So now that BO is mentioning spending on this crisis in the Trillion figures

[nadinbrzezinski]

will some of you START listening? Yes, it IS that serious.

Now one quibble, when they tell us we are in uncharted territory I go BULLSHIT, high and stinking

We've been here as an economy and for the same structural reasons...yes it is called insert depression or extremely deep recession here... and that is the kind of mess we are in.

That is all

By the way... what Obama hinted today as to the cost... is a low ball...

Proud member of the I told you so club! As well as the Cassandra is never loved or listened to club! Founding member I think.

[aquart]

1. Already knew.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. But you are a founding member of the I told you so Cassandra Club too

:-)

[aquart]

7. Founding? No. Really early adherent.

Unless by "founding" you mean the shrieking I did when I heard they were repealing Glass Steagal. Or my distrust of NAFTA. Or my lonely insistence that derivatives weren't "complicated," they were air.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. What amazes me about NAFTA is that IT HAD POTENTIAL

to do some good...all them side agreements nobody bothered readying or enforcing...yep the ones that would make the illegal alien crisis go POOF in about ten seconds flat

They were the make people feel goodl, will never actually carry out, but if we did... just might work shit

:-)

Yes, recently told an immigration lawyer about them... and how they should take a test case to the USSC

He was even more cynical than I...and I thought that was hard to do

[unhappycamper]

3. I shake my head in amazement.

We're pissing away almost a trillion dollars on the military in 2009.

We have a health care crisis in this country.

We have an economic crisis in this country.

We have crumbling infrastructure in this country.

We have a large (800,000+ nightly) homeless population in this country.

We have large numbers of veterans who are being left by the wayside for the benefits they deserve.

And we're pissing away almost a trillion dollars on the military in 2009.

One trillion dollars. That's a 1 with 12 zeros behind it --> $1,000,000,000,000.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. That is the cost of empire and I don't expect EITHER party to abandon

Empire VOLUNTARILY any time soon

[villager]

5. right -- it won't be voluntarily. We, the citizens, will have to push the elites

...to give up empire.

I don't expect it'll be easy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. A russian prof recently echoed me...the end will bring the end of the

US as a country...oh the WSJ was poopooing it

I was going...he has a point you dolts!

It will come...out of necessity mostly...and it will be very painful

[Javaman]

12. you said pissing away $1 trillion dollars on the military in 2009 twice.

:evilgrin:

[unhappycamper]

19. I did.

If you consider the fact that dubya's 2000 military budget was $302 billion, the $1 trillion number just blows my mind.

[Two Americas]

6. no one disputed that

For all practical purposes, no one disputed that we were in a terrible crisis.

The dispute here was about whether or not handing out billions to the financial sector was the best response.

[bigwillq]

8. I always knew it was serious.

:shrug: I guess I am missing something.

[Taverner]

9. Oh I know its serious

I just worry that the "Bailouts" are just a last minute cash grab so the rich can sit out the storm comfortably

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. The parallels to 1929 at the policy level are just eerie

even in ahem, that respect.

Some will help those folks be a little better. Most will forestall the worst

Reality is that for some folks this will not affect them. They already live OUTSIDE the day to day vagaries of the economy

[Taverner]

15. But there are so many differences

For example - the speed of money, computerized banking, global economy

We will need solutions other than Public Works Projects (although we need to invest HEAVILY into Public Works to get those other solutions working)

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Public works is the tip in modern Keynseian Economics

I suspect part of the solution will also be NATIONAL single payer health care...and computerized medical records are part of that system...quite integral in-fact

[Taverner]

20. OMG - A Pure Keynseian Approach, unfettered, would get us out of this mess in 3 years

Maybe 2 - but is yet to be seen

[Taverner]

21. Oh let me add a Milton Friedman solution will fix it - - - NEVER!!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. We are moving towads keynes

the chairman of the Fed...as much as I dislike him... is increasingly talking that talk

[Taverner]

23. It is what we need

Anything else - unless it is actually Socialist - is crazy

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Can't wait for the publicans to call this ahem Socialist

after all that's what they did during the 1936 election

I think 2012 will be fun in that sense, NOT

[tkmorris]

25. Yes, and I agree Keynsian is the way to go

The trouble is that I am unsure how much more governmental debt we can pile up without consequences. I guess we are gonna have to find out, there really are no options at this point.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Ah the chinese curse comes to mind, doesn't it?

[Taverner]

28. May you live in interesting times...

Yes, there is something to be said for day-in-day-out monotonous sameness?

But yes - we have to Keynesian

Or some form of Socialism

[Mike 03]

14. I agree that this is extremely serious, and it's always reassuring to see a post

that reminds us of this. It is deadly serious.

I only, respectfully, disagree that we have seen this before. This is a global, sychronous contraction, and it is the wide dispersion of these mortgage backed securities and other poorly understood derivatives and financial instruments (of dubious worth) that makes this so dangerous. The Great Depression was localized and ultimately containable.

If the Great Depression was a frog, this is an octopus.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. The Great Depression was global to

the mechanisms to get to it were different, but it was global

Our defense back then was to raise trade barriers, problem was we were the EXPORTING economy...these days those same trade barriers are the talk of the town and CHINA is starting to speak of the dangers of them

THey ARE the exporting economy...so we bring them up, their depression will be very similar to 1929 for similar reasons

Hey...my mom has stories of her childhood during that mess in MEXICO...and my dad remembers it in a small town in POLAND.

[Mike 03]

18. You make good points about our transformation from an exporting to an importing

economy.

Also, in your OP, you point out that one trillion is probably a low-ball figure. For what it's worth, I agree.

But the Dollar is really going to get routed though this process. I wonder if the U.S. dollar will even remain the world's reserve currency, when all is said and done.

Glad you are all over this topic. It is catastrophically serious, and I agree that many people don't fully understand how serious this is.

Be well, and keep posting!

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. The dollar also was devalued duing the 1930s

and I don't expect it to be the reserve currency when all is said and done

But then again...in my worst cassandra tone, don't expect the US Empire to survive or the country for that matter...

And I hope to be wrong on at least ONE of them