The rapid increase in economic pessimism combined with millions of people losing wealth due to the recent huge drop in stock values could cause people to pull back on spending, reducing demand for goods and services.

I lost whatever was left of my 401K today. I will be lucky to have a job next year. What else does wall street and the assholes n government think we have to take?

You people who think the economy is bad need to be drug-tested! Stop being such purists! Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!

Back to being serious, I’m sorry to hear about your retirement account :(

Those of us with retirement funds in the stock market will be lucky if our investments regain some of their former value.

The filthy rich ‘job creators’, sitting on boatloads of cash, will swoop in, buy low, and make a fortune while we glean what small percentage of our original investments we can.

It.Is.Obscene.

That kind of loss makes me want to sharpen the tines on my pitchfork.

nice one

I imagine there are numerous lamp posts down on Wall Street. A 10,000 person neck tie party might get their attention pretty damn quick.
Just in my dreams.

Posted earlier today. Bears repeating.

Cleary this is why we need to enact more anti-stimulus, while undercutting Social Security and shipping more job overseas as welll…and we are supposed to clap louder while this is going on. Obviously if you oppose the direction Obama wants to take the country, it is you who should be drug test.

I’m one of those persons. I held off dipping into my pension fund for two years (I allowed to do so up to an age limit). By any objective standards that fund is (no was) huge and would have allowed me and wife to enjoy a more than comfortable middle class retirement. We are being hammered. Fortunately, we still have a big cushion in equity in real estate, and another year or so before I have to turn the fund into a retirement income fund. But it is hard to look at my bank balance nowadays.

For those interested, there is an incredible thread over at Paul Krugman’s blog. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/dismal-thoughts/. Some of it is as good as here, which is unusual.

Those numbers are about to get worse.

We are now going into Recesssion and possible Depression, while Zero is vacationing in Martha’s Vinyard.

As deaf to peoples’ plight as W Bush was, only he pretends to care and will say whatever he believes people want to hear.

Total failure.

“could cause people to pull back on spending”

No, WILL cause, not could cause.

This is very scary because our economy is so dependent on consumer spending.

All this is true, but the spending is dependent on cash flows, which include earned income and what people can borrow. Both have been shrinking for years, so the actual economic contraction should be a surprise to anyone. What is happening is that people are beginning to realize that it isn’t just happening to them personally, but is systemic. Where does this play out? I think the effects on consumption spending proper are going to be minor, because consumption is already being depressed by the inability of households to finance new expenditures. Where it will hit is in the business community, who will (rightly) take these polls as evidence that it is not a good time to be investing in expansion.

So much for the Confidence Fairy.

At what point do consumers become revolutionaries and revolt this is the first time we might see a national revolt in a country where we can get all these numbers and kinda trust their accuracy. We have Employment numbers, consumer confidence numbers, housing numbers, drop in wealth, retirement benefit numbers etc even if we don’t revolt the data will be interesting how close can a get before rebelling?
I am sure the GOP and Dems don’t believe it will happen but a clueless ruling class that doesn’t think rebellion can happen until there are riots is another sign rebellion can happen.

clueless ruling class

This hits the point on the button. Let’s suppose that the majority (maybe a small one) of politicians in DC are not hopelessly venal. I am ready to concede that as a working hypothesis. But they are hopelessly clueless. They have been playing the straight politics game for so long (at least since the late ’80s, that it is all they know how to do. Discussions and actions based on substantive evaluations of outcomes have gone out the window. This is because everything is seen through the lens of television and polls, which is an advertising lens. Our elite are populated by ad men. It is the only thing they know how to do. The problem is, if you are trying to sell an Edsel or New Coke, and all you know is how to sell, you have a real problem. That’s where we are now.

Good. People are wising up. The recovery was nothing but a web of lies. Even Americans, kept ignorant from birth about politics and economics, have seen enough of Obama and the Congress to have zero confidence in any of them. The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.

“At what point do consumers become revolutionaries and revolt…”

At the point where someone can think of a way to make and sell the types of physical implements you need to arm a revolution. Also, you will have to find people to cater the revolution. Can’t have rioters riot on empty stomachs. Not going to happen, not here, or not in my lifetime. People will get used to the idea that the notion of American exceptionalism is passe.

I’m trying to form the words to say the degree to which you’d need to be an asshole to come into office in 2008 after the near-total evisceration of the safety net over 30 years… then, in the face of the worst economy in 70 years, decide that what needs to be done is to cut it some more.

Words fail me.

and yet the “public”, teacrackpots excepted, still love their Obama. After all he’s such a snappy dresser and by gum he makes a great speech and don’t you know he’s an authority on the Constitution. He’s a winner all right!

“Consumers” first have to realize they were once “citizens.”

I don’t know about you folks but that whole magical thinking be doing really well for me. Obviously you all have under-mis-estimated our ecpetionalism-ist greatness-ish ability-ness.
I believe in the confidence fairy. It give me confidence.
I believe in the trickle down fairies. They give me much trickle down. WHy I just trickled down a few minutes ago. See, they work. Without them, no tinkle, much less down. See you once again misunderestimateded them. With them, we get trickled on. And then we can trickle on others. And they on others …
I also believe in the shiny bipartisanship unicorn. It so shiny. Glossy coat. Why? Because they too were trickled on. And a unicorn is kinda like a pony. You just have to close one eye, squint, and look at it with your peripheral vision. Amazing sight. I thank the confidence fairy for this. Without whom I may be like you folks and misunderestimatededness the power of fairies and not see the unicorn/pony.
I have always wanted a pony. And thanks to the fairies, We can all have a pony. Plus the horn is a great way to open cans of catfood.
Don’t forget, those who misunderestimatededness the perfectly honest mistake of the royalty will not get trickled upon. No trickle for you (said in the voice of the soup nazi from Seinfeld).

Sadly, I am losing confidence in every part of America . Not just the economy .

I work in the engineering consulting field in Los Angeles. As of about 4 months ago, the projects started to dry up (Obama stimulus ending??). The firm I partner with is laying off people and getting desperate. I think that the double dip has already started.

Yesterday, I bumped into a woman going through my curbside trash cans. She was fishing for the bottles and cans with the deposits. In the past, it was usually homeless people. This woman had a vehicle, she looked middle class.

At this point, I think that the society is like the vegetation in Texas, so dry and waiting for a spark to ignite the whole thing. Chris Hedges says that the US has a small window to resolve this situation before the violence starts and I am now thinking that he is right. Hopefully someone will speak sense to our leaders before that happens.

So, we’ve got a Congress, whose approval ratings are slightly less than that of “anthrax” and where are they – on vacation! We’ve got a President, whose approval ratings are falling faster than Ann Coulter’s panties at a Welcome Home party for the Fifth Fleet, and he’s set to go – on vacation! Meanwhile the banksters and their friends are trashing the hell out of peoples’ investments because they know there are no consequences for their ongoing criminality.

We’ve got an economy teetering on the verge of Great Depression 2.0 and it appears we’re sleepwalking into a disaster of our own making. And our British cousins are just shocked that their austerity thingy is not well received by the young peasants and serfs. Is their any wonder that our confidence in the economy is plummeting? The firebells have been clanging a warning and our elites are in a somnambulist stupor clinging to their bags of gold and silver.

Do you ever feel like you’re on a train going 100mph with no engineer and no brakes?

A lack of speaking isn’t the problem, it’s a lack of listening.

“Do you ever feel like you’re on a train going 100mph with no engineer and no brakes?”

That’s exactly how I feel.

Not violence…rather who is equipped to address the issues. Doing the same thing over and expecting a different outcome is a loser.Where are those think tanks and what are the alternatives? Eternal war brings down empires. China launched it’s first AC carrier. So they plan air superiority in their part of Asia filling the vacuum that the Soviets vacated. ME is up for grabs along with the oil. Without fuel MIC is toast. Without consumers the economy is toast. Without a plan (now that the US Constitution is defunct)the republic is neutered. This crisis has been building for decades. Their seems to be no one up to the task or willing. As Krugman said today there are solution but no takers.

“Do you ever feel like you’re on a train going 100mph with no engineer and no brakes?”

“Mr. conductor, where are we headed?” — Endless Tunnel by Serpent Power

It’s hard to be optimistic when you just got laid off from a job you’ve held for nearly 20 years (happened to my husband last week). Along with 22 others at his school. Reason: lack of promised state and local funds. I am sure this type of thing is happening all over the U.S.

Obama and Geithner are the ones who need to be drug tested. They are delusional about the economy. Especially about the need to cut spending and the rest of the safety net.

That’s the problem with you progressives, you tend to see the glass half empty. Now shut up and eat your peas!

What is going on reminds me of some of the failed societies Jared Diamond wrote about in his book Collapse. It almost seem like they want to “fail”.

The question is why? Do they actually think there is that much gain for themselves in it?

“Obama and Geithner are the ones who need to be drug tested. They are delusional about the economy. Especially about the need to cut spending and the rest of the safety net.”

Ding!

Once again, aside from the fact that the whole system is corrupt, this explains 99% of what is going on:

Robert Reich: So rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama – to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia.

You had me, that was f%^k&*g wicked and cruel! I thought you were working for the Obamacans.

I am so sorry…for you and your husband, the others, and what is happening to our schools…of course, that also means the kids. What is happening? Good luck

Obama doesn’t know what to do about continuing high unemployment. He is as clueless as they come.

Perhaps now IS the time for Obama to call Congress back to create an infrastructure bank and to hurry it along to getting things done. Let the Republicans follow *that* leadership!

If you will remember, the repubs were not taking Obama’s calls. At least if you believe Obama on the subject.

It has been suggested that Obama is doing what he has planned all along. He is not a Democrat but a Manchurian Candidate. He is really one of the elites from the Harvard School and only surrounds himself with Harvard people. We have been duped and now we must pay the piper.

Krugman is a hack. He “concluded as soon as Lehman fell that we were in a classic liquidity trap”. Nonsense. Lehman fell due to massive fraud and privatized Keynesianism. Wall street was goosing the economy and profiting from it.

Policy is not the problem. The economy was massively overstimulated and there is no trust that government Keynesianism can tide over the depression. The powers that be dare not risk turning authority over to the government because the failure is so massive they will lose terribly. They’d rather run with their spoils.

Of course there are no takers for Krugman’s nonsense.

>>Perhaps now IS the time for Obama to call Congress back to create an infrastructure bank and to hurry it along to getting things done. Let the Republicans follow *that* leadership!<>If you will remember, the repubs were not taking Obama’s calls. At least if you believe Obama on the subject.<<

Well, I'm not convinced Obama is on our side, but I do believe his opposition, esp in the TP, is truly insane, not unlike similar bunch of Rip Van Winkles awakened by Gingrich in 1994 who had little mature experience in how to govern in a constitutional democracy so one-eyed Gingrich could be their king. TP is Gingrich wackos 2.0 with greater religious fervor (emotionalism). This gets to the core of what worries me. No matter how clueless Obama and Dems are, if they start getting a clue and want to unwind this disaster halfway reasonably, the opposition has coiled into an ideological/religious/irrational corner and managed to gain enough power to say no.

How did we let a splinter minority of crazies get their hands on our governance? This is a social development, not just political. Was it media's fascination with pathology in personalities? What?

I was approached recently by a young man who wanted to buy my car, a nice little vintage number he could soup up, but I need to keep it in case I have to live in it.

Simpler version:

People without jobs don’t have money to spend.