United States Heading towards a Depression?

You are sounding more and more like a Ron Paul supporter. See its not as bad as you think.

 

W/E. I doubt you know more about the nomination process than I do.

Oh well, you're still a pretty smart guy anyways.

Oooo... You don't know that EVERYONE is getting $800 of OUR money? Not just the people who work, EVERYONE.

I agree with the latter, disagree with the former. The tax relief would benefit future prosperity if it was accompanied by spending cuts. But it isn't. We're going to go further into debt, which will require more monetary inflation to facilitate current budgetary and discretionary spending, while sending the tax relief.

I've already explained a large portion of this to you. In summary, (1) inflation raises the tax revenue gross amounts, and (2) government deficit spending artificially stimulates the economy through entitlements, wages in government department largess, and military spending etc.

Agree wholeheartedly. And no empire has ever survived unrestrained spending.

You misunderstand Paul's position. The doom and gloom is coming regardless. The futile actions of the FED are proof of that. He's offering a better and faster way out of the mess.

It can't be averted. Much of the economy and federal debt is bad, and needs to be liquidated naturally. If we had smarter leaders, who had any self control or resolve, they could have bled it out slowly, but now it has been inflated and misdirected into a very large bubble, one that has global ramifications.

You joke about how serious this is, but foreign economists and banks are not laughing. The jig is up so-to-speak, and they are sh**ting their pants.

 

do you not own any stocks or mutual funds? Do you not watch the news?

 

We buy all (well, most) of our produce locally, do our best not to shop at Wal*mart, and have very little disposable income... but we do dispose of it. When spending we try our best to look for that "Made in USA" tag from stores owned in the US, and preferably local.

I don't see buying things from China as helping as much as buying things made right here in my home town. I also don't see buying low quality items from Wal*mart that'll likely break as a savings either... not when I'll end up buying their trash twice.

Are we heading for a depression? I think so... but with luck, I'll own my own land by then. I already have my paranoid (and likely delusional) amount of organic canned goods stashed away here, and are currently working on Solar power to maintain our deer in the freezer. Then again, my grandmother remembers hard times, and we have kin up in the (Appalachian) mountains. If worse comes to worst then I guess there will be a revival of Country Music (lol)

What worries me is what all my friends will do that live in the inner cities that live paycheck to paycheck. Here in Athens (TN), there is a check advance place on every other corner. On the other corners there is a title pawn place. These are all already staying in business and doing well. There is not much worse many of the people around here can get.

I do not think that investing in stocks or mutual funds is the answer for the average tom, dick , or harry... stocks and mutual funds won't pay the bills in a depression, a recession, or even paycheck from paycheck. Tom, Dick, and Harry need to get off their bums, pay off their bills, and invest in the NOW. Once that is set, maybe they can figure out their futures...

 

In 2005 Paul Volcker wrote an article 'An Economy On Thin Ice'. Volcker was chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38725-2005Apr8.html

 

Obviously Volcker is a Ron Paul supporter with his gloom and doom 2005 article.

 

The housing bubble was created to fund the US account deficit. Hundreds of billions of dollars of securities were sold to foreigners to finance it.

The big danger now is not recession but rather a dollar crash or hyper-inflation which would lead to the biggest recession since the great depression.

I don't see giving americans a 150 billion stimilius package financed with borrowed money. Most of the money will either be used for imported electronics and cars or be sent back to Mexico. How does that help the US economy?

The Dollar is ready to break three exchange benchmark Yen=100, Yuan = 7.0, and Euro= 1.50

The current rates are Yen=105, Yuan=7.24, Euro=1.45

 

I read this post before running out the door to take my daughter to work in my American made vehicle. All of a sudden we are engulfed in smoke. From my GM product? No, as we drive further into the smoke we find the source was a brand new Lexus RX, block away from Mission Viejo Lexus. with the engine compartment in flames. I swear it was five minutes after reading this "fact". Just one example but I use a mechanic who used to work there and he talks about the perfection Toyota/Lexus but than goes on to say how busy he is swapping out transmissions on RX's, and various repetitive defects on LS's and other Lexus badged Toyotas.

 

Toyota has been hit with a lot of quality problems.

 

I think I said Honda, not Toyota..

I own 4 GM Vehicles BTW..

 

Maybe they have, maybe they haven't but they are starting to get bad press, protesters are going against them so they can now start enjoying being one of the big boys. I don't think Toyota should be seeing any significant quality issues, all of the major manufacturers have had good systems in place for years, I just think the media and others like to pick on the top dog.

 

I don't think you mentioned a brand but Toyota, Honda equals same thing to me.

Wow you are more GM than me! I only have one GM and one Chrysler. I am glad we got rid of the one Japanese product (leaked oil, parts were Rolls Royce pricing, and it could pass smog at the 6 year mark even with my mechanic doing all the tricks in the book).

 

I've worked with Chrysler, GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda and Nissan through a second tier supplier.

The foreign manufacturers have much tighter controls, simpler designs, and fast track decision making.

The difference is, domestic auto makers are lazy. They have survived on reputation, brand loyalty, and legislative assistance.

 

So we have another source of the stock exchange troubles ^^
Societé Général from France just had one employee buying 50.000.000.000 Euro's or around 72 Billion $ worth of stock from DAX and the london exhanges.

They found the fraud finally and then they sold it all back ... leaving them with net loss of 7.5 billion $, but also creating a selling spree. And since we know panic creates panic (US housing -> fear at US stocks -> fear at EU stocks) and now we had the opposite.

 

The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007 and the Fed is lowering rates.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/15/news/economy/bc.economy.ap/

The Fed can't continue to prop up the 'Housing/Stock Bubble' indefinetely. Just this month the Fed has added 60 billion in credit on January 2 and lowered the Fed rate 3/4 percent. The 150 billion stimulus plan will further inflate the economy.

Lower interest rates mean a lower dollar and more inflation.

Is anybody watching the Yen vs. Dollar? The dollar has lost almost 15 Yen over the last 6 months.

 

Of course it can't. That's why there is going to be a very bad recession, and when we come out of it, someone else will be the world's leading economy.

I'm arguing here day and night for months to save the country, and all I get is a lot of flack for it. This is one time I will feel bad to be right.

 

The question is how long the Fed can keep printing money without negative consequences overtaking the economy.

 

They already have. We just haven't approached critical mass yet.

It's going to get very ugly my friend.

 

What supplier works with both Toyota and Nissan? I worked for a Nissan subsidiary and there was no chance of second tiers mixxing.

With the tighter controls, simpler designs, and fast track decisions, I wonder why that new Lexus was burning on the side of the road, why my Japanese vehicle couldn't pass smog on it's sixth year and why are half of the cars I see broken down on the side of the road Japanese branded.

And when you start calling people lazy phrase it like this "me and all my countrymen are lazy" because by the nature of competition and the cost of unions, American manufacturers have their workers efforts measured to the hundredth of a minute and balance their lines to 95% of available labor hours. Thanks for regurgitating the myths of the eighties.

 

Their supplier for front and rear bumper assemblies.

Nissan Titan and Toyota Tundra.

By the way, second tiers mix all of the time, this was a first tier supplier who mixed, just as many do.

It's not a myth of the 80s. Go to China and watch how the plants work. They pay workers little more than room and board, there is no training, and everything is done by hand when it is a rush job.

And for every 2 workers we would use here, to build stamping dies or plastic injection molds, they use 100. Instead of automated robotic transfer systems, they stick 5 guys in a line on either side of a press, INSIDE THE PRESS, and cycle the parts station to station by hand, in the most unsafe situation you could imagine.

Sorry, but high priced skilled labor in manufacturing gets killed by low price unskilled labor if the numbers are great enough. I don't like it anymore than the next guy, but I'm not going to kid myself about performance metrics and smoking Lexuses, rather than face it head on.

There is a reason why no new plants are being built in Michigan. No one wants to deal with the unions, and taxes are too high. Not when components and sub-assemblies can be built in Mexico, with Chinese and Korean Tooling, then shipped into Kentucky or Alabama for final assembly.

Tier 1s are even willing to look as far as Argentina now for their expanded operations, when they already own infrastructure in Michigan. Even with the cost of shipping, it's still more cost effective.