An economics question?

That’s quite a diverse mix of topics you have there. I’m not sure where to start.

Wow, I’m speechless as well, not sure how economics relates to your topics.

I guess the question was sent to you 2 based on the topics. Sorry to misdirect you.

I just can’t help but feel like we are being “butt raped”, so to speak, by our government, bankers, and corporations. That’s why i put that as the topic.

My wife was just saying that exact thing. She said the government (1st item) is doing the last 2 items to us, resulting in the other items.

Ok, that makes more sense.

It seems clear to me that we’re at step 12. “Meltdown” has been achieved. Whatever that means.

[this is based on following the link in the question and reading the article referenced there]

What is your question?

His question is:
Based on the premise that the article mentioned in this question is correct in that the economy has been following Nouriel Roubini’s predictions dealing with the current financial crisis, which of Professor Roubini’s stages is the economy currently in?

It’s ironic that all think the economy is bad when interest rates are very low and gasoline is as cheap as it has ever been.

It’s interesting that the scenario was thought of as overly pessimistic and alarmist a year ago. It was pretty much what I was telling my students in 2006 too. It is also a testament to how much intelligent people can be in denial. It has been obvious since 2003 thatwe were going to ignore the warnings of the 90’s that we were played out from deficit spending and we were going to follow the Russians into economic chaos if we didn’t take control of our spending.

Well we are officially in a recession and before things even approach normalcy we will experience a defined depression. There will be no magic bullet to save us. It will be a long and painful route before we turn things around. This will include increased taxes on those of us who have jobs and hopefully a strong progressive income tax that rises to 75%+ on 7 figure incomes including capital gains. There should also be legal limitations on credit extended based on income. The bankruptcy laws should be amended to prevent people who just recklessly consume themselves into oblivion from getting a “clean” start every 7 years. Medical situations or other acts of God would be the exception.

What the govt does spend should primarily to improve the United States. We should maintain our infrastructure, spend money to maintain a healthy, educated population and do away with tax loopholes that encourage the corps to suck the lifeblood from our counry’s economy.

Any money that goes to bailout said corps should come along with a lot of strings, including but not limited to product-related decisions and compensation issues.

The shortsightedness of both business and govt has got to stop. We have to develop 5 yeay, 10 year and longer plans and stop the bread and circus attitude that buys Americans off with cheap unnessary crap and diverting us with phony crises.

We should spend a reasonable amount beyond our borders but only to build up countries that will become trading partners but definitely NOT to force them to accept our values at the point of a gun.

@steve6: Wait…

Are you arguing that the economy isn’t bad?
Not even Bush thinks that anymore.

@lefteh: Many people who are independently wealthy and are not burdened by debt do actually see this as a buying opportunity. They can buy houses and stocks for pennies on the dollar and wait it out long term. Most of us can’t see that because we are not in the position to take advantage of the current market. For instance, I could go out and buy some cheap houses, but I don’t have the cash to ride out all of the vacancies that I would surely have for a while. I couldn’t re-sell them for a profit for a very long time either.

Right on!

Absolutely. I don’t dispute that.

However, the fact that the rich have the opportunity to buy cheap houses doesn’t change the fact that the economy is in a recessed state. When the Dow can drop over 700 points in a day, when 1 in 10 Americans are either getting foreclosed upon or are dramatically behind in their mortgage payments, when banks and entire industries are begging for bailouts, and when plants are closing left and right with thousands of jobs disappearing every day…that’s a bad economy.

The disappearance of jobs is most troubling. Outsourcing, especially since NAFTA, has reached epidemic proportions. The middle class is not only bearing an unfair share of the problems but is shrinking as more people become poorer. Maybe those who can afford it should donate more time, food, shelter, etc. before the situation becomes unsalvageable.

Welcome to America—A Third World Adventure.

You can’t blame NAFTA for outsourcing, unless you think India, China, Japan, Eastern Europe and Korea are signatories to NAFTA. When I call customer service, I’m not connected to Canada or Mexico. And the auto plants went east in the 1970’s, decades before NAFTA.

I thing that the term NAFTA gets tossed around when the speaker/writer means—“Free Trade”

What scares a lot of people is that Free Trade will work and a superpower won’t be able to run the world.