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You are making two wrong assumptions:
1) Texas is typical of what the rest of the country is experiencing.
2) This is the bottom.
Thanks, Gump.
You are making two wrong assumptions:
1) Texas is typical of what the rest of the country is experiencing.
2) This is the bottom.
Well, of course, it'd be absurd, we'd need a nuclear war or something of that kind to have such a level of economic retraction and destruction of wealth.
The relative impact is still going to be massive. Things are not going to be as bad as they should because governments are going to buy some time by lending some more money from future generations though.
Here's the Messiah's "help".
An examination of how the economic stimulus plan will affect Americans.
___
Taxes:
The recovery package has tax breaks for families that send a child to college, purchase a new car, buy a first home or make the ones they own more energy efficient.
Millions of workers can expect to see about $13 extra in their weekly paychecks, starting around June, from a new $400 tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples would get up to $800. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year. Whoop-de-freakin-do! Don't spend it all at once!
The $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don't make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. This is NOT a tax credit - this is WELFARE!
Middle-income and wealthy taxpayers will be spared from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy taxpayers pay at least some tax, but was never indexed for inflation. Congress fixes it each year, usually in the fall.
First-time homebuyers who purchase their homes before Dec. 1 would be eligible for an $8,000 tax credit, and people who buy new cars before the end of the year can write off the sales taxes. There was supposed to be a much bigger credit for car buyers, but they took it out and instead used the money to fund the high-speed rail from California to Nevada. Hmmm, whose states does that help?
Homeowners who add energy-efficient windows, furnaces and air conditioners can get a tax credit to cover 30 percent of the costs, up to a total of $1,500. Of course, they wont' have the money to do these energy upgrades, but hey, Obama will give you back 30%College students — or their parents — are eligible for tax credits of up to $2,500 to help pay tuition and related expenses in 2009 and 2010.
Those receiving unemployment benefits this year wouldn't pay any federal income taxes on the first $2,400 they receive.
___
Health insurance:
Many workers who lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs will find it cheaper to keep that coverage while they look for work.
Right now, most people working for medium and large employers can continue their coverage for 18 months under the COBRA program when they lose their job. It's expensive, often over $1,000 a month, because they pay the share of premiums once covered by their employer as well as their own share from the old group plan.
Under the stimulus package, the government will pick up 65 percent of the total cost of that premium for the first nine months. More en lements!
Lawmakers initially proposed to help workers from small companies, too, who don't generally qualify for COBRA coverage. But that fell through. The idea was to have Washington pay to extend Medicaid to them. But I thought Obama was for the little guy
COBRA applies to group plans at companies employing at least 20 people. The subsidies will be offered to those who lost their jobs from Sept. 1 to the end of this year.
Those who were put out of work after September but didn't elect to have COBRA coverage at the time will have 60 days to sign up.
The plan offers $87 billion to help states administer Medicaid. That could slow or reverse some of the steps states have taken to cut the program. More money for en lements!
BOY - DON'T ALL OF YOU FEEL BETTER NOW?!
Yeah, that's not bad.
Frisbee golf!
Making the hole (our debt) in the antic bigger so that we have more deck chairs to move around isn't going to keep the boat from sinking forever.
wtf u have to pay taxes on welfare income earn? i thought you only pay prorata tax if you are earning welfare either:
1. at some time during the financial year and working late in the year, or
2. working and claiming welfare, thats if your low income.....
.....welfare is tax free if you are earning it all year and not working....
So let me see if I get this straight.
Under the stimulus package, the government will pick up 65 percent of the total cost of that premium for the first nine months. More en lements!
Lawmakers initially proposed to help workers from small companies, too, who don't generally qualify for COBRA coverage. But that fell through. The idea was to have Washington pay to extend Medicaid to them. But I thought Obama was for the little guy
BOY - DON'T ALL OF YOU FEEL BETTER NOW?!
In the first paragraph, you are ing about more en lements for helping people who lost their jobs pay for health insurance, then in the second, when the provision was dropped at the insistance of the Republicans to get it passed, the president is somehow not for the little guys when the en lement didn't go through.
Put more simply:
You don't like the en lements, but then you criticize the president for not including an en lement.
That is the dumbest, most hackish post I have seen in a good month or so.
unless it paralyzes you.
...or sucks you into a blackhole.
I'm in Western Pa.
Not so bad here, either.
The areas that had the massive housing run-up are the ones suffering the most, and California being FAR AND AWAY the worst hit; being the biggest state, is having an effect on the entire scene.
Essentially, we're all paying for $300,000 houses selling for a million bucks.
Have you taken the time to learn why, or is that just the little catch phrase you've memorized? Democrats had a majority at that time and Jimmy Carter could have gotten anything passed that he wanted. But when they tried to hide pork in his proposals, he flat out said no. He didn't understand the "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" politics in Washington, and when he pissed off the dems, his hands were tied. Throw in the mess that Eisenhower made of Iran by removing their leader because he wanted a fair share of the oil money that was coming out of his country and put ruthless dictator in his place, and 4 years goes by in a flash without you being able to do anything you wanted.
So a republican doesn't like Jimmy Carter because he didn't let pork slip in with his proposals? Does that mean you would like him if he would have? I doubt it.
Anyone look at the current Misery Index? I haven't yet, but will it ever be as bad as when Carter was president?
What's this internet stalker simpleton trying to sell today?
Same stupid .
he's just trying to run us off..........like he did his wife.
Schiller is well-known asshole on the right (not that he's the only asshole on the right)
The speed, depth, and span of this economic crisis, SO FAR, is scaring the out of anybody who bothers to look at it.
Swift, Steep Downturn Crosses Globe
Markets Are Hammered as Hope Fades for Quick Recovery
By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 18, 2009; A01
NEW YORK, Feb. 17 -- Markets around the world plunged Tuesday as evidence mounted that the global economic crisis is worsening.
Japan is suffering its worst downturn in 35 years. The British economy is facing its sharpest decline in almost 30 years. Germany is slumping at its worst pace in nearly 20 years. Meanwhile, the job market in the United States, at the epicenter of the global downturn, is the worst in decades. And emerging economies are contracting at a pace few had predicted just months ago. Even China, whose economy still is growing at a 6.8 percent annual pace, is grappling with vast numbers of the unemployed, raising fears of unrest.
The sharpness of the global slowdown has alarmed economists, who see no obvious engine for recovery.
"Most Western developed economies are going to see the deepest downturn they've seen in a number of decades, in some cases possibly since the Second World War," said Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics, an independent consultancy in London. "If you go back six months or so . . . there was a hope that some parts of the world will escape the downturn from the U.S. economy and that would help to support the global economy as a whole. And that hope has now faded. We're seeing a downturn in virtually every area of the world."
The Dow Jones industrial average declined nearly 300 points yesterday to finish close to its lowest level of the financial crisis. Fearful investors piled into safe-haven investments such as U.S. Treasurys and gold. Bank stocks plunged worldwide, reflecting waning faith in their ability to hold up in a deteriorating global economic landscape and growing concern over the lack of a coordinated plan to clear the financial system of toxic mortgage assets.
The sell-off came despite the signing of the $787 billion stimulus package by President Obama and as auto executives faced a deadline to submit restructuring plans to the federal government after receiving billions in bailout money.
After a three-day weekend, investors digested dire news Tuesday from countries that were supposed to help lift the world economy out of its downward spiral. The pace of decline in these countries exceeded expectations of even the gloomiest experts, illustrating the depth and breadth of this rare global swoon.
Japan's economy, the world's second-biggest, after only the United States, shrank at an annual rate of 12.7 percent during the last three months of 2008 -- the biggest contraction since the oil crisis of the mid-1970s. The British economy, damaged by the credit crisis, will contract at 3.3 percent, almost twice as much as predicted three months ago, according to the country's biggest business lobbying organization. Those two pieces of data, released Monday, came on the heels of a report Friday showing that the German economy, Europe's largest, shrank by 2.1 percent, the steepest drop since the country's reunification in 1990.
Some economists had argued that countries like Japan and Germany were better equipped to weather the downturn. Germany has little consumer debt, and Japan's banks are in better shape after the banking crisis of the 1990s. But their economies rely heavily on exports, and global demand for items such as Japanese and German cars has evaporated.
In Germany, the benchmark DAX index fell 3.4 percent Tuesday, while London's FTSE index declined 2.4 percent. In Japan, the Nikkei slid 1.4 percent.
Helping to drive European markets lower was a report from Moody's Investors Service warning that Western banks with exposure to Eastern Europe could face credit downgrades. The fear is that the emerging parts of Europe, which had grown rapidly by relying on capital flowing in from the West, are in for a hard landing. The euro fell, as did bank stocks.
Meanwhile, emerging markets, the world's fastest-growing economies, whose demand for goods and services is considered key to a global recovery, showed signs of intensifying weakness. Russia's state-owned news agency said Tuesday that lower commodity prices and the financial crisis are expected to cause the economy to shrink by more than 2 percent this year. In Brazil, where commodity exports have fallen sharply, retail sales in December fell for the third straight month, marking the longest period of declines in six years, a report released Tuesday showed.
Earlier this month, Taiwan said exports plunged by record levels. In Mexico, the government was forced to intervene in the foreign exchange market after the peso reached an all-time low against the dollar. In China, slumping demand for exports has trimmed the growth of its powerful economy to nearly half its 13 percent pace in 2007.
"Manufacturing, construction, financial services, non-financial, retail -- wherever you look, you see a complete collapse in demand," said Julian Callow, an economist at Barclays Capital in London. "It really is like the floor has come out of confidence in global economic demand."
On Tuesday, the head of the International Monetary Fund urged countries to coordinate their economic stimulus efforts, saying he was "not optimistic" about the world economy.
"Today, the house is burning . . . so we have to act as firefighters," Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on French radio, the Associated Press reported.
In the United States, the sobering news from abroad was coupled with worry about the viability of the auto and banking industry and doubt about just how much the $787 billion stimulus package would be able to revive the economy.
Financial stocks led U.S. markets lower Tuesday, with Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase each declining by 12 percent. Also hurting were auto stocks, with executives at General Motors and Chrysler facing deadlines to turn in restructuring plans to the federal government after receiving billions of dollars in bailout funds and seeking billions more. GM's stock was down almost 13 percent.
A report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that its general business conditions index in that region fell to a new low of minus-34.7 also weighed down markets.
Also on Tuesday, the Treasury Department released data showing that lending at banks that received government funds had declined.
With all but one of its 30 components finishing in the red, the Dow closed down 297.81 points, or 3.8 percent, to 7552.60, within 300 points of the market bottom reached Oct. 9, 2002, after the bursting of the tech bubble. The lone bright spot was Wal-Mart, whose fourth-quarter profit fell less than expected.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, a broader market measure, closed down 4.6 percent, below the psychologically important 800 mark, causing some traders to predict an avalanche of selling that could test new market lows. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 4.2 percent, to 1470.66.
===============
Now Bernanke comes in today and said "deeper and longer", but these economist types never know about anything.
Anyone who thinks we've hit bottom and therefore are comparing this CURRENT economy to the Great Depression is an idiot and should never be taken seriously on an internet board again.
We aren't even CLOSE to rock bottom. Not in the realm of the vicinity of the how bad it's going to get yet.
So who is to blame for this mess we are in??
I agree. What I don't understand is how people get duped into the actions that eventually burst bubbles. Gold is probably still on the rise for a while, but is congress going to bail out the gold investors when that bubble bursts too?
Think about this for a second, WC. Why does the smart money seek refuge in gold right now? Indeed, what accounts for the nine year bull market in gold?
Ok.
Now, what would it mean if this were no longer the case?
Answer that, and I believe you will have answered your own question.
The answer may surprise you.
Last edited by Winehole23; 02-19-2009 at 02:56 AM.
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