CommonDreams: Are We Facing Just Another Market Problem or A System Collapse?

[marmar]

Published on Sunday, July 27, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

How Should We Respond To The Imploding Economy
Are We Facing Just Another Market Problem or A System Collapse?

by Danny Schechter

Boston, July 25, 2008: The question we face in late July, as regulators seize two more banks, is: will we be engulfed by a further collapse in our economy or can the damage be contained, or, even turned around?

We know what goes up must come down but when will what’s down go back up?

It isn’t looking good—and, even now, the two presumptive major party presidential candidates are talking about everything but this deepening crisis. They are debating terrorists and Afghanistan and how to meander out of Iraq but not the reality that so many Americans are living with: a squeeze that is leaving so many of us broke, in deeper and deeper debt and disgusted.

Until now, the doom and gloomsters were mostly to be found in the margins, in financial blogs or in the campaigns of Ron Paul, Ralph Nader or the Greens. The mainstream media has been looking the other way and mostly downplaying the unfolding disaster. Even as foreclosures double, and the price of gas and food rises sharply, it’s been business as usual on the business pages, and among the liberal political pundits who would rather debate the cover of the New Yorker than the growing desperation of so many Americans.

The Congress finally passed a housing bill a year into the crisis with most of the money allocated to try to shore up two housing agencies with more than a half a trillion in housing assets. The markets are melting down with more major stocks tanking, banks writing off still more billions. and unemployment rising.

People in the know like George Soros are saying this is the worst financial crisis since the depression. Others fear another depression. This pessimism has reached Newsweek, a guardian of conventional wisdom, which now says “It’s Worse Than You Think, writing… “this downturn is likely to last longer than the eight-month-long recession of 2001. While the U.S. financial system processes popped stock bubbles quickly, it has always taken longer to hack through the overhang of bad debt. The head winds that drove the economy into this dead calm- a housing and credit crisis, and rising energy and food prices-have strengthened rather than let up in recent months. To aggravate matters, the twin crises that dominate the financial news-a credit crunch and the global commodity boom-are blunting the stimulus efforts.” ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/26/10632/

[Hydra]

1. Systemic collapse

The question is, "Why did they do it?"

This wasn't necessary, unforeseen or unpreventable. Therefore, what are the people causing the damage gaining?

[Greyhound]

2. This is part of the cycle, the shearing.

The same cycle that they always use, just amplified by the extreme idiocy of the morans in charge. Like almost all of our financial woes, this comes back to the fractional reserve central banking system.

In spite of the prevailing lies we're inundated with, prior to passage of the Federal reserve act the total spread of valuation of US currency was 7.5%. It is the Federal Reserve-FRCBS that promotes, nay requires, the wild boom-bust cycle of our economy. This is because that is how the most money is extracted from the marks, as we have learned (I hope) there is a lot of profit in chaos.

All sheep share a single destiny.

[Hydra]

3. Lamb chops for all

So you think this is simply an extreme reaping of the harvest? You're probably right. If they make birth control illegal, there will be plenty of workers to replace the ones they wind up killing by extracting too much from them.

[chaska]

4. Thanks, will read it tonight.

[NightWatcher]

5. system collapse scheduled for innauguration day. But will it hold off that long?

[DemoTex]

6. Crash? Collapse? Meltdown?

A DUer recently compared the ailing economy to a melting candle. I think that metaphor is complete if the candle's wick has perhaps been treated near it's base with white phosphorous so that as the candle burns down and the wax melts, the fireworks will get more and more spectacular (in the BAD sense): Meltdown. Collapse. Crash. Bang.