We are so screwed, and nobody seems to care. I see 10% unemployment by the end of the year, and I'm guessing I'll be one of the unemployed.
There is no other way to spin it. We are seeing our markets collapse, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. As for a recovery...I can't even fathom that at this point. There is going to be literally a next to nil amount of capital to back future loans, and I just hope that the millions who are already on a mortgage won't see their respective banks collapse. 15 months ago, the Dow jumped over 14,000. After tomorrow, it may well be near half of that.
ACORN is flooding our electoral system with fraudulent ballots - in an obvious fashion - to destroy the upcoming election through confusion. They did the same thing with the housing market. They flooded the system with fraudulent loans, and caused the same type of confusion. In order to create a new society, you must destroy the current society first. Then the people will cry out for a savior. Be that savior God or the devil, they will accept him.(Note how the left tried to portray Obama as a savior or messiah).
I had lunch with a CPA who has been doing it for 25 years. He is convinced that we are heading to a depression and no one is grasping the idea. he was pushing to be as thrifty as possible and talking about how gov't will be way under funded and to expect things like libraries closing, police forces being gutted social services completely drying up. He painted a very bleak picture of the upcoming 5-10 years. Of course he is a CPA (no offense to CPAs as I said that tongue in cheek)
Bush called the leaders of Congress into a closed door and classified meeting a few weeks prior to the "bailout" panic. Our economy is largely based on credit, with the mortgage being almost an afterthought, and on top of that people live far above their means due to credit cards. Your friend probably isn't that far off-base with his predictions. I have had conversations today with business associates that have disturbed me to the point I have to vent on this board. WE are the government, and if WE can't afford for ourselves, how will we afford for our governmental services?
Most of what I've been reading and hearing from the "financial experts" is they expect the Dow to bottom out around 8000. But who knows. Consumer and investor confidence is so low right now I could see the bottom dropping further than that. Just a perfect storm of low consumer/investor confidence, rising cost of living, a mucked up credit flow, and a reluctance of the public to save and invest when they can barely afford to pay for the basics. Not to mention we have a lame-duck, do-nothing president and members of Congress who are so petrified to do anything bold for fear they'd alienate their constituents in an election year. I'm sincerely hoping that things will start moving in the right direction after the election, since you'll likely have a more motivated legislature and less nervous public with the hope of a new direction with new leadership. -Pop
Hey, it's always darkest before the dawn. (Or before it's pitch black.) Anyway, call me naive but I just can't imagine the world is going to fall apart. It's just in too many peoples' interests for it to do that. We'll see a massive amount of government spending around the world that will keep us from sinking into depression. We're in for a recession, most likely a bad one, but it won't be forever. I think we're having a protracted version of Black Monday back in 1987.
A fine line on keeping government spending at a level where we don't see worldwide inflation. Also, the difference between Black Monday and today is that today, the collapse of lenders led directly to the collapse of the markets. Scary times...
The great thing about me being self-employed is that I don't have to worry about being laid off. The bad thing about being self-employed is that I suddenly seem to have very few clients. Recession sucks.
I do both. I have a day job and I also keep myself busy with consulting projects. I'm pretty safe for the time being, I have enough connections that I am easily hirable if need be. But its always good just to have some backup/sidebiz going.
Ummm ... no. This is not a simple issue that one person can solve. Do I think Obama will do a better job of implementing programs aimed at improving our economy than John McCain will? Yes. But I'm smart enough to realize we are in an absolute shit-storm right now that this is going to take a while to dig out of. And I'm guessing your smart enough to realize that the Republicans have controlled the White House for the last 8 years and Congress for 10 of the last 12 years while we were getting into this mess. -Pop
Well, at least Gub'ment will take care of us and control every aspect of our lives! Redistribution of wealth bitches!
And I'm guessing you're smart enough to realize that there's blame enough to go around for both parties. While it makes great political theater to point fingers at "the other guys", the fact is that economies do go through cycles, and that yoyos of all political flavors make stupid decisions to benefit their constituencies and keep themselves in office. Five minutes of listening to Barney Frank makes me long to have Barney Fife or Barney Rubble in control of his committee.
Medium-sized and small retailers seem pretty confident, at least a good percentage of the ones my distributors and I deal with. I sell retail display fixtures, and we can't build them fast enough. We're working overtime straight through the middle of November, and if we get the job I quoted today, that'll probably last into December. I'm not saying that things aren't bad, I'm just saying that many retailers think things won't be all bad, and they are buying lots of fixtures to display products they believe will sell well enough during the holiday season to justify the expense.
And I just thought of something, maybe it was a good thing that I had to live on my 401k in the post 9-11 downturn. I'd be REALLY stressed right now if I owned stock.
Yeah of course, he'll bring socialism, and socialist programs, which will solve everything. Dream on America!!!
