20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying and Won't Recover

[Slew Foot]

Well, the expensive gas around here is about 3.35, so I suppose if you went to a boutique full service place in the fancy part of town 3.60 might be reasonable.
But realistically, Dave is probably full of shit.

 

[nick1985]

Come here and meet me at any of the stations here at $3.60.

Of course you won't.

$3.39 is the most expensive gas in the city ATM

http://www.chicagogasprices.com/

I'd rather not waste my time.

 

[lsquare]

I disagree with the notion that the US is a declining economic power. A lot of the problems can and will be addressed. The bigger worry here should be about the failing of education in the US. I'm not talking about universities like Harvard, UCLA, or the University of Chicago, and etc. What I'm talking about are primary and secondary schools. A lot of students either drop out or score poorly relative to students in other countries.

 

[piasabird]

If individual costs rise, then the result is that there is less money to purchase goods and services. This affects our ability to get an economy moving. Supply and demand will both decrease as well as the supply of jobs. The only way to really increase jobs would be to import less goods and to cut back on foreign workers. Just stop making excuses and do this. Just wanting good things to happen, will not make it happen. The more jobs that are exported and the more imports we purchase, the poorer we will get, and the richer othere will get shifting our power to some other entity.

I could easily see the result of the socialistic and communistic way our present government is going. I can see a day when all the building will be done by the government and a day when only government apartments will be available. Will we all be begging for an apartment and standing in food lines and purchasing drugs and gasoline on the black market?

 

[piasabird]

If you are smarter than a rock you dont have an ARM.

 

[cubeless]

If you are smarter than a rock you dont have an ARM.

i'm probably somewhere between quartz and granite, but my tbill based arm just went down to 3.15%... i figure i'll have time to grab a fixed (or just pay the thing off) when the real uptick starts...

 

[IGBT]

creates the perfect storm to dump physical currency and go all electronic.

 

[Trianon]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/197317-why-the-credit-bubble-cannot-be-reinflated?source=email

At the heart of America's problems is an economic policy which is designed to keep wages down but consumption up. That necessarily means more bubbles, more debt, more wealth and income inequality, and consequently more strife and social unrest when the gravy train ends. You cannot expect to hollow out a country's manufacturing base, set up a bunch of McJobs to replace it, and still have consumers spend to support the economy. This is what we are now starting to realize.

 

[shortylickens]

Talking about the economy in terms of all these numbers makes a person seem smart, but really the economy isn't a bunch of secret formulas it is just PEOPLE. That's exactly the problem here, people feel they should be required to do less and less work and that they are entitled to more and more things. Education and hard work aren't valued, they are seen as negative qualities.

There are several other problems of course like the excessive regulations in many sectors that makes it pretty much impossible to have any sort of heavy industry, or the fact that all the McFatties and sleezy insurance companies are driving up health care costs. Or the fact that we waste so much money trying to play world police. At the end of the day however if your citizens are too lazy to work while at the same time demanding ever increasing entitlements there really is no way to go but down.

It isn't exactly rocket science, look back at history at ANY country which was the #1 dog and see how they lost it, the same pattern is repeated 100 times over in history and isn't about to stop now.

Thats pretty much how I see it.
WAYYYY too many reasons the average American worker and student sucks ass compared to the average Indian worker and student. Until will deal with a lot of Baby Boomer and GenX issues, we will be behind the other economic powers.

I'm not too sure about the fatties. It seems to me the main reason medical care costs so much is simply the corporations running the drugs and equipment just wanna be rich. Ditto for insurance companies. They just use the unhealthy American lifestyle as an excuse to charge ridiculous prices.

And we are almost exactly like Rome. Pretty soon we will be eliminating our Senate and transferring all our power to one glorious ruler and maybe even give him a special name.

 

[nonlnear]

And we are almost exactly like Rome. Pretty soon we will be eliminating our Senate and transferring all our power to one glorious ruler and maybe even give him a special name.

If we are lucky we will let it fall apart and just devolve into a few regionally determined minor countries when the time comes rather than flaring out with one last dictatorial hurrah. I like to think that point is still a few decades off - the point where we are forced to such a choice, that is. Now if we discovered sense and voluntarily opened up the realistic possibility of secession before things started getting totally out of hand that would be wonderful - but that's one positive Change that I think it's probably too foolish to Hope for.

 

[StageLeft]

I disagree with the notion that the US is a declining economic power. A lot of the problems can and will be addressed. The bigger worry here should be about the failing of education in the US. I'm not talking about universities like Harvard, UCLA, or the University of Chicago, and etc. What I'm talking about are primary and secondary schools. A lot of students either drop out or score poorly relative to students in other countries.

What metrics show it ISN'T a declining power? And decline is relative of course. I suppose if you take China out of the equation, though, it may be that relative to others (of relevance, not inconsequential countries that are growing quickly) it really isn't declining.

I wonder if education is getting worse or again if it's just how we look at it. Perhaps 50 years ago we had no idea how good people in other countries were but now it's easy to compare.

I still think overall that the US, which will still be king of the hill for decades to come, is slipping down that hill.

 

[Jhhnn]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/197317-why-the-credit-bubble-cannot-be-reinflated?source=email

At the heart of America's problems is an economic policy which is designed to keep wages down but consumption up. That necessarily means more bubbles, more debt, more wealth and income inequality, and consequently more strife and social unrest when the gravy train ends. You cannot expect to hollow out a country's manufacturing base, set up a bunch of McJobs to replace it, and still have consumers spend to support the economy. This is what we are now starting to realize.

Thank You.

 

[Trianon]

Thank You.

You are most welcome

More on our perceived growth from last 9 years:

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/200...-financial-stability-creates-instability.html

James Galbraith, author of The Predator State:

sees the latest episode of financial crisis as a Minsky moment predicated on ‘Ponzi’-style debt pyramiding that is the end game in the cycle of stability to instability as it was post-1929.

My view is that a lack of regulatory oversight allowed the system to veer away from macro-prudential finance. This is not a case of Madoff-style fraud with everyone in finance cooking up schemes to defraud homeowners. Yes, these cases of predatory lending existed. However, I see the systemic risk as more pertinent.

Systemically-speaking, the Ponzi phase is one of risky behaviour crowding out prudent behaviour in a world free of regulatory controls. If risky behaviour is temporarily rewarded with profit and this temporary period is long enough, then risky behaviour wins and drives out good behaviour.

 

[Trianon]

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/04/consumer-balance-sheet-and-consumer.html

Excerpts from" Wealth, Income, and Power" by Professor G. William Domhoff at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Economic Implications

That was an extremely well written article by Domhoff. Inquiring minds will want to give it a closer look.

The facts do not point to a robust recovery in spending. Indeed they do not point to any recovery in spending beyond the massive government intervention that we have seen to date.

This is not 2006. Homeowners cannot tap their houses for home equity spending. Moreover, some of the data for that report was from 2007. There have been millions more bankruptcies since then.

Millions of households are underwater in their mortgages. Banks are stuck with massive numbers of REOs via foreclosure.

The unemployment rate is hugely understated at 9.7%. Alternative measures show unemployment at 16.9% and even that number does not count Realtors and self employed persons on commission who have not had reportable income for months.

There is no driver for jobs except government stimulus.

 

[Zebo]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/197317-why-the-credit-bubble-cannot-be-reinflated?source=email

At the heart of America's problems is an economic policy which is designed to keep wages down but consumption up. That necessarily means more bubbles, more debt, more wealth and income inequality, and consequently more strife and social unrest when the gravy train ends. You cannot expect to hollow out a country's manufacturing base, set up a bunch of McJobs to replace it, and still have consumers spend to support the economy. This is what we are now starting to realize.

+1

 

[Jaskalas]

You cannot expect to hollow out a country's manufacturing base, set up a bunch of McJobs to replace it, and still have consumers spend to support the economy. This is what we are now starting to realize.

We'll soon also realize that government cannot spend its way out of this on the backs of those very consumers.

 

[Trianon]

interesting discussion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSt5xdouXi8&feature=related

 

[Nemesis 1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ&feature=fvw

 

[lsquare]

What metrics show it ISN'T a declining power? And decline is relative of course. I suppose if you take China out of the equation, though, it may be that relative to others (of relevance, not inconsequential countries that are growing quickly) it really isn't declining.

I wonder if education is getting worse or again if it's just how we look at it. Perhaps 50 years ago we had no idea how good people in other countries were but now it's easy to compare.

I still think overall that the US, which will still be king of the hill for decades to come, is slipping down that hill.

We're talking about a decline only because things are bad now. Did you hear the vast majority talking about the US declining when the times were good? I know things will get better. The status quo is unacceptable. Of course we're declinining now, but in the long run, we'll recover and be a much more capable power in the world. If it wasn't for the fact that we're fighting two major wars and combating an economic recession, then do you think we'd be having this discussion today?

I think the consensus here is that our kids are not as good as their peers in other countries. We're not producing as many scientists and engineers as in the past. So that's why we've been turning to immigration as there are large number of people who wants to have a better life in the US. I've even seen examples of where immigrant children excelling in math and the sciences like Chemistry. I remember when I was in grade 10, someone from Hong Kong ended up in my class. She was crazy smart when it came to Math, Chemistry, and Physics. She aced every single assignment and exams. No one was surprised that she was the one that was getting 100% on everything in those courses. Why? She told me and my friends that she learned those concepts at a very young age. In Hong Kong, you start learning those stuff well before high school starts. The weird thing was that the Math teacher said she can't get 100% for a course and therefore gave her 99% even though she aced everything. You can take my words for what its worth, but it's the truth. The only thing that would embarrass her is her accent.