What's your honest take on the U.S. economy?

Well.. We have a party which is spending our currency into the ground. We are have 2 major wars sucking the money right out of the federal reserve. Our job situation is not good for much of the country and our political leaders don’t seem to have a clue on what is going on. The economy is very sick and it will take more then 1 Dr. to fix what ails the country. It’s going to take some smart and tough decisions and some sacrifice by everyone. I honestly don’t think the people in charge knows the full extent of the problems let alone the solution.

@Tenpinmaster :: Are you talking about Bush or Obama.

Who ever one might ask, there will be a different answer. I feel it depends on the individual.
I live in a castle with house servents so I guess it is good for me. I have a friend that lives in a hovel and begs for food. I will ask them and get back to you.

@johnpowell Obama of course

@johnpowell but of course, it didn’t start with him… the republicans had a major part in the mess we are currently in

And once again I feel the need to point out that the 800 Billion bank bail-out was Bush. It was done before the election. Remember McCain suspending his campaign to work on it?

Obama did the stimulus thing that was half spending and half tax cuts. I got new sidewalks out of it. That money actually went back into the economy.

@johnpowell New sidewalks? Happy days are her again!

I have no problem saying that Bush screwed up the economy with his ridiculous bailout but his successor, the current President, the Guy In Charge Right Now produced a much bigger bailout and is talking about another. I’m glad you got your sidewalks but that’s not what the Federal government is for.

When Bush Sr. was president the economy was in the crapper – not nearly as bad as now btw. His VP Quale (boo! hiss!) stopped his motorcade and assembled camp-follower press people to point out a “positive sign”, specifically a ‘help wanted’ sign in a McDonalds.

Needless to say, the assembled people weren’t much impressed with a burger-flipping position as a harbinger of a strong economy.

President Obama’s efforts have not turned around and will not turn around our economy.

And, in the immortal words of Bill Cosby, ‘Where I come from it’s the fault of the person who had it last.’

The multinationals, ergo, those in control, are profit generated. All manufacturing in the traditional sense is gone to lower cost labor markets. Thus 30 % of workers will be displaced, coupled with aging demographics, a fundamental shift of wealth has occurred. You can fight it to your peril, with unions demanding their payout, or use your American ingenuity to figure out the next frontier. My advice is to follow Apple, and not GM. In a word, years of pain. Is America up to the challenge? Who knows…

@Factotum President Obama didn’t produce any bigger bailout. I assume you’re talking about the stimulus, which was 787 billion. The bank bailout by Bush and everyone else was well over 800 billion. Everyone complains that Obama has put our deficit to 14 trillion, but seems to forget that he’s spent less than ONE trillion, and the majority of it was on the stimulus (787 billion). Does everyone forget how Bush dropped about 30 billion A MONTH in Iraq (not counting the initial invasion where it was significantly more expensive).... all whilst cutting taxes? Throw in removing rules that keep banks from screwing over people not smart enough to realize they can’t afford a house, and here we are.

And frankly, our economy HAS turned around. I have a job thanks to it (working as an analytical chemist, not a burger flipper). The company I work for had let go of about 1/6 of it’s staff by last February, now, they’re rehiring all of them and showing a profit again. We went from losing 700,000 jobs or more a month, to less than 40,000 a month (which I’d rather it be gaining jobs, but that’s still a giant step in the right direction).

And the stimulus package is more of an investment anyways. It’s aimed at repairing/rebuilding/renovating our crappy infrastructure. Our power delivery system has been compared to a “steam engine on an aircraft carrier.” Roads in my own state were increasingly damaged (and I’ve personally witnessed and still do to this day, TONS of work being done on roads thanks to stimulus money).

And lastly, less than 20% of the stimulus has actually been spent into the economy thus far. Thanks to Republicans (and I don’t say that derisively here) a larger portion than Obama wanted was put towards long term tax cuts for economy boosting acts (like buying a house). The entirety of the stimulus won’t be spent until about 9 years from now (as in 2 years longer than Obama COULD be the president).

And lastly I think he’s fixing the problem by breaking up the big banks and taking a hard stance on them. They screwed up the economy, and they’re already doing it again cuz they don’t care about anything but profit. A lot of my liking of his ideas will rest on how he handles dealing with gigantic evil banks.

It is actually a misdemeanor to use “honest” and “American economy” in the same sentence.

It sux

It’s economically unsound.

@westy81585 The stimulus is indeed what I meant and it was sloppy of me to call it a bailout.

I’m glad you got a job and I’m glad things are going well in your area. I am sincere in this. Nevertheless, the unemployment rate is currently 10%. Before President Obama took office it was 8.2%.

Roosevelt’s various stimulus packages never did work according to most economists, and indeed his own economic adviser.

One of the great advantages to a time-release stimulus package is that it leaves, in this case nine years, for the economy to repair itself while the money trickles to wherever it’s trickling to. Nonexistent districts is what I heard.

@Factotum FDR’s stimulus didn’t save the economy? WOW. WOWWWWWW. It’s amazing how you can re-write history and ignore the truth when it will suit your own needs.

Then why did the economy re-collapse when his predecessor removed all the stimulus he put into place in 1937, having thought the economy had recovered and would be fine without the remaining stimulus? If FDR didn’t get us out of the depression, then I pray ask, what did? And don’t waste your time saying WW2, because we were already about out of it when the war started. And even IF it had been the war, it would’ve been the massive spending of the war that actually spurred the economy out of depression, not “good feelings” about going to fight the NAZI’s.

And ANY economist would’ve told you the unemployment was going to hit 10%, regardless of who was elected. The few Obama supporters and such who actually said they would keep it from 10%, were wishful at best. And most economists agree that were it not for the stimulus, we would be seeing unemployment as high as 20 or even 25% today.

And it was STILL cheaper than the bank bailout under Bush. PLUS, it’s paying back nicely, in having an infrastructure that won’t rank behind all the major European countries, long term education for our children so they can compete for jobs like mine in 10 years, and tax breaks and restrictions that put people in houses they can afford…. Not to mention we’ll have at least 2 auto manufacturers thanks pretty much entirely to Obama saving them.

@westy81585: Word. I totally agree with your analysis. I too only have a job (as a scientist, not burger-flipper) thanks to what my boss calls “Obama money.”

This is what I figured…

Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates says the U.S. economy needs “years of digging out” to recover from the recent recession and that taxpayers are going to have to shoulder much of that burden.

:(

@westy81585 The most interesting thing about the Great Depression, the thing that makes it different from all other depressions, aside from its being capitalized and being called ‘Great’ is that it lasted so long. We’ve had depressions before it and depressions after it. Other countries had a depression during our Great Depression.

The thing that made it last. And last. And last, was the ‘solutions’ first perpetrated by Hoover and later by FDR. If the genius of government spending really did get us out of that depression, how do we explain how we got out of all the other ones?

Economists were predicting a 9% unemployment rate, not 10%. But speaking of 10%, between the time of FDR’s inauguration to the bombing of Pearl Harbor (which prompted FDR to direct manpower and resources and yes, money to the war) unemployment was never fell below 10% and certainly didn’t enjoy a smooth downward trend. After that the war did indeed aid industry, ‘employ’ the drafted, and otherwise make the economy strong, employing not only whatever remaining able-bodied men could be found but also legions of women who weren’t particularly planning to go to work. And the war was of course helping the economy before hand as other countries were purchasing arms and supplies.

When you say we have two auto manufacturers you are correct. We actually own them. Ford, which didn’t want to play that way, is still its own company. How is it that it could survive and the other two needed free money? And truly what would have happened if the other two of the mis-named ‘big three’ were to have gone bankrupt? Their assets would have been bought and most of their workers would have been re-hired (though possibly not at the obscene union rates that contributed to their collapse) and autos would have been manufactured again, but we would have dispensed with the very level of management that brought them down. Instead of giving them money.

@Factotum You are easy to pick apart. You may need to go watch Glen Beck to get some more talking points after this…

1) Federal stimulus packages have been enacted for many (if not most) of our recessions (not just the depression). This includes under Reagen, Hoover, FDR, Clinton…. ya know what this is under probably half of the presidents in our history. Even Bush did this, by giving all the tax payers a check for $600 or whatever, THAT was a stimulus package. Some recessions have ended without stimulus. Probably all would’ve anyways without it. But there’s NO denying stimulus speeds the end of recessions.

2) Not sure what economists you were listening too. But some I had heard said without stimulus it could be as high as 20% right now. And you’re right, the unemployment level was stuck around 10% at the start of the war. However, it wasn’t hovering around THIRTY PERCENT as it had been in the Hoover years, and the first term and a half of the FDR years (where it slowly trended downwards). And the after war industry was fueled by massive spending to rebuild Europe, and to retool our own industries from wartime goods to peacetime goods (excluding the mass of government spending that remained for the cold war).

And auto manufacturers, this one you’ve really got no idea what you’re talking about. I have probably half a dozen relatives who are engineers who actually DESIGN cars for Chrysler, Ford, GM, and Honda. If you have a car made by GM or Chrysler since probably 1985, a relative of mine had a hand in designing it. The last CEO of GM, spoke at my uncles retirement about 3 years ago.
-We don’t “own them.” We own majority stake in GM yes, but this isn’t the first time we’ve done it. We owned majority stake in Chrysler back in the 80’s, and then they recovered under a government plan, bought back all the stock, and the US government turned a profit while our 3rd biggest auto maker got back on it’s feet and continued to provide jobs.
– Ford survived without government money because they didn’t actually go bankrupt (just got close to it). The reason is that Ford had actually initiated a plan to sell cars that were efficient on gasoline/alternative fuels while GM and Chrysler were still putting out SUV’s and gas guzzlers (hello dodge charger?). Neither of the two companies foresaw the coming change in customers wants from giant SUV’s and sports cars and trucks, to fuel efficient or alternative fuel cars. And even when they saw the signs, they refused to believe them (Much like you’re doing with the economy). The engineers in my family saw this coming, and talked of it as much as 2–3 years ago. The leaders of those companies were idiots though and ignored the signs (that’s the jist of why those two needed the government help).
– Ford has a Union, you poorly educated person.
– Unions have rates that aren’t helping, but they are far from obscene, and are a drop in the bucket (millions worth of money as opposed to billions).
– And yes, SOME of the GM/Chrysler plants would’ve been purchased by FOREIGN companies, to enhance their own locales in our country. But they wouldn’t keep all the factories, or the management, all the dealerships, all the… etc etc etc. They wouldn’t need too.

and lastly, we didn’t GIVE them money. We gave them a loan. Its a loan with an interest rate and a repayment deadline. And about 90% of the time we do this, the companies pay back the money on time or early, and always to a government profit (see the bank bailout).

And another good thing to point out…. You made an accusation that Unions were bogging down the American auto makers, whilst our foreign competitors don’t have those Unions. Well the reason they don’t have those Unions is because countries like South Korea, Japan, etc…. HAVE Universal Health care plans. So there’s no need for a Union to fight for those benefits. Throw in that their wages are BARELY less, and there you have it. God imagine how much a Public Option would help businesses in this country, making them not have to worry about paying ridiculously high health insurance bills for their employees.

Before I start I need to clarify a few things. Your suggestion that I get my talking points from Glen Beck or anyone else for that matter is a variety of ad hominem attack and does nothing to support what you say. Neither does misrepresenting my meaning and saying ‘you poorly educated person’. If this is how you intend to argue then this will be my last post on this thread.

1) You are correct that stimulus packages are very popular and have been since Hoover. Whether stimuli speeds the end of recessions is not something that can be proven since one recession is not identical to another.

You mention Bush’s stimulus plan: “… giving all the tax payers a check for $600 or whatever, THAT was a stimulus package,” It was a stimulus package except that it didn’t much stimulate anything, nor did Hoover’s. The argument usually advanced is that they didn’t work because they weren’t nearly big enough. But taking on massive debt in order to shorten a depression (or recession) is not really a solution, it’s a trade. And in this case a bad trade.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2436846/posts

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/24/cnn-poll-56-percent-oppose-stimulus-program/

2) Economists aren’t quite random number generators but whichever one claimed that without the stimulus unemployment could be 20% by now is correct. It could be. It could also be 5%. We don’t know.

Owning majority stake in a company is close enough to owning it for most people. Our President fired a CEO and altered business plans by fiat.
Car companies have been offering fuel efficient cars as part of their fleets for decades. People don’t buy them until they feel they have to. Fuel efficient cars aren’t fun or stylish and when gas prices go up people don’t buy them.

http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/smart_news/smart_car_news/smart_customers_canceling_orders/

I never said Ford doesn’t have a union. Ever.

You wrote, ‘Unions have rates that aren’t helping…drop in the bucket,’ No, they’re not a drop in the bucket, they’re added cost to cars which make US autos more expensive and so less competitive.

“Well the reason they don’t have those Unions is because countries like South Korea, Japan, etc…. HAVE Universal Health care plans.”

Your final point has considerable merit though costs of health care are not the only factor that makes our cars so expensive – retirement benefits, working hours, overtime pay and union wages for people who have nothing whatever to do with cars also figure in, as does the cost of national union meetings, lawyers, lobbyists etc.

I am very optimystic. For the same reason that when a bone breaks, it heals up much stronger than before the break. Our economy will recover even stronger than before. Corrections are being made all over the place.

I am cautiously optimistic but this is a resilient economy. Americas are very innovative and productive people and we will rise again if we make the right decisions and sacrifices needed to make these advancements.

@OneMoreMinute Not when you get old and you have osteoporosis. The politicians and moneymen can’t treat our economic future like a game of chicken or one day the broken bone will end up as permanent incapacitation.