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Republican Recession On Horizon: You Cannot Give All The Money To Few (TRICKLEDOWN) & Expect Economy To Sustain Itself - You Remove Incentive From Rich & Destroy Everyone Else - RI10
Republican
Recession On
Horizon:
You Cannot Give All
The Money To The
Few
(TRICKLEDOWN)
& Expect Economy
To Sustain Itself -
You Remove
Incentive From Rich
& Destroy Everyone
Else - RI10
http://www.drmardy.com/oxymoronica/themes/becareful.shtml
http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=372731
Odds Are Growing for Economic Recession
WASHINGTON, Sun Jan 13, 09:38 AM
The unemployment rate leaps to a two-year high, record numbers of people are forced from their homes and Wall Street nose-dives again. Such is the fallout from a housing meltdown that threatens to slingshot the country into a recession.
The big economic question these days is whether the weakening economy will survive the strains or collapse under them.
The odds have grown that the economy will slip into a recession. At the beginning of last year, many economists put that chance at less than 1-in-3; now an increasing number says it has climbed to around 50-50. Goldman Sachs, the biggest investment bank on Wall Street even thinks a recession is inevitable this year.
Hopeful it can be avoided, President Bush and the Democrat-controlled Congress are exploring economic rescue measures, including possible tax rebates. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pledged to lower interest rates as needed.
The idea is to induce people to boost spending, especially on big-ticket items such as homes and cars, and revitalize economic activity.
"The recession gorilla is there. The question is can the Federal Reserve do enough to avert a recession?" asked Brian Bethune, economist at Global Insight. "We think the odds are close to 50 percent that there will be a recession. It is high — no question about it."
Much hope rides on the Fed. By dropping rates, it can act quickly — faster than Congress or the White House could agree on and deliver an economic boost.
"The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession", Bernanke said last week. "We are forecasting slow growth."
Bernanke signaled that a rate cut would come this month. Many economists believe a key rate, now at 4.25 percent, could fall by as much as one-half of a percentage point. Such a cut would lower the rates that are charged to millions of consumers and businesses for many different types of loans.
Analysts predict the Fed will keep doing that in the months ahead as part of a campaign that started in September, when the central bank cut rates for the first time in four years.
Trying to put the fragile economy back on firm footing is the biggest challenge for Bernanke since taking over the Fed nearly two years ago. His job requires a deft reading of the economy's vital signs and keen insights into what makes people and businesses tick. It is their behavior that shapes the economy. And it is in turbulent times that the Fed chief needs to bolster public and investor confidence.
Still, Wall Street is on edge. The Dow Jones industrials plunged nearly 250 points on Friday. Also, consumer confidence tumbled in early January.
Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, puts the odds of a recession as high as 40 percent. "There are a lot of headwinds and the economy probably has enough momentum to get through, but when things get rough, there are a lot of ways things could go wrong", Cheney said.
The fear is that people will clamp down on the spending and businesses will put a lid on hiring and capital investment, sending the economy into a tailspin.
By one rough rule of thumb, a recession occurs when there are two consecutive quarters — six straight months — when the economy shrinks.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, the recognized arbiters for dating recessions, uses a more complicated formula. It takes into account such things as employment and income growth. By that measure, the last recession was in 2001, starting in March and ending in November.
Tax rebates aimed at stimulating the economy were part of Bush's $1.35 trillion in tax cuts in 2001. They were credited with helping to make the recession short and mild.
The current housing slump, made worse by a credit crunch, is weighing heavily on economic activity.
Upcoming reports are expected to show the economy grew at a feeble pace of just 1.5 percent or less in the final three months of last year and will be weak in the first part of 2008. Consumers, whose spending is indispensable to a healthy economy, are expected to have tightened their belts.
High energy prices, weaker home values that make people feel less wealthy, and a deteriorating jobs market all figure into more caution on the part of consumers.
The unemployment rate jumped to 5 percent in December from 4.7 percent, fanning recession fears. It was the biggest one-month gain since October 2001, during a time of massive layoffs in the travel industry after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Lawrence Summers, one of President Clinton's treasury secretaries, said the odds of a recession this year went up after the dismal employment report. He advocates temporary tax cuts and emergency spending. "It is now conventional opinion and many fear that there will be a serious recession", Summers wrote recently in the Financial Times.
Martin Feldstein, who was President Reagan's top economic adviser, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan have urged greater government intervention. Greenspan recently said the economy is "getting close to stall speed", and Feldstein has said his best guess is that the economy "has not turned down and it is still expanding, but very weakly".
© Copyright 2008 CSC Holdings, Inc.
Tabacco: The making of huge amounts of money is more than a means of succeeding in a Capitalist Society; it is also a game. People play games to Win and to HAVE FUN! Playing games also helps pass the time.
When you are a “Have-More”, “MAKING MONEY” is just about the only game you know. It isn’t that you don’t want to stop playing, it’s that you can’t stop playing. What would you do if the only game you know how to play well ends?
Now imagine a roomful of poker players, all trying to win, have fun and doing what is for them both neurotic and habitual. Now imagine that you win every last dollar in the room. The card game is over! You have won all the money there is to win. But in so doing, you ended the game, the fun, the time-passing activity, and your neurosis has no place to lay its head. It isn’t over just for you; it’s over for all the poker players in the room. You either have to find another room or you need to get another game. Now tell that to any neurotic!
That neurotic narrative, related above, is analogous to what is happening in America. America is the roomful of poker players, and the Have-Mores have won every last dollar in the room. The card game is over! You have won all the money there is to win. But in so doing, you ended the game, the fun, the time-passing activity, and your neurosis has no place to lay its head. It isn’t over just for you; it’s over for all the poker players in the room.
For these Super Capitalists, there is NO OTHER GAME. They got what they wished for. And now they have to pay the piper. There is no more money to win because they have it all. And there is no more fun because to them that was the only game in town.
When you load the deck to favor the few, as Capitalism must, and then make the Republican Party the owner of the Casino, it is only a matter of time before “Trickle-Down” ceases. (Notice Tabacco did not use the word “CHEATING”!) The bird must eat to produce “droppings” or “Trickle-Down”. If the bird does not eat, there is no “Trickle-Down”. Funny how the Capitalists never saw it coming!
When you Outsource the jobs, the careers and the hopes for our futures to other countries, eventually the other 95% of us become a 3rd World Country in the midst of the greatest Capitalist country that has ever existed. But don’t worry – these Poker players can always play in India, China, the Philippines & Mexico and attempt to win back all the money they ceded abroad while robbing the rest of us of our hopes and dreams.
The problem is now the game has changed. The pots will be smaller. When technical, service, manufacturing & Silicon Valley types were flourishing in America, you could sell $100,000 automobiles and yachts and $8,000 plasma TVs. But when your subject market is making between $5,000 and $15,000 per annum in India, Mexico, China and the Philippines, you will have to find another business or cut your prices dramatically. Even in Mexico, a $15,000 per annum worker won’t buy a yacht! Why? Because he can’t afford it!
Yes, you have won all the money in the Poker Game, but now what do you have left to do with your days and nights now that you’ve in effect destroyed the “Only Game In Town”.
In the Jose Ferrer film “Moulin Rouge”, Ferrer’s character, Henri Toulouse Lautrec, says, “Each man kills the thing he loves best!”
Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness! When you read Tabacco, if you don’t learn something NEW, I’ve wasted your time.
In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization) – Think Tank For Other 95% Of World
RIDDLE!