Okay all kidding a side, how does our country fix this

Great, we now have one more "free market" junkie in the forum.

That's special.

How many business need to fail before we change strategies?

 

I got an idea..........

Let's pool our money, start a hedge fund and SHORT something

Keep propping up inferior companies with our money- 

If you want a pure free market society, look at Somalia. Pretty much the US isn't a free market economy.  It is governed by the FED and the government that creates regulations, and prevents companies to go bankrupt.

1933 - New Deal...the beginning of the end really. a government sponsored retirement program? entitlements, a safety net for all  paid for by taxpayers who are still working or some foreign country through selling treasuries. lets also help people buy homes through GSAs such as fannie and freddie. we can buy bank loans or guarantee them

massive government spending kept us in the depression until WWII and did nothing to get us out. government spending on jobs projects is nothing more than redistribution of income from those who have to those who do not through a govt paid job

1964 -  The Great Society - even more entitlements, welfare, medicare, medicaid...war on poverty

wait a minute....who is paying for all this?

1977 - Community Reinvestment Act...hey i have a great idea, lets mandate banks relax their lending standards so that they can reinvest in their local communities

1999  - rewrite of Fannie and Freddie's mission. if we can expand home ownership even more that would be great...oh and tell citi and wells that they need to lend to at least X % minority. i dont care if their fico is 550 and they have only part time work

hugo - it works both ways. except on one side you have deregulation and a freer markets and to correct that the lefties put in big government safeguards which really are the furthest thing from a safeguard.

social security, welfar, medicare, medicaid = PONZI schemes

look it up...you though bernie madoff was a crook? FDR is the devil himself for shoving this down our grandparents throats....and in their weakness of the Depression, they believed government was the answer when in fact all of the problems we have today come from government standards (FNM/FRE, CAFE standards for autos, banking, Sarbanes Oxley, mark to market)

this isnt the fault of the left or right, its the fault of power hungry mental midgets who we've elected to serve our interest. its the fault of those who believe and have tried to install a Keynesian model of central planning to run our economy and lives

Lit uop like he fourthe I'ma happy drunik!   

Our economic furture was a heck of a lot brighter until Bush and the Republicans recklessly expanded all of these "Globalization" and "World Trade" deals with China, India, Russia, Korea, etc. Shouldn't fair trade be about 10 billion dollars worth of goods goes to China from the USA, and 10 billion dollars worth of goods comes back from China. I dare any Republican in here to personally trade with me at the same exact ratio that the USA trades with China now. I will give you $10,000 and you give me $100,000 and we'll  keep trading like that year after year, and then we'll see quite quickly who will be going to the poor house. Any Republican "World Trade," "Globalization," "Free Market Economy" thinkers out there that want to trade with me? Anyone? Throughout history those who had the highest manufacturing output per capita enjoyed the highest standard of living, the highest property values, the most capable military, etc. Now if we just continue to follow the Republican ideals and let the free market globalization economies take care of themselves (which is exactly what Japan, Russia, China, etc. do not do) , we just compete globally wiith all of the other peasants who work for slave wages of the world and the American blue collar workers all make 7 dollars per hour (while the American CEO's make all 700 dollars per hour) with very little health insurance for the American blue collar workers and their families, very little in retirements for the older American blue collar workers, etc. (which is what most Republicans that I talk to seem to want)  who is left to buy the new houses, the new cars, etc. that are produced? So why are we heading towards the worst deflation since the Great Depression. Oh that's right, the Republican led death of the American middle class and globalization, the Bush SR. New World Order Doctrine, and suprise, suprise, here we are. It should be noted for the Republicans who wonder why the U.S. Government tries to feed people who are starving? Because when too many people are starving and desperate they sometimes tend to band together and start revolutions, government overthrows, military coups, etc. Buy American is a great idea, but you can't really even tell what is made in America on the labels (or is it made in the city of Usa, China? What a dirty little trick)   Why can't I look at the label on a car and know what percentage of the car (in dollar value) was made in the USA, made in Mexico, etc. Why can't I just look down a Wal-Mart aisle and see which shelving price labels are Red, White, and Blue, (with black price ink printed on them) and which labels are yellow (with black price ink printed on them). If we do not start buying American and boost American manufacturing output (with real wages  gains for blue collar workers, so that the American middle class worker can once again afford to buy a new car, a new house, etc. without just some failed globalization experiment USA service economy propped up only by temporary credit bubbles) again in the USA, Then our standard of living will just keep dropping and evidently, the rest of the world will just keep falling down with us. What is one of the biggest manufacturing items? Ther answer is automobiles, but how many American blue collar production workers can actually afford to buy the very same car that the are producing? Some can, but many can't, especially at the parts suppliers and sub-contractors. How many Mexican blue collar workers can afford to buy the very same automobile that they are producing parts for?  So here we are staring into the abyss  with the death of the  American middle class standard of living that has taken place under Bush Jr., the New World Order (as talked about by Bush Sr.), the Republican rubber stamped reckless expansion of trade agreements (when the Republicans controlled the U.S. House and U.S.Senate with  Bush Jr.)  given to Bush Jr. for China, India, Russia, Korea, etc. Hopefully, we can recover. The leadership vacuum in the mostly overpaid corporate American board rooms is a terrible problem. The corruption and greed is becoming more rampant in the public and private. One can almost only imagine the arrogance and corruption of the Roman aristocracy right before the fall. One can only imagine the lack of enforcable checks and balances on unbridled power in America on a daily basis. Could we have equal treatment and justice for white collar (which is obviously growing in America, evidently because the punishment and enforcement is not sufficient) crime in America so as to not collapse the whole system under it's own weight? What about the ideas coming from Warren Buffet, Carl Icahn, T. Boone Pickens, etc?  It should be noted that soon to be President Barack Obama does listen to Warren Buffet, as well as many others, on occasion. He seems to have a completley different Presidential approach than the Bush Jr./Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld ego trip. That, in and of itself, is some cause for hope.

It should be noted that soon to be President Barack Obama does listen to Warren Buffet,
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so we should take solace in the man who bought GS at 115 and GE at 22 a few months ago?

buffett is very smart...so was bill miller

some guys cannot see the forest for the trees and are stuck in their historical valuation models

give me someone who is future looking using future models like Roubini, Schiff, Ackman, Loeb

i like icahn a lot, t boone as well but his message resonates much better when oil is at 140, not 35

I'm sure most of us would agree that it is a bigger problem if we wait until oil is $140+ again  to at least try to do something about American energy independence. Can our best and brightest scientific minds develop a cost efficient alternatibve to the fossil fuel combustible engine for automobiles? With oil at these levels probably not. Time will tell, or oil will just rise until the new technologies are just as cost efficient by default. Then again, the masses still have to be able to afford to buy the new technologically advanced automobiles. It still seems like the sooner we get started on the Picken's Plan, or some semblance of it  for energy independence, the better.

i dont disagree with any of what you say but when oil goes below $30 next week, im telling you energy independence goes to the back burner

solar, wind, electric cars arent market viable consumer demanded products right now. they are only here b/c of government subsidy

Home mortgages have nothing to do with it. 

 

 

In a thread titled "How can we fix this" we have a guy in RE saying 'mortgages have nothing to do with it'. I don't know if IRONIC is an appropriate word, but that's just comical.

THe root of all our problems begins, but doesn't necessarily end with the mortgage mess. Unless the 900 posts i've made in politics forum were all that wrong, i'd say FriedShrimp is a bit loony. Morts are a microcosm of all the problems we are seeing in our economy. Disconnect from fundamentals. Housing prices can only be sustained if they follow wages.

link

Hey Shrimp, is NOW a good time to buy?

for now, it looks that all the posturing by the fed HAS actually had a positive effect. ARM's set to reset should be a disaster avoided, FOR NOW. BUT, what about all the mort's that are soon to recast? And nothing can be done to 'help' the people that are soooo far underwater, you know the 40k a year in the "500k" house whose interest only loans are the fuel to the fire. And don't forget the elephant in the room, the credit card debt. usurious penalties? that's a good thing right? or would we rather see 2% interest?

 

btw, we already are in 'the Great Depression 2.0', look around you. The Japs dubbed it the lost decade when it happened to them, but that just in a name, and it doesn't sound nearly as bad. We are carbon copy of early 90's JAPAN