Do you believe the U.S. economy will be okay, just as the president said some hours ago?

Question

My answer: Yes and No.

I do not think there will be a major economic down turn looking almost like a great depression, but something looking a lot like recession will haunt us for a long time.

In other words, it's not really a good economy or a terrible economy.

It is a slow, bad economy that will reach to the bottom over a long period time (example: SubPrime ----> then Bear Stern ----> then Fannie Mea/ Mac, Indy bank...)

What do you think?

And please be free to express your honest thinkings.

Thanks for your interest.

Answer 1

NO. Bush lied.

Answer 2

I think a good example would be the early 1990's recession caused by the savings & loans (bank) problems.  That lasted about a year.

Our economy goes thru expansions, and it goes thru contractions.  That is part of the economic cycle.  I don't see anything different about this one.  The catalyst may be different, but the result is the same.  This time it is high oil prices & the sub-prime mess.  

So I'm going with a year (if that).  The economy will struggle this year, and begin expanding by the middle of next year.  I'm not an economist, but I've got an opinion like anyone else.

Answer 3

The economy won't be ok. The Government is trying to make it ok by keeping rates low to keep foreclusres down, we'll see how long that will last. I understand your POV of a slow bad economy, but this is looking more like a Depression with the subprime mess.

Answer 4

I work in a financial institution in New York City. The thing is that this is just a bad year. We aren't going into recession, we are still getting out of the one that happened almost a decade ago. Last year was my firm's best year ever, while these first two quarters have been brutal, we aren't really having too much trouble keeping up. You can ride a bear almost as well as you can ride a bull, but sometimes it will get its teeth into you, and a bull can throw you off. Investors need to watch what is happening closely in either situation.

Anyway, the things that are bugging people right now are gas and housing, as housing goes down, prices drop people lose their houses to forclosure, people can't get loans and mortgages so it slumps, but at the bottom of the slump is a bunch of underpriced housing that the next group of people are going to pick up and make that market come back.

The gas, well that is a foreign issue really. I know that we just got offshore drilling back in effect, but at the same time, that isn't going to save us from the gas, so I think that is on us to carpool and all that nonsense that actually makes a lot of sense and none of us listen to.

Hope this helps. :)

Answer 5

I think the economy will be fine if the politicians would stay out of it.  They can't keep running around trying to fix every little problem that crops up.  Things are going to fail.  That is capitalism.  Every time they do something to help, it just causes another problem.  We need to go through a tough period to get the reality of risk back in the market.  Unfortunately, politicians don't get elected by letting things that should fail, fail.

Answer 6

I think the economy will be fine as soon as the moving truck leaves the White House in January 09.