The Economics Discussion Thread

U watchin Fox News JJ? 

Some economists have been saying this for years. I'm surprised the BBC are reporting it at all, but hey..

BBC Article - Global food prices, rising population, resources etc etc

Edited by Blacksword - January 28 2011 at 05:26

JJLehto wrote: Word on the street....er fox news is that the housing market has not gotten better but in fact, worse. Cities that made it through the first crisis fine (I remember Seattle being named as one) are now hurting, and most of the metro areas in the US are hurting in the housing market now. Is the double dip beginning!?

 

Padraic wrote:   Neither have I, nor have I heard any reports of any.  And I feel like American media would latch on to that story big time if it were true.

Oprah is there.

Seriously though, while I think the statement "some cities" is vague enough to be true, there were some reports a couple years ago (here is one from 2008), but it's not a problem that I've heard anything about recently and I follow the news fairly closely. I'm not sure if that's because earlier it fit in with their narrative of economic collapse and now they're bored because we're seeing a slight recovery or if the problem (which was not, percentage wise, that significant to begin with) has actually improved. My unscientific answer would be that it certainly doesn't seem to be affecting the majority of the cities in the US. I also don't recall ever seeing one, but I don't get out much. One thing to keep in mind is that foreclosure takes a really long time these days and until the bank physically comes to kick you out, you're living there for free.  The last I heard about the tent cities was some place in NJ or something. I can't find the link, but from the report the whole city was a desolate hellhole so it wasn't related to foreclosures, really. Then there was also a bunch of sex offenders in Georgia who weren't allowed to leave the city limits but also were unable to find anywhere to live because of their being barred from living within so many feet of a school, bus stop, park, etc., and some people set up a tent city in Vancouver to protest the Canadian government throwing away money on the stupid Olympics instead of using it to fight poverty (or anything else, really). But those aren't exactly poverty problems.

Edited by Henry Plainview - January 28 2011 at 10:38

Blacksword wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Blacksword wrote: I'm aware that there are so called 'tent cities' appearing on the fringes of some American cities, populated by people who have lost their homes since the real estate bubble burst. How widespread is this in the US?? The messages we get about the economy are mixed. The richo's meeting this week in Davos say the gobal economy is in recovery mode. The evidence on the ground appears to tell a different story. The UK economy shrunk 0.5% in the last quarter, and growth is unlikely at least in the short term, because of austerity measures being introduced to bring down our deficit within four years, reducing consumer spending still further. I'm inclined to think that an accurate picture of the economy is not going to come from our leaders and the banking sector, who clearly have a vested interest in talking things up. Sometimes you just have to say what you see, and what independent economists are saying is 'double dip' is likely. The growth we've seen in the banking sector following the bail outs is not so much a recovery but a cover up in my opinion. I've never seen one. I thought the bailed out banks were reporting profits..? I'll try and find a link, but the point I was making was that their profits were incidental to the reality on the ground. The UK economy actually shrunk by 0.5% in the last quarter, despite banks reporting profits, and the bankers being awarded obscene bonuses, as usual.

Hmm? I meant I've never seen a tent city. At least not a new one.

Epignosis wrote: They could have interviewed us, except we have two children.

But you don't live in NY.

Also, I'm quite impressed @ people living in "developed" countries. They say "OMFG, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES WILL STEAL OUR JOBS/ECONOMY/ETC" and yet ocupation here is still relatively smaller than there, even though you have a finantial crisis.

I wonder if patchwork careers will become the norm in the next few decades.

If that happens, health insurance companies will probably have to do some serious adapting or die a painful death.

Greece prepares to vote on whether they accept further austerity measures in return for another IMF bailout, or default on their debt.

BBC article

Either way, they are screwed I guess. I guess it comes down to which is the most dignified way to go. They could sell the family silver and have severe austerity on the back of piling more debt on top of what they have, or they can declate bamkruptcy (within weeks apparently) leave the Euro zone, re-introdice their old currency and start again.

Then of course there is the contagion factor for the rest of the Eurozone. Iceland stuck it's fingers up at the IMF. What will the PIGS nations do? I'm sure Portugal, Spain and Ireland will be watching the Greek situation very closely.

Subject: Say no to the rich
 
  I read today that Bachman was putting forth her "everyone-pays" tax plan.
What is her plan? Raise taxes on the poor.

The Republicans seem to feel that the lower 99% need to pay more taxes.
That we should be the ones to shoulder the burden of society. All of them
have similar plans that have exactly the same effect. Big tax breaks for the rich,
huge tax increases for the rest of us. 

Are we smart enough to do the math?

America is not going to become a Plutocracy.
Plutocracy is a word coined by Citigroup to describe what America has become.

It refers to a society that is controlled by a few wealthy people. And it's not
like they earned it. They are stealing it from us. Their hands are in our pockets.

When we buy a house we pay more because of their investment properties.
When we buy gas and food we pay far more because the option traders are getting their third.
We taxpayers loan them money at 0 percent so they can gamble and if they lose we just
hand them trillions of dollars just to borrow it back from them as part of the national debt.

It's a power grab. And we are not going to let that happen.

Plutocracies do not work. That system isn't self sustaining and when it collapses
it takes the rich down too. America can not allow itself to evolve into something
that is self destructive. So we're just not going to put up with it anymore.

We need to get back on the right track and I think everyone can agree - this ain't it.
Our only reasonable course of action is to form a new vision of America where we
do what Americans have always done in hard times. We need to come together so
that all of us come out OK.
  Mark Perkel