Complete Economic Collapse ...

[Trajan]

This is the prognosis today ?


Mighty scary shit ....

And to think: If American workers had been given fair wage increases and decent compensation these last decades, there is a good chance this would not be happening ....

When workers have more money, they continue to pay their bills, and they don't default on their loans ...

I believe that is the ROOT CAUSE of the upcoming 'imminent collapse' .... Greed on the right, and need in the center .... If they would have just paid their workers enough ... Corporations would still be making money hand over fist ....

Silly men committing suicide through greed ..... Tsk tsk ...

[Stellabella]

1. There's a reason that the fable about killing the goose that

laid the golden egg is a classic. It's the truth. Economies are built and maintained from the bottom up, not from the top down.

[meowomon]

2. That was the plan

Have you read or heard of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine?

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

[Warpy]

12. The collapse wasn't

because they're not going to be able to gobble up much of anything with the banking system totally paralyzed.

No one is more surprised than the architects of this disaster, all the men who outsmarted themselves creating more and more exotic derivatives to goose the profits of people who were already rich.

The ultra rich and ultra powerful have the longest way to fall if this castle in the air we call higher finance evaporates into what it always was: more air.

It only worked while everybody played the game. When they made it impossible for those of us on the bottom to keep our part of the game going, the whole topheavy business started to collapse.

It always does, you know. And they're always shocked when it does.

[Joe Fields]

27. I have to disagree. They knew they were playing with fire.

I'm no economist or Wall Street analyst, and even I had read articles about derivatives and how volatile they were; and using the word volatile was putting it mildly. I have read warnings from articles years ago about potential for economic collapse at the hands of derivatives. So please don't tell me that the high flying robber barrons of Wall Street are surprised and didn't see it coming. They got a big fat slice of government pie. What the fuck do they really care?

[wtmusic]

3. Hardly suicide, their greed served them well

Most are more than prepared enough to deal with an economy in shambles. They don't need your money - already got most of it, thanks very much.

[Trajan]

5. Well .... Suicide in a sense ...

In that those in the middle of the greed hierarchy now cannot climb a nonexistent ladder to greater heights ....

Yes ... Those at the top will survive in gilded forts .... but those below them had better start licking some leather ... and quick ! ....

[thunder rising]

8. They have to eat.

[bertman]

14. Let them eat

the hired help.

Mario Antoinette

[Trajan]

15. We've heard it before ....

Let them eat cake ....

[lonestarnot]

17. And come out at some point.

:evilgrin: Even gilded prisons don't sound good to me.

[barb162]

16. That's exactly right.

They already have their chalets in Switzerland and other nice places.

[liberalmuse]

4. Global Economic Collapse? Thank a Republican!

This is their gift to us. When you are standing in that long line for government cheese rations, provided by China, and tainted with industrial chemicals, remember the Republicans who voted for Bush. Twice.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Greed leaves the workers behind. CorpoRATS are not long term thinkers, are they?

[kentuck]

7. I think you may be right.

They went almost 10 years with a minimum wage of 5.15 an hour...!

[Trajan]

9. I am still making 75% of what I made in 2001 ...

I am equal to what I made in 1994 .. 15 years ago ....

You can guess that my expenses have increased 'somewhat' ....

Middle class squeeze isnt definitive enough .... Middle class strangulation somes closer to the mark ....

[barb162]

18. You and a whole lot of others.

Almost everyone I know is making less than they were in the early 90s and has fewer benefits. The middle class is being utterly destroyed.

[bhikkhu]

26. I'm pulling even with 1987 myself

and this has been a decent year. Of course, I grow as much of my own food as I can now, I bicycle instead of driving, I can't remember the last time I bought new clothing, and I have been literally burning the furniture in the fireplace this week, hoping to put off running the heater as long as possible. Back in '87 I was more worried about having enough money to spend the weekend "out", properly attired and with a nice ride.

[Juche]

10. Same here

Wages have stabilized at an average at about $15/hr for most workers even though productivity is now somewhere around $35/hr. If people were making $22/hr on average instead they would've had enough to pay their bills and get better terms on home loans.

[Trajan]

13. Exactly ....

I am not sure of the numbers .... but I am already TIRED of the RW blaming the poor for not having enough money to pay their irrational loans ....

Much like the whites who denied schools to blacks during Jim Crow, and then mocked their lack of education ....

Give workers what they are worth: SHARE the economic pie, and they will give it right back to you ....

The short sighted greed is always a loser ....

[Pacifist Patriot]

11. Okay, you put it much more succinctly. Thanks!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4207133&mesg_id=4207133

[Trajan]

19. My threads on wages have fallen like rocks nearly every time

Hardly anyone gets it .....

The most significant issue in collective bargaining is wages (job security wasnt nearly the problem 'then' as it is now) ....

WAGES make the whole thing work ..... We have been throttled and left for dead ....

[nichomachus]

20. You're right -- it's not that people bought

homes they couldn't afford -- it's that they weren't paid enough to afford homes.

That's the message. People who work hard should be able to afford homes.


Period.

[Trajan]

21. Wasn't George W. Bush ... just a few months ago ....

Praising the 'ownership society' in the Rose Garden ? ....

Wasnt McCain alongside, using it as a photo op ?

Now they are lambasting the Middle Class for not being able to pay up .... That disgusts me to no end ....

PAY US ... and we will pay you .... THAT is the bottom line ....

[nichomachus]

22. Party

Like it's 1789

[Trajan]

23. That image provokes ideas that are not pleasant or necessary ....

That is not an era of human history would would wish to emulate ....

Bedlam is not the answer to our problems ... but is simply a worse problem ....

[2speak]

24. You are correct

you can't pay your workers $9.00 or even $15.00 an hour and expect there to be many that can afford your product.

[Trajan]

25. And the Chinese and other outsource locales

CANNOT make up the sales volume ....

I mean: Has anybody done the math ? ....

IS this an out of control event ? ..... or going according to plan ? ...

It seems like an out of control bus at this point .... with a blind driver and threadbare tires, going around ever tighter and steeper turns ....

[TahitiNut]

28. Just remember ...