There is no recovery. There never will be

[conspirator]

I have been hearing about Recovery since 2004. It will never happen.
More and more of what you eat and buy will be made in China, India, Brazil.
The only way you can prosper is opening your own business. Otherwise you will be stuck with a slave wage in a Services economy that produces nothing with added value.
The Elites are playing with you. They don't care about the Economy. They are making time, preparing for something big.
I don't know what. War with Iran?

[DJ13]

1. The only way you can prosper is opening your own business....

...selling the crap made in China, India, and Brazil.

[PBS Poll-435]

2. ?

:popcorn:

ALL THREE

[babylonsister]

3. Wow. You mean it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse and w....

Such an optimist.

[Greyhound]

10. When in the last 40 years has it got better?

[virgogal]

14. Where in earth were you for the last 40 years? I found them to be

pretty damned good.

[Hannah Bell]

22. i loved the stagnating income for the bottom 80%.

[LiberalLoner]

27. LOL exactly. Now two people have to work full-time to afford what one person working used to get.

[Greyhound]

28. I notice you didn't answer the question.

Wages and benefits have steadily declined as have our standards in everything from education, living, infant morality, incarceration, diminished civil rights, and on, and on, and on.

So what are we all missing? Electronic gadgets?

[virgogal]

31. What question?

[Greyhound]

32. When in the last 40 years has it got better?

[virgogal]

33. I was never posed that question and I said that I had found them to

be pretty good. I did find them good and don't have to defend a personal opinion.

I have 6 kids in their forties that would probably agree with me.

[Greyhound]

41. That was the question that you responded to.

Nobody said it was hell-on-earth, but that things have steadily declined for at least the last 40 years.

Edit; Here's the link to your initial response; http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8081498&mesg_id=8081739

[johnaries]

45. "Steadily declined"? No. They greatly improved under Clinton.

They have declined under Bush. But we have a Democratic President again.

[Greyhound]

46. The best Clinton managed, and this is during a bona fide economic revolution,

was a short-term leveling of the overall decline, thanks entirely to his sell-outs of working people.

Millions (23 IIRC) of jobs were created, but they never came close to totaling the losses incurred during the preceding administrations and he gave the Golden Goose away before the deficit could be made up. (Throwing millions of poor, single mothers to the tender mercies of minimum wage slavery probably didn't help those living standard numbers, ya know? Infant mortality and child hunger are a couple of the biggies that those liberal types look at)

[mwb970]

48. Huh? The Clinton boom in the 90s wasn't that bad. /nt

[Greyhound]

55. #46

:kick:

[MiniMe]

4. The Elites?

Who are you calling "The Elites"?
:popcorn:

[lxlxlxl]

5. [fail] only 2004? where have you been...plus your not entitled to be rich

there is all sorts of utter fatalism and entitlement in this post.

first, the US inherited a unipolar hegemonic world after the rest of the industrialized world bombed and invaded the shit out of each other. america was the only industrial power left untouched. that superiority could not have lasted.

your focus on BRIC only ignores Western Europe and Japan. why is that? what limited viewpoint of economics do you have?

[bluestateguy]

6. Well I'm glad people like you weren't at Yorktown and Gettysburg

This nation has no place for defeatists and the loser mentality.

[kestrel91316]

7. I own my own business. A regular paycheck sure would be nice right now.

My guess is, you have never actually run a REAL business (as opposed to selling Amway or whatever).

[Greyhound]

30. You're right about that one.

There's a very good reason so few have owned their own businesses.

[Greyhound]

8. Exodus with all we had and all we can borrow.

Look at the Fortune 500, how many of them are merely domestic paper shells, outsourcing their production, assets, R&D, Assembly, etc.?

Why would you do that? (Hint; Remember the GM bailout? One of the quickly quashed tidbits that came out was how their SA, European, and Chinese divisions were quite profitable and expanding. Now look into the details of that bailout.)

[aquart]

20. Then move to Brazil. You'll enjoy it.

[Greyhound]

24. Meaning what? Not that it's even possible, Brazil wants a minimum deposit

of $50,000 to even consider letting us in, I've inquired.

[ProfessorGAC]

47. That's Not True

Our people ex-pat to those sites, and there is no fee. If you are coming to Brazil WITH a job in place, there is no capital requirement.
GAC

[Greyhound]

54. Take it up with the Brazilian Embassy. n/t

:kick:

[ProfessorGAC]

56. You Should

You're the one who wants to go, and you don't know what you're talking about. So, if you've been chased away, that's on you.

Line up a full time job, and you don't need those assets.

Just admit you're wrong and stand down. Getting chippy doesn't make you any closer to correct.
GAC

[Greyhound]

57. I did. They say otherwise and since they were the ones that get to decide... n/t

[LiberalLoner]

9. It's not news anyone wants to hear, but it's correct. The reason we won't recover is

due more to Peak Oil than anything else. Anytime the economy worldwide starts to improve, the price of oil will shoot up due to increased demand and ever-decreasing supply, which will cause a recession or even a depression. Then demand for oil will subside, bringing the price back down, and we go through another cycle.

James Kunstler has done some good books and blogs about this that I think are well worth reading. I'm sure most of you here already know about peak oil and all the implications of that. Not being a pessimist, but rather a realist.

[Speck Tater]

15. Not only that, but peak fresh water and peak phosphorus will result in peak agriculture.

Then there's peak tantalum which will push the price of high-tech electronics higher and higher.

There are an awful lot of resources that are peaking out right now, and the net result of peak everything will inevitably be peak civilization. It's pretty much all down hill from here.

[LiberalLoner]

26. Sometimes I think the problem is too many people rather than too few resources. n/t

[Odin2005]

11. "Recovery" only for the rich.

[Little Star]

35. +1,0000000000

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Well that's it. No more Brazil nuts for me.

Only Americanuts from now on.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. Good to hear that.

Seeing as how Americanuts are so plentiful and wide spread.

[Kievan Rus]

21. There's no need to get nuts from Brazil...we've got more than enough here

[kelly1mm]

16. I agree. I call this a 'resetting' not a 'recession'. This is the new normal. nt

[leftstreet]

17. Excellent term to use

'resetting'

:thumbsup:

[MilesColtrane]

18. "I have been hearing about Recovery since 2004."

Fascinating considering the current recession didn't start until the second quarter of 2008 in your country.

Will you pick some lottery numbers for me?

[northernlights]

23. some of us never recovered from the prior recession

the one post high-tech bubble and post 9/11....

[MilesColtrane]

37. I'm not exactly swimming in economic security either.

But, I'm not ready to spout hyperbolic gloom and doom because national statistical economic indicators haven't instantly translated to a windfall in my checking account.

[northernlights]

42. the national statistical economic indicators are not an indicator of recovery

except of the stock market for the elite.

Without real jobs growth, there is no recovery. And companies aren't hiring much, if at all. Like the banks, they're sitting on their money waiting to starve us out.

Nobody said anything here about a windfall in the checking account. Just a job that pays enough to live on. There is a difference between "not feeling economic security" and watching your life spiral down the toilet with no way out. Many, many people's lives have already been flushed. Many of us who prepared and prepared and prepared, who worked and sacrificed and saved for decades have run out of time anyway, and are going down next. Without a serious, positive uptick soon, we're done.

I was nearly done last summer, when I found myself walking up and down the streets of the local tourist village looking for a place to sell some old costume jewelry to put food on the table that week. My last employer stiffed me on my last paycheck. My next job wasn't due to start for another week. The state university sat on our student loans for nearly a month after the semester started, collecting interest...and then had the effing balls to try to charge us a late fee because it was late paying itself. Then it cut off our student loans to funnel to other hapless victims, right when we need them the most to get through clinical training -- 5 months full time work plus homework and exams, all with no pay.

Can't earn enough to pay off the student loans without finishing the program. Can't finish the program without student loans, which have been cut off. Somehow, the education stimulus and health care reform passed us all right by. Along with the housing stimulus -- last year's realtor pursued the listing aggressively...and then sat on it deliberately to keep my property off the market. The state offers a property tax rebate for low income, but denied me because I couldn't prove I had zero income. Stopped short of calling me a liar.

This year, we're in serious danger of starving at home. Just sayin...

[aquart]

19. Wow. A Master Plan to destroy us.

Well, clearly it's time to just give up and jump.

I'm sorry you were raised to expect instant gratification. That's possible in a dictatorship but not a democracy. You might want to think hard about what it is you really want.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bvar22]

29. Jobless Recovery?

Mission Accomplished!

[HughMoran]

40. .

[hunter]

34. Debt and Peak Oil.

The only way out is to quit debt and to quit oil.

Otherwise, no recovery, we'll continue our plunge into the abyss.

[sufrommich]

36. Spoken like a true spoiled American who thinks 10%

unemployment is the end of the frickin' world.

[Odin2005]

39. The real unemployment rate (U6) is almost 20%

[Greyhound]

43. Spoken like the last person MI to have a job. n/t

:kick:

[datasuspect]

38. the only way we can compete is to achieve wage parity with india, china, and the third world

this is a premeditated, rational plan to create a permanent underclass even larger than the current one.

[johnaries]

44. I'd say your handle says it all.

:tinfoilhat:

[Chorophyll]

49. I just want to know

who "The Elites" are.

[Ikonoklast]

53. Carnegie, Frick, Morgan, Rockefeller, Hanna....

Oh, wait.

There have always been oligarchs in this country, it's just that the names change.


How soon our own history is either forgotten or ignored; the current situation is nothing new.

[sendero]

50. Things will get better..

.... than they are right now, but "recovery" as in "prosperous economy for most Americans like we once had", not a chance.

The forces arrayed against the average working man and woman in this country are vast. And those who could do anything real about it are bought and sold by those forces.

Our golden years are behind us.

[quaker bill]

51. There is always a recovery

and this one has already started. The question is a recovery to what state? Things will clearly be different. Given the number of businesses I have seen folding around me, owning one is apparently no panacea.

I own a business on the side that is making money. I can sustain it because I have a day job, I run the business out of my house (no rent), and I provide all the labor (minimal costs). The business is run strictly on a cash basis (no credit) and so far, every nickel I have made has been reinvested in inventory, tools and equipment. I am making my last major equipment purchase over the next two weeks to expand the range of production, so from this point forward, earnings should begin to stack up. With luck, hard work, and smart decisions, I should be able rake in a fair profit to boost retirement savings now, and continue the business to supplement retirement income.

This is not easy money, it means putting my 40 in and then another 10 to 20 a week. I have been at this for 3 years and have only paid off inventory and equipment to show for it. I haven't taken a single dime out of the business and only now am turning the corner where I might be able to pull some profits out during the second half of this year. Owning a business is not a bad option, if you can do it and have the resources to be patient while it develops toward profitability. Most businesses fail during the first three years because people do not have the resources to wait it out.

[Odin2005]

52. We have increased the choclate rations!