Went To A Finance Conference - We Are Facing A Painful Recession - Obama NeedsTo Win

[Median Democrat]

I know we don't need experts to tell us that we are facing very difficult economic times. However, if you think things are bad, it is actually somewhat scary to see the financing experts talk about the credit crisis. There were comments like "this is our generation's 1929," and "we are not sure whether these principles apply going forward." The mood was consistently downbeat with steady gallows humor throughout the entire conference.

The Great Depression did not begin immediately with the stock market crash in 1929. Rather, the worst began to hit in the early 1930s with Hoover saying that good times were around the corner, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary praising the free markets ability to sort things out.

I am now very concerned about the years ahead. I was ambivalent about the bailout, but as we here stories about how auto sales plunged in September as buyers and dealers had difficulty getting credit, I think the reality of the current crisis is beginning to hit home.

Obama's election is not going to cause us to avoid a recession. However, it will be a step in the right direction to change the policies that lead to this crisis. Insurance companies and large banks are going out of business at an alarming rate. Worse, the repercussions have not yet really hit, yet. What happens when the lack of auto sales hits the auto makers, and they start laying off workers? What happens to the construction industry, as credit begins to dry up? What happens to retirees who were relying on investments in their IRAs and 401(k)'s? What happens to folks who rely on pensions tied to companies that are facing bankruptcy?

McCain is proposing to cut and freeze spending at a time when the Federal government may need to spend on infrastructure as Obama has promised, because it will take a while for private sector financing to get back on track.

I want Obama to win, but sadly I doubt we will see an immediate turn around. At least, we will start turning in the right direction.

[MichiganVote]

1. Welcome to the United States of Michigan..we tried to tell you all.

[melody]

2. At least we'll have a good Democrat and compassionate person in office

We're facing a real jump in unemployment rates and major problems throughout the economy.

[iceman66]

3. We won't know how bad things REALLY are until Obama is sworn in

and his people get a look at the books.

Prepare to be shocked!

[Median Democrat]

5. Its One Thing To Watch Bush Do His Doom and Gloom Routine

Its another thing like talking to the real folks who do this for a living, and each of them saying without exception that we are in a brand new environment, and they are not sure how it is all going to turn out. The latest example is California. It approved bond measures to help it narrowly close a gap in its budget. Well, guess what?

It can't sell any bonds in the current market. Thus, California is going to the Federal Government so it can get a $7 billion loan so that it can cover payroll.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3130508/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-California-needs-7-billion-loan-to-fend-off-credit-crisis.html

/snip

In a letter sent on Thursday to Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, Mr Schwarzenegger, California's governor, made clear that his state was running out of money because its usual borrowing channels had suddenly closed.

He made clear there would be grave consequences for the ability of American states to keep providing basic services if the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan is not passed by the US House of Representatives.

That even America's richest and most populous state should face such severe financial problems illustrates the extent to which credit markets have seized up in the two weeks since the failure of the investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The US government has not been called on to make such a large emergency loan since New York City borrowed $2.3 billion – equivalent to $9.4 billion today – to stave off bankruptcy in 1975.

/snip

There is a reason why 50 House members flipped their votes even though this is not a popular measure.

[Mme. Defarge]

4. What if people lose their credit card limits

and can't buy food or pay the electric bill?

[RoyGBiv]

6. I want to highlight this line ...

"The Great Depression did not begin immediately with the stock market crash in 1929. Rather, the worst began to hit in the early 1930s with Hoover saying that good times were around the corner, and the U.S. Treasury Secretary praising the free markets ability to sort things out."

Would you please repeat that about 3000 more times in the next couple weeks? It probably wouldn't sink in with certain people, but if it is repeated often enough, they might actually work up the curiosity to go out and either listen to someone who has knowledge of these things or read about it themselves.

The position the majority seem to have taken in the past couple weeks has, without them seeming to realize it, been strictly in accord with Hoover's policy -- let the free market sort it out. Further, many seem not to understand that one day (or one week or two) on the market does not a depression or a recovery make. Hoover, reluctantly, set up some programs to attempt to work around the crisis, but they were underfunded, far too strict and beholden to ideological rigidness, and when things seemed on the surface to have stabilized, he for all intents and purposes stopped doing anything. The point of brief stabilization is when the real action should have taken place, the kind of action FDR was not really able to get going until 1935 or so.

And that is not an unqualified endorsement of "the bailout." It is an endorsement of an attempt to do something that has the chance of allowing Obama and a new Congress to take their seats and actually start to sort out this mess with positive, progressive legislation.

[Median Democrat]

7. Today's GOP Idealogues Sound Like Andrew Mellon

Who is he? He was Hoover's Treasury secretary who said: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. . . . It will purge the rottenness out of the system." Well, we know how that all turned out, as the nation plunged into the Great Depression.

[RoyGBiv]

9. Yes, I know who he is ...

And you're correct.

[Window]

8. Everyone should K/R and bookmark this post/thread. Thank you for sharing. n/t

:kick:

[Median Democrat]

11. My Pleasure - We Must Keep Focus On The Economy And Ignore Usual Distractions

The biggest, of course, is Sarah Palin. She is irrelevant. The right wingers will also try to draw us into a sideshows about various divisive issues, the lipstick on a pig issues, which are also irrelevant to most Americans who are more worried about keeping their homes and jobs, than whether the media is being mean to Palin.

[PATRICK]

10. At a meeting

with our local candidate who has been well informed and briefed on all these issues that will smack him on the head can he overcome local troll Randy Kuhl(R-NY-29) he gave us the whole sweep of consequences. Many cars for example will NEVER be sold for several critical reasons relating very well to being energy consuming Edsels. Dead end for the market. Scrap iron value mostly. Hybrids are a painfully undeveloped and inadequate crawl to the nouveau foreign electric cars not even trickling through from the high demand overseas.

Like Kucinich, he saw an opportunity here to rebuild the future by accepting the crisis as a surrender by insurance and big business that could even let health care be summarily reformed. Whatever that glimmer of hope, the next years will be very bad and the organic connections if not understood by the masses will be felt. Maybe it will dawn on them that the rugged individualist myth abdicated to corporations is a good times lie and that if the social spider web trap of pyramid profiteering is real maybe the human network of food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, civil government and plain old bodily(or planetary) survival might be legitimate again in its own right.