How bad is the economy - really!?

Question

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000

Unemployment isn't bad at all, in the grand scheme of things.

Use the "Change Output Options:" to enter dates & get the data from 1977 to now & you will see our unemployment rate is right about average!

I'm not saying the economy is great. Our money has less buying power in than in the past. But it isn't that bad, either.

The price of gas is our biggest problem & but I believe, after a tough adjustment period, we will come out of this stronger than ever before!

So tell me why you think we are heading into a depression, as I have heard many liberals claim.

Answer 1

LOL I'm mexican and the guy named truth is kinda right lol

Answer 2

I know a lot of people who are unemployed or who were unemployed.  My Dad lost his job and I have to go to community college.  Right now I don't care if the economy gets better in the future, I want it better now so I can get out of my house and into college!

Answer 3

i cant find a good full time job so i guess its bad,

Answer 4

there was an article in the Dallas newspaper a  while back that told of illegals moving back to Mexico because of the economy.  That IS pretty bad........

Answer 5

No one really knows where our economy is heading...

To say a bit, things were worse in the 70s than they are now.  Our economy is hurting a bit because of the increased price of gas and corn (which we currently use as a starch, a sweetener, a grain, a fuel source, livestock feed, and other things).  Because of their increase in prices, everything else is more expensive.  However, as you can tell from the recent decline in gas prices (down to $3.40 from $4.00), gas prices are heavily inflated from speculation (and oil companies just s******g around).  Corn prices are also partially propped up by sugar import tariffs.

In reality, our true economy isn't that bad.  The recent problems are mostly caused by manipulation from a few big companies, while a few (such as the housing crash and the banking crash) were inevitable.  House prices were overinflated before the crash, and they are actually healthy now.  And the lending/banking people were just plain stupid, thinking that they could get money from nowhere.

Right now, our economy is going to find itself a good spot, and we will probably end up right where we were before the housing crash pretty quickly.  However, if we actually want our economy to get stronger, we need to inspire industries to manufacture inside of America, and to make quality products.  Having an American automaker be the first to produce an effective electric car would be a huge boost.

Answer 6

It's not bad at all.  This is a traditional Democrat and Main Stream Media campaign tactic.  If the Democrat is in office, tell everybody the economy is good.  If the Republican is in office, talk down the economy.  

The reality is, the economy is not bad.  The unemployment rate is lower than what it was under Clinton when there was "full employment".  

Answer 7

Well, it's in a made up recession.  The media has been talking about it for awhile....so everyone believes it.  I don't think half of America's population really knows what a recession actually means.

Answer 8

record budget deficits, record trade deficits, record consistently high gas prices and still going higher, record unaffordably high health care costs, rising inflation, rising food prices, record outsourcing of jobs overseas, several straight years of declining real wages, rewcord foreclosures, record household credit card debt, record car repossessions, factory layoffs steadily being announced, vast influx of as many as 20 millions illegal aliens in the country taking jobs and depressing wages, our kids cant find the summer jobs they used to, hardly any american citizens working in landscaping, hospitality industry, meat packing industry, construction work..etc......record high school drop outs, life expectancy in USA like 29th in the world, and declining...etc..  2 very expensive wars going on that seem as perpetual as perpetual can be.....and even more tensions rising as Bush has been trying to install missiles on Russia's borders, etc.....

so so many economic indicators more than I can list every week being announced as worst in 18 years, worst in 30 years, worst since great depression....etc.... but you are saying none of this is true and that its all propanganda?

By the way, all the above is not media propaganda but facts....  so given these facts, what do you mean bv everything is swell???

What were you saying again????  so your view of the world is to ignore facts for what?  so that reality fits nicely into your delusional world???

Do you realize that unemployment does not include all unemployed workers?  Do you realize that once your unemployment runs out you are no longer counted?  Do you realize if you lose your $ 35, 000 a year factory job and take a lesser paying job for $12,000 a year to make ends meet, that you are considered fully employed?

Do you realize how much higher illegal aliens taking jobs and depressing wages boost "employment"?

The unemployment figures are the least indicative of true economic health of a country.  A country could have zero unemployment but still have serious issues like declining real wages, infation, high gas prices and food prices, record budget deficits and trade deficits, unaffordably high health care costs, declining infrastructure, poor educational funding etc....

Answer 9

I don't think it's as bad as people are claiming.

People just like to be drama queens.

But I'm not saying it couldn't get worse either...

Let me put it this way: Now I'm worrying about things that I didn't worry about before.

Answer 10

Its actually bad... and I am not a liberal.  In your defense of the economy you forgot to mention the loss of the US dollar against almost every foreign currency in the world (even South American currencies), the trade deficit, and the home mortgage crisis.  It isn't a depression but it is not great compared to a decade ago... and signs show that it is just as bad as Carter's last year in office and it doesn't look good for the future.

But hey, live in a bubble if you want.

I take offense that you simplified this into a "liberal"  perception... the economy is what it is: it is failing or it is succeeding... to attack someone who disagrees with you by labeling them as a "liberal" is immature.  The economy has little to do with cons and libs... both ideals have had economies that have succeeded and both have had economies that have failed.  To look at the economy as some kind of comic book world of good vs. evil shows that you know very little about the economy.

Answer 11

record foreclosures...

record energy prices...

inflation...

fewer people buying things...

record debt...

unemployment has increased... and is quite bad in some areas... I live in S.C. and we're at 7 percent as a state... France, who cons love to say is totally economically depressed, is at 7.2 percent...

I don't think we're heading into a depression exactly... but these things are MUCH WORSE than "isn't that bad" too....

but it could get worse before it gets better...

Answer 12

No, you are right.  It isn't a "bad economy".  But this is exactly what Bush 41 learned.  It isn't whether the economy is bad or good.  It is whether the voters BELIEVE the economy is bad or good.  The Univeristy of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is at it lowest value since the Iranians held our embassy and our gas pumps hostage in 1980, and Jimmy Carter got is butt kicked.  Bush 41 lost his re-election 19 months after a recession ended.  He told voters that unemployment was a lagging indicator.  He was right.  He was also a one-term president.  As any marketing executive knows, perception is reality.

Answer 13

Lemme see, trillions in deficit, worst real estate market in an age and a half, foreclosures through the roof, all of our money still being spent on the war, baby boomers getting to retirement age with a working population about half their size and of course a congress that left the social security fund with a bunch of IOU's in it, no money for infrastructure rebuilding, no money for education, no money to enforce the laws against the corporate rape of the country or any adequate number of people even paying attention to the problem and no place to put the criminals even if we did indict...etc...etc

Answer 14

The estimated population of the United States is 304,585,952

so each citizen's share of this debt is $31,553.52.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of

$1.84 billion per day since September 28, 2007!

Concerned?

Status Report on the Collapse of the U.S. Economy

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...