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alstry (35.69)

Away From What?

Recs

21

August 25, 2009 – Comments (14)

President Barack Obama plans to reappoint Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a position from which he guided the economy away from its worst recession since the 1930s and, the White House hopes, toward an economic recovery critical to its legacy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-source-Obama-plans-to-keep-apf-2916552632.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

Can anyone explain how anyone can conclude we are moving away from recession.

Bank failures are increasing.  Business revenues are decreasing.  Job losses are increasing.  Profits are decreasing.  Commercial Real Estate is crashing.  Bankruptcies and foreclosures are skyrocketing.  Tax receipts are evaporating.

Does that sound like moving away from recession to you?

The only reason our economy hasn't fallen apart......yet.......is due to the fact that government is effectively counterfeiting and spending trillions of dollars it doesn't have.  If this goes on much longer, our currency will be worthless and create, as Buffett described, a problem much worse than we avoided.

I am not sure how jumping from the frying pan into the fire is moving away from recession or a good thing......unless of course the goal is total collapse.

14 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On August 25, 2009 at 8:51 AM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

California imploding....Pennsylvania shutting down.....Alabama can barely afford to pay for food.....and this is moving away from a recession?

Jefferson County averted a food shortage at the county nursing home and other county-owned facilities this weekend by cutting checks totaling $103,000 after a food vendor threatened to withhold deliveries, a county finance official said Monday.

The tab was paid with an $80,000 check from the sheriff's office and $23,000 from the county's general fund, said Danny Panos, the county's assistant finance director.

Sysco Food Services Co. last week refused to make deliveries to the Jefferson Health and Rehabilitation Center, Cooper Green Mercy Hospital and the Birmingham and Bessemer jails if the county did not make a series of back payments.

"The whole deal was the nursing home, they were running out of food," Panos said. "We offered to pay the nursing home part and asked could they ship to the nursing home. They said, 'No we want everything. We're not going to ship to anybody until we get everything.'"

Commissioner William Bell, who has responsibility for the hospital and county home, said none of the patients went without food but, "It was a very touchy situation."

....some departments also didn't send invoices to county's accounts payable department.

"I understand they didn't send them over because they didn't have the budget funds to pay for them," Panos said. "In the meantime, Sysco said they needed their money."

Panos said the county owed $14,500 for deliveries to the county home; $6,229 for the sheriff; and $2,378 for Cooper Green Mercy Hospital.

Sheriff's Office Spokesman Lt. Randy Christian said the agency was notified last week that "we were past 30 days on an $80,000 invoice for jail food.

"We were waiting on a ruling from the Department of Justice on whether or not we could spend federal condemnation funds on inmate food," Christian said. "We received an answer from DOJ that because our budget was reduced we could in fact use the funding for that purpose. Sheriff (Mike) Hale in turn wrote them a check out of that account to bring us current."

A Jefferson County Circuit Court judge allowed the County Commission to cut the sheriff's current budget by $4.1 million.

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/08/cashstrapped_jefferson_county.html

Stories like the above are being repeated around the nation....and yet we are being told things are getting better?

Have we collectively stopped thinking in our country.

Government is running out of money....government is over half the economy......if government continues to effectively counterfeit, soon nobody will have any money.

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#2) On August 25, 2009 at 9:06 AM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

Md. state workers to face furloughs

 

70,000 would lose up to two weeks' pay under plan to save $75 million

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.furlough25aug25,0,3081577.story

Eighteen months after the Legislature passed a controversial increase in the state gas tax to fund transportation projects, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is projecting that it is still facing a $50 billion funding gap over the next 20 years.

http://www.startribune.com/local/54640117.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUT

If we taxed everyone 100% of income and assets, it is still not enough to meet government's current spending demands.

If we fired all 20,000,000 government workers, it would still not be enough.

Is this how we are moving away from recession?

We must restructure debt or this boat will sink.

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#3) On August 25, 2009 at 9:13 AM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

WE ARE ALL CONNECTED IN OUR ECONOMY

Government can spend because we pay taxes 

150,000,000 Americans spend each month because the government writes checks

If government doesn't spend, over half our population wouldn't be able to spend

If 150,000,000 Americans didn't spend, we would not have much of an economy.

Now bankers are cutting off the private sector from credit and government is running out of money.....

Where do you think this is going?

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#4) On August 25, 2009 at 9:36 AM, brickcityman (< 20) wrote:

It seems to me that this is the quasi-natural course going into any recession...  Unchecked even relatively minor issues can snowball into big problems.

 

So the question becomes what stops the snowball?  Once you've lost a source of income how do you stop from losing it all. 

 

Of course there is only one real option.  Find a way to start generating revenue from new or different sources.  You might be able to coast by on government assistance for a while but even for the common man that is finite.

 

If you ask me our biggest problem has less to do with what just happend and a whole lot more to do with what isn't happening.  We're not  in a position to grow. 

 

For years the combination of short-sighted business aspirations and an all to accomodative government has brought us to a point where one seriously has to ask what is the point of America anymore?  

 

Now that the baby boomers have had their way with it whats left?  We've eroded our industrial base by shipping jobs overseas in a pact with the devil to trade quality for cost.  We've fostered a whole generation of MBAs and Systems Engineers that know nothing about what they speak.  And we've got generations more who care more about the latest gossip in hollywood than any given social, political, or economic issue.

 

Personally I had high hopes that Obama could usher in a new era of focus on scientific investment, responsible business practices, and getting our young people refocussed on their role as heirs to the throne.  Sadly evidence of this is scant, partly through his own actions, but also largely through the actions of entrenched interests on both ends of the political spectrum we end up where we are....

 

Extending, Pretending, and Staring into what could be an abyss. 

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#5) On August 25, 2009 at 10:05 AM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

It is amazing to see the reaction of people when they learn that over 150,000,000 Americans depend on government spending to earn their income.

This includes millions of high income earners such as doctors, lawyers, technical workers, politicians, lobbyists, consultants, and defense contractors.

We have now reached the point where the private economy in our current capitalistic system can no longer afford to support so many and still maintain itself.

Everything around us is crashing yet we are still being told everything is fine....for most, they don't even want to entertain a thought otherwise and want to keep on keeping on even though the ship is sinking.

Capitalism, as we know it, in America is in jeoporady of being destroyed....from this perspective, intentionally or recklessly.  Most can't see it yet....and when they are suffering....they will beg for change.....any change and the few will control.

What started as a concept was implemented and then corrupted and destroyed....simply because so few cared to think.

Keep on thinking we are moving away....what should disturb all is what are we moving to?

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#6) On August 25, 2009 at 10:57 AM, carcassgrinder (45.89) wrote:

Brickcityman....

   Very well articulated.  We are not staring into 'what could be an abyss' as much as we have 'already crossed the event horizon and are descending into the abyss'. 

   As you articulated...the abyss is not defined solely by economics...but defined in larger part by the general social conscious of the nation.

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#7) On August 25, 2009 at 11:24 AM, hagan3 (< 20) wrote:

"Now that the baby boomers have had their way with it whats left?  We've eroded our industrial base by shipping jobs overseas in a pact with the devil to trade quality for cost.  We've fostered a whole generation of MBAs and Systems Engineers that know nothing about what they speak.  And we've got generations more who care more about the latest gossip in hollywood than any given social, political, or economic issue."

Cheers and +1 for the comment.

Historians, decades from now, are going to reemphasize the importance of generational demography on society.  Europe lost half a generation of working men in the 1910s and the results were enormous.  Likewise, America produced this crop that have shifted their beliefs to whatever is convenient at the time.  What more apt than to do whatever you want and pass the costs on to your children while claiming you did them a favor by reading Rachael Carson and moving to the far-flung suburbs.

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#8) On August 25, 2009 at 11:25 AM, brickcityman (< 20) wrote:

Thank you carcassgrinder....

 

For some strange reason, perhaps its just stubbornness I remain somewhat hopeful over the long-term.  I believe we could be in for more near-term pain (and this shades my opinions of the market), but I think that it will be necessary to achieve a true catharsis and only through that will we possibly have a reasonably sustainable path forward.

 

Basically I say...  Call me a bear if it makes you sleep better at night,  but long term I think good things could still be in the future.  It's just that I think our path there will be hardly direct and will first require a reckoning with some harsh realities.

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#9) On August 25, 2009 at 11:40 AM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

We are at a very interesting point in American and World History.

We are rapidly learning that the American Banking system is simply a Ponzi Scheme of creating more and more credit and debt to drive spending and production of goods and services.  The more debt we created, the more goods and services we consumed, until we could no longer afford to borrow.

Now the debt is defaulting and the banks are using fraudulent accounting to maintain a perception among the people that the banks are solvent.

NOW AMERICA MUST MAKE A CHOICE

It can't maintain a government that spends $6.5 Trillion dollars per year and continue with the structure of its private economy while perpetuating the fraud for much longer.  Soon we must choose between big government or a private economy...we can't have both when niether is generating much revenues without borrowing.

If we try, no one will respect our currency and other nations will prefer to lend to their own citizens or more credible economies to trade.  Once that happens, Americans might as well burn their dollars as they will be cheaper than firewood.

It is an interesting time when a nation no longer cares if their government or bankers lie to them.  Even as they are being extorted for every last dime they have.

Savers are being paid only 1% on their savings while bankers are charging 30% for credit cards and few are saying anything?....and the bankers never even had the capital to loan out in the first place but for fraudlent accounting.

These are amazing times as it is becoming clearer and clearer that our capitalistic system as structured is insolvent.....now the only question is how will America go bankrupt?

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#10) On August 25, 2009 at 12:23 PM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

Somebody is LYING!!!!!!...and Fools are buying.

The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade, White House officials predicted Tuesday in a fiscal assessment far bleaker than what the Obama administration had estimated just a few months ago.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/White-House-Congress-projects-apf-2714959279.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

You can't have exploding deficits and a growing private economy.  The deficit is exploding in large part because tax receipts are evaporting.  Tax receipts are evaporating because the private economy is shrinking.

The private economy can't be growing if it is shrinking.  When the fraud is revealed.....the entire economy will be standing naked as the government will be looking to our assets to keep the game going.

Do you think you can fraudulently represent you finanicial condition to bankers without going to jail?  But they surely are doing it to you as they charge you 30% interest to lend you money they don't have or are insolvent at the time of the loan.

Bend over sheeple......make way for the bankers.

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#11) On August 25, 2009 at 2:04 PM, jddubya (< 20) wrote:

It is amazing to see the reaction of people when they learn that over 150,000,000 Americans depend on government spending to earn their income.

Really?  What exactly is their reaction?  Disbelief?  Yup.  That's disbelief you're seein'...  BECAUSE IT ISN'T FACTUAL!

Your numbers are whack.  Out of 300 million people, fully 1/3 are under the age of 18.  Then toss out the retired peeps, we'll say around 30 milliion.  You're making a wildly inaccurate claim that 88% of US Citizens that are of working age depend on Gov't spending????

WRONG AGAIN ALSTRY.  WRONG AGAIN....

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#12) On August 25, 2009 at 2:14 PM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

jd,

Thanks for clarifying...can you please tell me the number of people who receive food stamps, unemployment, welfare, social security, medicare and medicaid at both the state and federal level.

Over 30,000,000 Americans receive food stamps alone.  Many of the children under the age of 18 are dependent of government assistance to survive....same with the retired peeps.  They have to eat too....unless you suggest otherwise?

You don't need to include the over 21,000,000 Americans that work for the government directly or the many tens of millions who service the above populations or are contractors to government who earn a living as a result of government payments.....and their dependants of course.

My point is over half the population is now dependent on government spending to generate their income.  In The Great Depression it was almost none.

Alstry is very confident once you stop Alstrybating, you will find my numbers conservative....very conservative.

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#13) On August 25, 2009 at 2:33 PM, jddubya (< 20) wrote:

Ummm... look Asltry, stick with what you are claiming.  Don't change the subject. Don't say one thing then talk about another.

 " over 150,000,000 Americans depend on government spending to earn their income."

Earn their income.  EARN THEIR INCOME. EARN THEIR INCOME.

Sheesh.  Even when you're faced with your own words you change the subject.

You are a poor excuse for a Master Debater

 

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#14) On August 25, 2009 at 3:07 PM, alstry (35.69) wrote:

jd, the intent was clear. 

Debating is not really the central issue for Alstry....it is whether over 150,000,000 million Americans will be able to eat.

Keep on debating.....you seem to like it.

 

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