Obama says "The fire is out now". re: economic crisis.

[dixiegrrrrl]

"I think that we have stepped back from the abyss. I think we've put out the fire," he said in an interview with PBS, according to a transcript released by the TV station.

So, whadda you think?
Yes?
No?


edit, add link.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.48f73662cbd78e2ecc56925e089ec068.351&show_article=1&catn

[phantom power]

1. I think the unemployment statistics say the fire is not out yet.

I guess I agree that we've "stepped back" from immediate threat of global financial meltdown, where major financial institutions just implode into a black hole. But... things are bad out there, and in terms relevant to most people they're getting worse.

But if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger or a Goldman Sachs executive, everything is groovy.

[LAGC]

2. You should have made a poll.

Anyway, I don't think we're out of the woods yet. The stimulus should help as it kicks in over the next couple years, but until demand really begins to pick up and people start spending again, the economy is going to continue to be in the doldrums for some time.

[tabatha]

3. there was more to the quote

"The analogy I use sometimes is, we had this beautiful house. And there was a fire. We came in and we had to hose it down. The fire is now out, but what we've discovered is, we need some new tuckpointing, the roof's leaking, the boiler's out, oh, and by the way, we're way behind on our mortgage," Obama said

[JohnWxy]

6. Aw now, that's no fun. Providing a complete quote. How we gonna twist his meaning that way?

[wuvuj]

4. The fire may really be out?

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5582#more

Opinions differ on this, but my view is that I don't expect oil prices to go radically higher. Instead, I expect that oil prices will continue to fluctuate, and the economy to continue to collapse. Thus, what we will see will look more like collapsing demand than collapsing supply.

In my view, the underlying problem is the fact that the current level of debt (by individuals, businesses, and governments) cannot be maintained, unless we have a growing economy. The reason we need a growing economy for the debt system to work is the fact that a person can borrow from tomorrow, only if tomorrow is better than today. (This is especially the case if loans require the payment of interest.) But if tomorrow is worse than today, borrowing from the future doesn't work. Even if tomorrow is the same as today, the system doesn't work, if loans need to be paid back with interest.

The problem is that the economy cannot grow unless oil production is truly rising. This lack of growth in world oil production since 2005 is what is causing the debt collapse we are now seeing. This debt collapse is in turn giving rise to the demand destruction we are seeing currently. Since oil production cannot rise in the future, it seems to me that we are going to see a continuing unwind of the credit bubble that was made possible by rising oil production. Without credit, people will be unable to buy cars and houses. Businesses will be unable to finance new investment, and we will see greater and greater demand destruction.

The result will be oil prices dropping, more and more people unemployed, and fewer goods and services purchased. In short, the whole system will unwind from the demand side. At some point, there may be a major break, if the international financial system cannot stand the strain. There may also be political upheaval, both in oil producing countries (because the price is too low) and in oil consuming nations (because more and more people are out of work). The results are likely not to be very nice.

[tomreedtoon]

5. I thought the fire was what made the steam engine work.

So the fire being out is a bad thing. We didn't start the fire, we just put it out.