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End of the financial crisis?

When would the financial crisis end?

  • In a few years

    Votes: 8 24.2%
  • 21 December, 2012

    Votes: 5 15.2%
  • Up to 5 years

    Votes: 4 12.1%
  • Up to 10 years

    Votes: 7 21.2%
  • When we blow ourselves to kingdom come

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • Not in our lifetime

    Votes: 4 12.1%
  • Somewhere over the rainbow

    Votes: 4 12.1%

  • Total voters
    33

Canell

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Now, we entered the 5-th year of the financial crisis, if not more. Imho, no light in tunnel so far.

So, how long would it take?
 
Now, we entered the 5-th year of the financial crisis, if not more. Imho, no light in tunnel so far.

So, how long would it take?

Crashes end when you find bottom and then start to rebuild. So far the things that have not hit (or been allowed to hit) bottom yet are:

1. The US Housing Market
2. The US Auto Industry
3. Southern Europe
4. China


I hope you don't intend on retiring any time soon.
 
So far the things that have not hit (or been allowed to hit) bottom yet are:

1. The US Housing Market

Wait, didn't Mr. Bernanke promised to prop up the housing market with $40 billion monthly? :roll:
 
IMO progress will improve but be slow for three or four more years and then return to better times for an extended period. I think we will learn from what we have suffered and must still for quite a time.
 
We're looking at a (real) mild recovery, maybe better, later.

Home pricing are starting to rise again, the employment rate is slowly going up, stock market is improving.
Things are getting better, it just takes time.
 
Soon Europe is going to go into a recession and growth in the US will slowdown. My bet is that in 2014 Europe will return to slow growth and US will start to grow faster. By then Europe should have gotten their deficit down, America hasn't but they don't really need to.

Then we will experience another crisis in 2018-2020 which will involve Japan. Japan's debt is going out of control, and will be forced to cut the deficit and default on their own citizens soon. This will be disastrous for Japan, but I am not certain how this will affect the rest of the world. I think it will increase the bond yields in America, which will force US to cut the budget. Also China will get affected as Japan and the US are close trading partners. This in turn will affect Europe who never really solved their problems, they just muddled through and pooled debt.
 
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Wait, didn't Mr. Bernanke promised to prop up the housing market with $40 billion monthly? :roll:

hence the housing market will limp along for years, never really recovering.

which is fine with me, i intend to buy a house here in about 3 years. it just sort of sucks for the other 300 million Americans.
 
hence the housing market will limp along for years, never really recovering.

which is fine with me, i intend to buy a house here in about 3 years. it just sort of sucks for the other 300 million Americans.

You should come and see the real estate prices in Europe, it will knock your socks off. :( Debt is just starting to go wild - the GIPSI countries, the euro is wobling, half of Spain's youth is unemployed...

Hm, I can see a pattern here:

financial crisis in America (1929) -> several million unemployed and unhappy in Germany -> Comrade Hitler comes to power -> WW2

financial crisis in America (2008) -> hoards of unemployed in Europe -> ..............................

History repeating itself, I presume?
 
I understand that, but at the moment I'm not worried.
Maybe later, either way though, I have no control over it.

If it happens, hopefully I'll be prepared.
I would be concerned. High debt is a problem. You can inflate yourself out of it, but then the you need high inflation which is very damaging to an economy since it causes capital flight, and makes investors even less interested in buying american treasuries.

Remember that Greece had a debt level of about 120% before the crisis if I remember correctly. US is already at 100%.
 
You should come and see the real estate prices in Europe, it will knock your socks off. :( Debt is just starting to go wild - the GIPSI countries, the euro is wobling, half of Spain's youth is unemployed...

Hm, I can see a pattern here:

financial crisis in America (1929) -> several million unemployed and unhappy in Germany -> Comrade Hitler comes to power -> WW2

financial crisis in America (2008) -> hoards of unemployed in Europe -> ..............................

History repeating itself, I presume?

Nah. That can only happen if the Germans become convinced that they are being drained by a Europe that is out to get them and.....


...oh ****.
 
The debt spiral is permanent until collapse. Many factors prevent collapse, including the fact that holders of our Treasury bonds must protect their own interests by preventing that collapse. That would be China, India, and Japan because they hold about $4 trillion of our debt. When the Fed has to buy the bonds, it means we have saturated the overseas market and they don't want anymore of our debt. Eventually, it would seem that the Fed would file bankruptcy because of the excess of debt and lack of true liquidity. Now, that must be OK because the FED is the Federal Reserve CORPORATION and a corporation has stockholders and they will just lose the value of their stocks and the US Treasury will issue US National notes and badmouth that no-good Federal Reserve Corporation as bad money managers. Of course, it could cause a war, but that's good for business and "what's good for business is good for America." I don't know who originally made that statement.
 
Economies have cycles and we will eventually hit bottom and start back up but obama has hobbled us with a staggering debt that is going to make the recovery slow and may just stifle it all together. It's like when you see people with a huge credit card debt trying to get their lives together, it takes a very long time to crawl out of that hole.
 
I would be concerned. High debt is a problem. You can inflate yourself out of it, but then the you need high inflation which is very damaging to an economy since it causes capital flight, and makes investors even less interested in buying american treasuries.

Remember that Greece had a debt level of about 120% before the crisis if I remember correctly. US is already at 100%.

Ya but Greece and the U.S. are two very different places.
 
I don't see an end to the economic problem in America until American incomes drop and overseas incomes rise to such levels as our labor costs are competitive in the global job market. Twenty years years ago Ross Perot predicted we would be in this mess Barack Obama caused. Giant Sucking Sound - Ross Perot 1992 Presidential Debate.flv - YouTube

Possible short cuts that I doubt will ever take place:

- Improve of educational outcomes so that America's young people will be better qualified to hold the higher paying jobs in scientific and technology innovations of the 21st century.

- Revamp Social Security so that average Americans will own significant indexed stock portfolios en masse placing all average Americans in the same situation as the world's wealthy.

- Converting ownership of oil and natural gas on federally owned land to the American people. If an energy companies want it, they cuts license checks to each American instead of the federal government. I think this concept is already done to some degree in Alaska.

- Significantly more people pursuing careers as business owners rather than employees.
 
Not in our lifetime, at least from todays point of view. This could change to up to 10 years if rid ourselves of Obama and Dem majority in the Senate come November.

We are looking at hard times no matter which way we go. No administration is going to completely turn things around in only one term. However, by the end of that first term, we should at least see marked improvements in some areas. We do not see that today. What we do see is a government that is becoming more and more hostile towards business with the likely affect of many companies not only outsourcing, but actually moving totally out of the US over the next four years if we keep going with Obama. We have already seen him bypass Congress with illegal executive orders to get what he wants and he has not been held accountable for it. Unless the electorate holds him accountable in November, he will have no restrictions of using the same method more and more with a congress that will not have a strong enough presence to hold him accountable. Without the Republicans achieving a 2/3 Majority in the Senate, which I do not think is possible, he will not face any accountability for his actions.

The upholding of Obama-care has set the constitutionality for the government to restrict profits and allows the government to dictate spending of corporations. Dodd-Frank gives the government the tools to seize and tear apart any company, supposedly based upon threat to the economy, but with no oversight and no appeals process, it will be way to easy for some one like Obama, who has already shown a tendency to try to seize private corporations, free reign to abuse it.

In the United States, we currently have two states with populations much larger than some countries, one who is right leaning, Texas, and one that has been using a large part of Obamas economic plans for years California (if you don't like California as an example, try New York, Illinois or any other Left state with population over 10 million.). Look at the current status of both states currently. Which result do you want for America? Take a look at their longterm performance and stability also.

Economically, we can start down the road of Texas, elect republicans or we can continue down the road of California, Obama and the Dems. It is our choice come November, I would recommend that everyone that plans to vote make that economic comparison.
 
Things are getting better. I use better in the loosest way possible.

There are still many things to be fixed.
 
If you think about this as a short- of medium-term crisis you are thinking about it all wrong. This is the decline and fall of the American Empire.
 
I believe the scapegoat you are looking for is NAFTA.

I was speaking not so much of NAFTA but the general job killer of businesses exporting any job possible from manufacturing to customer service overseas including the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, the Pacific Rim and Asia.
 
Asking whether we have recovered from the financial crisis, or are recovering, or when we will recover, is kind of an odd question because of the artificial mechanisms by which we're creating the appearance of recovery.

Basically, the people have woken up and realized they can't just borrow their way to prosperity (like they tried with housing), can't necessarily strike it rich in the stock market (because they watched half their portfolios disappear recently), and feel an increased sense of need to save again finally (even though for the most part we still suck at this).

Well, refusing to spend maniacally and wanting to save, while prudent and logical, is toxic for our debt-dependent manic economic system. We need IMMEDIATE growth, and we need people to be taking on huge amounts of debt, in order to get the results we're used to and which our financial system wants to see. There's no gas left in the tank, but we are required to spend in fifth gear, red-lining it, in order to have the sort of robust economy we think is "normal."

Since the public generally and the private sector have learned a lesson and are unwilling to keep spending like idiots and taking huge risks, the government and Federal Reserve have stepped in and filled that role for us. If we refuse to spend like retards, they will do it for us, with or without our consent.
 
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