It's Official

[melon]

The U.S. has been in recession since March.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011126/bs/recession.html

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

 

[Spiral_Staircase]

The Economy is funny. It should have it's own show.

 

[DoctorGonzo]

Nah, it would be cancled due to high ratings.

 

[Danospano]

So, I guess we won't believe anything until those "experts" over at Harvard say it's true. That figures. I knew we were in a recession since I started noticing all my friends, co-workers, and family telling me about how horrible things were in the workplace. One again, everyone in this country is dependent on OTHER, "experts" to get the truth. Where were these experts last summer? Do we really need experts to tell us this country is going down the drain? PLLLLLLLEEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEEE!

 

[Anthony]

Well, what goes up must go down, and what goes down must go up; atleast as far as Economics is concerned.

My economics teacher used to compare economic cycles (ie- recession and expansion) to his wife who had PMS all too frequently (apparently), saying that they were as 'moody as the woman's behaviourial patterns'.

Ant.

 

[melon]

A very true reality, Dan. It's always funny how the "experts" are the last to "get it."

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

 

[Klodomir]

Q: How many women with PMS does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: One. ONE!! And do you know WHY it only takes ONE? Because no one else in this house knows HOW to change a light bulb. They don't even know the bulb is BURNED OUT. They would sit in this house in the dark for THREE DAYS before they figured it OUT. And once they figured it out they wouldn't be able to find the light bulbs despite the fact that they've been in the SAME CUPBOARD for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS. But if they did, by some miracle, actually find the light bulbs, TWO DAYS LATER the chair that they dragged from two rooms over to stand on to change the STUPID light bulb would STILL BE IN THE SAME SPOT!! AND UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE CRUMPLED WRAPPER THE STUPID @*!#$% LIGHT BULBS CAME IN! WHY?! BECAUSE NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE EVER CARRIES OUT THE GARBAGE!! IT'S A WONDER WE HAVEN'T ALL SUFFOCATED FROM THE PILES OF GARBAGE THAT ARE 12 FEET DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE. THE HOUSE!! IT WOULD TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS...

I'm sorry...what did you ask me?

 

[Angela Harlem]

Are you saying women dont clean the house properly klod?

 

[Not George Lucas]

Oooh, recession sounds so harsh. I prefer the term "pre-growth".

 

[sharky]

OK about these experts you guys are ripping on. They're actually part of a think tank organization that sits down and actually determines a start date for a recession to help create a clearer picture for economists and analysts on exactly where it started so they can better predict when it will end and give a better historical perspective to future recessions. To get a better idea of what has been actaulyl accomplished with this report go to nber.org.

Everyone knows we've been in a recession for awhile. Hence all the rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, which have been more deeper and more frequent than in previous years.

And to think, before I started working for a financial newspaper I would have understood none of this.

 

[Anthony]

To be completely truthful with you, the fact is, America HASN'T been in a recession. While everyone in the media takes it for granted that it has been in recession, people keep forgetting what the word actuall means in Economic terms; negative economic growth, and that doesn't simply mean that economic growth becomes slower or minimal. If figures are slumping, that doesn't mean recession, its only recession when economic growth is negative and is sutained as negative.

Now, I don't know what the situation is now, but back in the early part of summer, when the press was going on about how America was IN recession, the fact was that it wasn't.

If you America is in recession, I don't actually think it will be that drastic. I'd be more worried if I was Japanese. Now, THEIR economy is definately in trouble.

Ant.

 

[Klodomir]

Can I just ask an ignorant question? If things have been going so well all through Clinton's administration, why do people always say that a republican government is better for the economy?

 

[melon]

Originally posted by Klodomir:
If things have been going so well all through Clinton's administration, why do people always say that a republican government is better for the economy?

Republicans say this, just as much as Democrats say the opposite. It goes back and forth.

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

 

[Klodomir]

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. I'm assuming that the reason I heard it from Republicans was that they were in the opposition.

 

[sharky]

Originally posted by Klodomir:
Can I just ask an ignorant question? If things have been going so well all through Clinton's administration, why do people always say that a republican government is better for the economy?

This actually had nothing to do with a Republican/Democrat president. We went through the longest sustained econimc growth-- coincidentally under his presidency-- because of the dot-com business in the late '90s. People spent more money and invested more money which in turn kept the economy going well past when it should have started to decline. The problem was that while these dot-coms were creating all this money and people were making millions off of technology stocks, those tech companies weren't making anything. Essentially, they were money pits that kept throwing away millions and millions of dollars. It was evident near the end of last year when all these dot-coms were laying people off that we were going to be going in to a recession-- and this was even before the presidential elections. Some of it may have been Clinton but some of it was pure luck.

As to why people say Republicans are better for the economy-- its based on the idea that Republicans are less likely to tax than Democrats. Democrats want to publically fund programs for the homeless and welfare and that money comes from the pockets of taxpayers. Republicans believe that less taxes means more money people want to spend, thereby keeping the economy going. Buying more products creates more jobs to make those products. Both are right in some ways and wrong in others.

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"Things will not be the same in this city for us." -Bono, Dublin, February 1980

 

[U2Bama]

Originally posted by sharky:
This actually had nothing to do with a Republican/Democrat president. We went through the longest sustained econimc growth-- coincidentally under his presidency-- because of the dot-com business in the late '90s.

Actually, sharky, it DID have a lot to do with it.

If you remember, during his political career, Democratic President Bill Clinton's V.P., Al Gore, took the initiative of inventing the internet. Therefore, he and Clinton were responsible for the dotcoms. They prospered until all of the Republican/conservative U2 fans elected people to Congress who wished to ban dotcoms, just to rain on Clinton & Gore's parade.

And now since Gore didn't win and bring the internet and dotcoms back, our economy is an a fast downspiral, from which we will never recover until we elect a Democratic President.

~U2Alabama

 

[melon]

Originally posted by U2Bama:
If you remember, during his political career, Democratic President Bill Clinton's V.P., Al Gore, took the initiative of inventing the internet.

Get a copy of the Rolling Stone with Britney Spears on the cover (hopefully the most recent). One of the main articles goes into how the press made that statement up. It's an interesting article, at least, on how the media can make things up or take things out of context, and the public will be duped into believing it is true.

Melon



------------------
"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

 

[Diemen]

Originally posted by Klodomir:
Q: How many women with PMS does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: One. ONE!! And do you know WHY it only takes ONE? Because no one else in this house knows HOW to change a light bulb. They don't even know the bulb is BURNED OUT. They would sit in this house in the dark for THREE DAYS before they figured it OUT. And once they figured it out they wouldn't be able to find the light bulbs despite the fact that they've been in the SAME CUPBOARD for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS. But if they did, by some miracle, actually find the light bulbs, TWO DAYS LATER the chair that they dragged from two rooms over to stand on to change the STUPID light bulb would STILL BE IN THE SAME SPOT!! AND UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE CRUMPLED WRAPPER THE STUPID @*!#$% LIGHT BULBS CAME IN! WHY?! BECAUSE NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE EVER CARRIES OUT THE GARBAGE!! IT'S A WONDER WE HAVEN'T ALL SUFFOCATED FROM THE PILES OF GARBAGE THAT ARE 12 FEET DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE. THE HOUSE!! IT WOULD TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS...

I'm sorry...what did you ask me?

Woah...that sorta reminds me of my mom.

 

[Se7en]

Originally posted by melon:
Get a copy of the Rolling Stone with Britney Spears on the cover

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The numeral 7

 

[rougerum]

I blame two people for this recession, one more than the other.

1.) Alan Greenspan, in the summer of 2000 he kept on spiking up interest rates for no reason what so ever. He said it was to fight inflation but experts say that there was no inflation to fight and in the fall of 2000 when things started to drop he avoided the problem and let it run into the next year before he took action. By then it was too far down and people on Wall Street lost confidence in him and have ever since.

2.) Bill Clinton, for some reason this guy decided to take a vacation for his second term and spent one of out every 3 days campaigning for money for some various reason. Clinton knew Opec was going to cut how much oil it produced but still did not warn any one about it and secondly, he never addressed the economic slow down he was seeing at the end of 200 at all. He just basically ignored it and was busy trying to secure his legacy. I think the President should at least say about these things even when a good economy was what got him the popularity he had. But he didn't, he just ignored it.

Greenspan is the main guy to blame, Clinton gets some credit to it too. Bush came into office and was already given the weakening economy so he didn't start it. But I will say Bush in his first months at office really didn't aggressively go after the problem of the economy which was easily the biggest problem in the country at the time and now with the war he won't need to have to deal with it really, how he looks in the future and his chances of being reelected are going to be decided with how he performs in this war. Bush better hope this war brings the economy back up because if he doesn't it will hurt him. But the war will ultimately determine how bush will be looked at in the years to come and you must remember that some of the greatest presidents were really not very popular, that is, until war broke out. George Washington was hardly known for his bravery and courage before the American Revolution which put him as the first president of the USA. Abraham Lincoln was not even close to being a popular president, his views basically divided the country and he barely won the presidency to begin with and FDR was known for the failure that was his New Deal until WW2 broke out. So economy plays a back seat now and so it really doesn't matter in the long run but I will still be watching it.

~rougerum



[This message has been edited by rougerum (edited 11-28-2001).]

 

[Klodomir]

Nice objective explanation, Sharky! Thanks!

 

[sharky]

Originally posted by melon:
Get a copy of the Rolling Stone with Britney Spears on the cover (hopefully the most recent). One of the main articles goes into how the press made that statement up. It's an interesting article, at least, on how the media can make things up or take things out of context, and the public will be duped into believing it is true.

Melon

The article also mentions what a bad job Gore's press people did at trying to get the truth out. You can't print a rebuttle when a campaign official doesn't give you a rebuttle.

As for Greenspan-- first, he may be the head of the Federal Reserve Board but the board has to make the decision to raise or lower interest rates. Its not just a Greenspan decision. However, most people barely understand how the general economy works much less how the Federal Reserve works. So the media latches on to Greenspan even though he's not the only one making decisions. And it could be worse-- the European Union's bank hasn't been cutting rates at all and that region is going in to a recession as well. By not cutting rates, they could be hurting the economies in Europe even more.

 

[melon]

Originally posted by sharky:
The article also mentions what a bad job Gore's press people did at trying to get the truth out. You can't print a rebuttle when a campaign official doesn't give you a rebuttle.

Oh I am aware of this too. I have always criticized Democrats of being too spineless, particularly since Republicans have no qualms about heading straight for the jugular in campaigns.

Al Gore blew it in too many capacities, but what is done is done, I guess, and the best one can do is learn from these tactical blunders for the future.

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time