The Decade from Hell 2000-2009 ..Time magazine

[JohnWxy]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1942834-2,00.html


For the average working stiff, it was a pretty lousy 10 years. The median household income in 2000 was $52,500. Last year (the most recent year available) it was $50,303. And given that the unemployment rate has climbed to 10.2%, income will almost certainly drop again this year. Low-income Americans fared even worse. In 2000, 11.3% of Americans were living below the poverty line. By 2008, that number had risen to 13.2%. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans without health insurance increased from 13.7% to 15.4%.

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Our economic narcissism was certainly the culprit in the devastation wrought by financial markets, which have subjected us to an increasingly frequent series of crashes, frauds and recessions. To a great degree, this was brought about by a lethal combination of irresponsible deregulation and accommodating monetary policies instituted by the Federal Reserve. Bankers and financial engineers had an unsupervised free-market free-for-all just as the increased complexity of financial products — e.g., derivatives — screamed out for greater regulation or at least supervision. Enron, for instance, was a bastard child of a deregulated utilities industry and a mind-bending financial alchemy.

(This deregulation was achieved by Phil Gramm slipping in the Commodities Modernization Act, in the last few days of the Clinton administration, as a rider to the Omnibus Spending Bill 2000. Virtually nobody in Congress even knew it was in the 11,000 page bill. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=114&topic_id=46775)

This rider enabled banks to legally trade in Credit Default Swaps, unregulated, and included the ENRON loophole which lead to the biggest corporate bankruptcy in our history. Of course, that was chicken-shit compared to what trading in Credit Default Swaps by banks did. The Commodities Futures MOdernization act precipitated the Credit Meltdown which lead us into this current Republican Dystopia. Ain't Deregulation Great?__JW)



Another proximate cause were new loosey-goosey borrowing rules (if they can be called that) that allowed the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman to pile $30 of debt onto each $1 of capital. The chief executives of these firms argued vociferously for the right to greater leverage and vociferously against regulating derivatives because, they claimed, unfettered markets were more efficient. Yes, it was the unfettered use of leverage and derivatives that destroyed their companies and wreaked havoc on the rest of us.
(more)
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For more on the Deregulation Disaster and the beginning of the current Republican Dystopia see:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/05/foreclosure-phil">WHo Wrecked the Economy: Foreclosure Phil



let's not forget the Cheney administrations animus toward taking any action to reign in predatory lenders: (Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime - How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers


The Time article forgot to mention the PUBLIC DEBT, Something which has been getting some attention LATELY.

in January 2000 it was: $5.8 Tillion
in December 2008 it was: $10.7 trillion>

__JW)

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. BushCheneySupreme's gift to the country.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Frank Rich, MoDo and Frank Herbert convinced too many that there was no diff between Gore and Bush.

[Raster]

6. Guilty as charged--perhaps. It is certainly true that the vaunted Fourth Estate of Journalism

seemed to take a holiday during the run-up toward (s)Election 2000. Their actions are unforgivable. However, I suspect that everything was done to insure that most journalists were "warned off" from digging too deeply into cheney*/bush*, or even fairly reporting the election and surrounding electoral fraud. I'll be frank: a number of journalists were already aware of other "coincidences" and "suicides" from delving too deeply into "the machine." Again, not forgiving, nor letting anyone off the hook. The decade of hell and its signature event, the cheney*&/bush* pResidency has many collaborators to help share the blame, and the top of the list would be the Congress of the United States.

[petersjo02]

2. Re: "reign in predatory lenders"

Should be "rein in" as in pulling on a horse's reins to slow down.
Reign is what kings and queens do.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. More like "Reign Of" predatory lenders.

Yup, that's one of my pet peeves too.

[JohnWxy]

7. right. sometimes my brain and my fingers don't communicate so well.

I also admit I'm a little sloppy on spelling. I figure if people get my drift, nuff said. thanx though for the heads-up. I'll try to be more careful in fyuture...oops.

[phantom power]

5. They're going to wish they'd saved that term.

[Nay]

9. Indeed they will. The next ten years will be the real hell.

[pansypoo53219]

8. BUTBUTBUT

georgee said the economy was AWESOME for YEARS.