Financial perfect storm coming - why?

[brokensymmetry]

The new bankruptcy law will be in place on Oct. 17.

New credit card minimum payment rules will be in place shortly thereafter.

Higher gasoline prices are beginning to take their toll - and winter heating bills will soon begin to hit, just as the credit card minimum payments increase substantially. Again, this is after the new bankruptcy law is in place.

This seems sure to bring about a recession, possibly a severe one, as consumer demand is suddenly and substantially restricted. The extra money in the budget will cease to be available. If one owes the national average of $9,000, the payment will go from $180 to $360 - just as other expenses expand. Does the average family have that much margin? I think not.

One might argue that these are merely part of a general rethuglican effort to grind the poor (and middle class) into the dirt; but I wonder.

Suppose that the elites believe, as I do, that peak oil is here and that energy costs are set to go higher. Suppose further that they regard demand destruction as necessary. Would this not be the perfect method to accomplish such an end?

The affluent would not be affected. The poor would become a more desperate and compliant labor force. Fuel prices for the affluent would be mitigated (somewhat) due to demand destruction. Furthermore, a poor and financially desperate population is a more easily controlled population.

So - I suspect that a recession is being engineered, and will come soon. But, what are your thoughts? Am I giving them to much credit? Or being too negative?

[teenagebambam]

1. No one can fault your logic

I paid off my credit card two years ago and never use it now, for just such an eventuality.

[MostlyLurks]

2. Don't forget the Iranian Oil Bourse

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html

Just one of several sites that discuss the possible ramifications of the new petroeuro market.

Mostly

[SmokingJacket]

3. Is it deliberate, or just greed?

Now there's no presidential election to worry about, they can squeeeeeze us dry.

[MidwestTransplant]

4. Short WMT

[Speck Tater]

5. Would they really engineer something guaranteed to get their asses...

... kicked out of office?

[K-W]

7. The real power behind the throne isnt elected.

And they certainly dont mind if one group of politicians are disgraced.

It really doesnt matter which party is in power. The rich keep getting richer. And it has been pretty obvious since Reagan that the goal is to canabalize the middle class.

The only way things change is if true progressive Democrats who arent beholden to money get into office.

[CrispyQ]

14. You are right that it doesn't matter which party is in power

since the dem party is being infiltrated by the neo-cons via the DLC. We need to get corporations out of our political/voting systems. They are running/ruining the world.

Since Reagan the repubs have convinced millions of Americans that government is the problem & if we privatize the Commons everything will be better. The most critical element of the Commons is our government & look how well that is going, as they privatize more & more parts of it.

I can no longer vote for any DLC dems. I want a party that embraces liberal ideas & policies, not runs from them or simply gives them lip service. (Like Biden yesterday. He sounds so good when he gets all revved up like that, but then he just bends over like the spineless sold-out wimp he is.)

[brokensymmetry]

13. Perhaps.

Divide and conquer is an established strategy. The rethuglicans have done essentially everything they can to antagonize Democrats and Progressives. Let's suppose they lose the election - we will surely wish to reverse some of their policies. And they - just as surely - will use this to make their constituency more radical and more dependent upon them.

Suppose we win big in 2006 - but not quite big enough to impeach *. We control both houses, but cannot get anything past *. What have we accomplished?

Then comes 2008. They have the SCOTUS. They will claim that a Democratic congress didn't get anything done. And they will have a highly motivated group of voters who will blame Democrats for the bad things happening. They only need the White House or a single house of congress to stop any reversal of their current legislation.

In essence, they gamble big - and win.

Is that sufficiently Rovian? I cannot but wonder.

[smoogatz]

6. I take issue with the idea that

"a poor and financially desperate population is a more easily controlled population." That might be true in some places, but in this country I think the opposite is the case--the more affluent we feel, the more complacent we become. Depression-era Americans were anything but "easily controlled." Problem two: a recession would be very bad news for the party in power come the mid-term elections. They've already had planty of bad news--the last thing they need is a bunch of unemployed people who can't pay their credit-card bills or afford to put gas in their cars. They're not engineering a recession--they're just corrupt idiots, handing out favors to their contributors.

[K-W]

10. Very true,

The middle class provides and escape valve and buffer for class resentment.

If in fact the wealthy have decided they can no longer afford to have the middle class around, it means they are losing on of the big stabilizing factors in society.

[Mr_Spock]

11. Yes, affluence breeds complacency - it's why we promote free-market to

China and other places. If we have a worsening economy for ANY reason, people will become more politically active and the first instinct is to kick out the people in power now. I've already experienced this with a few poor Bush voters here in Cow Hampshire. The minute gasoline hit $3 they were saying "he can't be gone fast enough". The OP is way off base in his/her assumptions...

[brokensymmetry]

17. Another possibility -

A person winds up under a crushing debt load, working two jobs, walking to work and riding the bus. They're working, or en route to work, 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. They're too tired to think, much less become activists.

Just a thought...

[Mandate My Ass]

8. The third-worldization of the US is about to really ramp up

An educated middle class is the worst threat to these greasy oligarchs. They want us gone and they're going about making it happen openly without opposition from just about anybody.

[BeHereNow]

16. We have a winner!

You nailed it- congrats.
BHN

[Zinfandel]

9. Interest rates creeping up, union busting is the republican agenda

and order of the day, a country of workers fighting for low paying jobs with little or no health insurance...it will be used to invite & create chaos, more crime (which is exactly what they want, an excuse, for almost military like rule). More slave labor, for the wealthy and their corporations...with less and less jobs and underfunded schools makes for uneducated masses, filling the military ranks...This is all well thought out republican "think tank" shit, it's pretty much academic, if you just stand back and look at it.

[CrispyQ]

15. Corporate feudalism.

Too many people equate feudalism with olden times, dirt roads & wagons pulled by oxen. Welcome to the 21st century & the new version of the same old shit.

[newswolf56]

12. Hence the renewed relevance of Marx, not as an end but as a beginning:

the fact that class warfare is real (and proven absolutely by our present circumstances) should be the starting point of any new analysis. Add in the principles of Constitutional liberty and you have the foundation of something that could lead to true democracy -- economic as well as political.

[rug]

18. Don't forget the massive mortgage debt.

[Zynx]

19. Debt built on artificially high house prices in many regions.

When people call the bubbles "regional" there are so many regional bubbles it is a national dilema if and when it breaks.

[Deja Q]

20. And expect an attack on a nother country shortly after...

all those destitute would probably rather beat up people in another country than in their own...

[brokensymmetry]

22. That's a real risk.

Especially if the problems can be blamed on another country.

[RepublicanElephant]

21. seems like working americans didn't put up with this crap 225 years ago.

.