dems and tax increases comes to mind ).

After WW-II who do you think was rebuilding everything ? It was exported to the war torn countries. After that, they had the ability to produce it themselves.

The dot com bubble did not wipe out investors in business, it wiped out individuals and companies that had no sales or created a loss on a regular basis ( bad business practices ). The same VCs are still in business today.

Jobs and companies are not expanding due to being scared. Every time I get a deal moving forward, POTUS goes on his TV spree, and everything shuts down. Happens every time, so it is not chance. Business does not have any faith in what the administration is doing, just like when Carter was in office.

I had several deals start up again after the elections were done, and now the un finished ones went dormant again, with the bickering over raising taxes again. I don't expect too much in a big way until after the new session starts, and some momentum happens.

Strange, you say he is acting more of a republican than Nixon, but businesses still say dem.

You are more than allowed to have an opinion, but don't present your opinion as facts and you might want to watch contradicting yourself.