Locutus, you bring up valid points. What I've not seen you address yet is the sustainability of this enterprise. Sure, things are good now. They were better 10 years ago. Are they declining or improving? I think they are improving for a few, declining for many more. The issue is what they will look like when our children take over - many years from now. That is where most of us have the issue. This cannot sustain that long.
That's a really good observation and I think you nailed it. Perhaps the faults get overlooked or are recognized and tweaked but the systemic problem remains the same.
By the mere appearance of the MW article, I hereby declare that there will be no impending depressions anytime in the near foreseable future.
Well, they're doing what I want them to do now aren't they? Just kind of "make it up as they go along and keep the train running". Why couldn't it sustain indefinitely? Do you have any research to back this up? I don't think there's a point in speculating on sustainability of this. All I know is that humanity's development is monotone increasing (for those wondering, that means it can go up, up slower and sideways but never downwards) so I think the odds that "we'll (or our grandchildren will) come up with something" are still higher than "it'll all come crashing down". Note: This is not a stock market prediction this is a zeitgeist observation. Edit: I hadn't noticed you said that things are worse now than 10 years ago. Please refer to US real GDP and you will find that you are wrong (I would use your image but I think that would be rude )
Parasitic tit-suckers always want more, regardless. Productive people who have to pay for the tit-suckers to have more don't like having to pay for it all. So, nobody's happy.
Simplistic, indeed. You seem to think that Depressions are merely "choices" people make, as if on a whim, could be cast-off for endless prosperity. If that were true, history wouldn't be littered with hundreds of examples of Depressions in the past 300 years alone. Depressions are the natural result of over-consumption, mal-investment, and excessive leverage. When the bow breaks, and money ceases to be plentiful, the pyramid of debt collapses upon itself and people who invested in real property or securities at excessively high bubble prices, lose their shirt. Or are tied to an asset with a true value 1/3rd it's purchase price at wages that barely appreciate. And the lenders of precious capital get hosed even more. It's capital destruction. What needs to happen is mass bankruptcy. Of individuals, corporations and lenders. Then the system can reset, and new growth can be made on solid ground. This process takes around 18 months, but progress cannot be made without it. Why? Because excessive prices and indebtedness is a huge impediment to growth. People with money won't invest or risk capital in conditions where everyone is barely solvent. And lenders and individuals on the razors edge have most of their income tied up servicing bad debts from the last bubble. This is why in order to get the growth conditions you want, the Government must let the economy collapse and bankrupts go under. Right now, we're stuck in limbo where, as I said above, even solvent institutions and individuals who do have capital won't loan it or invest in real business - real goods-producing, life-enhancing enterprise - because general conditions are terrible and terribly risky. To arrive at Greener pastures, the market and real estate must crash. This is a function of how markets operate via money supply and future earning expectations. However, we have a much more serious problem on the radar and that's a sovereign debt default. We're no longer talking localized recessions where capital destruction is relatively small and manageable. But tens of trillions in pent up global excesses and inflated wages (thanks to decades of wasteful Government spending and deficits) that needs to go belly up. Most Western economies are held up by this spending, which, shortly, will end. So the "reset" period will make Greece look like Disney Land. More like Argentina. This painful purging, if left unmolested by authorities, is relatively quick. No more than 18 months. But that won't happen. We live in Democracies where the idiots vote in idiots to "save them" at any cost. And they usually do, and it looks like the '08 never-ending story or Japan. You know, whenever the market makes a nice run up, amateurs (like you) crawl out of the woodwork and make every argument under the sun as to why all-time highs are around the corner, why every bear is a delusional killjoy and why bad numbers are really just mass hysteria. You are the sheep to the slaughter. You're driving without headlights. You ought to figure out how all this "economic stuff" fits together before you go shooting off at the hip as to why everyone but yourself is deluded fool who doesn't recognize "your genius". Things operate for a reason. Evidently, reasons you don't understand.
a) You seem to claim that you know what a depression is and what causes it. However even among the most high-ranked scholars and other people who study these thigns for a living there is a high amount of disagreement on this very subject. For that reason, I don't find your story credible. b) A depression every two years (hundreds in the past 300 years? Riiiight) is a bit excessive c) As I said, this thread is not a stock market prediction. Predictions are useless and so is yours re who is getting slaughtered. I will repeat: YOU (average person) HAVE MORE THAN OR JUST AS MUCH STUFF AS WHEN EVERYTHING WAS CONSIDERED AWESOME (2000). So I don't understand why everybody is so gloomy. There's a mass psychosis that the economy is a leaky boat POS that is going to break any time now.
"The problem is at the consumer level, confidence is low and that is because, as you showed, showed we had underemployment with one out of every six Americans. The worst element of that is that among the unemployed, against the American history, more than approaching half, have [been] unemployed for over six months. That is historically unprecedented in the United States. That is a phenomenon that is seen often in Europe, rarely seen here. In 2007 the average time to get a new job was five weeks. It's now near six months. And that implies a whole segment of the population, the more elderly or the middle-aged who may never get employed again," Charles Krauthammer said on FOX News this evening. -------------------------- WE ARE ALREADY IN A DEPRESSION. There was no recovery, QE2 did nothing and the STOCK MARKET is all but HOT AIR.