SkinsHokieFan Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 I am fully in the camp that based on everything I have read, people that I trust that I have spoken to, what I have studied, and all the homework that I have done, that believes that our economy is going to be in serious serious trouble for the foreseeable future. A few reasons including the deficit and debt, the value of the dollar, energy prices and oil supply, and the impending entitlement disaster. I know there are several posters on ES whose opinion I trust (I am looking at guys like you Zoony, Techboy, PB, DjTj) who are more optimistic, not neccessarily bullish, but optimistic about the future of the economy. I.E you don't think that a decade from now our standard of living will be significantly lower and that we will be ok (while I think we are going to be in awful shape and not ok) Tell me why I am wrong or why things will recover and we'll get back on track Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted July 31, 2008 Author Share Posted July 31, 2008 Wanted to bump this for the morning crowd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen-like Todd Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 I wasn't in your list of posters, so I'll pass on responding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexey Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Significant investment into alternative energy may lead to great things for our country as a whole. Energy is the next big question that humanity has to solve. As somebody said in another thread, imagine having a patent on the internal combustion engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngestson Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Tell me why I am wrong or why things will recover and we'll get back on track An economy has multiple cyclical elements and will change over time almost regardless of active measures applied. Therefore the economy will someday become better. Perhaps because of and maybe inspite of any actions or inactions taken at the federal level. Just stock up on canned food and shotgun shells. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DjTj Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Because the economy always gets better. People thought the Depression would never end, but after World War II, but with advances in aerospace and international trade, we entered the most prosperous era in our nation's history. During the 70's stagflation and the S&L crisis of the 80's, people thought the economy was going to fall apart and we were going to be overtaken by Japan, but we entered an age of the internet and the human genome, and we came out just fine. I don't know what the next big advances will be, and I don't know how we're going to turn the economy around, but I do know that it will happen. It always has, and there's nothing significantly different about the world today than in the past. The free market works. Capitalism works. Innovation happens. Not even the government can **** that up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 It will get better because once Bush is out of office, the media will stop lying about how bad it is currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellsMyHero28 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 What bothers me is the people that consistently point out that we're not in a recession, as if that's a sign that our economy is just fine. Obviously being in a recession is worse than not, but if we're talking about some pathetic growth right now...our economy is in trouble. No, we're not in a recession but that's not good enough news for me. The fact that we could be worse off isn't a reason to ignore the stagnant growth of our economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Not that I disagree w/ you. I think we are looking forward to another 70's decade. The energy/oil thing though has me the LEAST worried. Cars will get smaller, ethanol from non-food items is coming on-line (3 years or so (and presumably after the election will see the end of the sugar/ethanol tarriffs/quotas, which will help immediately)), battery technology is getting better (Volt in two years. Toyota plug-in hybrid short there after. Much of the EV technology patents expire in 3-4 years, which will open it up to everybody, and there is some new work/patents that are further out from the market place, but will make substantial changes in battery technology), solar is getting better, and even things like hydrogen are looking like they will make an impact on energy prices in the next decade IF prices stay high. The value of the dollar, I'm ehh on. It is more of a symptom than a cause IMO. The debt at the goverment level, and at the personal level are driving all of the other problems IMO, and I at least don't forsee a quick change in those things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Because the economy always gets better. People thought the Depression would never end, but after World War II, but with advances in aerospace and international trade, we entered the most prosperous era in our nation's history. During the 70's stagflation and the S&L crisis of the 80's, people thought the economy was going to fall apart and we were going to be overtaken by Japan, but we entered an age of the internet and the human genome, and we came out just fine.I don't know what the next big advances will be, and I don't know how we're going to turn the economy around, but I do know that it will happen. It always has, and there's nothing significantly different about the world today than in the past. The free market works. Capitalism works. Innovation happens. Not even the government can **** that up. What happens if it comes from another country? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sly Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 I have a friend who's a research analyst for a very successful local firm. He basically said the economy is *not* getting better, and having the government give lenders and citizens essentially a "get out of jail free" card with this new bill (http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/30/news/economy/housing_bill_Bush/index.htm?postversion=2008073011) sets a very dangerous precedent for the future. It’s going to make things worse. I'm optimistic, but this comes more from complete ignorance on the subject. Scary times we're living in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FanboyOf91 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 The only lingering problems that can **** us up is the deficit/debt from government deficit spending, and the Medicare/Medicaid explosion. America's really got it made, compared to the rest of the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisenberg Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 It will get better because once Bush is out of office, the media will stop lying about how bad it is currently. Kilmer you really never seem to care if what you say is true. You make some of the most BS posts this side of Sarge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popeman38 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 What bothers me is the people that consistently point out that we're not in a recession, as if that's a sign that our economy is just fine.Obviously being in a recession is worse than not, but if we're talking about some pathetic growth right now...our economy is in trouble. No, we're not in a recession but that's not good enough news for me. The fact that we could be worse off isn't a reason to ignore the stagnant growth of our economy. Stagnant? 1.9% growth in a $14.150 TRILLION dollar economy is NOT stagnant! Is it on par with "projected" growth? No. But the larger the economy is, the smaller the % of growth is going to be. 1.9% growth is in the ballpark of $105 BILLION worth of growth - in a quarter. That is more growth than all but 53 other countries entire GDP. Think about that for a minute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Because the economy always gets better. People thought the Depression would never end, but after World War II, but with advances in aerospace and international trade, we entered the most prosperous era in our nation's history. During the 70's stagflation and the S&L crisis of the 80's, people thought the economy was going to fall apart and we were going to be overtaken by Japan, but we entered an age of the internet and the human genome, and we came out just fine.I don't know what the next big advances will be, and I don't know how we're going to turn the economy around, but I do know that it will happen. It always has, and there's nothing significantly different about the world today than in the past. The free market works. Capitalism works. Innovation happens. Not even the government can **** that up. Beat me to it. The next big advances NEED to be in energy, obviously. We HAVE to get away from the monopolistic cartel that is ****ing everything up. The economy moves in cycles, we not too long ago had a nice long stretch of good times. Now we're going to go through a rough stretch. Most people just arent willing to accept any pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Kilmer you really never seem to care if what you say is true.You make some of the most BS posts this side of Sarge. Two libbys in a day? Im on a roll! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisenberg Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Two libbys in a day? Im on a roll! Yes, you've been on a roll of making completely absurd posts for a while now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Hey, lets turn this into a political discussion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellsMyHero28 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Stagnant? 1.9% growth in a $14.150 TRILLION dollar economy is NOT stagnant! Is it on par with "projected" growth? No. But the larger the economy is, the smaller the % of growth is going to be. 1.9% growth is in the ballpark of $105 BILLION worth of growth - in a quarter. That is more growth than all but 53 other countries entire GDP. Think about that for a minute. It doesn't matter what it is compared to other countries, it needs to be compared to the growth of our economy historically. Maybe stagnant is too strong of a word but our economy is NOT doing well right now by our own standards. Again, its not good enough for me to hear "oh well the growth is more than these countries GDPs", thats an impressive stat but the fact remains that we're not doing as well as we should. I'm not saying the world is coming to an end, but at the same time trying to act like everything is fine is not going to help either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popeman38 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 It doesn't matter what it is compared to other countries, it needs to be compared to the growth of our economy historically. Maybe stagnant is too strong of a word but our economy is NOT doing well right now by our own standards. Again, its not good enough for me to hear "oh well the growth is more than these countries GDPs", thats an impressive stat but the fact remains that we're not doing as well as we should. I'm not saying the world is coming to an end, but at the same time trying to act like everything is fine is not going to help either. And the fact remains that the larger our economy gets, the slower it is going to grow in percentages. That is just the nature of the beast. We grew $629 BILLION from 2006 - 2007. That is roughly 4.7%. We grew by $487 BILLION from 1996 - 1997. That is roughly 6.2%. And the further you go back, the actual growth shrinks, but the% gets bigger. So would you rather have the growth expressed in real $s or % points? They both equate to the same number, but one looks big and one looks small. We are eventually going to get to the point where our growth will be tenths of a percent, but will actually be good growth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen-like Todd Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 The long term target growth rate of developed nations is around 3%. Mind you, that doesn't mean 3% every quarter. That means the long term target AVERAGE growth rate will be 3%. We were rocking at 4% not too long ago. None of this is shocking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monte51Coleman Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 The economy, as defined by our pocketbooks, will rebound when the housing market turns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellsMyHero28 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 And the fact remains that the larger our economy gets, the slower it is going to grow in percentages. That is just the nature of the beast. We grew $629 BILLION from 2006 - 2007. That is roughly 4.7%. We grew by $487 BILLION from 1996 - 1997. That is roughly 6.2%. And the further you go back, the actual growth shrinks, but the% gets bigger. So would you rather have the growth expressed in real $s or % points? They both equate to the same number, but one looks big and one looks small. We are eventually going to get to the point where our growth will be tenths of a percent, but will actually be good growth. True, but the fact remains that our economy isn't in the best shape. That cannot be refuted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 True, but the fact remains that our economy isn't in the best shape.That cannot be refuted. The economy CANT STAY in the best shape indefinitely, inflation would get out of control. Like i said before, people just arent willing to accept any pain without a whole lot of ****ing and moaning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarrellsMyHero28 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 The economy CANT STAY in the best shape indefinitely, inflation would get out of control.Like i said before, people just arent willing to accept any pain without a whole lot of ****ing and moaning. Having your house foreclosed on and losing your job is certainly an appropriate time to *****. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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