What benefits has America experienced in the wake of the recession?

A long term benefit is the restructuring of the housing finance market. It still has a long way to go, and a lot of people were hurt from 2007 to 2010; but it has gotten at least much closer to reality.

And while hosing prices have once agin skyrocketed, at least people are no longer getting in over their head with falsified mortgages and low cost enticing loans. In th along run, that will make the economy a bit healthier.

This I haven’t followed too closely @zenvelo ateast not the reform. Is it that they revamped Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae and other such programs or just that the banks are much less willing to lend to over assessed or people with poor credit these days?

Boom and bust are inevitable in any economy. The only thing people can learn is that they happen, and why they happen.

Any time lots of money goes after an asset, it creates a “bubble”

Any time cheap borrowed money goes after an asset, it creates a really big bubble.
The government caused the last recession by keeping interest rates low, and pressuring lending institutions into loaning money to people who could not pay it back. Bubble.

Couple with financiers who figured out a way to “short” the packages of bad loans with insurance, and bingo. When that bubble burst it took down lenders and AIG as a bonus.

The housing market was one of the first things I thought of, which I see @zenvelo already mentioned.

Also, my impression is more people are taking seriously living within their means. More cautious about living on credit. There was an explosion of personal finance advice. People like Dave Ramsay and Suze Orman, and it seems like a portion of the population is listening. I don’t have data to support that though, it’s just my impression.

For people who maintained their jobs and houses the recession actually made some cost of good and services cheaper and they did quite well.

Honestly, I think there was a lot more negative than positive and the biggest negative in my opinion was people being afraid of losing their job. It gave companies too much power. Good Question though, interesting twist.

@josie I don’t disagree. Just like individual mistakes, highs and lows, are inevitable. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them. The problem with nations and countries is that there are so many divergent ideas and they outlast the life span of the individual.

Mostly I just saw this as an opportunity to put a positive spin on things.

@JLeslie I have noticed people are attempting to budget, trim the fat and are more serious about savings.

There was and is a lot of negative ripples. We made a few mistakes trying to right things.

However I have noticed people are more politically aware and active. Granted the grass roots movements are not what I hoped. But people seem to be waking up.

The forecloser experts have more work.

And, who was in control of the government and demanded interests rates stay low? And, no one pressured lending institutions to lend money to people who couldn’t pay it back? Actually, the answer to that is no-one. It was something they thought they could safely make money on because the government they controlled would foot the bill if the shit hit the fan, just they way it did. There were no requirements that loans be made to non-credit-worthy borrowers. The act: ‘Loans to be made consistent with safe banking practices it was the individual banks themselves that chose to make the risky loans. Remember, only a handful of the bigger, more politically connected, banks had problems. If it was a requirement, they all would have been in the same sinking boat not just those who chose to try and game the system.

@Unbroken I checked out of politics about 3 years ago. I stopped watching it on TV, which was my main source of political information.

When the tea party movement first started I was interested, because I had been so disgusted with the deficit. I hated it during Reagan, we finally were in better shape during Clinton (although he made some mistakes in hindsight) and then Bush really gained momentum towards an economic downside. Obama was not correcting it well enough for me, possibly adding to the problem. Then I realized the Tea Party was hijacked by the right wing, and it is just a ridiculous group at this point in my mind. I’m sick of it all now. Sick of all politics. I will start paying attention again when we get close to an election, because I still do care, but inbetween elections I am psychologically better off to ignore it.

I know what you mean @JLeslie. Last president election cycle I had to check out til the very end… It made me sick to think of all the money they were spending campaigning… The average citizen contributing when all said and done one person wins. And they are both equally paralyzed by party politics.

Although in retrospect maybe all that campaign money trickled down, I have my doubts though.

We will see what happens next president election cycle.

@rojo feel better now? I know not really. Nothing is an undo button.

Man, I must have been very tired when I wrote that. It is so confusing and full of so many grammatical errors.

But, the gist is correct. The banks manipulated the system and chose to take the chance with other peoples money.

Lol I’ve been there