It’s official: The U.S. is in a recession... Seriously?

Right, we should be a complacent shell like you, and be fine with the fact that corporate executives destroy the economy and get away with a fortune that would take 10 lifetimes to spend. Blind faith FTW!

 

the stimulus package needs atleast a year to kick in and $700 billion dollars is more than enough to get US out of the depression if it spends the money reasonably I am US will do it. There are too many brilliant minds working to get USA out of this mess that its really very hard for it fail

 

Exactly, our economy has a huge reliance on investor and consumer confidence and by the government stalling to call it a recession they are just trying not to hurt the markets. I think the government made the right call on this one.

 

politics and confidence. The Bush administration and all components did not want to call it a recession for a long time, at the very least for political reasons and also for confidence reasons.

The confidence, or lack of confidence is showing up in drastically reduced consumer spending. Bad news spreads the fear about spending. Labeling it a recession adds to that problem.

nevertheless, its been dramatically bad news for a long time.

 

Every Capitalist economy relies on consumer confidence, not just ours

 

The point is that this is a back to front analogy you make about confidence.

If the government would have called it what it was when it was then maybe things would have sooner moved towards improvement. But coming with a bailout package a year after it began?

Everybody could have prepared better... Instead it took everyone by surprise and once everyone already knew it, the government called it what everyone already knew...

 

Yes, I know that, I didn't mean it was just us when I said "our economy"

Things would not have been better if they called it a recession from the beginning because it would have lowered confidence earlier and we would have had this drastic fall earlier. Things were no where as bad in December 2007 (compared to now) and the government was simply trying to fix the problem before it blew up. Of course they failed, but they tried.

As for the bailouts, do you really support the government spending all this taxpayer money for companies that might go bankrupt? By waiting they atleast saw whether the companies could make a bounce back and when bankruptcy became inevitable, they bailed them out. I am still opposed to most of the bailouts, but if you saw one as necessary wouldn't you want to make sure the company (and more importantly the country) really needed it before driving the nation into even more debt?

 

Here's an interactive chart
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27913794

VA is holding up well with an unemployment rate of just 4.4%

California is in the 8.5% area.

The announcement of a recession is sure to make the situation worse.

 

What's the unemployment rate for Virginia if you include government workers as not gainfully employed?

 

somewhere in the news I've heard a comparison and words like "since 2nd world war", well is anyone still thinking that such a big DROP DOWNWARDS to the times of 2nd world war couldnt be predicted? Hell, no. I guess people were fooled or really dreamed too much.

 

I don't believe in a recession, bc there are still rich people. People still drive, and fly. Most importantly, if you know how to make it, there is still money being made.

Don't let the media control the way you think. If you don't want to be one of those people talking about,- I'm jobless, and things are bad, we're in a recession.- I say get off your behind and go make some money bc contrary to what the media wants every to believe, money is still flowing.

 

You confuse the majority of people with the bigger daddies. No doubt, that people still fly and drive cars (mostly bought in the past). But think of this now, a teenager grows and wants to get THAT car, goes to the bank and what does he get? The credits now arent like they used to be and in some cases you wont even be able to get one. Its a matter of time once we feel it too, we dont feel it yet.

What Im concerned with, is why the heck the petrol in Russia costs more than in US! Non-sense, Im waiting for the big drop in prices since oil is cheap now.

 

Meanwhile USD is still one of the strongest currencies in the world...

 

Recession is a word hard to say and even harder to admit .
I am thousands of miles away from US, I can feel the severe problem and worse situation.(Our orders from US drop dramatically)

 

Everything is relative. It's not like any economy in the world is going like gangbusters right now.

Recession is a business cycle. It will cause consolidation and a push towards greater business efficiency. It's the way of business, nothing more and nothing less.

People becoming emotional about it should check history and see how the U.S. economy always emerges stronger than it used to be.

 

Bailouts? You know the saying about preaching water and drinking wine? Well the free market economy is based on letting the market regulate. You can't promote that and then go ahead and spend trillions to bailout companies - because you feel like it.

Mmmmm... Ok.. Recession isn't something you believe in or not. It's a term used to describe facts. And facts speak for themselves here.

What you point out about there still being rich people, hell yea of course - but that has nothing to do with believing in a recession or not.

Still...? For how long?

One of the.... Well duh one of the... But focus is shifting towards the Yen and Euro as we speak.

Time will tell where this economic wave leaves America.

 

I agree 100%. If we had been in a free market I would have rejected these bailouts hands down. Sadly we weren't in a true free market and that is what caused these problems in the first place and I think that there was a need for a little government intervention in order to free up credit. Trust me, as a free market supporter, it really hurts me to say that, but in this situation I did see reason for it. Sadly, the government has gone way overboard with the idea and the EESA money isn't even being used for what it was supposed to be for.

 

There are certain companys that need to be bailed out simply to preserve jobs. If the big 3 in Detroit fall, its about 13 million jobs gone. If they get the bail out, cut salaries and retirement packages, and lay a few people off, its better than having 13 million more people out there trying to find a job. Guess the illegal immigrants are really going to make a killing working for as cheap as they do.

And the US will bounce back stronger than before, just like every other recession. About the end of 2009 beginning of 2010 is when it'll start getting a lot better, and be better than before a year after that.

 

Dick Morris says "bailouts and stimuli will not solve the problem. They are simply pain killers - methadone - designed to mitigate our suffering."

Morris goes on to say that the cause of the crash is "debt consisting not only of mortgages, but bonds for corporations that can’t repay them, credit cards for consumers who are neck deep in debt, car loans for drivers who can’t meet the payments, student loans that are swamping young couples, and default insurance sold by companies that can’t make good on their commitments. This massive debt has to be sweated out of our global economic system like a heroin addiction."

Morris predicts that the inevitable result will be massive inflation and the economy will not recover until 2010 but maybe not until 2012 or after.

 

this is so far off the mark I dont even know where to begin