Poll: 60% say depression 'likely'

robo0425 wrote:

I love the crap I am reading.
I have read posts about Depression, Recession, Revolution, and even one about the Anti-Christ and the Rapture.
Here's reality folks, No depression, some recession, but we get over it soon enough. Not the Dems fault, not the GOP's fault. All of our faults. You want a raise every year, but you don't want prices to go up. You buy chap crap at wal-mart, but dont want Mfg jobs to go overseas. You want a mcMansion, but you don't want to put down 20%. Its the American way.
There will be no revolution, there will be no Change. There will be the few, rich powerful people in this nation, taking what they can, and the rest of us in the drooling populace fighting for their scraps. Nothing significant is about to happen, no matter what the disembodied head on the magic box in the living room tells you.
Nothing will change, becaue the system works fine. All the bad crap happening in the economy is happening simply because of things that WE want. Not THEM. Not the rich, not the government, but us. We bought the houses we couldn't afford. We furnish them with Chineese crap from Walmart that we can't afford, so we put it on Credit cards, we will never pay off. We stare at the box on the TV that tells us when to buy things, when to be happy and when to be scared.
Never before in the history of man did the term,"we get the government we deserve," seem more appropriate.

You are right about one thing. This recession/depression is OUR fault. We have let the tyrants in DC get out of control! We have let them slaughter our economy and sell off our country to foreigners for a quick buck here and there until there was nothing.

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson

robo0425 wrote:

<quoted text>
That's total CRAP!
Brokers sold loans to people who wanted something they didn't work for. They provided the easy path and a bunch of half-wit suburbanites went running down it. No one HAD to do anything. They CHOSE to becasue they are greedy, irresponsible fools, whose delusions of grandure made them think that a middle management bean counter is entitled to a mass produced 4000 sq ft home on 4500 sqare feet of land.
Its not like price gouging in the wake of natural disaster, because that is taking advantage of people in NEED. The idiots that are losing their homes right now didn't NEED the house they bought. They WANTED the garden tub with wirlpool jets, and the granite countertops. The WANTED the openconcept entryway with a paladian window. They WANTED to be just like everyone else, and were willing to do anything to get what they WANTED.
Oh, BTW, don't cite the exceptions to the rule. The number of Seinors caught up in thismess in refinance is minimal, every report on forclosure states that the VAST majority of the homes are overpriced suburban cookie cutter houses in the burbs occupied by white-collar middle management.
They took the easy way out, and its costing all of us $700 billion.

And have you seen those overpriced cookie cutter homes in the burbs? Hmmmm? Have you? I have. Those McMansions you talk about were built by greedy builders hoping to make a killing - now they sit vacant or half built and no one wants them. They've never been lived in - therefore never foreclosed on - unless the foreclosure is against the builder.

The homes in my area ARE modest, family homes - at the very highest price range they might be 200k. There are 6 right in my neighborhood and I promise you, I don't live in a McMansion. The homes where I live range from 110K to 140K. I'm not sure why there are so many of these foreclosures, but I'm not going to second-guess someone's else's misfortune.

You work at FootLocker, so I seriously doubt you own a home, in fact, with a FootLocker salary chances are pretty good you're still living with your parents. Until you've lived long enough and had enough life experience (the old and wise don't work at shoe stores) to have had a few disasters of your own, don't knock the little people. We have far fewer advantages and opportunities than the CEO's at Lehman Brothers who are using YOUR money AND mine to fund not only their bail-outs, but their fun times, as well.

Donna Atlanta GA wrote:

<quoted text>
No, unemployment may very well be 6%, but UNDER-employment is extremely high. There is really are no figures to show how many people have gone from a well-paying job down to a make-do job, one that barely pays the rent and/or offers no medical benefits.
Few people are going to sit around without some kind of job for very long. But if they can't find a comparable job to the one they lost, they end up working at Wal-Mart or as a waitress or delivering newspapers or doing some other low-paying job to try to make ends meet.
Just because someone has a job doesn't mean they are doing well.

I agree that under employment is extremely high. However, I don't believe unemployment is only 6%. I personally know people who have been unemployed for years because of the bush economy. If you follow the methodology for calculating unemployment it has followed the trend of under counting more and more unemployed people for at least decades. It is not uncommon (for both dems and repubs) to desire better statistics concerning unemployment and they direct the labor dept to count some different way to show improvement. The number as calculated now is almost meaningless. The best that can be said is perhaps it is a measure of how many people have recently become unemployed.

I agree that few people sit around for long. They are all out looking on a daily basis. But after years of being told no everywhere you go, it gets more and more difficult to keep asking for a job. And these are degreed people. I can only wonder how much harder it is for those without an education.

I guess I would call unemployment at about 15% and under employment at about 50%. From my point of view, this is definitely a depression.

Bluey Andrew wrote:

Beware of your Government cancelling cash

I agree Bluey. Before too long cash and coins will more than likely be represented as "digits" that are only "real" in your bank and government database and only accessible by the RFIUD chip that is implanted in your hand.

With the complacency of the American people lately, I really believe that a lot of these fools would stand in line in droves awaiting this implantation! It sickens me to think that are fellow men and women are such pathetic, dependent slaves this system.

Nice babble, but of these, dirtbags that caused this, do we include the millions of idiots that bought homes they couldn't afford? You know, the very bad mortgages that the government just had to buy?

Or are you on the "we are all victims" kick like DonnaAtlanta?

McPalin wrote:

Oct. 7, 2008 | "My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand."
This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.
Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year.("Keep up the good work," Palin told AIP members. "And God bless you.")

I'm going to comment on this just so it gets reposted. Thnx.

During America's last depression the people were passive.
In the next depression the people will not be passive. Expect much violence: mobs, beatings, destruction, and fear.

The Magic Man wrote:

<quoted text>
Good job at age 32. I'm 55 with home paid off too. Got credit cards paid as well. 2 more payments on SUV.$100,000 cash available. Still working bringing in about $85K/yr. Sure lost some value in my 401K and stocks but not as bad as most. Holding my own. Prepared for this day years ago when watching other Americans pissing their money away. Americans never learn. They are just too greedy. In a way I'm glad this is happening. Maybe we will learn now....NOT.

You know what. The economic woes aren't really bothering me either because I have a secure job (universities usually don't go out of business), my mortage is modest, I own my car, and inflation (food, utility and gas prices) is really my only concern. I haven't lost anything in the stock market, my home isn't in foreclosure, and I don't buy things I don't really need.

But I'm not going to be arrogant and give the evil eye to the average guy who's facing misfortune. But for the grace of God, it could be any one of us, because disaster is an equal-opportunity thing and sometimes no matter how well you prepare, you can still get shot down.

robo0425 wrote:

Nice babble, but of these, dirtbags that caused this, do we include the millions of idiots that bought homes they couldn't afford? You know, the very bad mortgages that the government just had to buy?
Or are you on the "we are all victims" kick like DonnaAtlanta?

Are you on the "ignorant of all history kick" that maintains the left/righ illusion? Are you so ignorant you don't know this EXACT sort of duplicity has been employed in the westerern world before? Same old story, top 2-5% uses divide and conquer to seperate then destroy. Keep blaming the victims, the left, the gays, the right, the atheists... GOOD JOB GOING ALONG WITH THE THIEVES PLAN. Don't let schism and propaganda kill what little is left of this great experiment. It is worse than most of you think, the economy is in no trouble, OUR KEEPERS HAVE JUST LOST SENSE OF PROPORTION AND HAVE DECIDED TO TAKE IT ALL.

Donna Atlanta GA wrote:

<quoted text>
And have you seen those overpriced cookie cutter homes in the burbs? Hmmmm? Have you? I have. Those McMansions you talk about were built by greedy builders hoping to make a killing - now they sit vacant or half built and no one wants them. They've never been lived in - therefore never foreclosed on - unless the foreclosure is against the builder.
The homes in my area ARE modest, family homes - at the very highest price range they might be 200k. There are 6 right in my neighborhood and I promise you, I don't live in a McMansion. The homes where I live range from 110K to 140K. I'm not sure why there are so many of these foreclosures, but I'm not going to second-guess someone's else's misfortune.
You work at FootLocker, so I seriously doubt you own a home, in fact, with a FootLocker salary chances are pretty good you're still living with your parents. Until you've lived long enough and had enough life experience (the old and wise don't work at shoe stores) to have had a few disasters of your own, don't knock the little people. We have far fewer advantages and opportunities than the CEO's at Lehman Brothers who are using YOUR money AND mine to fund not only their bail-outs, but their fun times, as well.

Uh, yeah. The Financial service Center for FL, Inc is in Camp Hill PA, I work in IT and my wife is a mid-level bean counter. Actually we own a nice suburban cookie cutter house, THAT WE COULD ACTUALLY AFFORD!

You say you don't want to second-guess someone else's misfortune. So you are saying that $700 billion dollars of bad mortgages are all just a bunch of unlucky souls??? Just an unrelated string of coincidence and misfortune?

Look, Donna, I'm not saying the banks are not to blame here. i am saying that an equal amount of blame needs to be place on the shoulders of all of the people that bought homes they couldn't afford. I'm saying the only way out is to see the mistakes we all made.

Like I said, you cite the exception. And in normal lending markets, misfortune falls on a small percentage of people and they loose their homes. This is not a small percentage of people. And in most major and some mid sized markets the forclosers are overwhemingly on $500k and above houses. That has been all over the news for a year now. Look at California, Suburban NY, And I can't imagine where you live in Atlanta where there is actual affordable housing.

We will never get past this mess just blaming others. We did this. We bought the houses. This is our fault.

Don Joe wrote:

<quoted text>
I agree that under employment is extremely high. However, I don't believe unemployment is only 6%. I personally know people who have been unemployed for years because of the bush economy. If you follow the methodology for calculating unemployment it has followed the trend of under counting more and more unemployed people for at least decades. It is not uncommon (for both dems and repubs) to desire better statistics concerning unemployment and they direct the labor dept to count some different way to show improvement. The number as calculated now is almost meaningless. The best that can be said is perhaps it is a measure of how many people have recently become unemployed.
I agree that few people sit around for long. They are all out looking on a daily basis. But after years of being told no everywhere you go, it gets more and more difficult to keep asking for a job. And these are degreed people. I can only wonder how much harder it is for those without an education.
I guess I would call unemployment at about 15% and under employment at about 50%. From my point of view, this is definitely a depression.

Yes, it seems we really can't get a definitive figure on unemployment, and that's probably deliberate. Were we to truly know how many people are unemployed, it would make things look a whole lot worse.

Donna Atlanta GA wrote:

<quoted text>
But you can sell firewood and matches, and THAT is what the sub-prime business was all about. It sold loans to people who either desperately needed or wanted one.
A percentage of the foreclosures here in Atlanta are on the homes of elderly people who had either paid off their homes or were very close to it. Mortgage brokers talked them into sub-prime refinances for needed cash; now these old folks are losing their homes.
The brokers sold firewood and matches in Antarctica, plain and simple. It's kind of like hotels that jack up their prices when they know victims of natural disasters will be arriving. Or Home Depot, that jacked up the price of plywood during hurricanes. It's called greed.

Name one Home Depot that jacked up the price of plywood during any hurricane.

Give store locations.

Give amount or percentage price was "jacked up"

I'll be waiting...

Pieces fall into place for Troopergate inquiry
FRIDAY REPORT: Nearly everyone investigator had hoped to question, minus governor, will be on record.

By WESLEY LOY
wloy@adn.com

Published: October 8th, 2008 12:41 AM
Last Modified: October 8th, 2008 12:50 AM

With his Troopergate report due Friday, legislative investigator Steve Branchflower appears to have the makings of a fairly complete account, despite weeks of resistance from the Palin family and administration.

Former Assistant District Attorney Steve Branchflo
Branchflower has, or will have, answers from nearly all the people he'd hoped to question regarding Gov. Sarah Palin's firing in July of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

robo0425 wrote:

Nice babble, but of these, dirtbags that caused this, do we include the millions of idiots that bought homes they couldn't afford? You know, the very bad mortgages that the government just had to buy?
Or are you on the "we are all victims" kick like DonnaAtlanta?

Who lent large sums of money to people that couldn't afford to pay it back? Everyone and their mothers were buying up second homes off loans and turning around and selling them for a profit. The housing market was no different than a game of poker. Obviously someone has to lose. Are these idiots gambling large sums of money they don’t even have at fault? HECK YA! But should the rest of us bail them out and bail the banks that lent them this money out of this mess? F*CK NO!

Why should those that constrained their spending be punished for those who are irresponsible? If the housing market crashes it will be a blessing. The rest of us can actually afford to buy a house and I mean actually own it ourselves, not have the bank buy and own it for us.

main street bailout wrote:

McCain - Obama Economic Recovery Act of 2008
1) U.S. Government buys every primary mortgage on every owner occupied home in foreclosure/pre-foreclosure.
2) U.S. Government renegotiates the mortgages, forgiving enough debt to make the new mortgage affordable to the home owner. Government may also lengthen the term or reduce the mortgage rate.
3) U.S Government institutes a "recapture tax" on all homes that have government supplied recovery mortgages.
--- If the home owner profits from sale of house during first ten years after getting the new mortgage, half of the profit is returned to the government to offset any forgiven portion of the original mortgage. From the 10th to the 15th year the recapture tax reduces by 20% each year finally reaching 0% after 15 years.
4) U.S. Government PROSECUTES and PERSECUTES every single last dirtbag who did this to our nation.
---- U.S. Government confiscates the property of every single SOB that got us into this mess. Makes them do hard time in jail and ruins their life.
---- U.S. Government balances playing field and does its job as watch dog and rule maker; ensuring a level playing field exists between all players; like it should have been doing all of this time.
5) We pass a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT that proclaims only eligible voters may contribute to or lobby politicians.
---- It prohibits any and all other types of contributions or lobbying of federal politicians and officials.
---- It limits the total contributions by a single eligible voter in any single year, to be no more than the dollar amount that places an individual at or below the poverty line.
****** NOTE:
For all of you thinking, well what do I get out of this plan....
If you're not in mortgage trouble, you get to see the price of your home stabilize and climb again. You gain the ability to sell your home again. You get to avoid living through a depression. You get to see your pensions, stocks and such build again.
MUCH CHEAPER THAN BAILING OUT BILLIONAIRES EVERY OTHER DAY !

How about (5) We pass a law prohibiting any person in any type of government office to accept any type of lobbyist money for any reason.

Why should we pay a congressman $165,000 dollars a year and have them go to Capitol Hill and beg for Food and Cigars?

Do you personally know anyone that cannot live within their means on $165,000 a year?

DanaBartonish wrote:

<quoted text>
i have been hearing this alot.
i loathe guns
i prefer my dog and my knives as protection but if things start to fall any more rapidly, i will,sadly,buy a gun its my only choice.

I'm completely with you. The thought of this is what we've come to saddens the very heart of my standard as a human. But the thought that we have a choice between two evils...One that I dont know what he wants or is going to do, and another that wants to pull guns from american hands?? Why?? Why do you not want us to have guns?? That sounds too fishy for my liking.i dont like either choice right now...neither. This is the first election that I"m voting in, and I really dont know (at this point) where to go with it. It's terrible. i WILL protect myself....I will not allow for someone else or something else (the governement) to have that much power over me. Not in my life time...no way no how.

Blazoo wrote:

During America's last depression the people were passive.
In the next depression the people will not be passive. Expect much violence: mobs, beatings, destruction, and fear.

The depression is here. Its been here a while now.

Where is the reaction?

Like the wicked witch of the west this will all disappear the day after the election and especially if a bucket of water is thrown on Obama.

Alex wrote:

<quoted text>
Who lent large sums of money to people that couldn't afford to pay it back? Everyone and their mothers were buying up second homes off loans and turning around and selling them for a profit. The housing market was no different than a game of poker. Obviously someone has to lose. Are these idiots gambling large sums of money they don’t even have at fault? HECK YA! But should the rest of us bail them out and bail the banks that lent them this money out of this mess? F*CK NO!
Why should those that constrained their spending be punished for those who are irresponsible? If the housing market crashes it will be a blessing. The rest of us can actually afford to buy a house and I mean actually own it ourselves, not have the bank buy and own it for us.

You are absolutly correct. The banks did lend lots of money they shouldn't have, but why are yo and everyone else in the country unwilling to admit that PEOPLE BORROWED MORE MONEY THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE!

I agree we shouldn't be on the hook for this. i did nothing wrong, niether did you, nor Donna Atlanta.

Let me put it this way....
For 10 years the country was having one hell of a party 96-06 were pretty sweet times financially. The dot-com boomunder Clinton then the Bush admin backing the blue chips. If you knew what you were doing(or have a smart wife ;)) You made some nice coin. Like every good party, at the end, you go to bed and wake up with a serious hangover.

The party ended in '07, and last month we woke up.

The problem with the line of thinking here is that we all have a nasty hangover(even those of us who didn't drink,) and Obamma and McCain are telling you "you're not hung over, someone gave you the flu."

You can take the same meds to kill the headache and belly ache, but if you believe we were given the flu, its not going to stop you from getting wasted at the next party.

This is our fault.

robo0425 wrote:

<quoted text>
Uh, yeah. The Financial service Center for FL, Inc is in Camp Hill PA, I work in IT and my wife is a mid-level bean counter. Actually we own a nice suburban cookie cutter house, THAT WE COULD ACTUALLY AFFORD!
You say you don't want to second-guess someone else's misfortune. So you are saying that $700 billion dollars of bad mortgages are all just a bunch of unlucky souls??? Just an unrelated string of coincidence and misfortune?
.

<<<<<Impact of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act

Congress passed the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 in an effort to address the above problems. This act created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) with HUD to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FM2) and to ensure their continued economic stability and safety. It also established housing goals for financing of affordable housing and housing in central cities and other rural and underserved areas to be set and enforced by HUD. In 1993 and 1994, the law established these goals with the goals to be set by HUD in 1995 and onward. This mandated that a certain percentage of loans purchased by FM2 had to be written in low- and moderate-income, underserved, and special affordable areas. In other words, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were forced to buy sub-prime loans in considerable numbers.

Unintended Consequences

What are the unintended consequences of these actions? Prior to 1992 and the passage of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act if a lending institution wrote a sub-prime loan they essentially had to accept the risk of making that loan, of whether or not that loan would be repaid. FM2 would not purchase the loan because sub-prime loans did not meet their guidelines. Therefore, not that many sub-prime loans were written and those that were written generally performed fairly well. But with the passage of this act, and the resultant lowering of FM2 guidelines to purchase sub-prime loans, these lending institutions could now make them with impunity. The lending institutions could make their money on origination fees and other charges while pushing the risk of the loan actually being repaid onto FM2. Thus, from 1992 onward, the number of sub-prime loans ballooned dramatically. Everyone applauded the great increase in the number of low- and moderate-income homeowners. Very few noticed the risk to FM2 and the entire financial system.>>>

Read these paragraphs and tell me who was responsible for the rise in sub-prime loans? Was it thousands of people rushing the bank demanding them, or was it the government who made it easier for risky loans to be offered and the banks that wanted the fees associated with the mortgages.
I'm not saying the people, per se, are the victims. I'm saying they were caught up in a fiancial scheme to make money. Should they have taken on more mortgage than they could handle? Probably not, but the banks put themselves in a high risk situation because they gambled on sub-primes. And they lost. Do you feel sorry for someone who loses their shirt in Vegas?
I do believe we should look a way to help all involved rather than help out the big guy and let everyone else just go to hell. And I don't see the government doing anything but helping out those who saw an opportunity to get rich quick and lost.