Stein: Fear-Mongers Keep Us In Recession

shemp

a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
shemp
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
Messages
69,885
Location
The U.S., a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Ben says that if we all just believe in it and wish really, REALLY hard, it will happen!

If Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner, his Treasury Secretary, and Mr. Volcker, his well-respected advisor, and some real superstars like Warren Buffett and Jack Welch all came out and said, "The recession will end within 12 months. We are sure of it," the recession WOULD end within 12 months.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of this:

Cut to a council flat. On the wall there is a picture of Mystico.

Tenant: Yes, we received a note from the Council saying that if we ceased to believe in this building it would fall down.

Voice Over: You don't mind living in a figment of another man's imagination?

Tenant: No, it's much better than where we used to live.

Voice Over: Where did you used to live?

Tenant: We had an eighteen-roomed villa overlooking Nice.

Voice Over: Really, that sounds much better.

Tenant: Oh yes - yes you're right.

Cut to stock shot of block falling down in slow motion. Cut back to tenant and wife inside. Camera shaking and on the tilt.

Tenant: No, no, no, of course not.

Cut to stock film again. The building rights itself. Cut back to interior again. Camera slightly on tilt. They are holding bits of crockery etc.

Tenant: Phew, that was close.
Click to expand...
 
That's a novel idea, believe the US economy will work and it will. The problem is getting investors to believe it, even if the administration told people it will end in twelve months the recovery is based on if investors buy that. Which, IMO, depends more on how corporations and the economy seem to be working rather than the assurances of the POTUS. I'm not spectacularly interested in investing in G.E. considering how low it is trading, for example.
 
The media has done a great job convincing folks that this is the the worst depression since the Great one. It's like Jimmy Carter never existed LOL. Now we have firmly shifted to the Prisoners Dilemma economic model and nobody wants to spend. Obama is doing his part to keep us in fear and prolong the downturn. It for sure is partly a problem of lack of consumer confidence. Cars are still wearing out, why are we buying far fewer? Why are investors looking at the Economic SwindleUs bill and running away from Wall Street? Until we get calm and optimistic leadership and turn away from the War On Wealth, things will stay in the dumpster.

My monetary policy is now "keep it in the mattress" and no big ticket expenditures. It's my little way of speeding up the process of getting beyond the Obama Depression and moving to Anyone But Obama recovery.
 
kallsop said:
The media has done a great job convincing folks that this is the the worst depression since the Great one. It's like Jimmy Carter never existed LOL. Now we have firmly shifted to the Prisoners Dilemma economic model and nobody wants to spend. Obama is doing his part to keep us in fear and prolong the downturn. It for sure is partly a problem of lack of consumer confidence. Cars are still wearing out, why are we buying far fewer? Why are investors looking at the Economic SwindleUs bill and running away from Wall Street? Until we get calm and optimistic leadership and turn away from the War On Wealth, things will stay in the dumpster.

My monetary policy is now "keep it in the mattress" and no big ticket expenditures. It's my little way of speeding up the process of getting beyond the Obama Depression and moving to Anyone But Obama recovery.
Click to expand...

Maybe people are buying far fewer cars now because they were buying far too many before? Cars don't 'wear out' nearly as fast as they used to, so buying a lot of new cars every year doesn't make as much sense as it did in the sixties, seventies, or eighties.

If the people you claim were really fear mongering to prolong this economic turmoil, they would be calling it a depression. It is a depression, yet they still say the word 'recession'.

Was the solution to the dot.com bubble bursting to buy more dot.com? No. Why should the solution to over lending be more over lending? Why would the solution to a problem caused by massive over spending be over spending? Yes, I too believe the knee-jerk reaction of not spending at all is going too far, but this isn't just a confidence problem.
 
If you debt on the house is more than it can sell for and your credit cards are maxed out, it is just the time to spend more. Right.

A depresion is not just psycology, there are some very real debts behind it.

Our current monetary system is not perfect, it seems that debt grows faster than the real economy, and inflation cannot compensate fully.*
That leads to regular resecessions/depresions. Greed/stupidity makes it worse, like the one we are in now.

*And no I don´t have any better ideas for monetary systems.
 
tyr_13 said:
Maybe people are buying far fewer cars now because they were buying far too many before? Cars don't 'wear out' nearly as fast as they used to, so buying a lot of new cars every year doesn't make as much sense as it did in the sixties, seventies, or eighties.

If the people you claim were really fear mongering to prolong this economic turmoil, they would be calling it a depression. It is a depression, yet they still say the word 'recession'.

Was the solution to the dot.com bubble bursting to buy more dot.com? No. Why should the solution to over lending be more over lending? Why would the solution to a problem caused by massive over spending be over spending? Yes, I too believe the knee-jerk reaction of not spending at all is going too far, but this isn't just a confidence problem.
Click to expand...
The Stock Market is ALL about confidence. When people lose confidence, they go to the " money in the mattress" solution, and the market and banks start hurting, badly.
I don't know about you guys, but when "the boss" continually harps on how badly we are doing, and that heads are going to roll if we don't get better, with seldom an encouraging word, people start bailing out, and things get worse.
If the head of our government keeps harping on how bad things are, and that the "fat cats" are going to suffer if he has anything to do with it, you can't blame them for bailing.
 
kallsop said:
The media has done a great job convincing folks that this is the the worst depression since the Great one. It's like Jimmy Carter never existed LOL. Now we have firmly shifted to the Prisoners Dilemma economic model and nobody wants to spend. Obama is doing his part to keep us in fear and prolong the downturn. It for sure is partly a problem of lack of consumer confidence. Cars are still wearing out, why are we buying far fewer? Why are investors looking at the Economic SwindleUs bill and running away from Wall Street? Until we get calm and optimistic leadership and turn away from the War On Wealth, things will stay in the dumpster.

My monetary policy is now "keep it in the mattress" and no big ticket expenditures. It's my little way of speeding up the process of getting beyond the Obama Depression and moving to Anyone But Obama recovery.
Click to expand...
You need to turn Fox News off. Those Republican talking points are sticking in your head.

If just saying, "the fundamentals of the economy are sound", as GW did was all that we needed, then the recession should not have started on his watch.

The housing collapse was not caused by lack of consumer confidence. Consumer confidence may have contributed to its length and depth, but it did not cause it. Buying houses on loans that people were not qualified to pay, especially with low early payments structured to balloon after a short time, initiated the housing collapse. The loan originators didn't care about the borrowers ability to pay the loan because they sold the loans to the next guy who sold them to the next.

The banks being over extended because of the loss of assets from bad loans was not caused by consumer confidence, it was caused by a failure to monitor and regulate the system. And while Bill Clinton apparently gets some blame for signing a Republican Congressional bill to change the fundamentals of the banking rules, Bush sat back for eight years with a policy of allowing all regulation of business to shrivel on the vine. What was regulated was not enforced. Enforcement was unfunded. Vacancies normally filled by Presidential appointments in departments intended to regulate simply went unfilled. This was an active policy to thwart laws regulating business that the Bush administration did not agree with.

And neither are the US media nor Obama's speeches controlling the world's economic problems. Those stem from the fact the banking system is a worldwide enterprise. The over-extension of credit and subsequent defaults affected the global economy. And apparently some of the profiteering by loaning to unqualified buyers then selling the hot potatoes to someone else caught on in Great Britain as well. I don't know what occurred in Britain, I can only guess. Tony Blair may have been a more eloquent speaker than Bush, but he seemed to like Bush's policies. Perhaps some Brits can give us some insight into their own economic problems.

For that matter perhaps those living in countries other than the US can give us a picture of their news media's role and their leader's speeches. I'm very interested.

I do think the media plays into the problems and since they are in the business of selling sensationalism, it probably makes things worse, not better. But the Republican talking point this is all about doom and gloom Obama speeches is just that, a propaganda tool. And after Stein's display of ignorance and gullibility with his movie, "Expelled", he has no credibility.
 
Last edited:
tyr_13 said:
...
Was the solution to the dot.com bubble bursting to buy more dot.com? No. Why should the solution to over lending be more over lending? Why would the solution to a problem caused by massive over spending be over spending? Yes, I too believe the knee-jerk reaction of not spending at all is going too far, but this isn't just a confidence problem.
Click to expand...
One solution I'm contributing to is since some of the banks were too big to allow to fail, or if they failed it caused great stress on the system, I've moved my money to a local credit union. A small bank would do just as well.

They are all equally insured, and there is a government web page you can check the health of the bank or credit union with. They loan money for home buyers and are invested in assuring the borrower can pay. More people should do the same.
 
rwguinn said:
The Stock Market is ALL about confidence. When people lose confidence, they go to the " money in the mattress" solution, and the market and banks start hurting, badly.
I don't know about you guys, but when "the boss" continually harps on how badly we are doing, and that heads are going to roll if we don't get better, with seldom an encouraging word, people start bailing out, and things get worse.
If the head of our government keeps harping on how bad things are, and that the "fat cats" are going to suffer if he has anything to do with it, you can't blame them for bailing.
Click to expand...
Car companies are not failing because their stock prices are low, though it does affect their credit. Car companies are failing because people are not buying as many cars. And contributing to GM's problems was the spike in gas prices that turned people away from big cars. People may have had short memories when the gas prices fell, but GM was wounded and couldn't take another blow.

The banks did not fail because of their stock prices either.

This is not to say confidence in the market has had no effect. I cashed in my son's college stock market account when the market began to fail and moved it into CDs. But thinking this is all about a few pep speeches by one President when the economic collapse is worldwide is ignoring the actual problems in the system. People began losing jobs long before Obama was elected. Bush's, "the fundamentals of the economy are sound", was not credible long before Obama took over.
 
Toke said:
If you debt on the house is more than it can sell for and your credit cards are maxed out, it is just the time to spend more. Right.

A depresion is not just psycology, there are some very real debts behind it.

Our current monetary system is not perfect, it seems that debt grows faster than the real economy, and inflation cannot compensate fully.*
That leads to regular resecessions/depresions. Greed/stupidity makes it worse, like the one we are in now.

*And no I don´t have any better ideas for monetary systems.
Click to expand...
Smaller, better regulated banks would be a good place to start. Better regulated real estate loan markets seems pretty obvious.

Here was a system that allowed Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford to carry out million and billion dollar Ponzi schemes when people were calling the SEC and complaining something was fishy, yet no one responsible to check into these things did.
 
If Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner, his Treasury Secretary, and Mr. Volcker, his well-respected advisor, and some real superstars like Warren Buffett and Jack Welch all came out and said, "The recession will end within 12 months. We are sure of it," the recession WOULD end within 12 months.
Click to expand...

Of course it would. That's why Bush's constant reality-denying claims that the economy was strong and not headed for any kind of recession kept the recession from happening...
 
skeptigirl said:
Smaller, better regulated banks would be a good place to start. Better regulated real estate loan markets seems pretty obvious.

Here was a system that allowed Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford to carry out million and billion dollar Ponzi schemes when people were calling the SEC and complaining something was fishy, yet no one responsible to check into these things did.
Click to expand...

That might help on the greed/stupidity part.
I don´t see any solution for the underlying problem of interest growing exponentialy and the real economy not.
 
rwguinn said:
The Stock Market is ALL about confidence.
Click to expand...

The Stock Market != the economy

EDIT: I've always had my money in a credit union, but not because I thought banks had become too big.
 
Last edited:
kallsop said:
The media has done a great job convincing folks that this is the the worst depression since the Great one. It's like Jimmy Carter never existed LOL. Now we have firmly shifted to the Prisoners Dilemma economic model and nobody wants to spend. Obama is doing his part to keep us in fear and prolong the downturn. It for sure is partly a problem of lack of consumer confidence. Cars are still wearing out, why are we buying far fewer? Why are investors looking at the Economic SwindleUs bill and running away from Wall Street? Until we get calm and optimistic leadership and turn away from the War On Wealth, things will stay in the dumpster.

My monetary policy is now "keep it in the mattress" and no big ticket expenditures. It's my little way of speeding up the process of getting beyond the Obama Depression and moving to Anyone But Obama recovery.
Click to expand...
The Obama Depression? He must have super powers or something if he can produce a depression in under 2 months in office! Maybe what he predecessor did had something to do with it?
 
tyr_13 said:
The Stock Market != the economy

EDIT: I've always had my money in a credit union, but not because I thought banks had become too big.
Click to expand...
True-
But you cannot disconnect the link between the two.
Average Joe sees a more direct correlation/causality link than exists--but when jobs are tied to how well the company stock performs, panic is a foregone conclusion when the market tanks
Some of the stocks taking a beating are from companies reporting PROFIT--it's just smaller than they originally predicted.
 
shemp said:
Ben says that if we all just believe in it and wish really, REALLY hard, it will happen!



Reminds me of this:
Cut to a council flat. On the wall there is a picture of Mystico.

Tenant: Yes, we received a note from the Council saying that if we ceased to believe in this building it would fall down.

...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


There's a John Wyndham short story in which a character almost causes the (physical) collapse of the Bank of England by shouting "I don't believe it" at it. A passing banker averts disaster by pushing him into traffic.
 
tyr_13 said:
Maybe people are buying far fewer cars now because they were buying far too many before? Cars don't 'wear out' nearly as fast as they used to, so buying a lot of new cars every year doesn't make as much sense as it did in the sixties, seventies, or eighties.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking something very similar lately. Not that I think that is the only reason for this recession, but I do wonder if we're not simply seeing a cut back in consumption at least partly because there was a glut of new, "must have" technologies that started coming out in the past decade, and now.... most people have them.

I just look at my own situation: I have definitely not made major purchases in quite a while -- and not because I'm intentionally cutting back but because, frankly, I don't need anything. I've got most of the big things I need/want:

Flat screen TVs? Check. Dual-core Computer (desktop and laptop)? Check. Car? Check. Refrigerator? Stove? Dishwasher? Washing machine? Dryer? Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

I bought them all within the past 5 years, and none of them (including the computer) are particularly outdated. They all use most of the standard technology on the market today. The only reason I would by any of those things in the next few years would be if one of them broke beyond repair. I'd bet a lot of people are in a similar spot: I mean, once you've got an LCD TV, that pretty well finishes up your television purchases for a few years, at least.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom