What do you think is the main factor that is causing our economy to be like it is today?

Question

What do you think is the main factor that is causing our economy to be like it is today?

Answer 1

Its hard to say.  I think though, based on my thinking and what I've saw, read, and heard, its from our continual deficits + national debt.

We've always had debt, but it wasn't a BIG problem until the Reagan years- http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdeb...

That is when national debt accelerated.  Why did it accelrate?  Because our deficits (taking in less money than we spend) were increasing a lot during that time [tax cuts and high spending increased deficits].  During the 1990s, the debt steadied, and it was actually going down a little because of Clinton and balanced budgets.

However, in the last 8 years, the debt has shot straight through the roof again.  Thanks much to irresponsible fiscal policy.  (More deficit= more debt.  Debt is made up of what the deficit adds on. What I mean- debt is accumulated through our deficits).

With huge spending, two wars that take up a lot of that spending (thanks to bad plans which have got us into wars that have stretched longer than they should be), no addressing of the debt, and tax cuts to the rich (which don't pump revenue or money into the system because the rich don't spend much of thier tax cuts), national debt has gone up a bunch.

Now you may be asking me (and I'm sorry if I talked off topic)- what is the cost of the debt? And why is it so harmful to us?

Well national debts are very harmful to our economy and to the value of our dollar.  Its a frustrating time.  The more we get into debts, the more we have to pay for them.  We pay for them by printing more currency- dollars.  The more dollars we print out, the LESS they are worth.  And the less they are worth- the more EXPENSIVE things are.

That is a reason why gas prices are high,

That is also a reason why the costs of so many things are high.

And thanks to high gas prices, other products- which depend on transportation to transfer them- have higher prices too (b/c they have to pay for price of gas for the transport).

Of course there are other reasons as to why the economy is bad- little regulation of mortgage corporations, greed by oil companies, low supply of oil, etc- but a big national debt has a lot to do with this.

Our dollar is only getting weaker.

Answer 2

I think one of our biggest problems has been short sighted policies that only benefitedd the richest people in America.

this short sightedness has lead to laws that benefite companies to move more and more jobs out of America.  Sure people in the third world work cheaper and that leads to cheaper goods and a higher profit but taking out these jobs has hurt blue collar jobs.  

the former blue collar worker is either out of work or has to get a job that pays him less money then their old job.

this short sightedness has lead to our government not enforcing higher standards on things like car fuel effecy because it would cost the companies to much money.

This short sightedness has made it so the government hasn't put in money into infrastructure.

this short sightedness has giving us bad farming deals where people get large tax breaks not because they are farming but because they own large amounts of land (that used to be farmed on) instead of giving tax breaks for farmers that actually produce something.

etc, etc