Why the economy is in the dump

At least according to me....

Maybe this is a bit simplistic, but it makes sense. There are several things at work. The biggest problem is nafta. Once GM and the rest thought they could save money by shoving every manufacturing job out of the country, they couldnt wait to start loading up the uhual and get out of here.

The problem lies in the issue of what to do with every worker that is now making 6 an hour at walmart. Those people dont buy houses and new cars every three years.

Kill the middle class.....

If not kill them, greatly decrease their numbers. Decrease them to the point that all the ones left already have a flat screen. They already own a home. They are up their necks in debt from buying crap they dont need. But bottom line, all the crap that can be bought, has been.

In the 90's, the internet boomed and everything went digital. That held things up for a while. But now everyone is wired. Those who arent, wont be anytime soon. But when it did boom, everyone spent huge money to own pc's and all the equipment. Everything was outdated yearly, neccesating replacement, and more money. Not so anymore. I still love XP. havent upgraded to vista and dont plan on it anytime soon..

The powers that be need to stimulate us, the consumers. They need to stimulate us with a middle class again, but they also need to make us WANT to spend money.

Or, offer us the taxpayers a bailout. Let us right off some or most of our own debt and let the banks use the bailout money to write it off to.

But that wont happen. The money was used to buy up smaller banks and do remodeling. I guess they wont be happy untill we bankrupt the government. I dont what Obama can do to fix this and I dont think I can blame Bush for it. I'd have to look back to Clinton for that.

[edit on 24-1-2009 by spliff4020]

Deregulation of Finance Banking in the US under Clinton was the beginning of this problem, they speculated...and speculated....run out of real ways to get real growth so they bundled up bad debts and sold them off as a good investment for all the super funds...and hence you and me through our 401K's or superannuation.

Then because of their greed/stupidity we the tax payers had to bundle them out of the mess they got "us" into and now they sit on large sums of tax payer donation money and remodel their Suites with $50 000 rugs.

True that.....

But if they wanted to stimulate the economy, what better way than releasing us from our own debt? Say I owe citibank 3 grand. I decide to take the gov. up on the offer and default on it. Citi charges 3k against the bail out. I now have 3k less debt. Perhaps I might want to spend again? And besides, most stupid debt it taken on at a young age. It could be a credit mulligan.

Of course, I have no idea the amount of credit debt there is right now, and theres a million issues to work out, but overall I like the "idea" of it.

Spliff...you must look much further back than Clinton...look back to 1913 when the Illuminati created the Fed. Reserve...which is a privately held business that collects all taxes/finance fees on loans; then they release that same money back to the banks to be given as more loans. So basically, we are getting loans from taxes that are then taxed again...and again and again. Thats why the Rothchilds (Britain) and the Rockerfellers (America) are soooo wealthy, they are major players/owners of the Federal Reserve (that name is a misnomer...it has nothing to do with our country's money...it's their money). They dictate exactly how this country's money is handled, divied out etc. Before that time money was backed by gold. That ended in 1913. Our money now is called fiat money...it has no backing whatsoever, except what the perceived value is. The feds keep printing money that isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Until the Fed. Reserve is disabled/removed, this country will never recover... we as a country cannot continue living the way we have in the past, being slaves to the Fed. Reserve. I heard it estimated that it will probably take 10-20 years before we will ever come close to what we have now...bartering will be the new money. If you don't have a service, skill, knowledge or product that someone else needs well...you might want to learn something to barter with...that's all I'm saying.

I have a solution for our current problem... I have to be careful here because I replied to similar posts with my plan and the mods deleted all them a couple of months ago saying I was spamming!

So, I will phrase it differently and not include all the links:

One - 7.7 Trillion spent on bailouts.. more to come.

two -Banks not lending money or extending lines of credit to businesses compounding the problem.

Three - banks taking bailout money an investing it overseas and giving themselves massive bonuses.


Solution - Direct consumer recapitalization of Debt from the Fed at 1% or less.

What this does -

EXISTING Mortgages - check any mortgage calculator and put in 6.5% or whatever your paying... now do it again at 0.5% (On going stimulus package to say the least)

The banks get immediate payoff of your mortgages when you refinance it from the Fed. No more bailout for them needed, they will have payoffs from millions of mortgages.

Flat $300 processing fee distributed as this example- 50 to the bank or financial institution for processing your paperwork, 50 to Federal Government, 100 to your State Government, 100 to your city or county govt.

New mortgages originated from a normal bank as usual.


Refinance other EXISTING debt the same way (existing student loans, auto loans, revolving credit debt).... financial institutions get immediate payoff, You get an incredible interest rate, You have allot more money to spend.

New revolving credit is not allowed until you have payed off your current debt to the fed... banks pick up standard lending an any new loans.

The Catch?? - Just like student loans, you must pay this back and the IRS will get the money, so no defaults. This is voluntary if you want it so nobody is forced to do this.

Throw in regulation to prevent banks from overextending themselves again and regulation requirements for ongoing new loans.

Current problem solved with about the same amount of money.

reply to post by mazzroth


Quit getting caught up with all this deregulation crap. They regulated the finance industry during Clinton's term too. It was called the Community Reinvestment Act, which incidentally made it to where the financiers had to give out loans too low income people that were high risk.

Consequently they weren't making enough money because of this and then came up with ARM's. Then they couldn't do what mortgage companies do which is sell the loans because nobody would by them.

Then they came up with swaps, which was insurance but insurance has to be regulated so they lied to congress and told them that swaps were totally different than insurance.

Now the could sell high risk loans to other banks because they were 'insured.' Also because of this lots of loans were for houses where the appreciation value of the houses were next to nil. No appreciation of the homes means no ROI.

So in reality what partly caused this mess was regulation. The banks wouldn't give loans to people that they refer to as ninjas(No Job No Income) because of this precise problem that we are going through now.

But the government had to get involved and regulated them to make these loans to people, because now people that couldn't afford homes had legal standing to sue the financiers.

There are also lots of other things that led to our current economic situation but deregulation is not one of them.

Originally posted by mazzroth
Deregulation of Finance Banking in the US under Clinton was the beginning of this problem....

I agreed with the rest of your post, however your first statement was very misleading. Clinton may of been president during a time of deregulation, however, the deregulation to which you are referring (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act 1999 or GLB) was sponsored by none other than, Republican Senator Phil Gramm. In 1999 Gramm pushed through the historic banking deregulation bill thus repealing parts of the Glass-Stegall Act (1933) which prohibited the merger of commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms.

en.wikipedia.org...

"Then, in the Great Depression after 1929, Congress examined the mixing of the “commercial” and “investment” banking industries that occurred in the 1920s. Hearings revealed conflicts of interest and fraud in some banking institutions’ securities activities. A formidable barrier to the mixing of these activities was then set up by the Glass Steagall Act."

Given that the GLB was the baby of Republican Senator Phil Gramm and his party, I find it very unfair for you to attribute "the begin of this problem" to the Clinton administration.

Yeah look I have to admit I'm personally not interested in the details of how and why the USA has stuffed up the world economically and why but the fact remains your broke....Nationally, Privately, Corporately and Individually broke and can't pay the world back the debt's you owe.

Hand over anything you have of worth so we get paid boi!!!! you are at the whim of the international Bankers and you all know it.

Ok, suppose for a second that all this Rothschild and Rockafeller nonsense was true. Suppose these families controled all the money. Then, what would the advantage be to letting the system fail? Surely they are losing their collective rear-ends right now. Why not manipulate the system so that everyone prospers.

The more money we spend, the more they make, right? It would only line their pockets a little more.

reply to post by paisley101


You have hit the nail right on it's head, paisley101. That is exactly the way it happened, and why it's still that way today.

reply to post by spliff4020


Well I never mentioned Rothschild just International Banks but anyway what you have to understand is that during periods of economic boom it is impossible to prevent the Entrepreneurial from gaining wealth and the game is to grab it off them through a consolidation phase.

This bust/crash/mess or what ever you wish to call it is vital to ensure that the "real wealth" can grab more wealth and asset from failing ventures by buying them up for penny's on the dollar when they are no longer viable due to the debts they have accrued...which gets washed out and soaked up by the tax payer...us.

Originally posted by spliff4020
The problem lies in the issue of what to do with every worker that is now making 6 an hour at walmart. Those people dont buy houses and new cars every three years.

Spliff, I agree with much of what you wrote.
I had a job and bought a house in 1977. BTW back then there was inflation, but wages were raised to keep up with it. Also, the CRA was formed, because savings and other financial institutions in poorer areas were not giving mortgages fairly to their depositors; yeah, saving in S&Ls, something people did back then, save money, for a 20% deposit on a home.

Along came 1980, with Reagan's promise to stop inflation. Sure did, by way of creating a large pool of unemployed workers to drive down pressure from wage increases. To offset rising house prices, ARM's became popular.

Many of the unemployed turned to either new jobs in the service/financial sector, or became self employed in the service/financial sector.
NAFTA was sold both as a way to help workers in other countries make wage gains, or as a way for companies to avoid paying American workers wages/benefits and to get out of regulations meant to help workers and the environment. NAFTA was promoted thusly, depending on to whom one was speaking.
The immigration bill in the 1980's was a sham, as businesses increasingly hired more illegal workers, another way to keep wages in the economy from rising. Pretty soon, the amount of jobs that American workers were told that they wouldn't do became a function of who corporations could hire to replace American workers in those jobs.

Yes, as American workers earned less and less each year, they could still afford their lifestyle, because WalMart offered cheaper goods, because payments for cars and houses could be stretched for years, allowing lower monthly payments, and more and more was purchased on credit. Pay day loan and rent to own businesses proliferated by the 1990's.
Down payments on houses would have to be drastically reduced, as first time buyers couldn't afford to save the %. We ended up with no down payment, 50 year loans, and interest only loans by the 2000's.

Americans were told to use even the interest in their houses for college and medical bills!

What began as Reagan's "voo doo" economics (as spoken by Bush elder), sold to American middle class voters as a way for money to trickle down to them from above, ended up being quite a haul of loot away from the middle class by 2008.

Originally posted by spliff4020
Why not manipulate the system so that everyone prospers.

The more money we spend, the more they make, right? It would only line their pockets a little more.

Up until he retired in the 1980's, my father worked for a non-union business owned by a wealthy, hard working, religious Republican businessman. Today this hardworking, conservative Republican businessman would be excoriated as a godless, anti-American, evil, Socialist. Why? Because he gave his workers (who helped make him greatly profitable) "profit sharing" at the end of every year. This man dared to recognize the efforts of his employees. That check, along with a turkey, was given at a Christmas party; what a nice Christian way of celebrating the dignity of labor and business.

With American corporations going international, the American worker became expendable. WTF did they care about you as they cared for my father, if all they had to do was replace you or relocate the business to another country? Greed. More for me, less for you. Instead of dignity, wring out what you can and discard.

Instead of love of country, i.e. patriotism, traitors have looted this great country and discarded it. An economic revolution must happen.

reply to post by desert


It ain't that great in the scheme of things mate, Egypt and its rule lasted a "tad" longer and so did Rome. Not the mention Britannia, France and Spain. If you were to look at the USA's time of influence it really pales into insignificance along side some of the great civilizations of the recorded official history.

[edit on 25-1-2009 by mazzroth]

Originally posted by mazzroth
Yeah look I have to admit I'm personally not interested in the details of how and why the USA has stuffed up the world economically and why but the fact remains your broke....Nationally, Privately, Corporately and Individually broke and can't pay the world back the debt's you owe.

Hand over anything you have of worth so we get paid boi!!!! you are at the whim of the international Bankers and you all know it.

You may not like the US for whatever reason, but not all ppl here in
the US are broke.

I am a working class citizen and I live beneath my financial means.

I am 42 and my house, car, truck, and everything I posses are paid for,
and I have worked since I was 10 years old on th farm, newspapers,
all the way up to the Navy, Cisco systems, Dell, military contractor,
and my own business.

I know a few ppl like me, and I know that here in my state the
unemployment rate is under 6%.

You can thank my grandfathers for the fact that the language
of your country is not japanese.

G'Day mate !


[edit on 25-1-2009 by Ex_MislTech]

Originally posted by mazzroth
Then because of their greed/stupidity we the tax payers had to bundle them out of the mess they got "us" into and now they sit on large sums of tax payer donation money and remodel their Suites with $50 000 rugs.

Yes, this speaks the truth, the thieves in charge have looted the
whole damn country and I do not see the current bunch of corrupt
parasites doing it any better.

I see total collapse as the likely outcome and have planned accordingly.

We have 100's of trillions set to collapse next.

Yes, trillions with a T.

&print=true&dist=pr intTop]All ppl need to understand what Buffett has said

Others have tried to explain the derivatives disaster soon to explode

This will make the billions look like a pittance.

The thieves have looted the country and setup derivatives in place
of the money or value and setup a giant house of cards that is set
to fall and take the entire economy of the US into the toilet.

All this so they can offer the Amero as the solution.

Most ppl have no idea what is coming.

To those of you who do, good job, and spread the word as best you can.

But most ppl are not ready for the bitter medicine.

You have to break them in on the less bitter things they are willing to
listen to, and once you have their attention and once they start to
shed their trust of the thieves in DC then you can give them the
bitter medicine.

My plan is to hide, as I feel it is far too late, and far too few are
ready and as things stand it is game over.

Good Luck to you all !

This crisis is a good opportunity to take a step back and look at the big picture. The really, really big picture.

The widest possible view calls into question the relationship between the economy and "happiness." Obviously we all have basic needs such as food, shelter, health, and a few others. Once these are satisfied, however, what exactly do we WANT? This is a question we as a society really need to ask ourselves.

Seen from the vantage, the fundamental purpose of the economy is to being us "happiness." But beyond the bare-bones needs, we don't seem to have a very clear idea of what exactly "happiness" and "satisfaction" are. Is "happiness" working 16 hours a day to a fford a massive McMansion? Is it having financial security, or the opportunity to take more risk for bigger rewards? How about the value of free time, relaxation, and freedom from stress? Commmunity and family? Status and respect? All of these things are important, but we don't seem to have a clear idea of exactly how important they are, relative to each other.

The ideal economy would be one that allows people to pursue "happiness." But before we can pursue it, we need to define it. "The System" as currently constituted seems to equate happiness with ever-increasing wealth and consumption. Now that the system is breaking down (or at least seriously faltering), it is time to reexamine those goals and perhaps pick healthier defininitions of happiness, as a society and as individuals. Once we do that, we will be able to construct a system that actually delivers happiness.

I'm of the opinion that the economy is in the dump because that's the plan. And Obama will not fix it, it's probably not even possible anymore. But he will be seen on the television as someone who tried, thus maintaining popularity.