so after some reading this morning, i was wondering some of your guys thoughts http://youtube.com/watch?v=nWyygiyPbdA http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080121/world_markets.html http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-01-21-16-34-02
here is another http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/sell-off-unabated-tokyo-falls-6/story.aspx?guid={0F859F2C-F4CB-4F1C-8D57-DBF98E8F5AF5}
Looks like Bush has managed to trash the whole world's economy. I thought its was just us that was going down in flames.
yeah, cutting interest rates now isn't going to help us. and our hands are in other countries' pockets, so to speak ... so ... well if we as a country are out of money - then other markets are going to fall. it's scary
We're definitely in a recessionary period, no buts about it. The subprime mortgage meltdown from the easy money policies after 9/11 spilled over to the general economy and is definitely hurting it. Coupled with a falling dollar and the $1 trillion a year cost of this bs war. I can go further in detail, but I'm typing from my blackberry and trying my best to type it out. <------ econ major.
Yeah, I'm not an expert, but I think the housing market has a ton to do with this downturn. Too much greed from top to bottom, people kept building on speculation and making poor loans even when the housing slowdown was becoming obvious.
From what we've been discussing about our economy at school, my opinion is that it is a combination of the falling housing market and the growing healthcare problems US has been facing with. The media has not been putting the healthcare issue there since all the politicians ever talk about is helping people with their default mortgages but healthcare plays a big part. Correct me if I'm wrong but, I think healthcare has put a bigger hole into the economy than anything else from the stats that I've seen. But what prezawagon said, it's all about greed is what it all boils down to.
Chill out. Stock market is not a real economy, sure there are ways the falling stock market can hurt real things, but US is not in recession yet, and I doubt that 'technically' it will be this year. And there's no one single cause of stock (and other) market mess that's been going on lately, is a combination of a bunch of things. Some are local, some are global.
well, I don't think there is reason to panic. We will recover. But the economy will be crappy for a while. It's a combination of a lot of things. Idiots who get loans they can't afford, lenders who lend and then sell crappy mortgages, the yearly cost of the war, healthcare, outsourcing...etc. A stimulus package is going to do nothing. Who is going to fund it? There will need to be policy change in spending, and much more to make an impact. But it will get better.
Its either birth control + letting more immigrants in, or no birth control. Population has to grow Pick one.
why does population HAVE to grow? I think the world would be better off with about 20 million less people. something has to give, overpopulation and or overcrowding is becoming a problem in more and more countries, and do you know what goes hand in hand with overpopulation? disease, famine, A1D$ I was told this was the start of a small recession, nothing to be worried about lol.
Make it a billion Overall the might be better off with less people. Individually, each country is better off if its population is growing relative to world's population
I know many economists and professors at St. Thomas who'd blatantly argue with you. People need to realize we ARE in a recession now. Economists had predicted this over a year ago and the general public is just now starting to realize it.
Growth is slowing and the dropping of the Discount Window and Fed funds Rate (what most people incorrectly refer to as the interest rate) is to help combat the tightening of the credit market. Banks have been writing down millions of dollars to combat the losses they've incurred from the SIVs (Structured Investment Vehicles) that went belly up from this mortgage crisis. These write downs have made banks very tight with their money and the once easy credit market has now slowed substantially making it very hard now to get a loan, even thought the interest rates are low. The Fed has dropped its target for the Fed Funds Rate for the past 5 FOMC meetings to combat this very tight credit and make sure we don't fall into a credit crunch which would be very, very bad. (FOMC is the Federal Open Market Committee - The comittee that meets every 6 weeks to discuss what to do with the Fed Funds rate and Discount Window). The Fed Runds Rate is the set rate at which banks borrow from one another. The fed only sets this and the Discount window (Rate at which banks borrow directly from the fed). As opposed to what 99% people think, the Fed doesn't set the interest rate. They set the Fed Funds Rate and Discount window that banks must abide by and the banks go from there. Any more lessons and I may have to charge to recoup some of the tuition I've been paying :biggrin:.
I know only two serious (big shot) economists that were predicting this, and pretty much every one else was against them. I don't know any economists at St.Thomas though To claim we are in recession, any economist would have to show that to me in the solid data. We might be in recession _now_ but the data for _now_ is not released until at least a month from now, and all the data that is there does not say that we are sure to have a recession.
i was hard core into the stock market thoughout all of college....to damn stressful with all the chaos stupid people bring(fox, msnbc, etc) to it.
Yeah, whenever some dude shows up on TV and starts talking about how bad things are gonna be real soon, I always wonder what are the chances that his portfolio is seriously bearish, or whether his firm is in such deep $h1t, so that his only hope is a government bailout (read Countrywide last fall all over the TV).
True, there is no "Solid Data" from right now (or past september for that matter) that specifically shows a recession. But there are many indacaters such as a the fed dropping interest rates, the government trying to pump liquidity in a failing market, oil is at an inflation-adjusted record high, the dollar is at a record low vs. other currencies. Here's the biggest proof from looking at past recessions: This is exactly where we are RIGHT NOW and have been for a while when banks have taken HUGE hits from mortgage meltdown. Credit is very tight right now and there was definitely a slowdown in consumption since this past holiday season was one of the worst in many, many years. Every point has been hit that are historically good indicators of a forth coming or already present recession.
I hope you mean to say that there's no solid data indicating recession _since_ september, otherwise it sounds like you're saying that september data isn't solid one First, weak dollar is good for the economy. All this indicators are typically fed into the model together, to see if their collective indication is enough to say that recession is coming. Right now I'm looking at a summary of 50 model forecasts of first quarter gdp by top us forecasters (called Blue Chip Indicators) and bottom 10 forecasts average .3% growth. Not sure if there are any negative growth forecasts, but if there are, it would be at most 1-2 out of 50 top forecasters. I'm not saying they are wrong/right, I'm saying that all indicators should be taken at the same time, and when you do that - recession is not a sure thing. If you have a gut feeling and trust it - you should go and make a bet on the occurance of recession this year, there are quite a few place on the net where you can do it, and make money if you're right. Those aren't that huge, most of them still ended up getting profits for the year. And who cares what they have on their books, and what value they assign to illiquid assets as long as that does not harm the real economy. Interbank credit is tight right now (nobody know how much junk others have on books), but that's not what matters for economy. Bank credit is not the only form of finance, and if bank credit is tight, business will just use it less (getting more from equity, trade credit etc). So personally I wouldn't panic just yet, things are certainly not rosy, but not that bad either.
well, we can agree to disagree on our thoughts on the market. Just like many things, people interpret data differently. I still stand by my outlook on the recession. The fed cut the Target Fed Funds rate another 75 basis points (3/4%) today and actually met a week early because of the market crisis. This is the biggest, single cut the fed has ever issued since it started using this as monetary policy in 1990.
Sure, everyone is free to believe whatever random bits of data they like People who are paid for their forecasts, however, usually believe only the most informative data bits, and put them into their models.
well, the source of all my views comes from the Wall Street journal, and I'm sure anyone who is accredited enough to write an article and have it published there is going to be a pretty knowledgeable.
Sadly there are too many 'hacks' in the media these days with political agenda in the back of their heads. Say Krugman, used to be great economist, but as a journalist/columnist he's a typical hack. Anywho, they say FT has better analytics these days.
a recession is technically 6 months or more of consecutive negative growth rates. Since we haven't seen a negative growth rate yet, technically we aren't in a recession. But the growth rate keeps shrinking every month. But that doesn't mean I didn't see this coming months ago. It's funny...finally this administration is paying attention to what's happening at home. But its probably only because its effecting the global economy now. So what's everyone gonna' do with their $800? Hopefully you'll either save it, or spend it on something made in America. But since almost 40% of of Americas jobs are outsourced, it'll probably be spent on something from china or japan :-/
The market goes up, the market goes down...you gotta ride it out. I'm happy my 401k money is buying funds at a discount right now
C-Span told me we were supposed to get another economic depression yesterday. I'm still not starving...
