It's the economy, sweetheart.

[martha]

Is the US economy tanking? Is it a natural contraction? Or is everyone panicking for no reason? What do you think?

Here's the caveat: You can't use the words Bush, Clinton, Greenspan, or president. Explain it without those, please. If you must use those words, I reserve the right to mock you and use the tsk smilie at you.

[Dreadsox]

Originally posted by martha
Is the US economy tanking? Is it a natural contraction? Or is everyone panicking for no reason? What do you think?

Here's the caveat: You can't use the words Bush, Clinton, Greenspan, or president. Explain it without those, please. If you must use those words, I reserve the right to mock you and use the tsk smilie at you.

Can we use them if we quote you like above.....

:::::EVIL GRIN:::::::

Teasing Martha! Has Diamond caught you yet?

[martha]

Originally posted by Dreadsox


Can we use them if we quote you like above.....

:::::EVIL GRIN:::::::

Teasing Martha! Has Diamond caught you yet?

NO!!

And to answer your second question, No.

[Dreadsox]

I will follow Martha's directions and not use the name of any of those naughty names that enflame the boards.

Our economy is tanking!!!!!!!
It is not natural contraction!!!!!
Everyone should not be panicing, what goes up comes down and goes back up.


We have a one term Shrubbery on our hands.


There I did it!!!!!

[martha]

Originally posted by Dreadsox
President

[Dreadsox]

Dang it all!!!! I will edit it. Shoot I hate when I goof up like that!

[oliveu2cm]

I think it's tanking. Tons of people I know have been laid off recently and my own company is going through the same thing. It's scary and it sucks. Plus someone told me that it'll happen again in 3 months, so if we "survive" this week, we'll have to deal w/ it again soon.

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

It's been "tanked", oh say, as far back as last December?

[STING2]

The economic downturn started in September 2000. It needs a few years to level off before it can start to grow again.

[martha]

Originally posted by Dreadsox
Dang it all!!!! I will edit it. Shoot I hate when I goof up like that!

But it's fun for the rest of us!!


Now, folks, how about some elaborations. Why do you think this is happening? Remember the rules.

[nbcrusader]

I'll give it a shot - dot coms. We all road a wild economy on companies that sold no products, lost money each month, yet had stock prices soar to incomprehensible levels.

Our current economy is most likely a natural contraction/correction to the overheated days of old.

9/11 didn�t help things either.

Stay faithful.

[Screaming Flower]

there are so many different reasons for the economy that i find it hard to believe that any administration (look i didn't use any of your words martha) could have prevented it: the dot-com implosion - obscenely overvalued companies with NO earnings, 9/11 and its psychological ramifications on the consumer, corporate malfeasance the subsequent mistrust of corporate balance sheets, etc.

despite all of these factors, i don't believe there will be a doubled-dip recession. although i do see a long and slow road ahead of us.

[us3]

a lil levity b4 brevity

Times-CBS-MSNBC Editors: 'Message Getting Through'
(2002-10-07) -- The latest New York Times-CBS-MSNBC poll results show that Americans think the economy is in trouble, and editors at the three news organizations couldn't be happier.

"This shows that our message is getting through," said one Times editor. "We've been telling people for months that their confidence in the 'invisible hand' of capitalism and free markets was misplaced. It's good to see that they're starting to believe us. We were worried for a while that American optimism and that bizarre can-do spirit would avert an economic crisis."

According to the Times story about the poll, "In recent days many Democrats have grown glum about the upcoming election, arguing that Mr. Bush and the White House have successfully drowned out domestic issues that the Democrats had hoped to capitalize on with his talk of war. Many Democrats had even feared that the debate over war had undermined their chances of winning the House and holding on to their one-seat margin in the Senate."

Editors at the three news organizations said they were still concerned that Americans overwhelmingly support military action against Iraq, even if it involves substantial casualties.

"Well, you can't always get what you want," said the Times editor. "But now that we know our 'economy stinks' message is resonating, we can devote more effort to showing people what's wrong with American foreign policy."

Terry McAuliffe, DELETE, sent a nice thank you card to the companies that paid for the survey.

"They saved us thousands of dollars," McAuliffe said. "Plus they've been kind enough to run our news releases daily, almost verbatim and without attribution. We're indebted to them."

by Scott Ott at 08:00 AM :


brevity....

limping not tanking....

[diamond]

Is the economy in the shitter?-yes.

Is the current Commander in Chief's approval still hovering around 60 per cent? despite the lousy economy?-yes

Sometimes character outwieghs all else.


Is the current Commander In Chief SEXIER than his predecessor? yes-

thank
you-

diamond

[martha]

Originally posted by diamond



Is the current Commander In Chief SEXIER than his predecessor? yes-

Notta chance, big guy!
Deer-in-the-headlights vs. perverted twinkle?

I'll take my chances with the perverted twinkle. I can run pretty fast once my feet are done healing!

[hiphop]

Originally posted by martha

Why do you think this is happening? Remember the rules.

I think one of the main reasons apart from dotcoms etc. is the change of production methods. Production is generally not worth as much as it was twenty years ago. This happens because of the arrival of globalisation and all its bad effects (trade free zones etc., which mean capital moves out).

For example, in the music industry things changed when, as we say, "the suits moved in". Contracts were always bad, the people always like sharks etc., but it was a (very) little balanced out because people who worked in the industry actually cared about music. Nowadays it is not important. The figures, who merges with who, ups and downs on Wall Street are important. Then, a general carelessness slipped in as well. No one cares about quality anymore. Everyone tries to make big profit the quickest way possible, its important because things change so quickly and flexibility is increased.

Situation is that everyone tries to save his own ass. If you are a manager, you better have a fifteen percent profit rise in your dep. per year or you might as well get fired. So what will you do? You will cut expenses, sell off properties, increase unemployment, because those are ways how to press for some more profit when most other ways are already done (like huge tv spot budgets, attracting more customers with lower prices, or conciously less quality so customers have to buy new - f.e. handys, computers, clothes et al.)

The problem is that those neoliberal concepts are only "useful" for a certain period of time. Anyone who thinks this is not the case, wait some more years. Time will tell.

[melon]

Our economy tanked, because it is no longer real. The prosperity of the 1990s was due solely to speculative venture capitalism on the stock market and periodic infusion of retirement funds. That's right...all of our big jumps in the stock market were generally when retirement funds were infused in, but it was natural that there would be a point when there would really be no more significant funds added to make an impact--which happened in 2000/2001--and we would have a fairly long period of stagnation, followed by a decline, because speculation is never happy with the status-quo. It always wants *more.*

And there belies the problem. When you have an economy based solely on constant *more*s, you will inevitably flounder. When one would joke of the disposability of the 1980s, it was perhaps most accurate. What would be the easiest way for our economy to collapse indefinitely? If consumers no longer bought anything; and, hence, that is why we've created a system that forces us to buy *constantly.* With automobiles, for instance, leasing is now a large fraction of the market, rather than outright buying, because it has now become cost-prohibitive to the general working class, which, on average, made only $35,000-40,000 a year. Cars, though, have continually spiked up over the last two decades; a $10,000 car is virtually unheard of now, but was a reality in 1990, if you bought a small car. Leasing, however, ensures a constant demand; after 2-4 years, depending on the lease, you surrender your car and get another one. In essence, we've created a subscription-based car service.

Feudalism's main vehicle for suppression was the guise of security, coupled with keeping serfs all in abject poverty / enslavement. Capitalism's main vehicle, in contrast, is credit, and what a system we have created! No incentive to save, a retirement system so bad that we're required to put it in the stock market to even be able to retire (government bonds and money market funds, as a good banker once told me, will barely outpace inflation in the long run), less benefits, and a whole bunch of debt. Serfs may have been tied to the land by force, but we're tied to the land by mortgage.

Marx, as I learned, believed that capitalism would fail in the long run on its own (the ideas of forcing the defeat of capitalism through revolutionary action is falsely attributed to Marx and should be attributed to Leninism more appropriately). Lately, I question as to whether he is correct, as the polarization of our economy has only gotten worse since the massive deregulation of the 1980s. The only hope for capitalism, perhaps, is regulation, which, though, goes contrary to our ideals of unimpeded greed.

And here lies the ultimate truth about economics: you can't have it all. Is it acceptable to limit capitalism, if it benefitted the whole of society? Or are our delusions of grandeur of someday being mega-wealthy that powerful? The other question, though, is why they have to be mutually exclusive; there were quite a few millionaires and billionaires even in progressively regulated capitalism...and then we go back to an issue of propaganda...

...and I've rambled enough.

Melon

[Salome]

Originally posted by melon
Our economy tanked, because it is no longer real.

indeed
ever since just about everybody started to talk about how the chance of recession has become nearly impossible in the "new economy" you could just wait for it to happen

[diamond]

But GW is still sexier than Clinton

DB9

[martha]

Originally posted by diamond
Clinton

The rest of you have done a bang-up job!