After 40 years of assault. After eight years spent cutting scuttle holes in the hull.

[Stinky The Clown]

Does anyone think the economy will "come back" any time soon?

The question has little to do with Obama. It has everything to do with longer term, generational trends.

I do not believe I will live long enough to see an economy as "worry free" as it was even a few years ago. Those years just past are, indeed, the last of the good old days, it seems to me. Anything we coots and codgers do in the rest of our lives will be for the benefit of our kids and grandkids. We geezers, on the other hand, are pretty much fucked.

There are many reasons for this. Most of them go back to repubican ideas and ideals, no matter who put the policies in place.






**"worry free" refers to attitude, not actuality.

[mike_c]

1. agreed, it's going to get worse before it gets much better....

People in leadership simply will not look dispassionately at recent history and act accordingly, therefore we're doomed to repeat the old mistakes again and again, democrats as well as republicans.

[groovedaddy]

2. Whether the economy comes back or not? How about if working class consciousness comes back

or not. We've gotten fat, stupid and lazy - politically that is. "We" put Reagan in the WhiteHouse TWICE. Allowed him to destroy an entire labor union. Allowed the free traders to foist corporate globalization on us. Allowed the SCOTA to hijack the 2000 election. We are very compliant, non-thinking lot. Now the only people getting really riled up are the tea baggers, making it appear that if you are all riled up, you must be one of them. It's freak'n crazy I tell you!

[Stinky The Clown]

4. It seems sometimes to be painfully pointless

So long as the powers that be have fully and unrelenting control of the media, we're kind of powerless. We've seen a half million people march in opposition to the war and the media covered the 46 counter protesters who gathered miles away in a vacant lot in Jersey City (or whereeverthehell they were). What the hell can we do? We get to vote from a choice of corporate candidate A or corporate candidate B. We get hit up for campaign contributions that don't mean jack shit. I shall *never* be convinced that the barrels and barrels of cash Obama (just as an example) raised in his presidential run were from little people giving a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

I've said it before and I will say it now. It is all a sham.

Someday power may return to the people, but it may well have to follow the French model.

[TheKentuckian]

3. As far as I'm concerned the economy has been in a death spiral for about eight years

and was propped up before that by credit in an age of effectively flat wages.

Now the credit has dried up and the long flat wages are on the decline due to high unemployment, jacked up trade policies, increasing automation, outdated and crumbling infrastructure that inhibits competition, too high of a focus on low wage service jobs, dependence on supply side insanity, an overheated housing market, rising subsistence costs, and older workers forced to stay in the workforce because of devastated investments and supporting adult children who cannot establish themselves.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. I think the death spiral started in the Nixon years, got going in the St Ronald era . . . . .

. . . . . and is now peaking.

Y'ever watch the water circle the hole in the bowl? The water rises and the swirl starts slowly. It gets faster the smaller it gets until, finally, it all goes out.

We're at the point analogous to the last few milliseconds before it exits the hole.

[TheKentuckian]

17. Quite right

[NoNothing]

5. At least you oldsters had a good run

The younger generations are going to have to actually eat the shit sandwich of high taxes and low spending that has been so nicely prepared for us.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. The run was okay

The root, however, is far older than "we oldsters"

[blindpig]

8. Stinky, what you call 'republican ideas and ideals'

is Capitalism. Those 'ideas and ideals' cross party lines.

For the economy to 'recover' in the normal capitalist manner a lot more bad shit will have to happen in order to make investment as profitable as they want. Either way we're screwed within the capitalists paradigm.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. I disagree with that as a blanket statement.

I'm proud to be a capitalist.

I think it is a system that compliments the human condition and human nature. I favor (heavily?) regulated capitalism. I object, as you probably do, too, to unfettered capitalism.

[blindpig]

12. Capitalism does not 'compliment the human condition ....

and human nature', rather it modifies and conditions, it is the social environment in which we live.

Unfettered or fettered, hardly any difference, fettered capitalism is just unfettered capitalism waiting to happen, as history has shown time and again.

I don't think you are a capitalist, do you profit from the labor of other exclusively?

[Stinky The Clown]

13. I am one third owner of a small company.

We have one employee. We all work doing pretty much the same thing. We all make a decent living. Not obscene, but okay. Our employee makes a very nice wage compared to her peers in our competitors' companies.

[blindpig]

16. There ya are..

you work.

Capitalism will grind down the 'mom&pop' operation as surely as the wage laborer.

[izquierdista]

15. Capitalism is nothing to be proud of

It provides you with a wide choice of toilet paper, condoms, tampons, laxatives, antacids, video games, greasy hamburgers, shoes, and magazines, but there is no pride to be had in moving this merchandise. For the necessities of life; free public education, universal health care, inexpensive public transit, inexpensive mail delivery, fire protection, just to name a few, capitalism falls far short of -- Socialism.

[L0oniX]

10. I have no hope of it ever getting better. There are too many things that will make sure it doesn't.

Can you imagine if the price of gas was still going up over $4 a gallon? Wait until gas and oil reserves are appropriated for sole use by the military in the name of national security as resources diminish. How about the impending food and clean water disasters which are unfolding now because of global warming. Remember it wasn't too long ago that Atlanta was going to run out of water due to a lack of rain? The water wars are just gearing up now. There's also a US monetary disaster around the corner as the trend to change to the euro continues and the US printing of funny money for bailouts also continues. Oh and don't expect war to end because what's left of our economy depends on it.

But!!! don't worry ...be happy

[Bonhomme Richard]

11. They have fooled the people for 20 years that they ..............

have money to spend even though they were paid less and less. Now the scam is revealed and they will not spend what they do not have.
I'll bet it doesn't until we see a shift in whose pockets the wealth ends up in.

[Greyhound]

14. Of course not, that was the intent.

The parasites were scared shitless in the 60's and the plans were initiated in the 70's.

We are faced with two options; Become a 2nd world work camp and amusement park for the global parasites. Or rebuild the nation from the ground up.

We still have the best real estate on the planet with the resources to tell everybody else to fuck off.

[librechik]

18. after a manufacturing plant has been closed a few years, it's really hard and expen$ive

to get it running again. And that's IF tax loopholes rewarding outsourcing are closed, manyfacturers supported by tariffs and the workforce available and trained. We are really screwed. By foreign competitors who didn't like our pre-eminence in manufacturing. And by greedy Americans who thought making a buck now is always superior to supporting an economy for the future.