4 Ways to Turn a Recession Into a Depression

economy

my opinion about obama doesnt matter, but i do have one thing to say and that is....if obama doesnt get this economy moving, and things get worst there will be a new record for lowest rated president

love my country america the great of TN @ Mar 05, 2009 19:32:52 PM

To the guy who called Jimmy "Shark"

Yea, you are that stupid. Government entitlement money (yes your Social Security) comes from current tax payers. If we go into a deeper recession or depression, the government won't have the funds to make these payments, because the funds come from workers who are no longer working. You really need an economics lesson, sir.

Palin Girl of VA @ Oct 09, 2008 16:34:32 PM

Entitlement

The word ENTITLEMENT in itself makes it sound like a cheese welfare line. You think your entitled to something. This money, is the money off of the backs of we...the middle class. I have been making weekly installemnts for 36 plus years.How would anyone feel that has put money into a bank to find it disappearing. Old news is, by the time we ready to retire the money we put away will be gone. So, they need to stop spending our money now. Balance the books like we do at home and let these greedy, evil little minded people on Wall Street and in the Banks whom ventured too much find there way like the rest of the laboring masses in this country. Yes the economy will be shaken, yes it will get worse, but in the end....BETTER and balanced. I can tell you this, it won't happen again in our lifetime!

CWB of NJ @ Oct 06, 2008 13:11:02 PM

A lot of people at fault

(1) Lehman, Bear Stearns, & Fannie Mae were leveraged about 30:1. When the market went down, s*** went down.

(2) The community reinvestment Act said give loans to blacks & hispanics who couldn't afford them.

(3) Chris Cox of the SEC allowed investment banks not to be regulated. It was voluntary.

(4) Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.

Those who don't understand history are likely to repeat it. My friends, we're repeating history.

Rahul of IL @ Sep 27, 2008 18:12:42 PM

Finger pointing

Ok Bush is the President...but when did the President ever get to do anything without the Congress giving the OK and who is the one running the banking system. ALL government stinks...so blaming one person is not going to get it.

of AR @ Sep 24, 2008 16:12:00 PM

Two Important Comments

1) The banking industry is unlike any other, because if it collapses, the money flow in the economy contracts, collapsing the entire economy. When credit stops flowing and money stops flowing, we are all doomed. The banking industry cannot be allowed to collapse.

The New Deal enacted legislation called the Glass-Steagle Act to protect banks from collapsing. That legislation put a firewall between regular banks and investment banks so that regular banks could never engage in risky behavior that may bring down the banks and the rest of the economy, Unfortunately, the Reagan Revolution repealed that, making the banking industry vulnerable to collapse.

The banks must be saved, and the firewall needs to be restored to prevent this from happening again.

2) Go online and look-up the economic statistics for FDR's first term. He has the best GDP of any president in history. GDP grew over 60% in his first term. Money in the hands of consumers after taxes was the most in history. Industrial output grew at double digit rates. Check the numbers.

Jasom of ME @ Sep 20, 2008 00:15:28 AM

How about not making any more bad loans

I am not an economist but it seems to me that the whole reason we're in this mess is because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and other institutions) felt like we owed it to the poor in this country to finance their houses. So we put people making $12,000 per year in $200,000 houses. I am sorry if this offends, but that sounds really ignorant. Why not put them in houses they might actually be able to afford? Maybe even a trailer (Oh Gasp) might have been better.

Edward of FL @ Sep 19, 2008 22:10:03 PM

Bad Loans

It seems to me what started this whole crisis was bad/illegal mortgage loans. Because there is was no oversight/regulation you have all these Americans defaulting on all of these bad/illegal mortgage loans.

Somewhere someone thought Americans were smart enough to understand these loans, which all or most of the loans must be foreign backed because the American government keeps tieing its self financially to selling bonds and not paying down its own debt and shoring up its own reserves.

So instead of saying to these people, these loans are illegal or nonsense and are we going to rewrite them refinance and let you keep these homes and your going to pay for them till doomsday if you have too, no they say its OK foreclose! And by doing that those guys on wall street who are leveraged 30 to 1 or maybe more its OK you can just eat it. Well guess what they can't and many have failed. Because nobody that is leveraged that much should be in business!

Now that they have figure out the market/economy/wall street is not strong enough to eat it, because wall street is in 30 to 1 over its head and the government is so in debt itself and not paying its own debt they say OK Americans you eat it and we will give the loan sharks the money who made the bad loans in the first place and save face with our foreign investors!!! I think they could have placed a bet in Vegas with better odds than 30 to 1!!!

So by doing that this administration shows the world what capitalism really is looking to be, a fraud, full of bad loans and no regulation. If the market is truly captialism then let the market correct its self and revalue, all that volume needs room to breathe and bottom out.

Stop promoting cronyism and feds get back to what your suppose to be doing, regulating bad/illegal loans and maintaining the value of the dollar and protecting the future of America not giving handouts for the future of loan sharks!

There are many more sovereign Americans that need help in this country who are homeless, jobless, no health services, no education and no future. That is the true value of America its people not the Gordon Gekkos on wall street!

God Bless America from the fools running this country!

Can someone please make sense of these numbers below.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1r-5.pdf

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1r-2.pdf

Raymond of NV @ Sep 19, 2008 21:03:41 PM