"The Greatest Economic turn-around in American History"

[Toots]

And it began at least six months before 9-11. The Bush* recession began in March 2001. After eight sustained years of "Peace and Prosperity" it took only a couple of months of Bush* to begin the Greatest economic turn-around in our nation's history. How very Republican don't you think?

[dkofos]

1. If I had any money in the stock market right now,

I would get out NOW.
The market is about to crash and crash big time.

[unblock]

4. uh, not likely

i know it's at an "all time high", but it's basically gone sideways for 6 years. that's not a typical prelude to a crash.

i'd put it another way -- the last 6 years has been one long, painful correction. i wouldn't count on a big upside from here on out, but i wouldn't be expecting a crash either.

[dkofos]

6. And I suppose you think the price of gas will continue down

after Nov 7??

[unblock]

10. just because i'm not predicting a crash

doesn't mean i think nirvana's around the corner.

energy prices will go back up, the economy will stagnate (further) as defense spending goes down once (democratic) congressional oversight is (somewhat) restored, eventually the fed will cut a notch or two.

mostly this is a recipe for more more-or-less sideways movement. the best news of all is that some democratic control means gridlock and therefore less fiscal insanity. this balances out some of the structural AND rotational problems the disgraced republicans have inflicted on us.

not a recipe for a big up, but not a recipe for a big down either.


for what it's worth, most of my money is overseas and doing VERY well.

[Lefty48197]

13. America's retirement accounts have been robbed by Bush for 5 1/2 years

The value of our 401K's has barely gone up one cent during the entire Bush WH occupation. That's 5 1/2 years of zero gain that we will never be able to regain. It's also a lifetime of compounded interest on that money that we will lose out on also. What's the answer Bush? More tax cuts?

[Hav]

5. .

Why and does it affect pretty much all stocks of all sectors? It's not the first time that I heard it and I have some money (which is very much for me) in stocks.

[TahitiNut]

8. It's equities inflation, phase xx

What marked the Clinton years was an obscene amount of pension funding being dumped into the equities market, far too much cash in the secondary market. Let's be clear - buying stock from another stockholder does absolutely nothing for the underlying business except inflate the 'market value' of their treasury stock, making them a target for leveraged buyout, NOT expansion. Very little of that 'investment' actually caused any growth whatsoever - the growth in employment being generated primarily by retained earnings. The Dubya years are marked by 'investment class' dollars, freed up from tax cuts, chasing the 'corrected' equities - yielding an artificial safety net for the market value of equities with P/E well in excess of 20 - the point at which greater fool forces predominate over productivity forces. When coupled with layoffs and off-shoring (to transiently suppress P/E), we're headed for another market 'correction' (collapse) unless another source of greater fool funds is found. This, of course, is why the 'investment class' salivates over the Social Security Trust Fund. One way or another, a major 'correction' is coming ... and the longer it's delayed the more catastrophic it'll be. The Great Depression could eventually look like a minor glitch compared to the massive toppling of economic dominoes we'll see.

[Warpy]

7. It's likely to decline

but I doubt a real crash to, say, 5000 or so is in the works. There is just too much money out there with nowhere else to go.

People got burned by gold; the housing market has stalled and shows every indication of deflating in the short term; 401K plans are now the only retirement out there for young folks and pensions, those that are still solvent at all, need to put their funds someplace they have a chance of earning dividends.

The real crash will be in banking, IMO, as all that unsecured credit card debt plus ARM foreclosures hit them hard.

[babylonsister]

2. That's a quote; do you have a

link so I can sigh along with you?

[Glorfindel]

3. It's what Repukes always do...

destroy the economy, heap rewards upon the already wealthy, and grind the poor and middle class beneath the boot of oppression. My parents lived through the Great Depression, and the very word "Republican" was an obscenity to them. I'm afraid we're in for another one, if something isn't done very soon.

[area51]

9. Republinazis always crater the economy.

We've never had a recovery from the recession that Bush** started. Good paying jobs are few & far between, and demand at food banks has spiked due to the bad economy.

[Vulture]

12. There used to be a shortage of good jobs

A few years back I would have agreed, but definitely not now. From about 2001-2004, there were not many jobs to be had and many people looking but that slowly turned around. The money is flowing and we can no longer hire decent engineers or even administrative people because everyone worth hiring has a job already. It has been like this for at least a year and is showing signs of getting worse rather than better, and in every market that we hire in (which covers a number of cities scattered through the US). The labor crunch led to some stupidity in the 1990s with respect to hiring practices, let's hope it doesn't get repeated again.

Historically, the economy currently feels like the circa 1997 economy in terms of capital availability and growth, and with no signs of letting up. As far as I am concerned, that is a good thing because it helps everyone. Everyone is still running mostly tight, lean ships at the various companies, though that may change as the capital increases and useful things to spend it on decreases. Survivability of a company in a crunch has a lot to do with how efficient their operations are.

The economy was pretty painful for a few years at the beginning of Bush's term, but it would be really hard to see it as being in anything but a good place now. Transportation costs are something to keep an eye on, but the market is rapidly adjusting to that reality and I don't see it making a huge dent with current projections. Not that Bush or the government has anything to do with any of this except to the extent they get out of the way; blaming the government for the state of the economy is pretty misplaced IMO, as the economy is still (in the US at least) largely driven by private sector decisions.

[ldf]

15. must be nice

living in that fantasy world of yours.

the economy is in a good place right now???

riiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhttttt!

for whom? those who already have the money? yeah, they made out like bandits.

as a matter of fact....

[Vulture]

16. I am overwhelmed with the substance of your response

Not. If you think the economy is bad, you either live in a very bizarre pocket of the US or are delusional.

It was a tough run for a few years, but that is over. You've obviously bought into some bizarre Hollywood caricature of what the business world is actually like. For the first time in a long time, we can't find decent people to hire at good wages in the cities we are hiring in. Venture capital is finally flowing quite freely again. With luck I might actually make some money rather than making sure everyone else gets paid and the company survives while I scrape by on my non-existent savings for the 5th year now. When was the last time you tried to survive in Silicon Valley on less than $2k/month for years at a time with no liquid assets? Most of the other people that I know that actually build companies are in a similar position. Only the very lean survive. Unless, of course, you have a job for one of those guys.

No one has had it easy the last several years, but things are *vastly* better than they used to be. Yes, I will probably make out like a bandit eventually. Like most savvy investors, I put everything I had saved into building companies during the bust, which wasn't that much money to start with. If business and the economy were as bad as you say, I would have to close shop and fire all 40-some people tomorrow but instead I plan to start paying myself a real wage in a month or two because, shock, every last one of my ventures is currently operating in the black and growing.

So who is living in the fantasy world again? Simply asserting a crappy economy does not a crappy economy make. If what we have now is a crappy economy, I'll take more of it please.

[Marr]

11. Oh, but it's cyclical don't you know. This economy is Clinton's fault, and

the state of the economy during Clinton's presidency was the result of Reagan/Bush's policy.

However, the Reagan economy was not the result of Carter's policies, and should be credited to Reagan.

Basically, if the economy sucks, they blame it on the previous administration and if the economy is doing well they take the credit. Not that the Reagan economy was good, of course- the old idiot was a catastrophy with a credit card. But still.

I used to be amazed that people would fall for that "cyclical" bullshit, but my opinion of Republican intelligence has fallen somewhat in recent years and it no longer surprises me.

[Hubert Flottz]

14. Bush has sent all the good jobs over there so nobody has to work

over here. At least not for a paycheck they can live on anymore.