Accept that we are now in a depression, Stock Markets still grossly overvalued, poverty rates increase across midwest, a lots opportunity to regulate the banks,Goldman Sachs reports record profits and still bonusing employees richly, mainstream America goes on a financial diet, suburbs now home to American poor.
Few professionals are yet willing to admit we have been in a depression for the last year. You have to understand the position that economists and analysts are in. They work for corporations, insurance, Wall Street, banking and government and if they thought we were in a depression and they publicly announced that all chances for advancement would be lost or they would be squeezed out of the firm or simply fired. Under such circumstances can you ever expect that you get the truth? We don’t think so. Furthermore the depression we are enveloped in is far from over. The recession encompassed a drop in real GDP in the midst of a credit crisis. The crisis was the result of over-extended credit, prohibitively low interest rates, massive speculation by banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and corporations worldwide. It just didn’t happen it was planned that way. We saw that recently in testimony before Congress when CEOs of these financial firms admitted they made a mistake in the process of enriching themselves. The worst sin was the criminal securitization of mortgages and the deliberately criminal mislabeling of their ratings. Then making matters worse those who sold this toxic garbage to their clients such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup were shorting the product that they had just sold to their best clients. What kind of monsters are these people? Unethical doesn’t go far enough. It was criminal. These are the same characters, along with the Fed, and others, who gave us the dotcom boom and collapse and then foisted the real estate boom on our economy. The result has been deflating assets and contracting credit offset by massive lending, money and credit creation by the Fed and monetization, all temporary expedient measures, which in the context of history has led to failure. This has been in process for seven years. This second major abuse of our system in 14 years has presented a terrible dilemma and that is where we are today. Our monetary policy hasn’t worked and won’t work and there has been and presently is little fiscal control in Washington. This is no normal recession; it is a depression.
MORE HERE..
Depression my AZZ. I was in town the other day, malls were PACKED and new homes still going up, all the eateries are full every night. This is in the midwest, we are insulated from all the pain, glad I don't live in CA or AZ or others that rely on tourists. They are screwed, we have fields a plenty and livestock, so problems here, it's all good, but fun to read about
ReplyDelete12:31 nice to have delusional people here. Malls were packed with people walking around jobless. Eateries are full my AZZ. You have fields of unemployed people like yourself. Housing going up with nobody able to get a MORTGAGE. Even Donald Trump stated that on Larry King. Tough facing the truth.
ReplyDeletemidwest hillbilly troll is back, the administration will employee anyone, even if they can't spell
ReplyDelete1231 is a home schooled fool, who has too much jesus and not enough common sense. Here in Vegas the #1 tourist destination for 30 years running is a ghost town, malls with 20 stores last year now have 4 open, everywhere you look, you see for lease and sale signs on everything, jobs are leaving and the homeless on north las vegas blvd is growing by the day, I am now seeing whole families with dirty children, we are on the way down to the worst depression this country has ever seen.
ReplyDeleteDoes't look good!!!
ReplyDelete12:31 I live in the Midwest and you are in some fantasyland or just sarcastic,,,,look up industrial and commerical properties on CB Richard ellis or Signature Associates, check vacant and for sale and you can spend hours pouring thru the ones in Lucas county alone,,, that is where Toledo is located,, let alone adjacent Michigan or any other counties,,,,, I have lived here most of my 47 yrs and have never seen anything like what is going on now,,, I t is actually horrifing,, the only good spot is the amount of farm land that surrounds this area,,, But I have prepared and stocked up and I sleep a little better, but my father who lived through the Great Depression says things will be worse and he is an eternal optimist.... Dont be fooled by a slow motion crash it is a crash none the less...
ReplyDeleteI see Obamabot is still here. We will go into a double dip at the end of 2010 and they will have to finally admit its a recession a year or so after that. This is different no more leveraging consumer debt to save us anymore that is no longer an option. It will be 2020 at least until things really get better.
ReplyDeleteDepression I mean.
ReplyDelete12:31 is lost like a ball in tall grass. Talking out of the wrong side of his a$$. Wakeup fool
ReplyDeleteI live in South Dakota and we are just starting to feel the pinch, not much here to begin with, but the larger cities have a TON of lease and for sale stuff
ReplyDeleteThe problem with being so insulated is all the inbreeding (12:31)
ReplyDelete12:31 is trollalicious... he keeps posting the SAME stuff every couple of days...
ReplyDeleteseriously - go back and look at the comments.
He keeps writing the SAME stuff about not seeing the recession in the midwest. Troll alert.Troll Alert......
I also live in the midwest. I cannot explain, however, we still have a lot of construction; new housing projects that lots show "sold." Houses selling, and the malls are very busy and waiting lines for restaraunts! As I said, I can't explain it, but it's the truth.
ReplyDeleteMidwest is least damaged, but the cancer will grow inward.
ReplyDelete90% Vacant Strip Malls in Pinellas Park
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0DY8MrS3bs
The areas that aren't in depression are most likely Montana and North Dakota.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the rest of the states, North Dakota was smart enough to form its own bank years and years ago. Consequently it's not in a cash crunch. In fact, the state has a budget surplus!
Perhaps the first commentator resides in one of these areas, so yeah, he very well may be correct, though should display a little more sympathy for those who are less fortunate.
Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteInteractive State Debt Map.
.
@ 3:07
ReplyDeleteI agree! We should not be so flippant in our remarks towards our "Midwestern" friend who has it good.
Why?
Well, He may be correct in his small bubble located in certain Midwestern states.
We need to ask "specifics" like:
What State do you reside in?
What is the States unemployment number?
Lets face it, 43 out of 50 states are running out of unemployment benefits. This means that 7 out of the 50 are ok.
So that being said, why not test this character to see if He really is a "Troll" or maybe he just might be living in one of the very few states that have not really been affected.
Just a thought!
With car production soaring, shop sales growing at a rate not seen in almost a decade, home buying at a two-year high, unemployment down and fewer people defaulting on credit, if that is not call a recovery them you must be dump idiots to think otherwise....
ReplyDeleteTo anon @ 4:46PM,
ReplyDeletehome buying at a two-year high
Wow, what an impressive time horizon--2 whole years. Pathetic. The buyers of today don't understand how screwed they are, particularly those in the still-bubbly California areas.
2-yr high! LOL. That was priceless. A bubble popped up out of the sewer. Funny!
ReplyDeleteThe ONLY thing that is propping up home buying is the Fed and its crazy money-printing rate. When interest rates start soaring - and they MUST - you won't be able to give away a new home.
ReplyDeleteCar production soaring? Please provide link. Now that the bogus trade in BS is over I don't think most dealers are having much luck selling cars. Ones I have talked to say it is dead.
ReplyDeleteI live in Iowa, and I see we are looking pretty good on that debt map........That said, it don't mean much, since we are typically last to see hard times and last to recover, so I think "sticker shock" is still coming our way,lol. I will say around my area, western part of the state, we are still building homes and some business, but mostly rural. When I go to the bigger places like Omaha, there are TONS of places for lease, sale, empty, etc. and it scares me since it's not that far away from my area. We are heavy agriculture area, so that is part of the reason that we are not in dire straights, but it can happen here just as well as any other place. You can say people will always need to eat, but even so, farmers can lose thier jobs too if the markets take a dump. So yes......to some of the posters here we might be a little better off, but I would never say we are immune.
ReplyDeleteHere in Canada, a auto parts company that lost a contract making parts for chrysler will be closing and most of the workers are being sent to a chrysler plant as "new employees".
ReplyDeleteNew and inventive ways to save a buck eh!
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/01/22/windsor-johnson-controls-close-100122.html
Next time you go to one of those "packed malls", look hard and long and I bet you'll see very few people carring shopping bags with their purchases in them.
ReplyDeleteOne mall local to me has a theater with ticket prices of $1.75 and $1.00 on Tuesdays. This theater even has hot dogs for $1.00. Needless to say, they are very busy compaired to the "real theathers" that have ticket prices between $9.00 and $14.00 each.
Food Court's are dropping their prices in order to attract customers. My family of three, can eat at the food court and enjoy a movie for less than 20 bucks.
By the way, I live 4 miles from Disneyland. They are in pretty bad shape. Annual Passes can now be had through monthly payments. When I did have a pass, weekday attendence was VERY low. Great for me, that means very short waits for rides, but very bad for Disneyland. The overhead is the same when the park is busy or not.
I no longer go to the movies at the mall and I could not maintain the annual passes for Disneyland.
Here in Missouri things are getting worse. Last week a restaurant I go to had a sign on the door that said they are closed until further notice. I went to a store over the weekend and the owner said he was closing. We have not reached bottom here and the way things are going it is still a way off. These small business owners are finding it harder to pass on costs. The county I live in raised commercial real estate taxes from 20% to 300% in our town and other locations. The assessor is shooting the ducks on the water so he can keep the county going. On top of that the electricity rates went up 10% because of a Federal initiative to clean the air. Then you add the increase in minimum wage last July and you can see what is coming down the road in prices as the remaing business' pass the costs on to their costomers. It is interesting to note that all three increases are government originated. The state of Missouri is now talking about raising taxes on farmland.
ReplyDeleteThe "Midwest Troll" I believe, from my hours of observance on YouTube, as well as several blogs, is the same person who will post that he is from "California," or else "the Midwest," etc. etc. This person goes around pretending to be from different cities and will say misleading things that are not true. I'm glad to see that other people are finally beginning to see through his charade. I think he must work for the government or something, or the banks, because he's doing this everywhere he goes and doesn't quit.
ReplyDeleteHey 7:25, are you sure you want to go on those rides? Even if the lines are short, those rides are probably not being maintained the way they used to be when they had more money. Last time I was there with my husband we were scared to go on some of the faster rides due to knowing their budget is more limited.
ReplyDelete4:25 saying that "unemployment is down" etc. is the same troll that comes on here saying "everything is fine."
ReplyDeleteI think this person has an agenda like working for the gov. or something as this person frequents YouTube and other blogs and says the same things over and over again.
Oops, not 4:45, meant to say the troll posted at 4:26.
ReplyDeleteHaha, too many comments to scroll through; I need to correct myself here. In my comment at 4:33, I was referring to the troll who posted at 4:46.
ReplyDelete438 is cot troll,
ReplyDelete