Where's the global economy going?

[krbe 193]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

Originally posted by: krbe  I'm not that old, but I'm sure there are people here remembereing how it was BEFORE Bill Clinton made president in the US (the longest period of economic growth in the world)

quote>

If you're of the view that BC could take credit for the economy, you are making a common mistake. He took credit for the long-term effects of the Reagan years; strange how no one associates his policies with the dot-com crash, among other things. 

quote>

I'm just saying that it was under his precidency we experienced the longest period of growth; not that it's his fault (and that's pretty obvious, given the time it takes for measures to take effect; not that many notice that). I believe, that if the "growth package" (where's all the capitalist screaming "government intervention!" now?) works, it would probably be remembered as the glorious years of Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney or one dark horse instead of Bush's work.

A while back a friend and I noticed a new Escalade pulling a ski boat and trailer. He saw a nice new Cadillac SUV and bathtub toy, I saw $125,000 in debt, and very likely drawn on home equity. I would bet every penny I have in my pocket that whoever that was is in financial trouble now. How very American; borrow against the sun, instead of preparing for rain.

And this is a microcosm of the current meltdown; everybody got in the game counting on 365 days of sunshine a year, and they all are hurting at the first sprinkle.quote>

Sounds like there's never gonna be a sunny day again if you listen to stock brokers, CEO, etc. today.

[confused04 14]

The Feds had an emergency interest rate cut in the US dropping it to 3.5%. Ironically, I just read an article that says how wrong that is by causing massive inflation. The fear of going into recession is so strong that the feds try to wipe out the immediate risk of recession only to create a long term risk of a much worse recession.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/18/news/economy/cure.fortune/index.htm

Anywho. I do not think its doom and mega gloom right now, the media is for sure making this out worse than it REALLY is. As bad as the situation is, this is not as bad as 9/11 when EVERY sector (other than defense) was devastated beyond imagination. In order for us to fall to post 9/11 lows, we'd have to drop to 7286. 27 on the DOW JIA. We'll have to see if it drops near there, but its pretty hard to see us dropping that much. Its bad, don't get me wrong, but nothing we can't easily trudge through. Besides, the average person will not notice a HUGE difference. Most of people don't feel differences between times of boom and bust because of the nature of our jobs. Its just that because we have such a huge population, a change in the economy can affect 5% of the population and thats 15 million people. We'll weather this like every other one. My family doesn't change its spending habits during times of boom and bust so it won't be "crampin our style." I was reading an article about how the culture of my area actually prevents it from promoting itself as the strong relocation destination as it truly is. The Star Tribune says that the non-confrontational humble nature "practically ingrained in our genetics" makes it impossible for us to brag and show off the numerous high rankings that Minneapolis-St.Paul receives and that we deserve EVEN more business than we receive. The ironic thing is that this very nature may actually help this area survive the storm quite nicely as our spending practices are quite conservative compared to those on the Coasts and particularly in California.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Frankie_Grove 32]

Originally posted by: Jasoncw

Originally posted by: Frankie_Grove I'm still not quite sure where this is coming from, economic problems or not, every day it seems a new factory is staked out in my area. If the manufacturing sector is dying, why isn't the growth stopping? Perhaps its the Rust Belt cities that are causing this, or at least failing to a point that one small portion of the county affects the whole.

It is natural for businesses to expand their manufacturing to other counties, sure the US does it to Asia, however Europe does the same thing to the US. Germany and France in particular have invested huge sums in recent years locating their factories to the US.

Lastly, if during the Great Depression an Isolationist United States was able to affect the worldwide economy of the day, imagine what would happen if that were to occur again? If it does we'll see the effects of Globalization firsthand.quote>

The new factories in your area are moving from the Midwest.  It is the new national manufacturing "suburb".  And the factories that aren't moving from the Midwest are factories built by foreign companies, which doesn't help overall.

During the depression, while the US did not initially want to intervene militarily, we had always been very involved financially with the rest of the world.  Especially after World War One (and even more after World War Two) when we were very involved in their reconstruction.  And before that (and during I guess) the US dominated many industries, and did a lot of exporting.quote>

I believe you are absolutely correct about the Midwestern industry...The nation's top auto-manufacturing centers are now Alabama, and South Carolina. And naturally with the automotive industry re-location...their suppliers want to be right next door. (Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina are the top auto-industry suppliers). Without labour unions holding them back, industry is free to grow at an un-controllable rate - and it does just that. That is why in recent years people from the Northeast, and Midwest flock to these new industrial centers by the hundred thousands, even millions. (Perhaps contributing to the housing issues?!)

Prior to WWI, the US was obsessed with being self-sufficent..we hardly exported or imported. WWI changed this, and during the re-building of the nations involved, we exported tons and tons of raw materials, and finished products. This of course stopped during the Great Depression. During the first few years of WWII, it re-started. I think one of the real reasons for not joining the war at first was being able to export to both sides of the conflict. After the war, and after the re-building of Europe, the exports slowed greatly, and resources were switched to Cold War related projects. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US, and Europe, went in to recession since all of a sudden the materials and resources were no longer needed.

The upcoming recession is probably more a result of inflation, not to mention a major imbalance in the housing market due to mass migrations within our country.

[Micah 16]

After seeing these following numbers, I think it would be a good thing to revive this thread:

	Australia	ASX 100	-99.40	-2.36%	4,106.30	3/17 4:47pm ET
	Australia	ASX All Ords	-115.30	-2.18%	5,173.20	3/17 4:47pm
	Australia	ASX Mid-cap 50	-109.00	-2.02%	5,293.40	3/17 4:47pm
	Hong Kong	Hang Seng	-1,152.50	-5.18%	21,084.61	3/17 5:59pm
	Hong Kong	HSCC Red Chip	-281.86	-5.81%	4,567.74	3/17 4:25pm
	Japan	Nikkei 225	-454.09

[GingerBlokey 30]

Last thing I heard?

Up [Language] Creek.

Didn't have a paddle either.

[DuskTrooper 316]

Flush it bye-bye.

If you want your money back, do like this guy:

[Haljackey 17,398]

Geeze, Micah!  This can't be good at all.

Just look at what's happing to the Asian Markets due to JP Morgan buying Bear Stearns!

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/03/17/asian-markets.html

The effects are spreading worldwide.

[sakarr 1]

Originally posted by: Frankie_Grove

I believe you are absolutely correct about the Midwestern industry...The nation's top auto-manufacturing centers are now Alabama, and South Carolina. And naturally with the automotive industry re-location...their suppliers want to be right next door. (Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina are the top auto-industry suppliers). Without labour unions holding them back, industry is free to grow at an un-controllable rate - and it does just that. That is why in recent years people from the Northeast, and Midwest flock to these new industrial centers by the hundred thousands, even millions. (Perhaps contributing to the housing issues?!)quote>

 

uhh, im pretty sure mchigan and ohio are still the heard of the auto industry. while jobs have been moving south, there are still many many more up here than down there. 

and i know in my area (cleveland) we havent really had any of this recession and houseing bust. tho thats probably because we never had the huge out of control growth that led to all of this

[patriots_1228 51]

Dusktrooper: I've always wondered what happened in the bowels of a toilet

I know nothing about economics, but im going to assume the "-5.81" in red under hong kong isn't a very good thing.

[belfastuniguy 18]

Here we go again...

Yes the world economy is not in fantastic shape, but those recent stock falls are related to Bear Stearns, before that the markets were doing pretty well actually. We need some perspective here. It is primarily America banks that have suffered most, British banks are next but not to the same extend. They have written off a vast amount of sub-prime linked debt yet still making profits in the billions, unlike American banks. Banks in Europe have also been pretty stable.

The middle east is providing a lot of needed capital to corporations and banks and keeping the system oiled so to speak. In the UK the economy is stable, unemployment still very low and the housing market is pretty stable also. Indeed certain regions of the UK are growing at a high rate with increasing inward international investment. Same goes for other parts of Europe and the world.

Stock market prices changes are not the best way to evaluate the health of an economy or indeed the world economy in general. They can be down 25% one day and up 30% the next. I would also add that not all developed countries are in a recession or close to one. America has been hardest hit as a result of several factors. But a more educated and wide ranging view is required before just looking at stock markets and shouting World Recession.

Also remember that most recent rmarket price rises in gold and oil are as a result of fearful speculation. Some calm is needed if the situation is to be resolved correctly.

[krbe 193]

A three-month perspective

EUROPE

FTSE100 (London) -13,77%

CAC40 (Paris) -19,57%

DAX (Frankfurt) -21,25%

US

DOW -9,52%

S&P500 -11,47%

NASDAQ -16,14

ASIA

Nikkei225 (Tokyo) -22,49%

Hang Seng (Hong Kong) -21,13%

Singapore ST -16,59%

American shares are doing better than both European and Asian; and industry is doing better than technology.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Bear Stearns built its hedge funds by leverage. I would think that the pointy heads would have smelled a problem in using debt to buy debt. It's really a dumb idea per se, I wouldn't think a broker's license made it sound any smarter.

[Palpatine001 57]

And now for some lighter entertainment

Ladies and Gentlefolk, the New Zealand Herald gives you G W Bush and the US Economy

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/500814/index.cfm?c_id=500814

God Save America...

[Micah 16]

If markets are falling below post-9/11 levels, we indeed have a problem, especially since there has been no crisis.quote>

No crisis? There's a global food shortage, oil prices are skyrocketing, food prices are exploding because of the pain at the pump, credit crunch, housing bust, banks are loosing billions, the airline industry is collapsing as seen in the mergers and back-up, the price of land is steadily rising in many places across America, the US government is either billions or trillions in debt... if no one can see a global crisis, then I'm shocked. 

Edit: typo.