Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Alright! Here comes the "petroeuro," £1=$3, massive inflation.

stock market futures futures is called "the stock market"

so it's futures all the way down!

no wonder we're fucked!

the fed reminds me of bubbles from 'the wire' right now.

By June, Bush's $500 tax rebate will only buy a pack of 'ports and 40 oz of St Ides

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/mortaljive/Extra%20Images/normal_dr_strangelove.jpg

http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/instrument/1.0/%5EDJI/chart;range=1d/image;size=239x110

you know what fucking kills me is that in every article about a major dip or crash in the stock market, you get reax from various analysts who say things like "well it looks like the fed finally gets it!" or "some feel the fed has been slow to wake up to the deterioration in the stock market" or "brananke has finally decided to stop the bleeding".. as if the panicky traders who have bet long on endless leveraged growth are the smart cookies and the fed is some dopey retarded cousin. you play with matches for a living, you shouldn't insult firefighters.

haha "brananke"

otm tracer

not that i think the fed even knows what it's fighting at this point, or whether there's a fire, or whether their extinguisher is filled with gasoline or what

but yeah the fed doesn't remind of me of bubbles so much as all the "analysts" and traders whose eyes are red and raw from lack of the gushing credit flows and leveraged whatnots to which they've become accustomed; just an extra little drop into the syringe and they're like "AAAAHHHHHH.... the fed gets it"

meanwhile the national debt grows and mean incomes continue to stagnate

http://www.philosophising.com/dogpress/images/hair.of.dog.jpg

i mean, these dudes really are the top-hatted robber barons of old, playing with trillions of dollars that no one else ever sees and putting the entire world's economies at risk - and somehow it's the fed's fault when they get a hangover - somehow the taxpayer is supposed to offer them even cheaper terms on their loans than they've been used to

we're in new territory here

http://media.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2007/aug/panic_cover200.jpg

Bonus points to whoever finds the first bad political cartoon about all this that features the Cloverfield monster stomping down Wall Street with the word "RECESSION" on its chest.

found on a goldbug blog:

Problems Bernanke Faces

* Falling real estate prices
* Subprime housing mess
* Alt-A mortgage mess
* Pay Option ARM mess
* Sharply rising unemployment
* Rising credit card defaults
* Commercial Real Estate implosion
* Global wage arbitrage
* Falling US dollar
* Overheating China
* Slowing global economy
* Tapped out consumers
* Implosion of $500 trillion in derivatives
* Solvency issues at banks
* Forced unwind of massive Yen carry trade
* Boomer retirement
* Pension plan assumptions in an economy starving for yield
* Rising corporate defaults

LOOKS LIKE A GOOD TIME TO STAY IN HIGHER ED!

I ain't moving anywhere!

I feel pretty stupid for investing in my 401k (actually a 403). I'd had a lot more fun if I had eaten the taxes and spent the money on booze, records and drugs.

I mean, like I lost a thousand dollars on paper this year I think!

I have just called the local banks to start the process of refinancing my mortgage.

I really don't like being a recent college graduate and reading this.
Although I doubt there's anyone who does, really.

anyone think a stimulus plan is a good idea?

anyone think a stimulus plan is a good idea?

absolutely (that's what keynes was all about, yo) -- the chinese and the bond markets may not like it very much, tho'.

I feel pretty stupid for investing in my 401k (actually a 403). I'd had a lot more fun if I had eaten the taxes and spent the money on booze, records and drugs.

you'll be fine, as long as you keep your job and keep making contributions.

Don't pay attention to your 401k or 403b value for the next X years, just max out the matching contributions. A dollar for dollar match gives an immediate return of 100%, doesn't it? And that doesn't take into account tax advantages, or reinvested dividends, or compounding.

I'm convinced that the next channel for promoting consumption will be loans against the value of the 401k, which will result in old people eating rats in 20 years.

At least this tax refund (is that what GWB wants?) is happening when I'm being taxed enough to GET something.

</short-sighted self interest>

Don't pay attention to your 401k or 403b value for the next X years, just max out the matching contributions. A dollar for dollar match gives an immediate return of 100%, doesn't it? And that doesn't take into account tax advantages, or reinvested dividends, or compounding.

Lol we match double at 5% but I'm also contributing another 5% which isn't matched.

pick funds that have really low operating costs, that way the robots and douchebags losing your money aren't charging you to do so.

im no economist, but it seems to me the economy today is radically different than it was in keynes time

Yes and no, money is still borrowed into existence. everything has changed and yet not that much has changed

thats deep.

good analysis

to answer your question as to whether it is a good idea, i'm pretty much at the stage of thinking there are no good ideas, sometimes its just better to let the drunkard be. As to whether it will work, which is a different question, they are totally shot if it doesn't, where next if this doesn't work? real interest rates are already negative even before this. its also election year

also, as the uk is finding out interest rates cuts aren't necessarily passed on the customers at all

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/the-worst-financial-advice-from-around-the-web-today-only

actually, i think its kind of important the point about money being borrowed into existence, because while more money can be dumped onto the economy, it still has to be borrowed by someone, the question is whether sentiment is holding up enough for people to take on yet more debt and spend, or whether they'll just try pay off what they already have, which returns money to source and is deflationary

Aw man...

President Bush and leaders of Congress joined in a rare show of cooperation in promising urgent action to pump up the economy with upwards of $150 billion in tax cuts and government spending.

http://www.cbpp.org/1-18-08tax-stmt.htm

^ comprehensive dismantling of the president's plan

So I'm a youngish dude. I was in middle school during the dot com crash and didn't have a job in high school during the subsequent recession.

You guys that have lived through this stuff before: how freaked out do I need to be by this talk of "a really bad recession?"

(lol i'm graduating in 6 months, shit.)

graduating into a teaching or a master's program, more like

Yeah I'm going straight into a teaching program this summer I think.

Unless I don't.

GF is moving to NY for grad school next January. Any teaching job I take is gonna require a two-year contract. I might chase her for grad school, who knows. I have about a month to decide lol

Plz read "I might chase her for grad school, who knows" as "damn am I gonna stay with this girl or not?"

It's been a good 4 years and I'd love to continue it, but wtf do I do with a bachelors in English without a teaching cert or any contacts in publishing etc?

work in a record store, duh

learn to pour beer

make the noize bored more fun

re: fears about 401k's etc - I contribute dutifully to my IRA (our co. doesn't match. dicks.) and will likely continue to do so. The low-fee stock index funds I bought 3 or so yrs prior to the "correction" in 2000 and have occasionally contributed to since have weathered the storms pretty well. The key is making sure you're not socking away money in these things that you will likely need in the short term (& obv w/ IRA & 401k you prob don't want to even think about it until your nearing retirement in order to avoid penalties). I guess it's important to remember that the market has averaged something like right over 9% since 1927 - which has includes the Great Depression as well as several nasty recessions.

of course it's entirely likely that I don't fully understand the intricacies of the current economic climate and that we are, in fact, all DOOMED.

learn to pour beer

-- El Tomboto, Wednesday, January 23, 2008 2:08 AM

yeah there are these obnoxious "Texas School of Bartending" commercials on the radio every day and i occasionally consider actually dialing

one-EIGHT HUNNID- bar- TEND!

i was in college during the 1991-1992 recession -- i coped by moving back with my parents, getting a full-time job and finishing up undergrad as a part-time student. it was not fun, but i survived. also, i was very lucky in that my employer at the time had a VERY generous tuition reimbursement policy so my undergrad debt was minimal (i understand that that may not be realistic, and i admit that i was very fortunate in that regard). i ended up graduating in 1997, right when the dot.com thing took off and was able to get a good job. also, my BA is in english/poli. sci. (though i started out as an economics/poli. sci. student) & my undergrad job was in accounting and benefits administration (which may have made me somewhat more marketable when i finally got the BA than the typical english BA).

i survived the dot.com crash/post-9/11 NYC-economy-in-the-shitbin by being in law school during the worst of that -- though those days were financed by student loans (for which i am paying dearly now). i survived that, too, but i would hesitate to recommend doing any kind of post-grad (including law school -- ESPECIALLY law school) if you'll end up deep in student loan debt.

and re IRA investments -- learn the term "dollar cost averaging" (it means make regular deposits into the IRA account at a set time interval [weekly, biweekly, monthly, whatevah). it won't totally prevent losses if you are investing in equities, but it will mitigate them to some extent. dollar-cost averaging is how you invest in 401(k)'s, anyway, so if you do that then you already know the drill.

i also heart low-fee/no-load funds ... paying a load is throwing your money away.