Poll: Where do you stand on the economy?

[DemReadingDU]

[baldguy]

1. With the right leadership in the WH & Congress, it'll get better in a few years.

But the GOP will do everything they can to ensure it'll last several decades.

[rock]

4. Bingo! n/t

[DemReadingDU]

6. Hope so too. I wouldn't want the GOP to regain a majority. n/t

[NOW tense]

2. I am affected by the economy.

I feel like it won't continue forever. Getting back on track will be difficult. I think we will be moving in a more positive direction by August. Growth will be slow the last quarter of this year and will pickup a better pace in the first quarter of 2010.

[DemReadingDU]

9. Obama's plan to create jobs should help

Hope that the number of continuing layoffs doesn't exceed the number of jobs that Obama's creates.

[NOW tense]

14. I think that

Recovery will be fairly fast when it comes back. Here is why I think that. Our world and economies are moving a break neck speeds. We are creating new things everyday faster then ever before. We have blown through two bubbles in two decades. I see our recovery kind of being like facebook. Look how fast that took off.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. I'm going with 'this shit is really bad and likely to get much worse'.

[DemReadingDU]

12. Even Obama has said things are going to get worse before they get better, n/t

[tomg]

5. I voted "I'm not worried."

I should also say I am so freaked i am in complete denial bordering on delusional.

[DemReadingDU]

7. I think many people are either in denial, or disbelief. n/t

[sandyj999]

8. It took a while to get this way and will take a while to get out.

I totally believe it will just take time but it will get better. I tell myself that every time I look at our IRA. I tend to not worry about things I can't control. It's a waste of the good time.

[DemReadingDU]

11. Very true. We can't expect an economic miracle overnight, n/t

[noamnety]

10. Other

Our economy is based on an unsustainable model. The only thing we seem capable of is trying to find a better way to fuel the unsustainable model.

That's not something you can "recover" from.

[DemReadingDU]

13. Interesting. That could be a different way of living, n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. agree with this analysis...out of the ashes of this antiquated economy a

new one, like a phoenix will rise. :thumbsup:

However, this may take longer than the couple of years suggested in the above poll.

[Hugin]

16. Based on my calculations performed before the Bear-Stearns fiasco it would have taken 32.5 years.

That would have been if we'd started at that point... If only perfect choices and plans were implemented. (Which being the Bush Administration wasn't going to happen.)

Depending, of course on the breaks.

I imagine that time to recovery has increased on some factor. Geometric Progression? Exponential Growth? :shrug:


Check out this cool picture of Geometric Progression over at the wiki...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_progression

[DemReadingDU]

17. Exponential Growth

I had read something somewhere that is why the amount of money for these bailouts keeps getting larger and larger. And it's used up quicker too. So the need for the next bailout comes sooner, and for an even larger amount. We are disappearing into a black hole of debt.


:(

[Hugin]

22. Yes, Time is an important variable in all financial calculations...

and as you can see Time typically appears as an exponential value in most of the financial Formulae.

That's why I'm constantly saying (As opposed to the gadflies, who have no plan or evidence) taxes on the 1%ers work as a damper on this growth which if left unchecked will eventually render the Dollar worthless.

[Dawgs]

18. Why am I not surprised that so many on DU think the sky is falling.

It's a confidence problem, yet so many want to keep spreading the fear.

[DemReadingDU]

19. Maybe it's recognizing the exponential growth of credit(debt)

I don't think it's spreading fear, but there comes a time when the piper must be paid, and I think that is scaring a lot of people.

[GliderGuider]

24. As much as we'd like to think so,

A few people posting on one progressive web board don't impact global consumer confidence too terribly much.

There are a several billion people out there all around the planet who have lost confidence in the system, and for good reason. To their eyes, the system either is failing or has already failed. Recognizing and expressing that fact is simple realism.

Trillions of taxpayers' dollars worldwide are disappearing into the pockets of that system's elite. There is no way that putting lipstick on that pig will turn it into our collective girlfriend.

[DemReadingDU]

26. Perhaps to the wealthy, the financial system has lost confidence

But to the people I know, they still do business at their local bank branch...deposits, withdrawals, auto bill-paying, auto-deposits, ATM, debit cards sill work, credit cards too. Basically, nothing has changed, yet.

But when we see our tax money going to bail out the wealthy banksters, we all get angry. Angry at the banksters for creating this debt monster, angry at the system for looking the other way. Angry for the lack of investigations and prosecutions. We are angry first.

We will lose confidence when there are major bank runs, or closing the banks for a 'holiday', that's when the majority of people will lose confidence...when the financial crisis affects them personally.

[GliderGuider]

27. How many people do you know making major durable purchases, or doing home renovations?

We may still be banking, but are we shopping?

There are two levels of the economy to consider. When the top tier of the financial system loses confidence in counterparty solvency, it doesn't take long for the top of the system to gum up. And when the consumers lose confidence in their employment prospects it doesn't take long for the bottom to fall out.

I expect those two effects to collide before the end of this quarter.

[DemReadingDU]

28. well, my family is still shopping

All have good jobs, life is great! One of the reasons I started this poll, is that I don't think my family understands what is occurring around them. Yes, they are still buying big ticket items (cars and houses), taking vacations to Australia, cruises to Mexico, buying the expensive toys for Christmas, and still playing the stock market because it eventually will go back up. They talk about Starbucks closing their local coffee shop, and Circuit City going bankrupt. But there are other places to buy coffee and computer/electronic items.

I send them articles of interest to read. I think they see my email, and delete them. I got them a DVD of Chris Martenson's Crash Course to get a basic understanding of the economy, energy and the environment. None have watched it. Not until one of them loses their job (or there is a bank run), will this crisis affect them personally.

Edit: I see a collapse sometime this year, probably sooner rather than later.

[TalkingDog]

37. Last year I was accused of exactly the same thing.

but I haven't laid off one worker or devalued one derivitive.

Just because some have an innate sense of how a situation might (or continues to) develop, does not mean they are spreading fear. Foresight does not equal crazy..... at least not in my reality.

One year ago this poll might have had quite different results. Back then, the sky is falling crowd was much smaller.

But BEHOLD OUR POWER that we have brought the world to it's knees with the mere whisper of our confidence sapping words. We are MIGHTY in our Verbal Fu. Tremble before us as we lay waste to your cities and end the lineage of your father's father.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3113316&mesg_id=3113449

or not....

[DemReadingDU]

39. I remember that thread and article

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was writing months before most people became aware of the financial crisis. I think most of us posting on the daily SMW threads were aware of a developing crisis too, over a year ago. It's not spreading fear, it's looking at the facts and connecting the dots.

[lostnotforgotten]

20. Implosion - The System Is Rotten To The Core!

eom

[DemReadingDU]

21. Definitely too many corrupted banksters, n/t

[Lance31]

23. Personally I am,

watching all the "Mad Max" movies to get pointers on whats coming.

Realize this, with the credit swap counted, the financial industry owes 1000 trillion dollars.

The Entire Planet makes 60 trillion a year.

If they throw the stimulus at the banks it wont even make a ripple..

[DemReadingDU]

25. 1000 trillion = Quadrillion

That's why the the bailouts to the banksters haven't worked, too much is owed (stolen by the banksters)

Welcome to DU!
:hi:

[Theres-a]

29. It's going to get worse before it gets worse.

K & R

[Karenina]

30. The model is flawed.

[DemReadingDU]

31. Yes, the model we have been living recently, is not the model throughout history.

We will be living differently in the next few years and beyond, not necessarily bad, but 'recovery' is not going to be what we have been used to for the past 25 years.

[Common Sense Party]

32. Other: Worse for the next year, will improve in 2010.

We will be in for a decades-long Depression in about eight years IF we don't do something to address the MASSIVE shortfall in Social Security and Medicare.

[DemReadingDU]

33. and the National Debt is over $10 Trillion too

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/


But where is the money going to come from to fix the shortfall in SS and Medicare, and get out of debt? Raise taxes? Cut spending in Iraq? Other?

[Common Sense Party]

40. Raise taxes, reduce benefits, cut spending of the SS trust fund on

other parts of the budget. We're all going to have to suck it up, and politicians are, for once, going to have to level with the American people: "We can't afford these programs the way that we've been running them."

EVERYONE neeeds to see the movie I.O.U.S.A.

This crap is scary.

[DemReadingDU]

41. I saw I.O.U.S.A.

And you're right, Obama needs to come out and tell us the truth, how we can't afford to keep spending like we have been, what needs to be cut.

Obama though, is probably meeting with his economic team how to tell us that we need to give up more of our tax dollars to bail out the banks. This is sooooo wrong.

[AnneD]

34. You forgot the 6th option.......

I see dead people. But they don't know their dead.

[DemReadingDU]

35. Right, there is going to be some civil unrest

When people panic, and can't find food to eat and a place to keep warm. Communities will need to pitch in and help in whatever they can.

[SergeyDovlatov]

36. best case 3 year recession, worst case 20+ years

a good example of 20+ year stagnation is a modern Japan.
They had a crash in the end of 80s and they still did not recover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_asset_price_bubble

We need to learn from what did not work in Japan and don't repeate their government mistakes.

The Japanese asset price bubble (バブル景気, baburu keiki?, lit. "bubble economy") was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1990, in which real estate and stock prices greatly inflated. The bubble's collapse lasted for more than a decade with stock prices bottoming in 2003, until hitting an even lower low in 2008 amidst a global recession.

[DemReadingDU]

38. We're definitely in a giant credit bubble

From what I understand of bubbles, for however it took for the bubble to inflate, it takes that long for it to deflate and recover. So I'm thinking this financial bubble we are in now, had its beginnings with deregulation during the Reagan presidency. And that was 25(?) years ago.