The recession was caused by the cumulative trade and budget deficits getting to where we are in general, bad credit risks, borrowing too much, importing/consuming too much, and producing/exporting too little. For 40 years we have had government after government that just pretended it was no problem, and happy to allow any kind of non-obvious scam that would allow the can to be kicked down the road another 4 years. Witness Obama's "we will cut the deficit in half in the next 4 years" routine, based on rosy scenario numbers that have no likelihood of ever coming true. The governmnt debt was beyond the point of ever being repayable when it was 4 or 5 trillion back before Bush devastated us, let alone the 10 trillion he left us with, or the 15 trillion Obama will leave us saddled with. The stimulus won't work, and will only result in an even worse catastrophe a few years from now.
I'm not surprised you can't fathom it. Truly, it's such a dumbass thing to blame the world's recession on "reckless American consumers". The entire exporting world was all-too-happy to continue shipping all their crap while Americans supported their economical growth and jobs. American banks were blamed for the subprime meltdown, and that's probably true, but European, Asian and Canadian banks were just as eager to get their piece of the pie. Europe had no problem lending out to Eastern European countries that now cannot pay them back (see Austria, for instance) and housing markets in Ireland, the UK or Spain had just as many issues as the US. Yes, it's all the consumer in the U.S.. Because if we gave easy and cheap credit to ANYONE ELSE in the world, they just wouldn't take it. It's an American defect. Christ, sometimes I can't believe the crap I read here.
Harper is an idiot. Every politician will blame anyone but themselves or past decision. They want to hold on to power, right?
This board is nothing but idiots...obviously no one clicked the link because the thread title is BS "OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the global recession was caused by American consumers and investors who believed in the "unconservative" idea that they could borrow without consequences." More like "Prime Minister Harper states the obvious"
ET is full of idiots? The thread title is BS? Why don't you email the Canadian paper that published the article then, and tell them to fix the article's title of 'Reckless U.S. consumers caused recession: Harper,' then? Excuse f**king me for reprinting the title of the article in that Canadian paper word for word, Mr. Brainiac.
1. I beg to differ. ET is NOT "nothing but idiots"... but rather, only about 98% idiots. 2. What about the US Gummint? They borrowed and spent with the belief there would never be "consequences"... set the example of behavior and tone for American consumers.. and the famous DUMBASS Federal politico's statement (I don't recall his name)... "Reagan proved deficits don't matter".. That guy was a total FUCKHEAD!!