U.S. Economy Battles Host Of Financial Woes

U.S. Economy Battles Host Of Financial Woes

New York Times   |  Vikas Bajaj   |   March 14, 2008 09:02 AM


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Almost everything seems to be going wrong for the American economy at once. People are buying less, but most things are costing more. Mortgage rates are rising, the dollar is falling and prices of key commodities like oil are leaping from one record high to the next.

On Thursday, the dollar plumbed new lows against the Japanese yen and several other major currencies; the price of an ounce of gold jumped above $1,000 for the first time; and lenders raised home loan rates once again. Government figures showed retail sales fell in February as consumers cut back on cars, furniture and electronics.

Stocks fell sharply after the retail sales report was released early in the day, and a large investment fund said it was nearing collapse. The volatility that has defined the market lately continued unabated.

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-- OR --

The NYT is hardly the only newspaper reporting on the sad state of the U.S economy. Business Week's cover story this week asks "How bad will the downturn get?" and reports:

No one can know because we've never experienced such a headlong slide in the housing market--and this comes at a time when its current value of $20 trillion accounts for the vast majority of most families' wealth. Right now most economists expect the U.S. to experience a mild, short recession in 2008. But there is at least a possibility of a steeper decline that the traditional recession remedies--interest-rate cuts here, deficit spending there--won't be able to handle.

 
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- dadw5boys I'm a Fan of dadw5boys 281 fans permalink
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UNREGULATED CAPITALISM IS ALWAYS A FAILURE!!!!!

TOO MANY THEIVES STEALING FROM THE SAME POT OF GOLD.

PRINT MORE MONEY!! HURRY GOT TO MAKE BUSH LOOK GOOD TILL JAN 11 , 2009.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:57 AM on 03/16/2008

SUGGESTION,

Send this to your favorite neighborhood CEO....>>

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/letter-to-ceos-of-fortune-1000-cos.html

WE MIGHT HAVE TO BLOG THEM INTO COMMON SENSE.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:14 AM on 03/15/2008

The American financial system has become a giant gambling mart where the big money push and pull the market as the common investor "for the long haul" loses his savings and prays for a short retirement. When human and productive assets are converted into paper for the satisfaction of the greedy and speculative predators, sooner or later the wealth becomes concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.
Unrestrained business becomes gigantic corporate monopolies. Corporate monopolies have been allowed to control our media, therefore, our information, knowledge and ideas. Foreign ownership has corrupted our citizens with the lowest common denominator of human loathing and behavior.
A few banks control our money supply. The leaders of these banks with the blessing of the Federal Reserve pyramided debt, identical to a Ponzi Scheme. Now the the greatest bubble which creatred good paying jobs lost in our decimation of our factories and technology to mercantelistic trade arrangements, has burst. There is nothing left to replace it as our banks are broke, our citizens are deep in debt, our corporations that are letf standing are weakened by buying and selling, and our local, State and Federal governments are essentially bankrupt because of entitlements and borrowings.
The present remedy is a disaster. Giving money away encourages more frivilous consumption. Lowering the interest rates erodes our currency and makes money want to go to foreign hands for safer investment. Throwing money at the criminal class who created this financial crisis is throwing our money down a rat hole. Instead, these monopolistic organizations should be allowed to collapse of their own worthlessness and new smaller organizations arise under strict governmental supervision.
The solution is to begin rebuilding a protected industrial, technological and human competence base to encourage private initiative towards rewarded labor in remaking our physical environment and providing opportunity for all of our citizens. The highest priority is to provide gainful employment, not towards paper shufflers and fast money schemes, but towards the slow, arduous tasks of rebuilding our machines, competences, technologies towards national goals that will yet startle ourselves and the peoples of the world.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:12 PM on 03/14/2008
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All these problems are not happening because of corruption & incompetence.

Milton Friedman's theories are being put into action by the Bush crime family!

Katrina, the Tsunami and Iraq are all examples of allowing corporations to go

about raping, pillaging & end up owning an areas resources, following chaos.

This host of financial woes will bring about such a series of catastrophes that

it'll make possible, the virtual reality of GHWB's Norte American Fascist Union.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:29 PM on 03/14/2008
- outnow I'm a Fan of outnow 191 fans permalink

In communism, the state is the corporation while in fascism, the state serves the corporation.

For the corporation there is only the bottom lines. A corporation has no soul. It is not concerned with morality or legality. In fact, the quarterly bottom line for the corporation is its legal mandate - to make money for its shareholders.

Ripping off the mask of the false patriotism and false concern for the world's well-being from the faces of corporations is necessary for the preservation of our democracy.

Shallow greed and willing corruption of politicians and government bureaucrats that hand out funds from our nation's coffers is not "free enterprise." In fact, these multinational corporations constitute a major part of the war industry. Which corporation wants peace if to prolong the wars would lose money for their shareholders? Our financial institutions are manipulated by the financial industries that have colluded with other multinational corporations to finance the war and the bailouts.

We must regulate these industries before we find ourselves further down the road to fascism. Our political system is being bought before our eyes by the 35,000 lobbyists in Washington and thew 250,000 lobbyists nationwide.

These companies are calling the shots, not the people. A bold assault on the tyranny of corporate globalization is necessary to save our country from greed run wild. We need a movement for caring economics worldwide.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 04:02 PM on 03/14/2008
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POPULISM IS THE CURE FOR THE CANCER OF CORPORATISM.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:09 PM on 03/14/2008
- Rule Of Law I'm a Fan of Rule Of Law 161 fans permalink

There should be no Lobbyists, Period. And don't even start on me with "freedom of speech." Corps. are NOT people, they should have NO rights, and No political voice. Let's get back to a time when a Senator or Congressmen knew the people in their district or state and worked for Them! Let's make legislators actually work for a living, learn the issues of their constituencies, interact on a human level, and vote the will of the people!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:20 PM on 03/14/2008
- outnow I'm a Fan of outnow 191 fans permalink

"The situation prevailing today in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as "pure" capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles (the labor movement, civil rights movement, womens movement, environmental movement, etc), have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the :free labor contract" for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from "pure" capitalism....

"Production is carried on for profit, not for use....The crippling of individuals (due to the lack of jobs) I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is incalculated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his career....the community would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child...The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow man in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society...How can the rights of the individual be protected and therefore a democratic counterweight the power of bureaucracy be assured?...

The profit motive, in conjunction with competitiveness among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions....Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to the crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I have mentioned before...........

Albert Einstein, 1949

"Increasingly severe depressions" ..........Hmmm...you mean that Adam Smith was not the political and economic equal of Albert Einstein?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:15 PM on 03/14/2008
- outnow I'm a Fan of outnow 191 fans permalink

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor - not by force (neocons) -but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules (neoliberalism). In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production - that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods - may legally be, and for the most part are , the private property of individuals (privatization)....

"It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.....

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of the competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and increasing division of labor (outsourcing and union-busting) encourage the formation of larger units of production (multinational corporations and mergers and lack of enforcement of anti-trust laws) at the expense of smaller ones (monopolistic practices destroying markets for the middle-sized companies). The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital (financiers and economic cabals) the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.l This is true since the members of the legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, , private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quit impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.....

Albert Einstein, 1949

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:49 PM on 03/14/2008
- Nova16 I'm a Fan of Nova16 34 fans permalink

The economic genius of GWBush is now being presented to the Economic Club of New York and the members are lovingly consuming the elements of Econ 101 as viewed by the dolt. He has finally acknowledged the economic mess we are experiencing but accepts no responsibility. He also is touting his phony Iraq war and mesmerizing the members of the club with his ability to "cloud" men's minds about the need to continue the genocide and squander trillions of dollars and they appear to be buying into the deceit. If the Economic Club fails to "Feel" the pain of our current plight and absolves this president and his administration of responsibility for our mess, that may eventually be an economic depression, then they have no validity as economists.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:08 PM on 03/14/2008
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...but, but, but it's soooo ROMANTIC!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:59 AM on 03/16/2008
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An excellent source for what's going down and what may be coming, enjoy:

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:34 AM on 03/14/2008
- outnow I'm a Fan of outnow 191 fans permalink

Thanks. Beware the ides of March! Have a great day! Where should I put my dollars?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:12 PM on 03/14/2008
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I have most of mine in precious metals, but I started LONG ago. The object is to maintain wealth at this stage and the markets have been bleeding to much for my taste as of late. I'm in my mid forties so I still have time to accumilate more wealth before my golden years but if you are looking at retirement within the next two years and took no corrective action you are most assuredly in deep trouble.

Stocks are overvalued in my opinion and by hedging in metals I will definitely have some capital to invest after the crash when the bargains and pennystocks will be plentiful. I wanted to avoid the major losses that most have seen thus far and precious metals allowed me to do it. I cannot understand how people with Google and Apple stock just sat back and took megahits instead of liquidated one quarter to one third when the market was at it's peak and leaving cash on the table. I know a knucklehead that lost over $70,000+ dollars being greedy and not hedging. Idiot.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 04:48 PM on 03/14/2008
- Nova16 I'm a Fan of Nova16 34 fans permalink

What's happening at Bear Stearns? The Fed has to bail them out in cooperation with Morgan.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:04 AM on 03/14/2008
- drmavis I'm a Fan of drmavis 2 fans permalink

I bet Chelsea Clinton is cheering at the economy's downward spiral. Hedge funds are making out like bandits right now, and I bet she'll have a hefty bonus at the end of the year.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:43 AM on 03/14/2008
- BuyRubles I'm a Fan of BuyRubles 2 fans permalink

Bear sterns plunged 33 percent today.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:13 AM on 03/14/2008
- Rule Of Law I'm a Fan of Rule Of Law 161 fans permalink

So the question is--Did Bear Stearns short themselves in the market the way Goldman-Sachs did on all their sub-prime products? I wouldn't put it past them!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 06:23 PM on 03/14/2008
- drkazmd65 I'm a Fan of drkazmd65 55 fans permalink
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Another day,... another set of shoes dropping,...

I'm still betting the DOW hits a low of at least 11K before tax day - and will be up and down all spring and summer.

Uncertainty (of how bad it is going to be) is the real killer here. If we 'knew' how bad, at least some sort of relatively stable state could be achieved.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:06 AM on 03/14/2008
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What we are battling is a criminal administration and a system of government that has been corrupted to it's core. There will be no quick fixes and only a COMPLETE overhaul of the system will do.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:00 AM on 03/14/2008

mrc, I agree 100%. The comptroller general of the USA(the nations top auditer), David Walker, resigned last week. He has been critical of this countries economic policies and our leadership for the last several years. In his words "we are facing a demographic tsunami that will never recede", "the United States can be likened to Rome before the fall of the empire". The boomers are just now reaching the age for retirement, which means SS and Medicare, will we be able to afford it in this tanking economy? The next several years are going to be interesting indeed. Revolution, enyone?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:46 AM on 03/14/2008
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Some think it's a coincidence that this just happens to coincide with the boomers getting ready to start retiring in mass and taking trillions out of the markets. I of course do not believe this just happened by accident. This has been in the works for quite some time.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:38 AM on 03/14/2008
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