4 ms·

Articles like this have me nodding 'yes, yes, yup, sure, yes' while I'm reading them. But by now it's just too easy to write them. What I'd like in such articl

by mpk 17y ago

Articles like this have me nodding 'yes, yes, yup, sure, yes' while I'm reading them. But by now it's just too easy to write them. What I'd like in such articles is some root-cause analysis and at least a few pointers on how to proceed.

stuffthatmatter 17y ago
Agreed, but I bet the masses still believes we're in recovery, because that's what the news media have them believe. Look at all the 'recovery' headlines on the major financial news portals and you'll see. Geithner Sees Evidence of a Financial Recovery http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/economy/17geithner.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/economy/17geithne... Summers Says U.S. ‘Close to a Level Path’ to Recovery http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=antmIqObw4yY http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=antm... Fed's Hoenig says U.S. recovery to be very slow http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE56D6CK20090714 http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE56D6CK20090714
- BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
  I consume financial and economic news like it's going out of style. The majority of the press is still reluctant to claim we are now in recovery. I'm convinced that the only person the media will believe about being in a recovery is Roubini, and he didn't get his moniker for nothing.
- marcusbooster 17y ago
  I don't think anyone is claiming recovery until the jobs start coming back, which they haven't.
iigs 17y ago
Not to be too dismissive of the causes of the problem, but I think when you get to problems of this size and complexity there's rarely "a" root cause -- you're either stuck with one phrase low intellectual effort summaries ("greed", "stupid people") or endless finger-pointing and circular reasoning (the crap the cable news channels and talk radio like to fill hour upon hour with). I'm proceeding by living my life. I took a loss on my house when I sold it, not primarily because of economic concern, but largely because it was time to move elsewhere (having kids etc). I have a manageable debt, mitigation strategies if that debt becomes undesirable, am not against taking on more if it becomes more desirable. My intent is to diversify into markets that may go contrary to the general economy (particularly petroleum). I don't think anybody knows what to do. The events of the time remind me of yesteryear's disasters -- the pundits don't have anything to say, but the tape is rolling so they're talking.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  I think that basically was the problem - there were so many things that could go wrong that eventually a bunch of them did, and then enough things went wrong at once that the economy couldn't hold up any more. If you remember back to 2006, there were lots of things wrong with the economy that everybody loved to point out. A housing bubble that was about to pop. A consumer debt bubble and usurious credit card rates. A Web 2.0 Startup bubble with a bunch of dumb ideas. Anemic wage & job growth since the last recession. A derivatives time-bomb. Massive government deficit spending to finance the war on Iraq. High oil prices, partially caused by demand from China and India and partially because of speculation. A large current account deficit, and fears of dollar overvaluation. A student loan bubble where many students take out expensive loans for college and then can't find jobs afterwards. The majority of these doomsaying prophecies turned out to wrong - by my count, the housing bubble, high oil prices, and the derivatives time bomb were right, and everything else either hasn't happened yet (credit cards, student loans, dollar devaluation) or turned out to be quite minor (Web2.0 popping). But just those three were enough to put a serious dent in the economy. The 1930s were similar: people like to blame it on the Fed constricting the money supply, but it was really that, plus the gold standard, plus Smoot-Hawley, plus the Dust Bowl, plus the bursting of the stock market bubble, plus the bursting of the Florida real estate bubble. Any one of those might've been shrugged off, but all of them together was cataclysmic.
  - messel 17y ago
    We are experiencing a chain of events, all intertwined in the most fundamental way. The way of life we have assumed was sustainable is in fact not so. We can't ignore production. We have to consider balancing incoming and outgoing value. I don't believe we have seen the bottom of the market, but I'm hopeful that the American economy that emerges from our original mess will be much more rational & sustainable. We must collectively recognize the need for long term economic vision or else repeatedly suffer the fickle repercussions of short sighted greed, and delusion. Our nation, all of its industries, all of our people don't exist in a vacuum. Each of our actions and individual productivity in aggregate results in shifts in our economic strength and resiliency.
  - 17y ago

by mpk 17y ago

stuffthatmatter 17y ago

Agreed, but I bet the masses still believes we're in recovery, because that's what the news media have them believe. Look at all the 'recovery' headlines on the major financial news portals and you'll see. Geithner Sees Evidence of a Financial Recovery http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/economy/17geithner.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/business/economy/17geithne... Summers Says U.S. ‘Close to a Level Path’ to Recovery http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=antmIqObw4yY http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=antm... Fed's Hoenig says U.S. recovery to be very slow http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE56D6CK20090714 http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE56D6CK20090714

BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
I consume financial and economic news like it's going out of style. The majority of the press is still reluctant to claim we are now in recovery. I'm convinced that the only person the media will believe about being in a recovery is Roubini, and he didn't get his moniker for nothing.
marcusbooster 17y ago
I don't think anyone is claiming recovery until the jobs start coming back, which they haven't.

iigs 17y ago

Not to be too dismissive of the causes of the problem, but I think when you get to problems of this size and complexity there's rarely "a" root cause -- you're either stuck with one phrase low intellectual effort summaries ("greed", "stupid people") or endless finger-pointing and circular reasoning (the crap the cable news channels and talk radio like to fill hour upon hour with). I'm proceeding by living my life. I took a loss on my house when I sold it, not primarily because of economic concern, but largely because it was time to move elsewhere (having kids etc). I have a manageable debt, mitigation strategies if that debt becomes undesirable, am not against taking on more if it becomes more desirable. My intent is to diversify into markets that may go contrary to the general economy (particularly petroleum). I don't think anybody knows what to do. The events of the time remind me of yesteryear's disasters -- the pundits don't have anything to say, but the tape is rolling so they're talking.

nostrademons 17y ago
I think that basically was the problem - there were so many things that could go wrong that eventually a bunch of them did, and then enough things went wrong at once that the economy couldn't hold up any more. If you remember back to 2006, there were lots of things wrong with the economy that everybody loved to point out. A housing bubble that was about to pop. A consumer debt bubble and usurious credit card rates. A Web 2.0 Startup bubble with a bunch of dumb ideas. Anemic wage & job growth since the last recession. A derivatives time-bomb. Massive government deficit spending to finance the war on Iraq. High oil prices, partially caused by demand from China and India and partially because of speculation. A large current account deficit, and fears of dollar overvaluation. A student loan bubble where many students take out expensive loans for college and then can't find jobs afterwards. The majority of these doomsaying prophecies turned out to wrong - by my count, the housing bubble, high oil prices, and the derivatives time bomb were right, and everything else either hasn't happened yet (credit cards, student loans, dollar devaluation) or turned out to be quite minor (Web2.0 popping). But just those three were enough to put a serious dent in the economy. The 1930s were similar: people like to blame it on the Fed constricting the money supply, but it was really that, plus the gold standard, plus Smoot-Hawley, plus the Dust Bowl, plus the bursting of the stock market bubble, plus the bursting of the Florida real estate bubble. Any one of those might've been shrugged off, but all of them together was cataclysmic.
- messel 17y ago
  We are experiencing a chain of events, all intertwined in the most fundamental way. The way of life we have assumed was sustainable is in fact not so. We can't ignore production. We have to consider balancing incoming and outgoing value. I don't believe we have seen the bottom of the market, but I'm hopeful that the American economy that emerges from our original mess will be much more rational & sustainable. We must collectively recognize the need for long term economic vision or else repeatedly suffer the fickle repercussions of short sighted greed, and delusion. Our nation, all of its industries, all of our people don't exist in a vacuum. Each of our actions and individual productivity in aggregate results in shifts in our economic strength and resiliency.
- 17y ago