Is a Double Dip Recession Looming?: Tips for Surviving the Next One

[Rob Halpern]

This “overly regulated” line is a convenient bogeyman and makes for snappy slogans but has no legs.

Next we’ll be talking about further tax cuts for the wealthy because you see the wealth can then trickle down to you and me. Oh wait, we’ve tried that for 25 years and nothing has trickled down.

The banks and wall street were pretty much de-regulated (relatively anyway) and that is one big reason we are here today. China is pretty much deregulated and, although business is booming, thousands of working people are getting killed and maimed each year due to shoddy construction and tainted products… just like life in the good old USA a century ago.

 

We all need to cut the infantile blaming and quoting media mouthpieces and start doing our homework and trying to elect people interested in solutions rather than position.

I know there are differing economic opinions and they stem from thoughtful academicians. But somehow we need to stop acting like this is a reality tv show and take responsibility.

 

And anyone who was surprised by the S&P downgrade and what has been happening in the markets the past week has simply had their head in the sands. There was time to get out.

[Trace One]

that looked really funny, Rob, but it is no longer available..Shade! (too bad, in German..)..going to try to find it elsewhere..

 

ps, NO Laissez Faire economics, Mr. Johnson..

we need CCA’s WPA’s – we need government investment and tax the rich!!!!;

[Trace One]

Displace workers, like the ones on this site who have NO JOBs at all???sorry, Jason, wrong on WPA stuff..what prolonged the depression is the same as what is happening now – the 1937 cave in to republicans and pull-back on public investments..Of course you could do the same thing now, union or not..They started it, but were stymied by the tea party..

 

New Deal did NOT prolong depression..the 1937 cave-in did..I will quote you chapter and verse if you want..

and oh,yes, the Soprano’s gives us a good idea of who runs the unions, just like FOX news is the best source for climate change info..I could not believe their coverage of the beetle devastation of the pines in Arizona, all due to Climate change..For Fox, there is NO mention of the scientists and climate change, only their own theories – Steve Ducy and Fetchin Gretchen – they know what they talking about!!! NOT

but I am not going to change your opinion, I am sure of that! As you are NOT going to change mine.

[Nic Wurzbacher]

What planet do you live on ?

 

[Nic Wurzbacher]

I’M WITH YOU !

[Heather Smith]

Can we admit that the economic policies of our government are trending much more to the right then the left? That we had members of the GOP sign anti-tax pledges and essentially threaten to drive the economy off a cliff if they didn’t get everything they wanted? I heard a woman from Britain speaking on the threat of default that Tea Party members held over our nations head…she said they were lucky they lived in the US because nowhere else in the rest of the world would a small minority of the population be able destroy their countries credit. If they had evidence this would increase jobs I would back them. There is no evidence and the only evidence is that they want to push their Grover Norquist ideals of no government. They could not govern, because it isn’t about governing it is about pushing their political ideals. There were ideas floated that would have cut our deficit much more drastically that were DOA because they involved tax increases. How long do we have to experiment with “trickle down economics” before we can safely say it has failed? No matter how many graphs we show delineating the death of the middle class we will have a group of people voting against their own best interest in the almost religious belief that somehow the money will get to them. The Tea Party got exactly what they wanted…”starve the beast” is the motto. I can’t wait to see their faces when their social security and medicare is cut or greatly reduced. Will we see a couple hundred old white people screaming about death panels then?

[Heather Smith]

So essentially your saying  the Laizzes Faire behavior after the crash of 1920 led to a prolonged recession in 1929. Got it. Sounds about right.

[Heather Smith]

Yes, but you do know that one thing that caused the 1929 Crash was the Wild West mentality of the stock market during the “Roaring 20’s”. That is the point I was making…I could actually come to the conclusion that the hands off, unregulated trading of stocks during the 20’s precipitated the Great Depression.  Much like the housing bubble…which was largely unregulated and existing rules unenforced people saw buying stocks as a sure fire way to increase wealth. If they didn’t have the money they bought on margin, borrowing so that they too could get on the wealth. Borrowing money to buy stocks sounds a lot like borrowing money to buy investment properties.

[Trace One]

Jason, your views are extreme rightist, and I make that as a statement of fact,  not insult….Glass – Steagall was passed in 1933 and is the sort of gov. regulation that helped us stay out of crashes like 2008 for sixty years. The New Deal was bringing us out of depression, until a rightist coalition succeeded in causing it to be stymied, in 1937.

Milton Friedman was laughed at by economists until in the seventies, as with the tea party, people began to realize this bizarre fantasies were being taken seriously in America..Greenspan is a good example of one of these crazies, and gosh, in 2008 or so didn’t he say, “I have made a serious mistake in my world view.”

We need more regulation not less..But Grover Norquist wants to ‘makes government so small we can drown it in a bucket,” and just like Milton Friedman, his crazy world view has taken hold..

It is not more agreement we need in government, this ‘just get along’ stuff..We need a takeover by real progressives, so we will stop advancing to the right with every move..It is bringing us down.

You can track Britains recovery directly with conservative policy – as soon as the conservatives took over, and implemented the gov. roll-backs, the economy began to stall,..Now they have riots in the streets, by the hopeless poor..That is in our future..What does it take to convince the right that their  policies are wrong? But I forget, they cannot be convinced or talked to – we must just crush them..

Here’s godspeed to the recall election in Wisconsin today.. Already the republican dirty tricks have been in force – mailng out ballots with the wrong date! Things like that, plus Citizens United, may doom our country to the riots that Britain is facing..

[Trace One]

and p.s., there was  nothing ‘fine’ about the american economy prior to the 1929 crash. We had successive depressions,  horrible boom and bust cycles that caused lots of general suffering. Market regulations like Glass-steagall were designed, and succeeded in moderating the prior sufferings.

Jason, what does someone with such rightist views do with landscape architecture? I don’t know why, but  I feel we are a liberal profession, based on understanding of and empathy for the earth, for humans in the landscape, for equality, as Olmstead saw it……

Do you let the most agressive species rule the design? No separation of plants and people, let them duke it out..? Have to refine that idea…A garden for Grover Norquist..My next competition entry..

[Trace One]

But you are following a party line with a particular way  of interpreting the past. Your claim to independence or ‘reality’ is specious.

But rightists often disregard the existence of a spectrum of interpretation, hence the crazies that are running us today..

there is a ‘right’ interpretation, there is a ‘left’ interpretation, to deny the existence is to deny reality..Your opinion is fairly consistently rightist.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I think there is a pretty good chance that when the numbers are revised we’ll find that we did go back into recession already.

 

The “lower tax” issue may or may not be to protect rich people, but history shows that when they are lower the money moves more and the government collects more money in income taxes. Wealth is not taxed, income is. When money does not change hands it is not taxed at all no matter how high the rate is. Higher tax rates on the rich do not result in higher revenues for the government. …. neither does no income tax for people making little money, either.

 

Like them or not, we need rich people spending money to give us work and the government more revenue. Be careful what you wish for because it can hurt your livelihood. In the late 80’s they came up with a luxury tax on cars and boats over $75k. My state lost 26 boat manufacturers becuse of it … I think there were 2 left after all was said and done.

 

It all works fine if you believe that the only change is that the government gets more of a percent of the same amount of income. The problem is that behaviour changes and not only does the government not get the money, but the rest of us don’t have people spending money on our goods and services.

 

These are the same arguments made between the Carter and Reagan administrations and we all know how that turned out …….. or do we? How can anyone believe that the country has been shifting to the right?  Maybe to the right of where it was last year, but not more to the right than it was in the Clinton administration, … yes, I said the Clinton administration was way to the right of the current government.

 

 

[Jon Quackenbush]

Just once in my lifetime I would like to see a strong and viable left.  Not pretend left, the real deal.

[Rob Halpern]

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6477219/remix-e-trade-baby-loses-everything

[Trace One]

None of the above statements are true, Jason. Research and facts show the opposite..I don’t know where you get your certainty, combined with it’s complete incorectness.   The right, deregulation of markets, has caused the market crash of 2008.

 

What DO you read? Are you even aware of any controversy, anything objectionable to what you are purporting to be true, or do ALL the fact you see support what you think? Isn’t that a problem right there?

 

and I don’t get the connection to urban planning. Do you mean Jane Jacobs is dead? I don’t think so!..and I mean that in the most emphatic and  dismissive terms – as in NOT!!!

 

 

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