The Economy - is it really that bad?

[Emilio]

I'll start of by saying I'm doing very well these days( Cause I work my tail off). Now I do see an official recession coming after 52 straight months of job growth nationwide( which is up there historically). Now I think many of us Americans are at fault, we like the govt should be much more responsible with our money, I know many who took second and third mortgages to finance lifestyles that could not be maintained. Hummer(gas guzzlers) were flying out of dealerships, people have been very irresponsible now they are paying for it. Plus many of these foreclosures were people who got stuck with homes they were trying to flip, don't misunderstand me we have some real problems but what I'm trying to say is we all have to take some responsibility at the end. It's easy to blame Bush he'll be gone soon who will you blame next.


P.S Bill and Hillary signed NAFTA

[AzureN1ght]

I'm a University student at the time being, so I can't speak as to my own economic experiences quite yet. My parents, however, own a small restaurant in our home town and our numbers for the past several months have been abnormally low. My father keeps records of our numbers from the previous year, and they've consistently made more money each year they've owned the business. They were fine during the summer, but this winter has been particularly tight. They're currently in the process of preparing our house to sell, so they have less of a payment to worry about month-to-month. They're planning to remodel the basement of our restaurant and live downstairs there. It upsets me that people who work as hard and as many hours as they do are at the point of having to sell their home because their small business isn't faring as well as they would have hoped... They've been trying to sell the restaurant for the last three years without luck.

[clipclopclip]

One could also argue that job losses and lower paying jobs are an effect of a global economy where there are people out in other countries willing to be paid less for the same work than we would. Companies are taking their jobs to the people they can afford to hire to keep their profits in the billions. We are now competing for jobs on a global market where we as Americans are not the best (in some cases) and want more money for our work.

Food for thought...

[hondo1967]

You want high economy try living in nyc, I make a good living and am an engineer, the average house here is about 750,000 to buy, rent here for a single bedroom apartment is about 1100 to 3000 a month. Im lucky and bought my house about 10 years ago. unfortunatley you have to go with the times, I worked double shifts for 5 years and now am finaly confortable, I feel bad for you guys and gals getting out of college soon. Save Save and Save, my best advice.

[monk90222]

You want high economy try living in nyc,

You ain't kiddin brotha. I live in Northern NJ, I pay about 3K a month in mortgage, pay $8 for the tunnel toll and $19 daily to park, working in NYC! Not to mention that a simple breakfast costs $8 and an equally simple lunch is $10.
That sucks! I'd much rather live far far away from a big city!

[Patrick Long]

Not to mention that a simple breakfast costs $8 and an equally simple lunch is $10.

Its about the same out here, if not more for lunch!

[kneepoles]

I have a very twisted view on most things in life. However, the earth being round was quite twisted at one point in time.....on to the post!
Is the economy as bad as it is being made out to be by the media? Well, I suppose that depends on where you are, and which media you get your information from. I'm from a relatively small college town in the middle of nowhere kentucky. There are very very few "good" jobs to be had within 100 miles of here, and an over abundance of highly educated, degree holding, recent graduates. Gas is outragous (for here, there's a refinery about 70 miles east of here), and by outrageous I mean mid 3's. Now, with all that being said, the LOCAL economy is doing ok, not great, but ok. There are alot of people from outside the area (sometimes even states away) that spend a TON of money on school here every 4 months. not to mention, all the other goods they consume. I have no information on the housing market here, I will not comment.
I blame spending beyond your means on music and tv (I'd love to tell you, if your really that interested, pm me). I blame the war on greed. Which brings me to something I don't understand. Wanting more money. Money is paper that represents a given amount of precious metals (gold). Gold is the only thing humans have to back up paper money. So it seems weird for me to imagine people wanting more of anything besides food, love(all kinds), or gold. There comes a point in time where a number a dollar bills is just a ridiculous number that has no meaning. For instance, spending billions of dollars a day on the war. that implies that everyday, there are billions of more gold caches being materialized from nothing. am I wrong?

Edit: living in NYC or any major metro area really just boils down to supply and demand, which why rent and food is so expensive in those areas. 15 million people all wanting to live in the same 20 square miles mean that you can charge pretty mush whatever you want for rent and SOMEBODY will pay it. :end edit

[rabernet]

A trillion is a hundred billion, if I'm not mistaken and a billion is a hundred million. So, a trillion is ten thousand millions of dollars. 10% of that is one thousand millions or 10 billion.

EDIT: I have been informed that a billion is a THOUSAND MILLION and that a TRILLION is a THOUSAND BILLION. These numbers are SOOOOOO big, that I am speechless. If you know me at all, you know how signifigant that really is. END EDIT

To put this in even MORE mind blowing perspective - from FairTax: The Truth, Answering the Critics, by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder with Rob Woodall, p. 41:

In our last book we cited studies that showed that Americans and American businesses have stashed somewhere around $10 trillion in offshore financial centers. These offshore depositories hae been growing by more than $800 billion per year. By the time you read this book, that number will be closing in on $12 trillion.

Let's pause a moment to think about how much $1 trillion really is. Such large-scale economic matters are often discussed in terms of trillions, but how many people really understand how much a trillion is?

Let's say you've been told you have to wait for something very special for one million seconds. How long would your wait be? A little more than eleven and a half days. But what if you had to wait for one billion seconds? Well, you'd be waiting a little longer: try almost thirty-two years.

And for one trillion seconds? We'll round it off to 31,700 years. Kind of takes your breath away, doesn't it? (Then again, it's always nice to have something to look forward to...)

If you aren't familiar with the Fair Tax or have never heard of it, please take time to either read both books on The Fair Tax, or visit http://www.fairtax.org - I truly believe that if the Fair Tax were enacted, our economy would be in awesome shape, businesses would come back home, and companies overseas would be moving their companies here to take advantage of not having to embed taxes in their costs.