What's happening with the economy?

[clintlove]

Re: What's happening with the economy?

Am I wrong by saying that the media could pull us out of this recession. If CNN and others reported that everything is back to normal and everyone should shop and spend as usual, then things would turn around quickly. It starts with americans spending their wages and snowballs from there.

As for a gas prices go, the oil and gas industry sees their highest profits during times of high gas prices. We do it to ourselves. Enough said.

[jcole]

Re: What's happening with the economy?

i feel that our dependency for oil is way outta hand at this moment in time. we must slowly transition ourselves to alternative soruces,ie solar, hydrogen, wind.. this will eventually happen, but not as long as we have these greedy oil companies fucking every person that doesn't drive a horse and buggy to work.. once we as a whole deplete our natural resources, we will be forced to search for alternatives, but as long as these company's are making a killing it will never happen...

[Steve Graham]

Re: What's happening with the economy?

whats absolutely ridiculous is only the past 12 months or so, i have actually contemplated going some where based on far it is and fucking gas prices, lol.. thankfully i live on the beach now and other than work, which i have a company vehicle, everything i need is basically with in walking distance

[jcole]

Re: What's happening with the economy?

back when...if i wanted to go somewhere i'd just jump in the patty wagon and cruse on, now i'm like, naw, gas is too high... it can wait..

[Miroslav]

Re: What's happening with the economy?

Am I wrong by saying that the media could pull us out of this recession. If CNN and others reported that everything is back to normal and everyone should shop and spend as usual, then things would turn around quickly. It starts with americans spending their wages and snowballs from there.

As for a gas prices go, the oil and gas industry sees their highest profits during times of high gas prices. We do it to ourselves. Enough said.

Unfortunately, this wouldn't work. People aren't spending less because of mainly what the media says; they're spending less because their real earnings have fallen thanks to inflation, their jobs are imperiled, and they are up to their eyeballs in credit card debt - and that's before taking into account the ones who are sitting in homes that are way too expensive for their paychecks. Running a happy news story on CNN isn't going to make people forget about these things and go on a shopping spree.

Furthermore, consumer growth is just one (although a major) component of GDP; others include firms' investment, government spending, and net exports. Take a look at the financial markets where liquidity is imperiled as banks struggle with massive losses on all of those bad mortgage-related investments. This all translates into a spike in the cost of debt for companies - and debt is an important source for firms' future investment in growth. Lastly, don't forget that the world's financial markets are heavily interrelated now and the entire world depends heavily on US economic growth. That means this whole mess is going global.

Sounds pretty bleak? I won't lie, I think we're heading into the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression era. These are all things the media cannot possibly stop. These kinds of things simply have to run their course.