Is it just me or is the economy insane?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

OK, so they say "we're headed back to a recession" so everyone sells everything? Isn't that just self fulfilling prophecy? If they say something like that, shouldn't you BUY so that you stave off the recession? Ridiculous!

[bigwillq]

1. *They* want the economy to be insane.

So they can get richer and we can just get by. They don't care how bad the economy is for the rest of us, they're still getting that dough.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Yep. Note the trend in gold valuation? It's "their" currency while the dollar falls.

Although ultimately gold is not immune to falling in value..

[FarLeftFist]

2. They mean the middle-class will be in a recession, the billionaires don't experience recessions

[teddy51]

4. Someone posted here today that you can't judge the economy on what the stock

market does. There are manipulators out there on Wall Street that continue to line their pockets.

On the other hand, I have no interest in playing in that game, even if I could afford it.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

5. I clicked on Huffington Post today and was like "WTF?"

Seriously?! AGAIN!? Morons!

[Warpy]

6. The economy has been unsustainable since Reagan screwed it up

by jimmying the tax code to favor the plutocrats and starve the demand side.

This is just the end game. The Republicans always do this and it always ends up exactly the same way, an economic bust with concentrated wealth, low wages and high unemployment.

Whenever they have a new crop of suckers to sell their bullshit to, the wealth behind it makes it nice and slick and convincing.

Then we end up with this. It never fails. And they will never, ever admit their dogma just plain never works.

[annabanana]

7. +1

Well put.

[teddy51]

8. +1 also, and we the Middle Class are in for a whole lot of hurt, again. n/t

[sarcasmo]

13. Right on Warpy.

[AsahinaKimi]

9. All you have to do is walk into a Supermarket...

You know those plastic baskets in the supermarket you can carry around? I filled one up with about 15 to 20 items, and my price came to $90.00! If that is not insane, I don't know what insane is... And no. I didn't buy any beer, wine, or
slabs of Steaks.

[customerserviceguy]

16. I'm sorry, but I have to ask

In that little basket, what were the two priciest items? My 'little basket' trips rarely exceed thirty dollars, and I often have a slab of steak in there. I'd have beer and wine too, but they don't sell wine in the grocery market in NY, and the beer in the local supermarkets is crap, I buy microbrew at a local beer shop.

[AsahinaKimi]

18. The priciest items were

Cans of Cat food. The tiny kind. I get my kitty one for each day.. and there were ten cans. I don't recall what it added up to, but it was expensive. The other items were Cheese. I probably didn't have to get cheese, because I can only eat a tiny bit, but one little thing of cheese will last me about a month, if I am careful. A bag of ground Kona coffee (They didn't have any French Roast left) was kind of expensive too.


Most items at Safeway in California are expensive. The prices are going higher each day, and its a wonder any of us on a lower income can continue to make ends meet.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Gourmet cat food?

OK, you're not living high off the hog, but perhaps Fluffy is? We don't have a cat anymore, but I have seen some stuff that's way pricer than Friskies.

And yeah, the Kona coffee is worth it. I do like superb coffee, and it's about ten bucks or so a pound.

[AsahinaKimi]

21. The catfood is far from Gourmet Cat food

Priority Total Pet Care comes in a 30z (85g) can and would probably be in the medium price range. Cats require both dry and wet food, and certain cat foods contain certain nutrition needed to maintain a healthy cat. If your suggestion is that I grab my cat by the scruff of the neck, and boot his fluffy butt outside to catch rodents, that's the worst possible thing you can do as an animal caretaker.

First of all, I live in the city. Cats and moving automobiles going 30 mph don't mix. Secondly, Cats that are put outside get lost, get attacked by dogs, get ticks and fleas which once bitten can kill an animal if not treated. (Yeah, then there's those pesky vet bills.) Thirdly any mouse caught, may have previously eaten mouse poison, which in turn will kill the cat. Be attacked by other animals other than dogs, (Yes, I seen badgers, or some kind of large animal at night, not to mention, other cats, and skunks.)

I would never ever give him up, (Abandon like some idiots do..drive an animal to the park and hope it survives, and it won't) Take him to the shelter, where within a few days he is put to death. (No one wants an older cat, they want a nice fluffy young kitten, so they give the cat a shot and throw it in the furnace.) Who would do this to a pet? They are part of your freaking family, for gawd sakes!

SO having him around maintains my sanity, and allows me to be a bit more stress free. So, in this case, having an animal is a responsibility, and one I take seriously. This animal needs his dry and wet cat food, and his kitty litter. I also get a can of Orange Spray. This is to take care of the nasty odor the litter doesn't absorb or that he doesn't bury himself. (Orange spray is the best stuff in the world for killing any kind of nasty odor!)


I am not sure if it is cheaper to buy Coffee beans and ground them myself. Surely that would make a fresher cup of coffee. I think the ungrounded beans are more expensive. I would have to check that.

[customerserviceguy]

24. Sorry, didn't mean to offend

I certainly don't expect any domestic cat to have to hunt for food. Too many songbirds get killed that way as it is.

Our cats were strictly inside cats, I think the Himalayan one was actually afraid of the outside. But I know that they got fairly average cat food, at least until the older one needed special food from the vet for his kidney. Still, I think that serving for serving, it probably cost less in bulk than some of the super-fancy cat food I've seen in the supermarkets.

Hey, no problem, your money, you want to spend it on them or yourself, your business and your right. I spend way more on gourmet beer than you spend on cat food, no doubt. The only reason I bring it up was because it seemed to be kind of odd that you could rack up that kind of grocery bill while implying that you had no luxury items. But, one person's luxury is another person's necessity.

As a transplanted Northwesterner, I always buy whole bean coffee. You'd think with all the folks of Italian heritage in this region, I could get really good espresso beans all over the place, but that's true only if you live in NYC. Out in the burbs, it's a lot tougher than you'd imagine. One supermarket in my town has absolutely NO whole bean coffee.

[AsahinaKimi]

25. At our local Safeway

You can get the amount of beans you wish, and grind them right there and take them home in a bag. I would prefer to grind the beans at home. A few years back, I picked up for five or six dollars this plug in bean grinder. You can grind the beans really fine, or leave them as crushed bunches. Since Safeway has a variety of beans there is a lot to chose from.

Sometimes though, all you want to do is just have that cup of coffee, without going though all the ritual of grinding the beans yourself. I just prefer to let Mr. Coffee do the work. The coffee is far, far superior to anything that came out of a glass jar (instant)my parents used to bring home. Even the cans of coffee never seemed good enough.

San Francisco seems to have a Starbucks on every other corner, with Peets coffee occupying the remaining streets. This town must sell a huge amount of Coffee..because there are few fast food places, here but we make up for with coffee shops, be they chain or the simple down home style of coffee house.

[customerserviceguy]

26. I grind the night before

and let the time turn the pot on. Yes, there are some good coffee shops out West, we only have ONE Starbucks in the town I live in now. Seven new car dealers, but only one coffee shop.

[MrTriumph]

10. The Chinese and their American Fat Cat Lackies rule us.

x

[Rabblevox]

11. It is just you. The economy is completely rational....

Now please excuse me while I see if there's another old lady I can beat up for pocket change. Get with the program!

[TeamsterDem]

12. Maybe Bush had the economy right (watch video in body of my post for joke):

http://vodpod.com/watch/1830741-will-ferrell-axis-of-evil

[JVS]

14. Let me explain something about the economy for your consideration.

There seems to be a popular misconception that economics is something akin to a natural science; something like physics or biology. This is very much not the case. Economics is the study of behavior related to the production, allocation, and consumption of resources. The term "the economy" is really the accumulation of everyone's economic behavior. It's a public thing. Since when have you known everyone acting within the public realm to come out as something orderly. Look at politics.

Now here's where things get interesting. Rational behavior on an individual basis may very well contradict rational behavior on a collective basis. It's good for me to save, it's good for everyone else that I spend. Likewise if everyone else saves it isn't good for me, but if everyone spends it is good for me. Such situations apply to spending on wages. It's good for the collective economy if wages are high enough that workers spend money, but if I'm an employer I personally benefit from paying less. Nobody wants to be the one to do what is right for everyone. That's why it is often necessary for the government to step in and spend in an environment where everyone wants to save.

[customerserviceguy]

15. Well, it worked for me

I sold the little bit of stock I own outside of my retirement accounts (my 401K is in money market funds) yesterday morning, at near the 52-week peak for that stock. Yes, a double dip is probably coming, and while it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy for the "they" you speak of, it still behooves us little people to get the hell out of the way.

[louslobbs]

29. We got out 4 months ago, had we not, we would have taken that 2008 roller coaster ride all over

again and it was torture as you know. Had we left everything as it was, we'd have lost about $400,000 by now. I sleep a lot better with not letting my principal "ride" so to speak on the next roll of the dice or next spin of the roulette wheel anymore. We got out of the way just like you.
Lou

[Hoosier Daddy]

17. The economy of any and all countries is driven by human psychology

And, since homo sapiens is inherently fucked-up mentally, yeah.

[Fire Walk With Me]

20. Not gold. They're using gold as their currency and disaster capitalizing the rest.

Just look at the Koch brother's profits since 2004.

[NNN0LHI]

22. Depends on what we buy

In South Korea if someone purchases an imported American car the purchaser gets his taxes audited.

Over here if someone buys an imported Korean car they consider themselves hip.

See the difference?

Don

[Avalux]

23. Yep. It's carefully orchestrated chaos. All deliberate. n/t

[bemildred]

27. It is highly manipulated. All the time too.

And whenever some talking head says "The market did this today because of so-and-so" they are pulling that out of their ass, it is pure speculation based on few or no facts whatsoever.

[Liberal_in_LA]

28. It's just you

;-)

[lib2DaBone]

30. The Federal Reserve has the power of life or death over world economy....

If the Federal Reserve smiles on a country.. they let cash flow.. and the country prospers.

The USA never recovered from the Great Depression until the Federal Reserve eased and let cash flow into the economy

If the Federal Reserve has other plans.. and cash is withheld.. a country (or world) will go into a death spiral.

I think what is happening now.. is that the Federal Reserve no longer wants the USA to be a World Leader. Their plans have shifted.

The Federal Reserve along with our World Wide Corporations.. have decided that it is time to move on.. to wards a one-world govt.

I think the decision has been made (at the highest level) to let the USA collapse. The Corporations are ready to move on and mine other places on the globe for bigger/easier profits.

All our CONgress critters and Senators WORK for the Federal Reserve.. so you can see the plan unfolding now is exactly what they WANT! The World Corp/Oligarchy are moving on to greener pastures.. and the USA is not on their list.

Things ARE NOT going to get better... because that is not their plan. Be warned.. you are now on your own.