Great Depression II

[Harlan Huckleby]

I was talking to the manager of a Walgreen's store. She said people have started stealing frozen pizzas. They take the pizza out of the box and stuff it in their jacket. (yum!) She says she never saw this behavior in past years.

[Brando19]

Things are getting really bad. Gas is slowly inching it's way back up. I would hate to be in Obama's shoes. There's no way all this shit will be cleared up in a few years and he's going to eventually get some blame because he's the President. Scary times.

[texaspackerbacker]

Good Grief!

Have you ever noticed that the bad news is always "I heard ...." or "Somebody told me ......."

Who's suffering? Nobody I know. Unemployment spikes are the last element of an economic downturn.

And the bottom line: This mess was all artificial in the first place. The God damned leftist mainstream media, as part of its Bush Derangement Syndrome, pushed the bogus concept of a recession. What happened? People believed it and stopped spending and investing--presto, less demand, lower production, less jobs--a damn self-fulfilling prophecy. The Multiplier Effect works in a downward direction too, and the leftist media assholes provided the stimulus to get it started.

Why would they do such a thing? Because a shithead was coming along talking about CHANGE. Why the hell would anybody want change unless they were hoodwinked into thinking things were bad?

[Harlan Huckleby]

holy smokes.

[LL2]

Tex, I don't disagree with your point about the leftist mainstream media, but this crash was bound to happen. The economy of the past 8 plus years was one that was credit driven, and it caught up to the majority of Americans. Your generation (I'm assuming your a baby boomer) was the last to buy things with cash and keep money in the bank, but there are a lot of boomers that lived on credit too. They say roughly 70% of the boomers have 50k or less save for retirement...very scary.

I didn't vote for Obama and I'm about as conservative as they come, but I do hope for the sake of my generation and my kids generation that American's get off the credit addiction and that the good ol' U.S. of A becomes a nation of producers again. We don't have to be a nation that gets back to producing cars and have widget factories everywhere, but we can have that too. We can produce alternative energy as well, among other things.

The best thing for this country probably would be for the government to stop all of this stimulus crap, borrowing from China, and printing inflated dollars. The withdrawal from credit, for the government and all Americans, may be painful, but it's necessary.

[Kiwon]

I was talking to the manager of a Walgreen's store. She said people have started stealing frozen pizzas. They take the pizza out of the box and stuff it in their jacket. (yum!) She says she never saw this behavior in past years.

The irony is last week's news that there are more obese people than those who are simply overweight.

Nothing will stand between a fat person and his frozen pizza!

[Harlan Huckleby]

More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle

As the number of jobs across the nation dwindles, more Americans are joining the military, lured by a steady paycheck, benefits and training.

The last fiscal year was a banner one for the military, with all active-duty and reserve forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19recruits.htm

[Harlan Huckleby]

The best thing for this country probably would be for the government to stop all of this stimulus crap, borrowing from China, and printing inflated dollars.

I tend to agree.

they need to spend more money on a safety net as people are thrown out of jobs, but I fear that the attempts to stimulate the economy will do more net harm than good.

The only thing that will work is to create a better climate for business. "Rebuilding our infrastructure" is not the top priority now, or a long term solution. If the government is going to throw money around, I would suggest tax cuts for businesses. And perhaps a subsidy to business for every new hire they make.

[texaspackerbacker]

Tex, I don't disagree with your point about the leftist mainstream media, but this crash was bound to happen. The economy of the past 8 plus years was one that was credit driven, and it caught up to the majority of Americans. Your generation (I'm assuming your a baby boomer) was the last to buy things with cash and keep money in the bank, but there are a lot of boomers that lived on credit too. They say roughly 70% of the boomers have 50k or less save for retirement...very scary.

I didn't vote for Obama and I'm about as conservative as they come, but I do hope for the sake of my generation and my kids generation that American's get off the credit addiction and that the good ol' U.S. of A becomes a nation of producers again. We don't have to be a nation that gets back to producing cars and have widget factories everywhere, but we can have that too. We can produce alternative energy as well, among other things.

The best thing for this country probably would be for the government to stop all of this stimulus crap, borrowing from China, and printing inflated dollars. The withdrawal from credit, for the government and all Americans, may be painful, but it's necessary.

I have a lot of respect for your conservative credentials, LL2, as well as the fact that I have detected little or no elitist pro-rich/anti-lower middle or working class slant to your posts.

Just the same, you got a couple of things wrong. First of all, yes I am a baby boomer--born in '47. Our generation, however, was just as much into credit as more recent ones. In fact, even my father's generation--"the greatest generation"--he was a WW2 vet--was into credit. All the houses and cars we had when I was a kid, as well as most major appliances and furniture were purchased that way. Credit cards didn't come until a little later, although MY generation--the boomers--were thoroughly emersed in credit cards. I remember getting my first while in the army in the mid 70s.

Use of credit--even maximum use of credit, as is so common these days--is NOT necessarily a bad thing. I heartily disagree that overdoing credit the past 8 years made an economic downturn inevitable. The level of consumer credit was NOT drastically higher than in the past, and regardless, the use or even abuse of credit by itself wouldn't do any serious harm.

If you're referring to the government using credit--deficit spending, I have said consistently, that is NOT a bad thing--Keynesian economics, etc. The sign you are pushing the limit of deficit spending is hyper-inflation, and we have not had that.

The small reality portion of this economic downturn consisted of a correction of real estate prices--pretty much confined to a very few areas where the boom in prices had been the strongest. That brought a number of foreclosures, but NOT near enough to do realistic harm to the secondary mortgage securities market. Those problems, IMO, were phony--somebody pulling some kind of shenanigans for illegitimate gain.

The current situation--unemployment spiking, following decreased production and services, following decreased demand for goods and services, following the public being convinced that there was a recession when there really wasn't--is real enough at this stage, even though I would contend it still isn't bad enough to affect the huge majority of people. The REASON why it is real at this point, though, is that people were falsely propagandized to stop spending.

And I say again, the motivation for that was to promote this stupid culture of CHANGE. The situation has been--and really still is--so wonderful in this country in every way, that CHANGE necessarily can only be in one direction--DOWNWARD. The only way to hoodwink people into supporting crap like that as to convince people that things were bad when they weren't.

[swede]

The best thing for this country probably would be for the government to stop all of this stimulus crap, borrowing from China, and printing inflated dollars.

I tend to agree.

they need to spend more money on a safety net as people are thrown out of jobs, but I fear that the attempts to stimulate the economy will do more net harm than good...

The only thing that will work is to create a better climate for business. "Rebuilding our infrastructure" is not the top priority now, or a long term solution. If the government is going to throw money around, I would suggest tax cuts for businesses. And perhaps a subsidy to business for every new hire they make.

I think--as you have already pointed out--it is the shrinking private sector that can best provide direct resources to needy people.

Problem: People are hungry.

Solution: Let them steal frozen pizzas from retail outlets.

[mraynrand]

More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle

As the number of jobs across the nation dwindles, more Americans are joining the military, lured by a steady paycheck, benefits and training.

The last fiscal year was a banner one for the military, with all active-duty and reserve forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19recruits.htm

Last May, before the financial meltdown, it was estimated that 500 thousand jobs had already been lost to new workers - especially lower skilled high school graduates (who tend to compose more of the military) - due to the increase in minimum wage. So the military, for some, was a better option. And now probably even moreso.

[SkinBasket]

Holy mother fuck!!!! Stolen pizza!?!?! Did she write the governor and ask for National Guard protection? This is serious shit.

[bobblehead]

The best thing for this country probably would be for the government to stop all of this stimulus crap, borrowing from China, and printing inflated dollars.

I tend to agree.

they need to spend more money on a safety net as people are thrown out of jobs, but I fear that the attempts to stimulate the economy will do more net harm than good.

The only thing that will work is to create a better climate for business. "Rebuilding our infrastructure" is not the top priority now, or a long term solution. If the government is going to throw money around, I would suggest tax cuts for businesses. And perhaps a subsidy to business for every new hire they make.

OUCH...rebuilding our infrastucture includes such things as a more efficient post office (shipping) New technologies that help businesses be more efficient. Adding HARDWARE to schools instead of simply paying teachers more and hoping they do a better job. Rebuilding the power grid so remote locations can be taken advantage of. Remodelling and expanding capacity at prisons so housing inmates is cheaper and doesn't require parolling lousy citizens cuz its overcrowded.

How about a job verification program so illegals who are often criminals (other than unlawfully being here) get caught and deported before they cost us in other areas. How about implementing valuable software that would increase the capacity of most airports by 25% while lowering manpower (oops, unions really object to that).

Creating a tax structure to encourage business expansion and job creation so we don't have to "spend more money on the safety net" which has a zero sum gain.

How about getting off the idea that everyone deserves a house, car, 2 kids and doesn't have to ever sweat losing them or prepare for bad times.

Govt' regulation has made it so costly and difficult to start a profitable business that talented people have stopped trying. Its simpler to just work for a corporation and wait for the check when you get laid off.

And finally where we agree...stop bailing out millionaires who screwed up their corporation so bad that they aren't competitive unless the gov't gives them an unfair advantage, and actually hold them accountable and jail them when appropriate.

[texaspackerbacker]

Why do you persist in this sort of thing?

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"How about getting off the idea that everyone deserves a house, car, 2 kids and doesn't have to ever sweat losing them or prepare for bad times."

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Barring acts of terror or losing our military dominance in the world, WHY in the hell should Americans ever have to sweat losing our wonderful standard of living and way of life? Nothing in the realm of economics ever needs to harm the goodness we now have with the exception of higher taxes to "pay for" deficit spending.

Sure, you can make the value judgment that people don't DESERVE the good life we have, but that is NOT an economic concept. It is purely a moral/social concept--one which reeks of class warfare and elitism.

[retailguy]

Hey, I've got a bunch of frozen pizzas with no packaging, does anyone know how to cook these things?

I'm afraid they'll freezer burn.

Please help.

[LL2]

I didn't think the stock market would sink on the day Obama was sworn in...I thought it would be up with all the enthusiams and obtimism about The One bringing a brighter day (and more money to our pockets).

[digitaldean]

Here's a fact I heard on the news tonight....

The amount of government employees now outnumber the number of our total manufacturing jobs in America.

If that doesn't tell you part of what's wrong, I'm not sure what will.