NYT, pg1: No Quick Fix to Economic Downturn

[DeepModem Mom]

News Analysis
No Quick Fix to Economic Downturn
By PETER S. GOODMAN and FLOYD NORRIS
Published: January 13, 2008

As leaders in Washington turn their attention to efforts to avert a looming downturn, many economists suggest that it may already be too late to change the course of the economy over the first half of the year, if not longer.

With a wave of negative signs gathering force, economists, policy makers and investors are debating just how much the economy could be damaged in 2008. Huge and complex, the American economy has in recent years been aided by a global web of finance so elaborate that no one seems capable of fully comprehending it. That makes it all but impossible to predict how much the economy can be expected to fall before it stabilizes.

The answer could be a defining factor in the outcome of the fiercely contested presidential election. Not long ago, the race centered on the war in Iraq. But now, as candidates fan out across the country, visiting places as varied as the factory towns of Michigan and streets lined with unsold condominiums in Las Vegas, voters are increasingly demanding that they focus on the best way to keep the economy from slipping off the tracks.

The measures now being debated in Washington and on the campaign trail — tax rebates, added help for the unemployed and those facing sharply higher heating bills and, most immediately, a move by the Federal Reserve to further cut interest rates — could certainly moderate the severity of a downturn. Democrats and the Bush administration are considering a package of such measures that could reach $100 billion. But the forces menacing the economy, like the unraveling of the real estate market and high oil prices, are too entrenched to be swiftly dispatched by government largess or cheaper credit, some economists say....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13econ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[Warpy]

1. There's a quick fix to the economic downturn

Unfortunately it will never occur to any conservative in either party.

[Aviation Pro]

2. I'm no economist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...

...let's see:

1. Tax cuts that primarily favor the wealthy
2. A disastrous money pit of a war
3. A shell game of a housing industry fueled by the sub-prime mortgage scam
4. An insane President who couldn't grasp economics if it was a soft fly ball headed to his pointy, stupid head

Did I get that about right? Tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Average American, stop voting for fucking morons and you'll stop voting against your own self-interests.

[still_one]

3. Everything you bring up, absolutely make it worse, but the real problem

is because of deregulation

Between the republicans and the Democrats quite a lot of the safe-guards that were put in place after the depression, have either been repealed, or watered down so they are ineffective

[ladjf]

4. I like your post. You were brief, leaving out lots of other details,

but including the main points that anyone could understand. Yet, nothing is being done to improve the situation. Why is that?

[Mojorabbit]

5. If it weren't for the supreme court

I'd be tempted to let the republicans clean up the mess they made.