I don't see this as backlash by Americans against free markets in general. This is more about the need for better oversites being applied to the mortgage lending industry and we shouldn't go beyond that with this. As for high oil prices stop buying so many SUV's.
You are in a recession. That means that free markets are experiencing a backlash. I think Americans have every right to take whatever attitude they wish to that phenomenon.
"Free market" my foot. How can you say we have a free market when that market is manipulated by a private banking cartel that prints money out of nothing while creating artificially low interest rates, making the paper fiat currency we call the dollar more and more worthless with each passing day?
No, Allison, he's just repeating what Maria Bartiromo told him on CNBC. Wanna know something else? George Bush wants to save Iranian children by bombing their country back into the stone age. It's true. I also deficate bricks of gold... but don't tell anyone.
Yeah, I mean she looks pretty nice, therefore I doubt she would be feeding her viewers a bunch of scripted nonsense telling us that everything is OK and that we should just relax because Bernanke has everything under control. Same with the Fox News babes. They would never try to sell me propaganda. They smile at all the right times and they just seem so down to earth. What they're telling me MUST be true. So what I have learned is that the economy is doing great and we might have to go into Iran because that Ahmadinejad guy wants to blow us up or something. Therefore I support that because he is an evil doer.
Are you folks talking "recession" in the casual/slang sense, or by what the word actually means when talking about macro economics? Economists have a rather precise definition (two full consecutive quarters of decline in a nation's GDP), and I don't think our current economic situation fits that definition. What we've seen in past "recessions" (slang sense) is a situation where GDP continues to grow, but productivity grows even faster, and we all know what happens when that occurs, and it hurts like hell.
There should be much better oversight of many things not only the mortgage lending industry. I don't think there is anything like a free market that exists currently. If we looked at all trade I think we would see someone is always being protected in one sense or another. And it's time the worker/laborer was offered more protection on national levels than multnational corporations that shirk their tax/societal responsibilities. Why should they be protected, they are reaping record profits, one would think they could protect themselves without resorting to working our governments against the society's interests. Why not stop selling the SUVs, over the more economical models if the vehicle industry wishes to be responsible, but is it they feel no inherent responsibility? I see it as a backlash, and a justified one that multinationals should wake up and be aware of if they wish to continue to do business with the US working citizen. If you feel China and other countries can provide all the consumers you need then why even give the US consumer another thought? Perhaps your not, you've already written us off. I am fine with only buying locally produced goods. How do you feel about selling your goods only in China?
Hard to accurately equate when they keep changing the terms of the equation. But I think most of us trying to get by know what the economic situation is even when the pundits tell us everything is just rosey. Back last year many in the rest of the world saw us in a recession, and they are our investors: http://www.reuters.com/article/busi...Type=RSS&feedName=businessNews&rpc=23&sp=true What benefit does it do for us to ignore or deny it?
It is an unfortunate reality that every time a recession (or a downturn, if you prefer to call it) rolls around, people lose faith in the free market economy. Since the this one coincides with an election, we're likely to see a lot of populist economics on the campaign trail. Hopefully we won't spill over into the complete economic illiteracy of people who read conspiracy websites and breathlessly repeat whatever they are told to think.
Right on. You always cut to the chase. Markets that are manipulated by governments that control currency to gain trade advantages, or to protect stock investors as stock prices slump by making borrowing easier, or to underwrite home loans that ought never have been made, or who steal bond investors money with cheapened rates are far from free. I don't know that private banking cartels print money, but the Federal Reserve certainly does and debases the currency regularly.
