Crunch

[BrotherLovesDub]

i love when rich people suffer.

[rayray]

that made me smile - BLD - thanks !

greed and entitlement has reached new
highs in this world.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Soup anyone?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26949764/

We're all gonna look like skinny Hollywood now.

[King of Snake]

here is an interesting video clip from 2 years ago with one analyst accurately predicting the current situation, you should really watch this:



(oh boy I wish i could see that Laffer guy's face right now if you showed him this clip)
i then watched a bunch of other clips on youtube with Peter Schiff from earlier this year and in almost every one he seems to be the only one in the panel talking that actually sees the crisis coming as we see it happening right now.
Now I don't know much about economy but this guy does seem to be one of the few who actually knows what he's talking about. There's a bunch of good articles on his company's website as well:

http://www.europac.net/

I must say I'm fascinated by what's happening to the US economy right now and if Schiff is right in his predictions the US are in for some downright scary scenarios, especially if the bailout plan goes trough in some form or another, since it does not address any of the underlying problems of the economy.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by BrotherLovesDub

i love when rich people suffer.

Unfortunately, this isn't about rich people suffering - it's about all of us. The market lost 1.3 trillion dollars yesterday. That's not just the money of rich people, that's all of our retirement accounts, investments, etc. disappearing at a rate of, if I remember what I heard correctly, 2 billion dollars a minute yesterday afternoon.

That aside, I can't say I love it when "rich people suffer", myself. I guess I never associated "rich" with "bad". I've known many rich people who are very good indeed, and don't deserve to suffer any more than the rest of us non-rich folks do.

Personally, I don't like the idea of bailing out these companies that have created the problem we're in to begin with. But as far as I can tell, not bailing them out would actually hurt all of us even more than what happened yesterday. We need to do it smart and fast.

[Sarcasmo]

Originally Posted by Sean

Unfortunately, this isn't about rich people suffering - it's about all of us. The market lost 1.3 trillion dollars yesterday. That's not just the money of rich people, that's all of our retirement accounts, investments, etc. disappearing at a rate of, if I remember what I heard correctly, 2 billion dollars a minute yesterday afternoon.

That aside, I can't say I love it when "rich people suffer", myself. I guess I never associated "rich" with "bad". I've known many rich people who are very good indeed, and don't deserve to suffer any more than the rest of us non-rich folks do.

Personally, I don't like the idea of bailing out these companies that have created the problem we're in to begin with. But as far as I can tell, not bailing them out would actually hurt all of us even more than what happened yesterday. We need to do it smart and fast.

Ugh...NO. NO MONEY. BAD SEAN. VERY BAD!

These companies need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Yeah, it might suck for a little while, but if you don't want to see 3/4 of a trillion of our hard earned money pissed away by executives looking to line their pockets, then you'll piss and moan to stop this bill from getting passed.

Look, unemployment is at 7% right now. That means over 90% of Americans have jobs. That's right about average. It's not wonderful and sunny, but shit, it's not like it was in the real depression, where unemployment was at 40-50%. The median household income is just below record levels. Oil dropped $10 a barrel in one day. In the states, we could be buying gas for $2.25/gal again by this time next year. Now is the time to get into real estate and investments if you have the means. All this talk about how we're all going to lose our life savings because of this is just hysterics. Investors are jumpy and bad at adapting to short term unpleasantness.

I like Lou's idea:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/30/dobbs.qa/index.html

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by King of Snake

here is an interesting video clip from 2 years ago with one analyst accurately predicting the current situation, you should really watch this:

Ron Paul's economic adviser. So essentially Ron Paul.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Sean

Personally, I don't like the idea of bailing out these companies that have created the problem we're in to begin with. But as far as I can tell, not bailing them out would actually hurt all of us even more than what happened yesterday. We need to do it smart and fast.

I really don't know. I mean its straight fascism. Everyone on the talking head network is calling it socialism in this smug antipathy towards the free market and capitalism, but it would only be socialism if we did what Beautiful Burnout described happening in the UK. Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac are just owned by the government. This is fascism.

I'm willing to even look past that detail if its pragmatically going to help out. But when you have the people who called this from the beginning, when everyone else was laughing in their faces, saying that the bail out is bad, I have to say its worth some investigation.

As Ron Paul asked. do you want a bad couple of years or do you want a bad decade?

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Sarcasmo

Ugh...NO. NO MONEY. BAD SEAN. VERY BAD!

Frankly, I know very little about this kind of stuff, so I'm going mostly from the gut and from what I've been able to understand on the news on this one. So understand that this is just one semi-ignorant man's opinion.

Originally Posted by Sarcasmo

These companies need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Yeah, it might suck for a little while, but if you don't want to see 3/4 of a trillion of our hard earned money pissed away by executives looking to line their pockets, then you'll piss and moan to stop this bill from getting passed.

Which is why I say I think it has to be done smart - meaning in a way that doesn't allow them to line their pockets with the bailout money.

Originally Posted by Sarcasmo

Look, unemployment is at 7% right now. That means over 90% of Americans have jobs. That's right about average. It's not wonderful and sunny, but shit, it's not like it was in the real depression, where unemployment was at 40-50%. The median household income is just below record levels. Oil dropped $10 a barrel in one day. In the states, we could be buying gas for $2.25/gal again by this time next year. Now is the time to get into real estate and investments if you have the means. All this talk about how we're all going to lose our life savings because of this is just hysterics. Investors are jumpy and bad at adapting to short term unpleasantness.

This actually runs counter to some of what I've been hearing and seeing. For one, every time CNN had their money people come on to answer questions yesterday, the answer to the question "should I start investing in the stock market right now?" was a resounding "are you crazy? NO!" And while it would be good to get into real estate, it's kind of hard to when you can't get a loan, which is what some friends of mine who I know have good credit and incomes in the low six-figure range are finding right now. And that difficulty seems to me like it'll continue until the banks are in a position to safely lend, which won't happen without some kind of action being taken.

I guess I should say here that I have no idea if the $700 billion plan was the "right" plan or not, but SOMEthing has to be passed now to keep us from moving towards a situation that does more closely resemble the great depression. And that of course would mean some serious reforms in addition to any bailout plan.

[bas_I_am]

sarcasmo, you need to study economics.

First, the depression was 20-25% unemployment at its peak ( US figures ), the average over the period was about 12%-15%. We are over half way there, and employment figures are coming friday which could be about 8%.

Second, oil prices going down is not necessarily a good thing. Supply has not increased by 1/3 therefore the drop in price can only be attributed to a rapid decrease in demand. Do you think this is because all of a sudden the world turned 'green'? No, it is because the world is facing a HUGE industrial slowdown and no longer needs oil in the amounts of just a year ago.

Third this is not about bailing out the greedy mortgage brokers and bond insurers. On the contrary, this is about maintaining the worlds economy. There is no money to lend, and like it or not, it takes credit to make things work. I work for a company that has a TON of cash. Unfortunately, or clients (construction and engineering) are dependent on lines of credit to by raw production materials. They can't operate, my company goes into a slow down. Our wages (profit sharing, 401k match, etc. . . ) deteriorate. Wages go down, we spend less. not just on frivolity, but on things that we need. This spirals and feeds on itself.

Money in and of itself is not bad. It is just capacitance of economic potential. In other words, it is only the ability to carry and exchange work between parties. In exchange for some work that you have done, I do some work for you. Instead of exchanging actual labor, you exchange with me money that you earned by performing labor elsewhere, or that you earned by investing into some value adding enterprise.

Money isn't bad.
Greed is bad