Economy!

[Xei]

Just what people's opinions here are about the economy. Especially people who know about that kind of thing. :V I'm just making this thread because the US has been making these foreboding statements in the last few days in stark contrast to previous implications of a good recovery. I hear that the US is only halfway through it's bad-debt seizure, with the second hill just coming up now (something about loans with very low rates for three years or so, before they skyrocket; people are totally unable to cope with these and default). Also the Bank of England has just made similarly worrying statements about a 'choppy recovery'; although actually, what frightened me most was their predictive graph, which seems utterly loony: The pale colours obviously mean low probability; so they're saying that there's only a tiny probability that there will be even a tiny recession? That's ridiculous, they totally failed to see the current recession coming; how can they possibly be so sure with so many areas of concern around? So yeah, what are the thoughts on a return to recession? People are looking worried about America, and I'm guessing if that went bad it'd bring all this European mess down with it, so a very bad situation isn't looking very unlikely at all..? And how have people here been moving their money around?

[cygnus]

in the states unemployment is going from worse to worser and there are new budget cuts (some involving weird stuff like un-paving roads to avoid maintenance costs). i heard one economist mention that it would be a good idea to go back to some of FDR's tactics, like 'hiring people directly' for government jobs. employment is a big deal for everybody. add on top of that all of the teabaggers... augh. i don't know what to make of the projections, but there are a lot of stupid things holding us back from a sensible economic system - at least in my country.

[juroara]

It's hard for me to talk about it because the city that I live in is one of the biggest cities in America with virtually no major effects to it's economy. According to statistics, we just hit a tiny bump. We've recently had an influx of californians with promises that there are jobs here. And yes we do have jobs, problem is, what kind of jobs? In my opinion the reason why this recent recession didn't hit my city so hard is because, this recent recession is the recession of the wealthiest. Where as my city is a giant blob of middle class. Middle class people who are always willing to sacrifice savings for some greasy fried food and tacos. And our economy has plenty of both All this talk about the economy getting better-getting worse - for the average working-class american it made little to no difference. They were already in rough times. For years they lived pay check to pay check. For years they were in debt or owed debt. For years they lacked full health coverage for the entire family. This recession is simply a wake up call! A much larger and growing problem in my belief is the recession of the young adults. This is the first time in American history *from what I've been told* that a generation of youth are expected to make LESS than their own parents. It was in 2006 that a report came out showing that graduating bachelors were struggling to find work. And many that did find work were underemployed with part time jobs that any teenager can get. And unlike the teenager, they have loans to pay! These reports started calling the bachelor degree no more important than a high school diploma as far as job seekers were concerned. Of course the bachelor degree is more important than a high school diploma. But the current state of the economy doesn't reflect it. The problem is at the heart of our education and it's role in creating an upper class. Education in the past was used as a way to create social classes. That the higher your education is, the higher the rung of the social class you were expected to be. On top of that, our economy is an economy that believes people need to make LESS so that others can make MORE. Take walmart and its employees for example. In the past the line that divided the rich and poor was pretty simple - higher education. And wallstreet liked it this way. Now the government guarantees school loans for almost anyone, school no longer serves its role in creating an upper class (not that school ever should have!). The economy starts to freak out! The bachelor degree doesn't matter like it used to, because anyone can get one these days! Now the job market has created new ways to weed out weak applicants. Spelling tests, grammar tests, math tests, personality tests - some even create long and annoying online applications to weed people out! Seems fair? Not really. Give the same tests to current employees with excellent job performance and see how many of them pass with a perfect 100. While spelling is important, there are very few jobs that actually require perfect spelling. The new upper class standard is the Masters. But what happens when all the bachelors who couldn't find a job go back to school? How will the economy, so desperate to keep an upper class, do now, when the number of graduating Masters double, triple, quadruple? Will the economy supply the demands of higher paying jobs? Or will it just find another measuring stick of worth, and continue to cheapen the American work force? Our education is intimately linked to our economy. I believe our economy needs a huge dose of entrepreneurship spirit, the American-dream. The entrepreneurship spirit is needed to counter-balance corporations out to cheapen America. Entrepreneurs are known for being individuals doing what they want to do - not what others tell them they should do. Our education needs to follow this model, it needs to get personal, it needs to get out of the preformatted box! And by having a personalized education, we can get rid of the perceived social status of education. Most core classes are a waste of time and money. Seriously, unless you need the class for what you choose to study, get rid of core! Allow all studies to be interdisciplinary. This whole, you can't take that class because you aren't that major - is bull. Prerequisites yes. But I believe diversity is the future of our education, as is the future of our economy.

[Alric]

People in the media and people in the government are full of it. They were denying the recession for like two years before finally admiring there was one. Its obvious no matter what they expect will happen or what does, they are going to keep saying its positive news.

[dajo]

An amazing amount of statements that were made public by so called experts have been wrong and even backwards over the last years. It's not only that, but worrysome reports by the IMF for example weren't mentioned at all, it has been a pick and chose of opinions with sometimes nothing to back it up. And also considering the fact that in 1929 right before everything went downhill, economic experts were advocating a recovery. And also considering the fact that it is of utmost importance for politicans and media alike to clinge to the status quo, since our economy is built on air and a mass panic with everyone running to the banks to get the money that isn't physically available (only in circulation) would send the economy straight to hell no matter what. The point is that the news and statements by politicans are as worthless as learning about the state of the economy through sesame street or the writings in a bathroom stall. The matter of the fact is that it was and still is impossible to predict what exactly is going to happen, so all one can really do is to cut out the worthless middle man and actually read the scientific positions of economists and economic institutes. Not a single one is or even can be accurate, but they provide a more general and detailed idea of what might happen and why and they might help to interprete signs accordingly in the future. We had been so incredibly close to an economic collapse a while back, according to a report by the IMF and it was barely mentioned. I personally think it is and always was a matter of time until it won't work anymore. It's not a self-sustaining system, it always has to expand. More money has to be printed with less actual value and since we are moving towards a time in which all transactions are merely 1s and 0s on a computer, the possibilty to control and oversee is getting close to impossible. It's like a balloon without a constrictor.

[Thatperson]

when they can't even afford to keep speed cameras you know there is something seriously up.

[Alric]

That is not true, I know a lot of people who predicted everything that has happened. There is actually a lot of people who know the economy really well, but they don't get any coverage in the media. If you follow the Austrian school of economics, everything that is happening is for the most part predictable. The reason they don't get any time in the media despite being amazingly accurate, is because they are against the government trying to fix the economy. Because whenever the government tries to fix the economy, they make things worse. This is easy to prove and happened all throughout history. The way you fix the economy is to just leave it alone. If we followed their advise, the economy would of recovered over a year ago.

[Spartiate]

The reason they don't get any time in the media despite being amazingly accurate, is because they are against the government trying to fix the economy. Or because most economists don't agree with it.

[DuB]

Also, saying something vague to the effect of "bad shit is going to happen" is NOT the same as "accurately predicting" what happens in an economy.

[Alric]

Most economist don't agree with it, because it promotes a hands off approach, and they want a hands on approach. It has nothing to do with the fact of if it is correct or incorrect, because it most often spot on and predicts things very well. And it wasn't as vague as that. For example everyone knew specifically the market for houses was going to collapse. That was obvious when there was a huge bubble and house prices doubled in price like every few years. Heck, common sense tells you that something is wrong with that picture. Like dajo pointed out, the current system isn't sustainable. Economists knew that, and many people been shouting it for years. However, people like that get ignored because the government favors a proactive approach. They will do stuff that they know wont work just because it looks like they are doing stuff. Some times the best thing to do, is nothing. Can't blame the government for it all though. Stupid people would cry out and complain, if the government say around and did nothing. That is what needs to be done though, they need to stop making things worse.

[ArcanumNoctis]

Just what people's opinions here are about the economy. Especially people who know about that kind of thing. :V I'm just making this thread because the US has been making these foreboding statements in the last few days in stark contrast to previous implications of a good recovery. I hear that the US is only halfway through it's bad-debt seizure, with the second hill just coming up now (something about loans with very low rates for three years or so, before they skyrocket; people are totally unable to cope with these and default). Also the Bank of England has just made similarly worrying statements about a 'choppy recovery'; although actually, what frightened me most was their predictive graph, which seems utterly loony: The pale colours obviously mean low probability; so they're saying that there's only a tiny probability that there will be even a tiny recession? That's ridiculous, they totally failed to see the current recession coming; how can they possibly be so sure with so many areas of concern around? So yeah, what are the thoughts on a return to recession? People are looking worried about America, and I'm guessing if that went bad it'd bring all this European mess down with it, so a very bad situation isn't looking very unlikely at all..? And how have people here been moving their money around? Ironically, I've never taken an economics class, yet I'm superb at economics, plus I have excellent intuition. The reality is that the world is fucked. All they are doing is trying to slow things down. We are still going to slam into a concrete wall. The economy combined with our wars are completely timed to the point that they synchronized. Think I'm stupid? Watch what happens to the world economy. What I think won't matter. When shit hits the fan, it will be The Great Depression on steroids. I've already set myself up for the best chance of survival because the world's eventual economic turmoil will provoke a third World War. Someone said it was common sense when the housing market was collapsing. Obviously it wasn't common sense, because if it were, my family would have listened to me when I started paying attention to economics, which they wouldn't have lost 400k. People are so fucking naive in bliss, they will get burnt badly. The housing market crash is a joke for what is coming full throttle. There won't be bread lines, stupid people. I mean really, does Mr. Smiley have to choke a bitch?

[poopman]

check out zero hedge | on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero for an unbiased accounting of the economy. and yeah, i think we are heading for the waterfall. i dont know what it will look like but judging from REALITY and not msm there has been no recovery. its going to get ugly in my humble opinion.

[DuB]

Given that exactly zero (out of God only knows how many) of the socioeconomic doomsday predictions of the past 200 years or so have come true, I'm understandably skeptical about this one coming true. But who knows, maybe the self-proclaimed economics experts among us will prove us wrong. To address the OP a little more directly, I'm a little confused about the figure given; specifically I'm wondering why there are error bars around data which has already been recorded (i.e., the data prior to 2010). Is the purpose of this to compare the actual data with retrodictions made by the model they are using? In any case, I'm skeptical about these predictions because while the current model retrodicts substantial losses in growth for the past couple years, I sincerely doubt that similar models from before 2007 were able to predict such losses. So it seems likely that all they did was take the prior models and, rather than altering them in a meaningful way, simply add a couple parameters to insure that they would "foresee" the recession. Since the models were flawed before and they probably haven't been substantially changed, they are likely to be nearly as flawed now, so we should take their predictions with a grain of salt.

[Alric]

That isn't true, that sort of stuff has and does happen. Countries economies have been destroyed in the past. We have seen stuff like hyperinflation destroy currency, unemployment up to like 30-50 percent, and countries torn apart by violence because of economic problems. Obviously the world doesn't end, but violence increases and your far more likely to get shot for a loaf of bread, your home is more likely to be broken into. All your savings will be gone, and you will be forced to live pay check to pay check. Maybe you wont even have food, and will have to stand in bread lines, and if you don't get their in the early morning, they might run out before you get there. Maybe you have to drink substandard water, and there are rolling black outs. All of this has happened in other countries. And while the world didn't end, it did become a miserable place for them to live. This can last for 10-20 years. That is a good chunk of your life, where you have to live like that. If no one mugs and kills you during this time, eventually things may return to normal. If the government can be fixed, things may return to normal. If its to corrupt, it may never. The problem with the US economy crashing, is that it is likely to take a good chunk of the world down along with it. Meaning you can't flee the country to go live some where else, which is what most people who can afford it normally do in situation such as that.

[DuB]

People in this thread are saying or implying societal endgame, not recession/depression, and they're talking about the U.S. and Western Europe, where no, this has not happened.

[Alric]

When people talk about that sort of stuff from an economic point of view, they are not talking about the end of the world or anything like that. They are talking about an end of current living standards. Where people will be starving and people will use violence against each other to survive. This has happened in other countries before. No one in this thread implied or said that society was going end, only that we will all be dirt poor.

[Puffin]

I don't know much about economy, but I think it's pretty much a powerplay for the rich and a downplay for the poor. We don't need money, some punk just invented it to standardize things.

[Spartiate]

I don't know much about economy, but I think it's pretty much a powerplay for the rich and a downplay for the poor. We don't need money, some punk just invented it to standardize things. Money was invented cause bartering was too much of a pain in the ass to find someone who had the products you wanted and was willing to accept whatever you had in exchange, it's pretty important.

[Puffin]

We didn't need bartering either, we could've survived just on rocks and mammoths if we had to.

[Spartiate]

What if you have a lot of rocks but no mammoths.

[ArcanumNoctis]

I don't know.The current economic situation is global, not national/local as has been Psychologically implied and downsized by the media on a daily basis for the last ten years. I believe the reality is that shit is coming down gradually due to a change in superpowers. It is due to economic warfare or whatever you want to call it. In my opinion, we will enter a war that will mask our economic downfall, which we will blame our economic downfall on said country we go to war with. The war will spur into a third world war. People think nukes etc. for a world war, but I don't think that will be the case for a variety of reasons. Fucks doomsday. It wouldn't be the end, but it would be drastic change. If it does happen, what we talk about now won't matter because everything we talk about on the internet or to other people in real life will essentially be negated. This is why I prepped myself against shock of the high potential of the economy collapsing on a global scale. Does taking initiative put me in the wrong or penalize me? Nope. The reason is because I always plan ahead and in multiple facets. I think I'll write a book one day. It would totally be an interesting biography. P.S. If you think about war, on a technical basis, it is all economics.

[Spartiate]

It is due to economic warfare or whatever you want to call it. In my opinion, we will enter a war that will mask our economic downfall, which we will blame our economic downfall on said country we go to war with. You're already in 2 wars, that's (part of) the reason you're bankrupt.

[ArcanumNoctis]

You're already in 2 wars, that's (part of) the reason you're bankrupt. Actually, it is what is keeping our economy going. You see, the economy is like a rabid dog. It is a killing machine, it can't stop.

[Spartiate]

Economy =/= debt

[ArcanumNoctis]

Economy =/= debt Dedt =/= slavery