United States Heading towards a Depression?

Brilliant! I could kiss you on the mouth.

 

I'mnot sticking around to read a 2,000 word retort. This is posted for the benefit of others, so that they don't get part of the story with an authoritarian twist, whereby the market and consumers are evil, but our government is wholly benevolent.

This is incorrect.

Fraud. But no one will be prosecuted. No one will go to jail.

Incorrect. We are facing a recession in the housing market, that will result in the inevitable price deflation that market sanity requires. This is not a slowdown. This is, as Mia would put it, "a correction".

Sub Prime is only the beginning. Prime and Alt-A are next.

The FED created it. When the interest rate is set lower than what would be the market rate of interest, you have malinvestment. This is basic Austrian theory. To say that the FED wasn't paying attention is a joke. They intentionally lowered the market rate of interest, and they intentionally encouraged everyone (as a matter of policy no less) to own a home, whether they could afford it or not.

I was right before, I will continue to be right on this. You are dreaming. This is not a real estate crisis. This is a recession, that if the FED continues to pursue inflationary policy, and the treasury continues to finance warfare and welfare we cannot afford, while bailing out Wall Street by debasing the currency, this could end up in a national crisis.

You're looking at a pebble and ignoring the entire beach. Watch the government, they are the ones orchestrating the grand ripoff. Your failure to question the monetary and fiscal policy, particularly given that it is totally irrational and unsustainable (and dare I say, criminal), is precisely the problem. You automatically pardon the very people who have created the problem, and continue to make it worse!

I mean, we know that the debt is going to crush and destroy us. We know that we are leaving a nightmare for our children and grandchildren. But we just accept it. We just roll over and pretend it isn't happening. And our politicians take it a step further, and actually exacerbate it, and then no one wants to hold them accountable either.

Actually, the FED are the foxes, and your suggestion is that instead of addressing that foxes naturally tend to want to eat the chickens they are guarding, is to instead put more foxes around the henhouse. The layman might fall for this, but not someone with a rudimentary understanding of economics.

 

Friends, this is my last update for today. I am enjoying my time off of this forum, except DP is really the cat's pajamas of cheap labor and I am having a hard time finding affordable and quality work through other channels.

One serious word of advice. Make sure you don't have more than $100,000 in any FDIC insured account. In fact, FDIC is seriously underfunded, so consider splitting some of your liquid assets into metals and/or foreign currencies (Swiss Franc, Euro).

Great material below.

Our $100 Trillion National Debt
http://www.lewrockwell.com/walker/walker34.html

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The Looming Federal Default: Sooner or Later?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north645.html

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Lew Rockwell Podcasts

Lew Rockwell started doing podcasts, and they are kickass. These are the recent ones relevant to the economy and personal finances.

Hyperinflation
http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-08-04_012_hyperinflation.mp3


Worrisome Financial Markets
http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-07-31_010_worrisome_financial_markets.mp3


How to Buy Gold and Silver
http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-07-24_005_how_to_buy_gold_and_silver.mp3


What to do in the Depression
http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-07-23_004_what_to_do_in_the_depression.mp3
​

This goes further to my previous post about the notion that we just need more regulation. The gist of it is, if a company is totally insolvent, why does it's share price continue to go up? Why are people betting on a lame horse?

General Motors and the Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Wall Street

Here is a clue. It's called MORAL HAZARD.

-

 

Investment Adviser Byron King said in a report recently...

 

lol, yeah also the high gas prices, housing bubble, anything bad to do with the stock market is all the democrats fault

 

So who wants to fund my exploratory mission to Antarctica? For feasibility I will need about 23 billion dollars, but the payoff could be in the trillions.

>.>

<.<

Where did the Nigerian Kings go?

 

My Corporation could agree to finance your mission, but only if you promise to pay back in Ameros

 

No, it is a combination of a do nothing congress (house/senate) with regard to an energy policy (on a bi-partisan level) over the course of 30+ years, coupled with a two term tax and spend president who cut in all the wrong places and encouraged people to spend other peoples money or money they did not have.

Yeah, those were the Clinton years.

The blame lies clearly within a unilateral line of bi-partisan stalemate, and a predominantly Democrat controlled congress. The good things we say in the Clinton presidency where the result of Reagan Bush. The bad we saw during Bush was the result of Clinton. The next president will no doubt inherit prosperity as the result of the current Bush.

But of course, whomever takes office in January will be credited with whatever results are seen in the first few months/years of their presidency. Meanwhile, 99% of everything to come will be the result of the previous administration.

I guess I've been alive long enough to recognize the reality of these cycles.

 

I'm sorry but you honestly can not be serious.

 

The Depression in the United States has been called off. It's going to be held in Europe instead.

Look out below.

 

omg, I can't even believe you are serious

let remember this quote so when Obama is president and things go bad, we will know whose fault it is

 

Right, because suddenly all of our debt and deficits disappeared, our currency became solid and backed by something, the wars have stopped, people have started saving again, and consumer debt has vanished.

And then you woke up.

It's funny reading people who claim there will not be a Depression. Depressions don't start in 3 or 6 months. There is a long windup, followed by reactionary government policy featuring price and wage controls, cartelization and regulation as well as increased federal debt, that strangles the recovery of the market into lifelessness. Then you're in a Depression.

The government hasn't even begun to tinker and try to implement socialism yet. And I think it is still coming.

As long as the guys who have been right for years, even decades continue to say we are in trouble, I will be inclined to believe them over government propaganda disseminated through the MSM.

 

Live It Up, the Dollar Is Dead?

Excerpt

Read the whole article, features an excellent graph. People who say stupid things like this isn't a crisis, or that the government has it under control, should look at and understand that graph.


++

 

Not sure if this was posted yet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26162435

I wish I could spend money I did not have.

 

I could not agree more.

Sadly, many people are quite serious when they try to blame everyone but the blameworthy. I think it happens in just about every P&R thread. Just look at the Georgia related threads. Half the people on those threads are shifting the blame from where it belongs to the scape goat of the day.

 

I don't care about the MSM. I'm basing my opinions on a careful and exhaustive study of what's going on in the financial markets, equities, and forex.

The USA has a much more robust economy now that in 1929. What's going on right now is much more akin to events in 1973-74. The US recovered very nicely from those woes and will do so again this time.

From your posts I take it you're a very low income person with few job skills. That would explain your unrelenting negative view point of the economy. Maybe if you quit this message board, stopped reading Lew Rockwell.com, went back to school and got some marketable skills you can turn your life around.

 

There are also plenty of metrics that make '29 look like a walk in the park. Of course, most debt projections are offset by the implicit faith in rising wages:



Since we all know by now that inflation is being under-reported, these 'inflation-adjusted' wage numbers need to be adjusted down by 2-3% annually for the '80s & '90s and down 6-7% annually since '98.

Even if housing only leads us into a sustained recession like Japan's slump, there's a lot of lost opportunity for anyone who works for a living - regardless of whether or not they were responsible or smart.



A whole generation was nicknamed "the lost generation." The leading edge of the generation in Japan was people like me, who graduate college near the top of the bubble - right when unemployment starts rising and wages start declining.

The real game is to see who is liquid ~10 years from now at the bottom. It might sound easy but a lot of people are likely to get pulled under first. I see the fuzzy outline of a once in a lifetime buying opportunity.

 

SLOW MOTION CRASH

Fannie Mae loses $2.3B

Alt-A loans accounted for 50% of losses

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/ap_on_bi_ge/earns_fannie_mae;_ylt=AhL9tgANLBGUEepAs40Qo0qs0NUE

Canada Lost 55,200 Jobs in July
51,000 jobs last month in the US

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 7,000 last week to 455,000, the highest in six years

clothing stores saw their sales plunge 5.5 percent, furniture stores 10 percent and department stores 5.7 percent.

The numbers were even more disappointing because of the local tax-free shopping days in July promoted by a number of states to stimulate spending.

The four-week average of new claims jumped to 419,500 from 392,750 the previous week. This was the highest since July 2003 and the first time since that year that the four-week moving average breached 400,000 -- a threshold linked with recession.

5.7 percent in July We'll see the unemployment rate peaking at 6.3 percent next year," she said. It hit 5.7 percent in July.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080807/bs_nm/usa_economy_dc_4

Bankrupt Retailers

Sharper Image close 190 stores
Wickes Furniture closed down its 36 stores
Whitehall Jewelers is liquidating its 300 stores
Bombay Co. and Levitz closed all their stores
Whitehall Jewelers is liquidating its 300 stores
Friedman's Jewelers is closing 377 stores
Foot Locker is closing 140 stores
Wilson's Leather is closing 160
Ann Taylor closing 117
jeweler Zales has closed 105

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20080811/bs_bw/aug2008db20080811680564;_ylt=Am.6MtrJz5S1Yvmb2HBxowVv24cA

 

Just wait until mia comes and claim that they are not closing stores, they are just redecorating.

 

We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg with financial loses.

The big factor that will drive housing and the financial sector down is unemployment. People without jobs can not afford to make payments on overpriced McMansions.

From what Korr has posted, housing prices have a long way to go before they bottom out.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/wachovia-increases-second-quarter-loss/