Do you think we are heading into a depression?

You are dead smack in the middle of a depression.

You mean a recession! A depression is much worse.

jan 20 change is on the way


yawn

you aint seen nothin yet...

the banks and govt are lying about the total losses just to avoid total market collapse..

the banks dont even know how much money they have lost in the derivative market..

this is why even with the bailouts and the loan rate at 0%, the credit markets are still frozen up for the consumer...

by mid 2009, people will start seeing what a depression is all about..

its going to be sad times for a lot of people..

btw, the solution is to take 1 trillion dollars and start a green initiative tomorrow..

provide jobs and get off foreign energy..

kill the unions and get americans producing products on american soil again.

this whole economy could be turned around in 12-18 months if the above was put into place now...

If you're worried about depression, consider zoloft or prozac

I don't believe we are in a depression. My mother was raised in the great depression. She was put in an orphanage because there was not enough food to feed her. Trust me, what we have here is a piece of cake compared to a depression.

the first thing we need to do is ban the word "going green", throw people who talk about the environment in jail and start living normal sane lives again

Off Topic - Yea, but we can't just keep shitting all over the Earth.

things are just starting.

Aa quarter of all major retailers may be in either Chapter 11 or liquidation next year.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...l?welcome=true

+1

agreed

guess what only time is the solution thats it nothing will help, time for people to slowly start saving and time for people to stop being lazy fucks and working, have you tried hiring a woodworker a plumber or anything lately? they show late or never show everything will soon change

So was my dad....he remembers the food rationing too. He told me that this is the closest that we have come since then..by far..and we are not far off.

Of course we blame this all on the financial business center of the world namely the USA

But on a serious note the UK is going to have a very hard time in the coming years

Gloomy prediction for UK economy

A stark picture of the prospects for the UK economy has been painted by an independent group of economists.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicts the economy will shrink by 2.9% in 2009 - more than at any time since the 1940s.

It expects consumer spending to decline and investment in business to slump.

The forecasters say exporters will be helped by the slump in the pound's value, but even their prospects will be held back by a global slowdown.

More here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7799886.stm

So what is everyone's game plan? Has anyone cut their spending? Are you paying off liabilities, or keeping them and hoarding the cash instead?

There is no game plan ..Just keep borrowing if you can Then when you cant pay it back, go bankrupt and start the cycle all over again..easy money

some stopped paying affiliates

I'm hopeful but agree things will still probably get a bit worse.

Solutions have already started to come around in Energy Technology and it appears Nano Technology is catching on too. All of which Canada and American Companies already own a rather good and relevant patents on already.

Lots of companies will fall.. people don't need to be junk so they save, and some flat cant. Lots of lower income people are going to feel a real hurt, for sure in some areas of the country. But from poor on up the communities and surrounding organizations have already shown they can pull together and fight through this and many related problems.

Right now enough people are doing well enough that this can and does happen. Some families haven't really noticed anything, but have pulled back just for safety. While other areas have been hit really hard due to job loss.

Tons of corrupt and bad shit is going to go down all related to the crazy mass of lies. It sucks that the people will feel the hit from it. But a total hell job market, no housing markets, no credit, over priced crap, no food or gas at all.. Not even a kind of bad recessions has been matched yet, let alone a depression.

We have a really long ways to go before it's really bad.. but with so many new technologies coming around, we really could easily become the leaders in new amazing technologies once again. We have done it more than once.. and if history is repeating itself, well it's going to happen again along with everything else.

I don't think we will go into a depression. I don't think Obama is magician and will automatically fix things, but he is a different voice and seems to be surrounding himself with good people and will steer us off the course we have been on in the last 8 years. That hope will help renew confidence which is one of the major problems we have. We are a consumer driven economy and people are scared so they are not spending money. If he can help renew that confidence spending will start up again and things can take an upturn.

I think Jan and Feb will be ugly, but then we will start to turn in a positive direction. It won't happen overnight, but things will get better.

Here are a few thoughts of what we, as a nation, should invest in/do to help solidify our future.
(in no specific order of importance)

1. Renewable energy. Until we solve our addiction to fossil fuels we will go nowhere fast. Gas and oil are yesterdays commodity, we need to look forward. Renewable energy will provide jobs at home and keep us from flooding countries that hate us with money.

2. A sea change in the housing market. Houses were/are too expensive for most people to own. The average household (household being 2 adults and 2 kids) income in this country is 44K. The average nationwide price of a house is around 188K. That means that house will cost someone that can put about 20K around 1200 a month not counting taxes which could easily be another 200-600 or more per month. At that rate your home will cost the average person about half of their take home pay. This problem often leads to these people getting debt because they can't afford other things so they finance it. The housing market will have to adjust itself accordingly or the average income will have to adjust, but until these two get in check with each other housing and debt will always be an issue.

3. Wise spending. We need to get it into our heads that just because we are Americans we are not entitled to anything we want. So many people feel like they "deserve" a nice big house and a couple of nice cars and a couple of exclusive vacations a year. So they go out and get it. But, of course, they can't afford it so they finance it and eventually something happens and they end up either losing it or in bankruptcy because their pursuit of what they feel they are entitled to finally overwhelms them financially. People need to learn to live within their means, budget and say no to themselves and their kids from time to time.

4. We have to start building stuff that we sell to other countries. We can't just import and import and buy. When you look at countries that are 3rd world shitholes what do they all seem to have in common? A corrupt government, a lack of exports and most people making money simply by selling each other stuff. No new money enters the system, they just pass the same money around over and over again. We are heading down this path. Sure we have wealth and becoming a third world shithole is not likely in our lifetime, but we need to start producing things and stop sending out money out of country.

Anyway, just a few thoughts. My main reason for thinking that we won't go into a depression is that a lot has changed in the nearly 80 years since the last depression and the financial world is so much more complex that we have many more options than we had before. Also so many other countries rely on us now that they have a financial interest in us not failing so they are going to be more willing to work with us and help us. This is a global mess, so we are not facing it alone.

just my 2 cents'

sorry for the long post.

i guess that depends on how you classify going green...

to me its about not relying on foreign energy.. we send way to much money to our enemies directly or indirectly in the form of oil consumption.

also, do you understand that china manufactures so many of our goods because they have almost no labor laws or environmental laws. as a result they can produce things far cheaper than the US..

so yeah, lets put people in jail that talk about "green technology" and just keep heading in the direction we are going..

also, let me know how you feel about "green" when opec finally cuts oil production enough to get oil back to $100 a barrel and gas prices back to $4.00 a gal.

all for cheap gas etc the word going green those idiot celebrities and hipster puppies talk about like using one tissue when going to the toilet and paperless billing etc etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkLpJ...layer_embedded

Nov 2008 was the bottom and it will be rocky but we're on an upswing and
the recovery is already on it's way. Spending in Nov and Dec was actually up from last year if you factor out gas sales so it isn't as bad as people think it is.

We are certainly at the start of a prolonged economic downturn. If it will turn into a full-blown depression is, at present, impossible to tell. Much depends on just how truthful banks and other corporations have been so far in disclosing their losses.

Right now, the global economy is in a very fragile state. It's inevitable that a large number of companies will go bankrupt over the next year or so. If any of the big ones unexpectedly fall, it could well be the beginning of a massive chain reaction - a bit like a very slow avalanche.

The main problem is that much of our current wealth is built on a pattern of consistent overconsumption. The western world has, over the past few decades, wasted much of its wealth instead of investing it. Productivity growth in emerging economies, technological progress and the rapid expansion of the financial system made it possible to keep this up for far longer than it could have gone on under other circumstances, but in the long run it simply wasn't sustainable.

The way out is, in truth, rather clear. The west needs to allocate a larger portion of its resources to research, innovation and development, and a smaller one to wasteful consumption and corporate welfare.

The biggest potential problem is rather clear, too. If governments continue their habit of keeping inefficient companies and industries alive through trade barriers and subsidies, and if wealth continues to be wasted rather than reinvested, we're pretty much fucked. Maybe not this time around, maybe not even the next, but soon enough.

yeah, i'm not down with that... i only support alternative energy..

I don't think we are near a depression. But times are very tough.

I do like what Obama is talking about though. A massive public works project, which should of been started 8 months ago instead of those shitty refund checks. If Bush did that we would be seeing the benefits about now. But better late than never. A push towards environmental jobs other new technologies will also help spur the economy.

After WW2 our national debt was 120% of GDP, currently it is around 40% so we can handle the debt. We bump our debt up to around 60% of GDP with a massive economic stimulus and we not only avoid a depression, we start growing again in late 2009.

Politicians lie. Energy independence is a pipe dream. Oil is fungible.

To realize dependably lower energy prices, you need to either increase supply or decrease demand. Alternative energy sources are a possible way of increasing supply and gaining more control of the market as a whole, but to be effective they need to supply energy at competitive prices - competitive while excluding government subsidies.

Unfortunately, this is currently impossible to achieve. If, through some miraculous technological breakthrough, prices on alternative energy sources suddenly dropped, the members of OPEC would simply slash their own prices as well.

So even if prices for alternative fuel sources drop, heavily investing in them will still end up losing any significantly influential country money. Up to the point where the base cost of energy from alternative sources is lower than that of energy from fossil fuels, anyway. Assuming that OPEC continues undercutting alternative fuel sources, that means heavily investing in them puts significantly influential countries at a competitive disadvantage compared to other countries.*

A much easier step to take is to reduce demand. This would be fairly easy to achieve, had it not been for people being self-absorbed morons. However, it is still a much more attainable goal than creating a stable, profitable and significant supply of energy through alternative sources.

But even with both reduced demand as well as increased supply (through alternative sources), energy independence would still be a myth. The only way to achieve it would be to become the world's chief energy supplier. Otherwise, other energy suppliers could still significantly affect the price by increasing or reducing their own output. Unless you have a closed system, where all energy is produced domestically and domestically produced energy is illegal to export - which would be a prohibitively expensive system.

TL;DR version: no energy independence. Ever.

* "heavily" and "significantly influential" are key terms here - minor investments and investments by less influential countries do not carry enough weight to affect OPEC pricing.

My take on this we are in a depression now and it?s only going to go down hill for the next year. President jack off the inbreed had his change to slow things down or stop it when he could have bailed out the housing market. But this jack ass is only for the white collar worker.

With my day job I have to drive over 130 miles a day for work, I listen to the talk radio on Sirius radio and it?s really sad what all the talk radio says. There are over 4 million unemployed known people now! Every month between 30,000 and 50,000 people apply for unemployment INS.

Chrysler car closed down its North American plants for the month. Drive around and look in your home town how many stores are for rent.

The next thing to go is the credit card companies. Keep in the back of your mind that for the next year the new president has little to say about the budget the jack ass president set in motion.

Nope, but the media wants you to think we will. Most people believe whatever the media tells them, which is good. For the few who are not deceived, opportunities are plenty.

I've been reading up on the great depression for a while now. Specifically, who made money off it. As a marketer the last thing you should be doing right now is worrying about the effects of a recession, worry about how you can capitalize on the recession!

Indeed. Especially with the internet, there are plenty of opportunities.

Sites with cheap recipes, tips on saving money, job advice and help in finding jobs, advice on starting your own business with minimal investments - just a few of the many possibilities

there are tons of opportunities right now and its only going to get better....

my neighbor is a doctor of economics, a retired professor and he said we will see a up turn by may closer to june.

Did he predict the crash? Did he tell you to sell off at 12 or 11,000?

there are plenty of emerging niches and existing niches which are going to do very well in 09.

no dummy me spoke him to after the fact.

threat bookmark

We've been in a recession since December of 2007. Many economists are predicting it will end around May. It will still be an upward battle after it ends. It will take an entire year after that before things are normal again. This is of course if we aren't in some real serious shit. It is possible that it's worse than this. Only time will tell.

probably not, but we are most likely going to be in this recession for another year at least

these are the same people who said mid 08 then end 08 not mid 09

if your gonna say things will get worse or better at whatever point give a reason why (i mean the economists)

hold on to 'er newt, we're headed fer the rhubarb!

I'll take anyone up on a bet that its not going to be as bad as all this dooms day scenario talk.

It will be deep recession about in line with other deep recessions but this talk of depression is overblown. You will see a trend upwards before 2009 is over.

Nope...not for now