The Economic recover: anyone willing to make a prediction?

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Dutchdivco

I saw a news show, last week. They were trying to convey the world wide nature of the current financial crises, in 5 min. or less. So, they jumped quickly from reporter to reporter, in Capitals around the world;New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow, etc. All of them had the same story, doom and gloom......Except ! You'll never guess.....BAGDAG!! Seems no one buys a house on credit, in Iraq. (Would you extend credit to someone who might get blown up tomorrow? My speculation, not the reporters.) When someone wants to buy a house, or other large ticket item, they meet at the buyers bank, and transfer the funds there. Reporter also said the Iraq stock exchange had increased in value, 30% over the last 3 mos. (Going from memory here).Seems to me an addiction to credit is the problem, (especially 'easy credit') and NO ONE wants to go thru 'Cold Turkey", Credit is a way of 'creating' additional dollars. Might call them 'future' dollars.Artificially, if I can use that word, stimulates economic activity. Kind of like, "Gee, when I take these little pills, I am SOOO much more productive."If I take MORE pills, I'll be even MORE productive!!" Soon, you are running around, (Speeding your A** off!) and not really producing ANYTHING! But, your doing it very fast. The analogy breaks down, as all do. My point is that Gov'ts at all levels, businesses and individuals got addicted to credit.Stimulas packages are attempts to get credit moving again are like the drug addict who's supply dried up, scrambling to find a new supplier, instead of kicking the habit.For me, "Niether a borrower nor a lender be". is my motto, and while I may at some point, I've looked hard, and haven't found any way, yet, in which the economic crises has effected me or mine. Jim

a good analogy. I think we ARE getting addicted to borrowing.

[charles brough]

There are a lot of posts by everyone bickering over economic matters when the objective in this thread was to picture the economic future and and then take a look at it in a year or so and see how we came out. We have all sorts of estimates of when the recovery will come. I can hardly wait to see who comes the closest!

When I look at mine, will I react this way . .. or this way ?

[Dutchdivco]

" I think we ARE getting addicted to borrowing." What do you mean, "getting".I think my point was that we have gotten, past tense, addicted to credit.We have used credit to artifically stimulate the economy, just as amphtamines artificially stimulate people.
"the objective in this thread was to picture the economic future and and then take a look at it in a year or so and see how we came out." I've made my prediction, and I'll stand by it.
I am not a doom and gloom, however. The vast majority who voted in the last election, regardless of who they voted for, wanted "Change". But real change can only come from within us, from the bottom; Not from leadership at the top. Or, to put it another way, we cannot be lead where we are unwilling to go.And real change only occurs when the pain of the status quo overcomes the fear of the unknown. So far our leaders, around the world, are attempting more stimulation, which is like the Captain of the Titanic, when told he had struck an iceberg ordering "full speed ahead!" We're still hoping, totally unreasonably, that we can somehow put the toothpaste back in the tube. That some combination of actions, by our Gov'ts will "make this not be happening, or at least, make things back the way they were."There simply is no way we can continue with our addiction, and no way to avoid cold turkey withdrawals.(IMHO).As for what to do, that is beyond the scope of this thread. Jim

[charles brough]

I am putting this in my "bookmarks" to refer to later when we can look back and see what we said. Since we disagree, it will be interesting to see what happens and who said it would.

[wufwugy]

I knew nothing about economics before September, but since then it has been my favorite subject.

My prediction is not an exact one because I don't have an exact enough idea (neither does anybody else), but my somewhat educated guess presented informally and imprecisely is that there is a decent chance that winter of 09 we will see more jobs created than jobs lost, that the the longer we go past 09 the higher the likelyhood of the recession turning, that Obama will be our FDR and handsomely win again in 2012, and many of us will have forgotten this moderate recession in a few years time.