US May Be Running Out Of Options To Stop Recession

[varun]

Source: yahoo

After a bailout of Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM - News) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FNM - News), $168-billion of fiscal stimulus measures, a housing-rescue package and three-and-a-quarter percentage points worth of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, the economy is still struggling and in some ways looks worse than ever.

And while the recent one-two punch of rising joblessness and shrinking payrolls restarted the recession debate, it begs an even bigger question: What will it take to bring the economy back to health, especially in a presidential election year?

“The answer is quit making dumb mistakes,” says Dan Mitchell a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

Mitchell’s answer is actually a lot more complicated that it appears...



Read more: http://biz.yahoo.com/cnbc/080909/26563570.html

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And we are a nation of whiners? :eyes:

[Xipe Totec]

1. Too many options is the problem

and too many derivatives, IPOs, LBOs, Mortgage Backed Securities and various ensundry ponzi schemes

[PDJane]

2. Mitchell's answer is steeped in the Washington Concensus

and it's the rehash of an old idea that has failed.

What is needed is money that is given to to create jobs...who the hell is going to spend money if they don't have any possibility of a (decent) job? If there is no cushion? The guys at the top will ride through this, but everyone else is going to end up starving.

Moreover, this isn't just an American problem. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac HAD to be bailed out...the paper assets they generated were sold abroad, and no-one wants to hold on to worthless paper. It's going to eat into retirement assets all over the globe, too.

The most important choice is for the US to wake up to the fact that the upper 1% do not create wealth for anyone but themselves, and go after the taxes instead of extending the tax breaks. Greed won't allow anything to trickle down!

[bulloney]

10. That's the fallacy of trickle down economics.

The wealthy already have all of the income they want to replace cars, appliances, take nice vacations or make whatever consumer decision they want.

If you want real economic activity, target the stimulus at the lower end. Middle-income people will use the money to buy that car instead of keeping the old jalopy together with duct tape and baling wire. They will remodel their home, replace those appliances and so on.

[Old and In the Way]

3. We should ask the Supreme Court.

They selected this administration.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Most excellent statement...

"Supreme Court selected this administration."

Can we sue them for all this mess, I wonder.

[whistle]

4. BushCo has been doing everything they can to guarantee a full blown

...depression

[dysfunctional press]

5. that's going to be inheirited by and blamed on either obama or mcain...

he and cheney have to be downright giddy.

[Xenotime]

17. Yup. It may be impossible to save this one.

I imagine homeless increasing in numbers in the next few years.

[TheWatcher]

6. ONCE AGAIN We have a GRIEVOUS Typo in a Yahoo News Headline

*Sigh*. *Pulls Out Red Pen*

Here, let me fix it....AGAIN.

"US May Be Running Out Of Options To Stop Depression."

There. All better now.

[lib2DaBone]

18. Yes.. that's better... We are beyond Recession...

I hate to be a purveyor of bad news... but this one is unwinding very badly. Even beyond the wildest wet dreams of Smirk Boy and Darth Cheney. I don't know if anyone saw this interview yestereday with Mort Zukerman. He was trying to warn to talking heads..... he was very serious... the jig is up....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP5zBij2tWA

[AlCzervik]

7. Anybody see Lehman brothers today? Another domino falling over.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080909/wall_street.html

[Ian David]

9. Thank you, George W. Hoover! Thank you! n/t

[bulloney]

11. Now, now. Didn't you see Hoover's g-granddaughter defend him on TYT last week?

I agree, Hoover became the victim of bad economic policy of his predecessors. So, that would be Calvin Coolidge, who, like Hoover, was a Republican. Before Coolidge, it was Warren Harding, and guess what? He's a Republican, too. And guess what? The Republicans controlled the U.S. House and Senate every year under those administrations.

If that isn't an indictment of Republican economic policy, I don't know what is.

[Juan_de_la_Dem]

12. Markets take care of themselves alright.....

[bemildred]

13. "May be?" What do they think we have left?

The housing bubble is just an evaporating mist now, the resource bubble is popping as we speak. Our financial system is going critical from a diet of too much cheap paper. What other Ponzi schemes do they have left, and who are the suckers they think still have the money and the gullibility to jump in? Meanwhile petroleum has dropped some 30% and is still over $100 a barrel.

[nichomachus]

14. Great bumper sticker: Quit making dumb mistakes - Elect Obama

[1776Forever]

15. Even with the bailout how the heck can people pay their bills on $8 an hour jobs?

That is the only jobs available when we left Florida 2 months ago. There are so few good jobs left that they are going to the bosses relations! Even if you have the education (MBA here & Hubby has a Technical Degree) you still can't find one that will pay you to work it! We moved to another State and are making a go of it here but don't expect any magical fix here either. Without a Dem in the White House it is going to go downhill - waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down!

:argh:

[vssmith]

16. We'll be lucky if it is only a recession

[Hotler]

19. Bring the fucking jobs back to America.

Out sourcing should be framed as unpatriotic. The corporations should be ask why the hate the American worker. You out source to a communist country you're a traitor. Thre is no reason this country can't be the manufacturing capital of the world with good paying jobs.

[roamer65]

20. We're already in the Second Great Depression.

It should be obvious to everyone that we are within a year or so.

[daleo]

21. If people insist on electing idiots

It catches up with you.

Qualifier - it may be that the election stealers are doing the "electing". It still catches up, though.