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Is the economy in worse shape than the news tells us?
Nikkons017
Member UncommonPosts: 104
Those of you who have watched and kept up with the current US economy you know there is trouble brewing about. Currently investors are in a state of panic, they are taking their money and moving it into foreign markets and putting some of it into commodities such as gold and silver. But here is some news if you haven't been keeping up and some more important info:
Since January investors see market slipping further and further into recession and possible the forecast of a depression or complete economic collapse.
march 13-14 2008 Congress hold secret session to discuss "FISA Bill and other issues" other wise knowns as security issues which was the offical topic released to the press. This type of meeting has only been held by congress 4 times over the 182 years of democratic process. During the meeting the members of congress where told information that caused some of them to become so upset and concerned for their contry that they violated their oath of sworn secretcy to leak the following information:
* Economy is in trouble and the gov't giving them the prediction that the economy would collapse by late 2008 and has enabled Marshal Law Plan to take effect if it happens.
* as a result of the collapse civil war would break out in response
* Government has issued secret safe house locations for members of congress and their families to stay during the civil unrest to protect them from possible retailiation from the people
* Government has issued round-up measures to capture and detain issurgents that are likely to rise up against the Government in times of civil unrest, these detainees will be held in REX-84 camps built throughout the United States.
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Other news has found out that America has joined in pact with Mexico and Canada where they have agreed to supply "troop involvement" in times of "civil unrest".
Those three countries have also been rumored to be forming the North American Union after the collapse and re-establishing a new form of currency called the "amero".
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Over the past several months the value of the dollar is falling dramatically, currently 1 euro = 1.57 dollars
and it is only projected to get worse.
Mortgage crisis is continuing throughout the entire United States having more than 35,000+ foreclosures a week. And that number is growing rapidly.
Secondary mortage backers Freddie mac and Fannie may are thought to be in an unstable condition. These two private companies support more than 50% of the us housing markets which amounts up to around 4-8 trillion dollars. If these two companies fail federal government plans to step in and bail them out if that is even possible. It is estimated that these two companies have lost over 20 billion already.
IndyMac a large bank branch in the west has just went under losing an estimated 40 billion dollars in assets that the fdic now has to insure. It is states as one of the most expensive failures in the nations history.
JP morgan just bought out "forget the name" i think it was morgan stanly or merril lynch backed by the federal government to offset impending crisis.
as of 12 of january 2008 national debt has reach in excess of 9.4 trillion dollars and continues to grow daily.
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Since january 2008 till now investors have moved over 2 trillion dollars to other markets.
oil prices are growing to insane numbers being about 150 dollars a barrel and its projected to get even worse. Currently the national average is over 4 dollars a gallon and is project to hit over 5 dollars by the end of the summer. Oil companies are reporting record profits.
as far as stock markets go the DOW has recorded it lowest number in over 59 years. First it was broke the record in march but them got even lower in June. Nasdaq, S&P 500 have also reached new low setting records.
throughout the country massive layoffs have been occuring in companies to compensate for the amount of money they are losing due to high fuel costs and many other factors. Airline companies are in a state of SOS and are doing everything they can to cut costs. Fuel costs for them have almost doubled since February. They are now cutting out in-flight movies and excess equipment such as dishes and some meals to cut weight to save fuel costs. They are also planning on upping the price for customers to check baggage, sit in isle seats, or to have meals. These are all in an effort to offset their already disastorous losses. Some Airline compaies have already cut 7000+ jobs and are expected to cut over 10k more if things don't get better soon. They have already retired 18 planes and cut flights to various locations, even those that are heavily dependant on tourism.
Major car manufactures have reported massive loses, companies like GM and Ford were hit the hardest. They have now resulted in cutting jobs, and practically slash production for SUV's and other gas guzziling giants. In michigan it is reported to have the worst economy in the US due to its large dependance on the major manufactures.
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Everything in our economy has already started to feel the effects of higher fuel costs and the cost of food is starting to sky rocket. Milk is also now over 4 dollars a gallon.
Because of tight family budgets to compensate for the higher costs tourism locations are greatly suffering with the lack of people spending tons of money like usual.
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Now these economic problems have not just suddenly occured in the last year or so but have been building in the background for the past decade and have recently come to light. This has a lot to due with the governments horrible fiscal policy in which its solution to debt is to just print more money. Other countries around the world have been loaning the us money by buying bonds and t-bills, some counties like china have been reported to be spending over 300million a week to help us keep aflot. All reserves are now to a point where they are to depleted to loan us any more money and thus we can't mask the problem anymore. Some people say that the reason the US is in iran was to take of the main banking structure there and to get access to its reserves, not sure if this is entirely true but I'd say its not too far off. Now there are bush and them want to bomb iran !?
The war on iraq is costing the us about 2 trillion per week in funding. Only minor progress is being reported, most news stations now are either calling it a lost cause or just a loss. Its basically a war we can't win.
Unemployment has skyrocketed from 193k people to over 460k people from january 08.
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If you want to verify the things said here today just search on google for the info and see for yourself. Look at what Warren Buffet, Peter Schiff, and other financial gurus have to say about the economy and what they are doing because the vast majority of investors following the head guys. Even Ron Paul has addressed congress about the state of the economy and its impending collapse of the dollar if we don't do something.
Ben Bernake is in a state of turmoil right now because the only way to correct the problem is to raise tax rates signifigantly. In return for doing this everythings price is going to skyrocket which may result in what is called hyperinflation, this in turn causes the economy to collapse. His second thing he can do is to cut interest rates thereby reducing income flowing to the governemtn but in the short run offsets the collapse by a few more months. Either choice does not look good for the economy.
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I'm not sure if people feel the same way about the economy like I do but I foresee a perfect storm brewing and is about to cause mass anarchy. It is not the rich that are going to suffer in this turmoil but the middle and lower class.
But how do you feel about the state of the economy?
Comments
about your topic; i dont think so. News will oftentimes exagerrate things to make it look worse than they really are. I dont think its in worse shape than the news tells us. True, the economy is bad as I got laid off from work but I also found a great job in two weeks as well. So it has its bad points; but its not worse than the news is stating.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
A low dollar will hammer the shit out of the overseas economies. Our sheer size will remind people who is in control. The oil barons of the roundtable will formulate the new functioning world and impose an international taxation. India, China, Japan, US, Great Britain, EuroNation, and Russia is the new command economy. Americans will learn how to stop being so wasteful and live in a decreased standard of living. A call for stronger dollar will then emerge. In essence, the private functioning world is in the black, and making record profits. Humanity will have to learn how to implement and deal with the issues of socialism.
Yes the econemy is worse. The news has done it's best to keep it going that way. I love when the news constantly says everthing is bad and then do a poll asking people what they think of the econemy and, OMG, results show people think we are doomed. There isn't a day goes by I don't see corrections of faulty numbers, that the news reports. When you read this econemy is the worst since the Great Depression, you should go back and read about the Depression. When you see headlines that say "record" or "highest ever" there are usually some twisting of the real numbers. People have trouble between % and raw numbers, inflation adjusted, and so on, all the time.
If the sky isn't falling it isn't news.
edit: Buffet is buying a lot this year. He seems to think there are bargins to be had.
It is in far worse shape than what the news is letting on. The people controlling the media have interests in keeping down the panic. For a laugh, take a look at this:
http://survivingthecrash.blogspot.com/2006/09/housing-bubble-vs-great-depression.html
and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVXh4xM-Ww&feature=related
It is also illegal for them to encourage a run on banks. Re-
this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUkbdjetlY8 he knew Bear Stearns would collapse, but between potentially starting a bank run and his own conflicting interest...
If you do your research, you will see that America is heading into another Great Depression much worse than 1929. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are already insolvent, with several other huge banks and investment firms right behind it, such as BofA since they bought the toxic CountryWide.
The Alt-A crisis has yet to firmly take hold, and that is far worse than the subprime market.
The problem is in part due to crap loans that are not worth the paper they are written on. Banks bought tons and tons of these loans, and thus their businesses ran on the idea that the loans would be bringing in money for them. Thing is that insane loans were made to people that clearly could not possibly pay them off. So the loans all the banks and assorted other related companies bought, and ran on, are worthless. And they are folding.
I can go on, there are a lot of other things contributing to the economic decline, but the housing bubble is a major contributer.
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Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/13/
Vemoi, the economy is a house of cards. The banks are holding billions and billions of dollars worth of debt that will not be paid off. The Federal Reserve already had to arrange for Bear Stearns to be bailed out so that they could prevent a market crash right then. They even said so. There is no way Freddie and Fannie will get 75 billion dollars worth of capital in time, and they have been dubbed insolvent already- 5.1 trillion worth of debt.
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Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/13/
Jim Rogers / Peter Schiff
ftw.
www.youtube.com/watch
To we the appetite
Well, let's just say that if foreign investors (Middle East in particular) liquidated their stakes in America, we'd have a total economic collapse tomorrow. Nice position to be in, huh? Saudi Arabia alone accounts for more than 2 trillion dollars worth of American bank and stock investment.
Yes, it's worse than is reported. If the economy gets much worse it'll encourage more foreign heavy investors to start cashing out. If we cannot pay them off, it'll have a serious effect on our diplomatic ties as well.