I honestly don't think anyone knows what to do to stop this economic free-fall.

[Political Heretic]

I am so glad that Democrats are at the helm as opposed to Republicans, if for no other reason that the fact that their efforts to solve this crisis tend to include social spending that directly affects poor people (see the coalition on human needs for a summary of all provisions in ARR that go low-income assistance.)

These are not things you would find with a GOP president or GOP congress.

However having said that, I honestly am not sure anyone is going to be able to fix this problem in such a way that saves us from a massive, extreme economic collapse. I'm not sure that we'll be able to go back to "the way it was" and I'm not sure how bad its going to get, but I think we've reached a point where the possibility that its going to be worse than anything any of us have ever seen before is not exactly overreacting. Maybe it won't be. But the possibility that it will be that bad seems real.

I'm almost more interested in how we should be using this situation as an opportunity to organize people and stir populist sentiment. Now more than any other time in my life time I would argue that we have a real short at more dramatic social change, particularly on the front of economic justice. But I'm not exactly sure what I can do to facilitate this awakening....

[depakid]

1. I think some people (maybe even on Obama;s team) know what to do

to stabilize the banks- and stimulate the economy, but they find it politically and ideologically unpalatable.

Seems to me that more turmoil may be required before the US government sheds its current center right mold- and recognizes that several sacred oxen of the Democratic/Republican parties are going to have to be gored.

[Political Heretic]

2. That's possible too. Thanks for making that point.

[Postman]

4. I agree. It's going to have to get worse in order to bring the change

that needs to happen

[blues90]

3. I don't think we can ever go back to the way it was now

That's over. I fear it will get worse and I also don't think anyone has a way to fix this.

They seem to be testing things to see what the outcome may be.

[Possumpoint]

10. Do We Want

to return to the way it was? We've lost our manufacturing base and have tried to support our economic base on a service economy. The government, recognizing that 70% of the economic basis was private consumption, was encouraging more spending in the private areas. We were encourage to increase our debt load to maintain the good times. Debt has made a few very wealthy. Most the rest of us are left with the hangover. Governmental debt is now at a level where no one is talking about being able to repay. It is bankrupt!

The government is trying to support insolvent corporations by adding more governmental debt. Debt that our children and their children, etc. will have to deal with and repay if possible. What gives us that right? Insolvent corporations should be closed and any resultant good assets sold. Government should not be trying to prop them up. I predict it will end up being a waste of money and they will fail anyway. All stimulus money should be immediately returned to the government. The government then needs to bite the bullet and live on a balanced budget.

There is a strong feeling that the politicians are supporting corporations because that is where much of the money comes from for their re-election campaigns. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.

Business failure and unemployment are a terrible price to pay for the mistakes of past administrations. I am among the few that feel it is better to allow the trash and rot to fall out and start on a solid footing then to throw money at the problem hoping against hope that it will help. You're just stringing out the problem.

[Greyhound]

13. You nailed it. Raygun popularized the idea of the illusion of prosperity being as good as the real

thing almost 30 years ago and the sheeple lapped it right up. They used this illusion to sell their scam of selling off real assets in order to loot the production mechanisms, and have been perpetuating the cycle ever since.

This popular myth that the housing bubble, derivatives, the dot-com bubble, pick your favorite flavor, is the cause of this is pervasive. Just ask anyone and you will get some explanation regurgitated from some pundit/newscast/expert.

What happened has been in the works since at least the 70s. The corporate "Masters of the Universe" decided that those gigantic "emerging markets" in Asia were going to be their next feeding grounds and they sure as hell weren't going to foot the bill for building them up. So began the process of cutting up and selling off the engine of our prosperity, which they've viewed as their property all along, while keeping the flock distracted with shiny baubles.

Now the end is here and there's really nothing left to do or take or sell. The faster we get this through our heads and start again, the better off we and our children will be.

[NightWatcher]

5. the most common way to stop a freefall.....hit bottom

"artificial bottoms" are hard to execute, but everyone knows what it looks like when your butt hits pavement.

Unfortunately, I predict a fall to rock bottom.

[Downtown Hound]

6. Pretty much

There's really nothing anybody can do to stop this except let it bottom out. It will get better, but it's going to take awhile.

[cynatnite]

17. I don't think anyone knows what bottom looks like either. n/t

[City of Mills]

7. Simple

We have to limit aggregate supply while increasing aggregate demand, all while limiting inflation as the unemployment gap edges closer to full employment, typically between 3-5% in a well-functioning economy.

Now how we go about doing that, who the hell knows. Gotta get people to spend money, but in order to do that they actually NEED money, and with so much debt floating around, confidence is low.

I'm in my first semester of Macroeconomics so bear with me :)

[tama]

9. For your edumacation

Couple points in macroeconomics (some call it physics and math :)):

In a limited environment (such as Earth, for any practical purposes) any and all exponentially growing systems will eventually collapse - as dictated by the law of entropy, to begin with.

Any and all systems based on usury - taking interest - are based on exponential growth for the simple mathematical reason that the system, in order to keep functioning, must grow by the amount of the interest added to the system.

Any and all economical theories disputing, denying or forgetting these self-evident most simple truths are not science but religious cults, cults of blind greed. No matter how wide spread those cults have become and how influential.

EditPS: Good luck if you feel curious and bold (shouldn't science be about truth and beauty and not just carieer building?) enough to challenge your teachers with these very simple truths...

[readmoreoften]

11. Beautiful and logical. Thank you. There is no such thing as "sustainable growth".

There is sustainable. And there is growth. But they are opposing forces. It's a perfect example of a "centrist" ideal that just slips into anti-logic.

[tama]

8. Let's start from the realization

that that "anyone" is not allways some other but also and especially you and me. Let's start from the realization that we cannot demand nor expect others to bear our own burden of responsibility. Deus ex Machina - e.g. a voting machine - is nothing but ancient theatrical trick for the audience best entertained by a happy ending. Instead of being mere spectators of the Spectacle, we have possibility and responsibility to start living and acting the drama called "life" to the best of our abilities.

IMHO next step is to start questioning, where and what would be good bottom to fall on? From larger perspective, such as sustainable way of life in balance with natural environment, sustainable from the point of view of multiple generations. From short term, medium term and long term perspectives.

Answers may differ and that is a good thing, variety is good, especially if we cannot learn except from our mistakes. If we can learn from experience of others, couple suggestions for exemplary possible bottoms, feel free to add to the list while keeping in mind that not all bottoms are necessarily mutually exclusive but local variation is not only possible but actually hoped for: 1) Cuban experience of surviving the "special period", which gives some ground to the hope that socialist state could be built on sustainable principles while maintaining education and health care that we deem "civilized". 2) permaculture gardening, hunting and gathering in small self sufficient communities, the "primitive" experience of living sustainably for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Not necessarily bad bottom either, very grounded. 3) The "bottom" of Mad Max -style lunacy, how ever short lived that would turn out to be. I believe we agree that that kind of "bottom" would be nice to avoid, if humanely possible.

Based on these and other experiences, what kind of bottom you think and feel you would be best suited and able to help to build - give your life to? As long as we don't fool ourselves that the bottom will be there by mere miracle, without each of us preparing, building and adapting to a bottom that one believes is both possible and good.

[Spazito]

12. I think the Obama Administration does...

I don't think what is currently happening, the "economic freefall" is a surprise to them. President Obama has been trying to get the message across every time he speaks, the message that the situation is the most serious the United States has faced.

It will be "fixed" but it is not going to happen next month nor by the end of the year. It may, however, begin to stabilize which, imo, would be the start of the "fix".

Putting in place regulations that will begin to re-build American and international trust is one of the ways in which stability will begin to occur, imo.

[tama]

15. Woe so many

still think that the system based on growth could and should be "saved". Suicide cultists drinking Kool-Aid... suicide is wrong because you will be dearly missed by the traumatized who live... and must clean the mess left by Messiah...

But lets think happier, wild thoughts. How could a modern monetary FIAT system not based on usury function? Terry Pratchets newest influenced this thought, among others. How about central bank, democratically and publicly governed, issue money as practical means of exchange, without "money as debt" and banksters in between? Really simple - paying all citizens a citizens salary, directly from the printing press!!! The value of money would not be not debt over debt, dependent of capitalistic profit and interest and growth, but mere work - any and all work that citizens would be willing to do against money. People trusting each other that the amount of work deeded to provide for the basic material needs will get done and that the citizens salary will be enough to satisfy the basic needs, plus a little extra.

Like, if there are people who feel they have greater material needs than other but are unable to build their own palaces and grow their gourmet meals, they would have to do the best paid jobs that others would be willing to pay some other to do instead of doing it themselves. Those would be the shittiest salary jobs, best paid because most wouldn't like doing them. Cleaning profession would be among the highest paying. Artists - who wouldn't want to be snotty bratty egomaniac artist ;) - on the other hand would be happy to survive on the minimum pay from state, creating their art and sharing it for free with anyone interested.

I would call such a system pretty free and just. No obligations, no slavery, no directing from above, just "free gifths" from the state, the collective, we the people to each of us. And then we would sort things like production of goods for basic necessities among ourselves. And no, nothing is fool proof. But we could, for the heck of it, try trusting ourselves and each other instead of this or that leader Messiah to mess things up...

[rucky]

14. Putting people back to work is a good first step.

and that's all i know

[Baikonour]

16. The real problem is that the Youtube generation expects this depression to be fixed by tomorrow.

People want everything instantaneously.

Ain't gonna happen, and then they'll blame Obama for not being able to fix the economy within the next month. The truly sad part is that a lot of people will agree.

[david13]

18. But Obama has to try. That's what the people voted for.

[librechik]

19. we used up the "capitalism" tools--now we're at 0% interest, so we must use the "poison tools"

Yes, the New Deal democratic socialism option which the "no future-but Jesus will save us because we wear business suits!" caucus has spent 2 generations of de-educational havoc and billions of think tank/propoganda dollars to cover the tools of socialism (i.e. government provided social safety net) with radioactive shit so they are unusable by politicians. Republicans have tried to use language to guarantee that any politician who does think Government can help is covered with the poison of the S word and is therefore not electable.

Why? well there's not a dollar of profit to investors (Republican contributors) from a social safety net (as they say--but this is disingenuous in that govt provided health insurance and unemployment insurance would add to the bottom line! They're just hateful bastards who refuse to change with the times) and in their world profit is the ONLY motivation (enabled by greasy hypocritical devotion to whatever religion is popular, but that's only to convince more rednecks to vote for them. )

we could make progress on this problem by insisting on publicly financed federal elections, with no corporate participation allowed. Did you know Reagan era "conservative" voting reform is what allowed corporations into politics overtly, as well as the insane tax reform (Tabor Act) which has emptied government coffers, not to mention the monopolistic rise f hate radio?


Thanks for the help you shit filled dinosaurs!