Economy Predictions - what are yours?

it's a good time to either buy into the stock market or use your money to pay down debt. maybe some refinancing to lower rates for folks with good credit. also a good time to have money available in emergency savings, since borrowing money is getting tougher.

as long as credit isn't handed to everyone as freely as water, the economy is going to be slowed down. how many retail purchases are impulses, not thought through and financed on the spot through big box store credit cards approved that afternoon by people who can't actually afford it? ...just a thought.

 

Too bad the Democrats weren't in power at the beginning of Bush's raid on the treasury and future of the US, by having Republicans in power during Clinton, and continuing it during Bush, it was a battle for Clinton fighting their corruption during, and a wide opening of the vault during Bush.

Bush and the criminal Republicans have doubled the National Debt of 232 years of Whigs, Federalists, Democrats, Independents, Real Republicans, and on and on, with absolute abandonment of fiscal responsibility.

Clinton was at least a fiscal responsible president, and the last president this country has had, hopefully we can get another president again someday.

 

From your words, you obviously hate Republicans and probably can't conceive that they've done good for this country too. I will admit that I'm very annoyed at Bush and the Republican congress for their fiscal irresponsibility. Unfortunately they've become drunk with power, just like the Dems were when the Republican 'Contract with America' came out.

You don't have to look too far in history to see the cycles and how things repeat themselves. I hear people say, "A Democrat president would never have gotten us into a silly war." *cough* *Vietnam* *cough* How about Carter's inept economic policies where we had 18% mortgages? That's probably why the Republicans got the next 3 terms.

People worship FDR, but if you really read his policies, they were terrible. Did you know that he made all citizens turn in all gold coins and bullion so he could control it? He may have been a good wartime leader, but if it hadn't been for WWII, his harmful economic policies would have made the great depression last much longer.

I've heard people comment that the best government we can have is a congress of one party and a president of another. Perhaps the Clinton years show that this is a good idea.

Calling all Republicans criminals is as ridiculous as calling all Democrats womanizers. There is good in both parties, you just have to have an open mind.

 

My prediction? The start of permanent economic decline. We're in record debt, with record trade deficits from bad trade policy, we've exported manufacturing, now we're exporting a lot of engineering, too, and we have social security payments coming up that require funds that have been frittered away instead of saved by previous administrations. Record oil prices, rising Chinese demand for building material, weakened dollar, etc., etc.

We usually have economic cycles of strength and weakness, but I can't help but think that the upswing isn't going to be very strong this time. Our country as a whole is about to get a lot poorer in the coming decades, or at least the majority of the population will get a lot poorer while a few will become very rich.

Oh, and one last prediction: the economists and political pundits who argued that supply side economics and destructive free trade agreements/turning a blind eye to sweatshop labor won't acknowledge the failure of the policies they endorsed, and instead dismiss the dismantling of our economy as an inevitable direction that couldn't possibly have been helped.

Call me cynical.

 

It's always a good time to pay down debt. The best time to buy into the stock market is when it's at a low point. The problem is you never know when that is. The market could go back up now, or it could take another dip. The P:E ratio is still a bit high. Not high enough to guarantee a further drop, but high enough that there's still room for another drop ("correction" in the jargon of the pundits).

Historically, the market has done better than fixed-income (bonds and bank deposits) over the long term, though with wild short-term fluctuations. But if the U.S. is going to begin a long slide from economic world dominance to secondary economic power, subservient to energy producers and rising new powers like China and India, then we could see a change in that relationship.

Which is why I make no predictions. I really think it could go either way. The only thing certain is that the working poor and the middle class will continue to be squeezed downward, since they survive at the pleasure of Big Business, which runs the country, regardless of which party is in office.

 

Sorry, since Reagan, Republicans have been driven by corruption, they haven't been good for the country at all. Reagan caused the GREED Republicans to come into power, and they used religion to keep that power, and THAT'S NOT GOOD for the country.

Carter was stuck with a Middle East going crazy, and taking over from a corrupt Republican administration, Nixon come to mind?, on top of that an economy on the downswing, but he was fiscally responsible.

As far as starting Vietnam, you just might want to go look at a Republican president called Eisenhower, once you make a commitment, its hard for the next president to shut it down, and it goes on and on until a president decides enough is a enough.

One thing I love about the current crop of Republicans, and I used to be a Republican voter before Reagone, is that its become the party of "its the other guys fault", even in your statement, "I will admit that I'm very annoyed at Bush and the Republican congress for their fiscal irresponsibility", doesn't even put responsibility on their activities, because you are just "annoyed", but you still support them, geeze.

 

Only because a republican Congress forced him into it. To bad we didn't have that same congress for Bush.

Wildkow

 

BINGO!
:der:​

Wildkow​

p.s. Every other reply he sends to you will now ask "Why do you hate America?"​

 

Our current financial debacle aside...

Our so-called world economy only works if everyone is on the same playing field with the same gear on, so to speak. The Reagan administration started the ball rolling and sold our country out to NAFTA, and supported and presented a world economy scenario to Americans as a cure-all to economic problems similar to what is happening now. Every president since has propagated the "world economy" scenario to it's fullest. It's hard to accept that our involvement in a world economy has to come with certain amends, which is hard to explain to people that they can no longer have everything they want...now!

I seem to think we have further economic problems ahead, not inclusive to our present banking fiasco. If the world economy is to work as the program was supposed to, our standard of living has to come down equally as much as everyone else has to come up. Lowering our standard of living is easier than waiting for other countries to catch up to ours. If everyone's money is invested in other countries, how better to speed up the world monetary saturation than to have everyone inter-invested in each other.

I feel that our economy will not show signs of any kind of stabilization until the current administration is out of office. Arab countries don't like us in the first place, and our insisted invasion of one of their sovereign nations, dictatorship or not, allows them the ability to wage economic war with the natural resources that they control. Just wait, China, given the size and strength of their economy becomes a very "formidable foe" if allowed to wage economic war.

I predict that our economic slide may stop after the election, but I don't see actual growth for a few years to come.

As far as the Social Security is concerned, I feel that Americans have been scammed out of their life savings. It's as though politicians found your savings account number, and drained your account, like we've all been a victim of Identity Theft!

 

Mind boggling - that GOP congress fought Clinton every step of the way. His budgeting and standing up to congress is what cleaned up the mess created by the two former GOP presidents and created surplus instead of debt. Were you living on a different planet then? Do you have memory issues? Why do republicans always take credit when a democrat cleans up their enormous messes? It truly astounds me. Aren't you the one who said that our current economic problems are Clinton's fault? Maybe it was Drbermanmd.

Do you know that Clinton and Carter are the only two presidents in the past 30 years who reduced the deficits? The other presidents during that time broke records - largest deficits in history. I know you will do what all republicans do - give the credit for those accomplishments to the preceding GOP presidents. When yet another GOP president has put us back in debt again, somehow it is the fault of a dem president. Such twisted logic. Such total BS. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

You should read the economic consequences article I posted yesterday. It describes, in detail, the path which brought us where we are today. Of course it's written by an economic Nobel Laureate, so it's probably total crap. What would he know? Maybe some republicans can sit him down and help him to see the light.

 

I predict humanity will realise that all of its wealth is based on natural resources, and not on its self-proclaimed brilliance and mastery of the universe. Instead of prioritising the biggest short term profits, we will seek to maximise the benefits for all over the greatest time span. The concepts of profit and limited liability will be redefined to reflect our true place on this planet, and...oops, April Fool's day was last week.

 

So Clinton was responsible for the 'surplus' and it had nothing to do with the Republicans trying to pass a balanced budget amendment? I guess it could have been due to Bill causing tax revenues to soar in the late 90's, which was due to the booming tech bubble where anybody could make millions by writing a business plan that had the word "Internet" in it. If Bill caused the economy to soar, is he responsible for the resulting crash or is that George's fault because he was president then?

 

I swear you are the coolest! Haha

Fortunately MANY people and organizations (over 1 million organizations)around the world are thinking in this "new" way and putting pressure on those stuck in old school economic thinking. If you want to learn more about this check out "Blessed Unrest" ~ Paul Hawken

or Watch part of a video clip from a Bioneers event on the subject:

Paul Hawken 2006 Bioneers

 

You're making my point. Your response would imply that Clinton had absolutely nothing to do with balancing the budget. You can't have it both ways. He presented the budgets that reduced our debt and brought us into a surplus. You cannot credit the GOP with all of it. Perhaps, somehow, GOP leadership contributed to the economic environment Clinton enjoyed (and I'm throwing you a bone here), but I point out that he is the one who used it to balance the budget.

I am always hearing republicans tell me that the sagging economy is Clinton's fault, but when they speak of the surplus, it was a GOP accomplishment. I very firmly believe, however, that if Clinton had been a Republican, the budget would have never been balanced, based purely on history. Every Republican president since Nixon has put us further into debt, each one more so than the last. Clinton was committed to balancing the budget and did so. Perhaps you will again argue he was able to do so because the economic environment was working in his favor. However, one could argue that the economy was also booming during Reagan's reign, yet he broke the record for the highest deficits in US history and didn't ever balance the budget or even reduce our debt.

Unlike those republicans you speak of who said they wanted to balance the budget for political reasons, I'm guessing (after their GOP presidents had completely tipped the federal budget into outrageous debt), Clinton actuallly DID want to balance it. He wanted to and was able to, perhaps due to many factors. The fact remains that it was a goal of his - one he attained. If you will look back, Newt and his GOP Congress fought him tooth and nail (another great moment in republican hypocrisy), to the point that the government was temporarily shut down. They tried to back Clinton into a wall on the budget and it backfired. If they really wanted the budget balanced, why did they fight so hard against doing so? Again - politics. They cared more about taking a man down than reducing our debt and, apparently, good fiscal policy. Once again, their agenda, not an agenda for the American people. Again, every time the GOP had control of the budget in the last several decades, they tanked it. Yet, you still credit them with the surplus that resulted from Clinton's fiscal management. It's kind of wacky, frankly. Take Clinton out of the picture and the budget would have never been balanced (Bush Sr. had already shown no propensity to reduce the debt - he only increased it).

 

If only...

 

Anyone who tries to argue against saminjax is mentally retarded. Throughout most of our current presidents administration we've had a booming economy and yet he still ran us into debt. The fact is you cannot give a huge tax cut and still balance the budget. The cuts only benefit the wealthy (like me) and screw the average person. I think its funny when I hear middle class people talk about how great the tax cuts are that GWB gave. I say OK so you take home an extra $60 a month great. How much more are you spending in health care and fuel costs because of his policies? Unless you are making a couple hundred thousand a year your tax cuts are gone in fuel and health care costs. The wealthy get tax cuts which don't help the middle class, and the result is huge budget deficits.

 

Sure you can, reduce spending to reasonable levels.

 

Yeah but in his defense I think a lot of the spending that GWB did was needed.