The Economic News Isn't All Bleak • Hacker News Board

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#11

Post by jfornear » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:06 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #2

No comment on whether the future is bleak or not. But extending beyond economics, also consider the US political commentary of the past year and a half. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, shit . Take the conventional wisdom for any day of your choice four weeks before the election to a year before the election, then come back to it two months later. Uniformly, the boldly-made predictions and much-blabbered co…

The gloom and doom shouldn't depress you unless you derive all your happiness from wealth. Believe it or not, there were happy people living through the Great Deppression, both rich and poor prior.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#12

Post by jfornear » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:19 AM UTC

markessien wrote: post #5

I keep saying it - things are fine. Real value has not been wiped out - the amount of real value lost is not big when compared to the general economic numbers. The U.S has a bigger problem than the rest of the world, but the U.S is still very dynamic, and many world currencies still measure against the USD. China is developing fast, but a lot of the development does not go very deep. So China is not yet ready to func…

The fundementals of our role within the global economy are anything but sound. Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry. When shit goes down, which do you think has a chance of surviving when countries like China decide to stop subsidizing our spending (by holding down their currencies) in order to enjoy the fruits of their own labor themselves? Forthcoming political unrest in some of these countries are significant factors that lie outside of our own control.

(I'm writing this on my iPhone so I apologize for not ellaborating with a more coherent response, but just think about some of these things. No one knows what will happen, but things could easily get pretty 'bleak'. I hope not. I hope we can figure out ways to prolong any mess from occuring.)

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#13

Post by zack » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:27 AM UTC

jfornear wrote: post #7

I (along with many of you I'm sure) have been listening to Peter Schiff's podcast since his predictions from 2004-2006 have materialized, and his outlook on the future of the US economy is very bleak. http://europac.net Duh, no one knows exactly what will happen or how, but I do believe it is foolish to write off these 'bleak' predictions from analysts who have proven their credibility and can back up their predictio…

There are a lot of high-powered investment analysts who had proven their credibility with a string of years of success, guided, I'm sure, by logical and well-reasoned investments.

That's just not how it works pal. Everyone is bound to be wrong in the long run. Sorry.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#14

Post by jfornear » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:33 AM UTC

zack wrote: post #13

jfornear wrote: post #7

I (along with many of you I'm sure) have been listening to Peter Schiff's podcast since his predictions from 2004-2006 have materialized, and his outlook on the future of the US economy is very bleak. http://europac.net Duh, no one knows exactly what will happen or how, but I do believe it is foolish to write off these 'bleak' predictions from analysts who have proven their credibility and can back up their predictio…

There are a lot of high-powered investment analysts who had proven their credibility with a string of years of success, guided, I'm sure, by logical and well-reasoned investments. That's just not how it works pal. Everyone is bound to be wrong in the long run. Sorry.

You can't measure credibility through success in the stock market, and that's not what I was implying.

Do you take any advice? By your logic it doesn't look like it. I wouldn't want you running our country right now, sorry.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#15

Post by petercooper » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:34 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #6

jerf wrote: post #2

No comment on whether the future is bleak or not. But extending beyond economics, also consider the US political commentary of the past year and a half. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, shit . Take the conventional wisdom for any day of your choice four weeks before the election to a year before the election, then come back to it two months later. Uniformly, the boldly-made predictions and much-blabbered co…

Great post. One thing I found interesting about this piece was the blatant revisionism on display in the second paragraph of the article: "less than two years ago, conventional wisdom dictated that the housing bubble would be painful but that global economic growth would remain stable." Forgive me, Mr. Writer, but my recollection is that less than two years ago, few people in the mainstream were acknowledging that a…

A Google for [ "property bubble" site:news.bbc.co.uk ] will show many references to the British property bubble in the 2002-2007 timeframe.

However, your last paragraph is totally on the money.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#16

Post by unrealwh » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:40 AM UTC

markessien wrote: post #5

I keep saying it - things are fine. Real value has not been wiped out - the amount of real value lost is not big when compared to the general economic numbers. The U.S has a bigger problem than the rest of the world, but the U.S is still very dynamic, and many world currencies still measure against the USD. China is developing fast, but a lot of the development does not go very deep. So China is not yet ready to func…

I keep saying it - things are fine. Real value has not been wiped out

actually $50 trillion in paper wealth was wiped out in the last twelve months alone.

The fundamentals of the economy are fine.

no they are not. the comptroller of the US govt estimates our own unrealized debt at potentially $70 trillion. outstanding derivatives total over one quadrillion USD. that is not a typo. global total debt is over one half of one quadrillion USD. the house of cards of global debt financing is only beginning to unwind.

take back the production

short of world war three, that manufacturing base is gone.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#17

Post by DenisM » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:41 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #2

No comment on whether the future is bleak or not. But extending beyond economics, also consider the US political commentary of the past year and a half. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, shit . Take the conventional wisdom for any day of your choice four weeks before the election to a year before the election, then come back to it two months later. Uniformly, the boldly-made predictions and much-blabbered co…

Do you realize that by suggesting to "keep your savings up" you are predicting stable purchasing power of US dollar?

It's entirely possible for someone to play it safe, stick to cash savings and then get burned if/when dollar is devalued by 75% simialr to Argentina 2001, Russia 1998 or Iceland 2008.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#18

Post by unrealwh » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:44 AM UTC

jfornear wrote: post #12

markessien wrote: post #5

I keep saying it - things are fine. Real value has not been wiped out - the amount of real value lost is not big when compared to the general economic numbers. The U.S has a bigger problem than the rest of the world, but the U.S is still very dynamic, and many world currencies still measure against the USD. China is developing fast, but a lot of the development does not go very deep. So China is not yet ready to func…

The fundementals of our role within the global economy are anything but sound . Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry. When shit goes down, which do you think has a chance of surviving when countries like China decide to stop subsidizing our spending (by holding down their currencies) in order to enjoy the fruits of their own labor themselves? Forthcoming political unrest in some of these coun…

china will be as doomed as the rest. what do they hold? US debt. its toilet paper. their economy is coupled to US consumption. they are developing a domestic market but to do so will take another twenty+ years....the tidal wave of debt is crashing now

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#19

Post by unrealwh » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:52 AM UTC

medearis wrote: post #3

A few months ago, Goldman Sachs "experts" were predicting oil at over $200/barrel. Obviously, things didn't work out that way, which is why the concluding paragraph is exactly right -- information now travels faster than ever in our economy, which will affect the way the economy rebounds. Still, nobody knows exactly what will happen. It seems to me that the best predictor of how the economy is doing is the way that i…

$200/barrel is indeed wrong, its a lowball number. i expect $500 or more. where do you think all those trillions the Fed is printing up now will end up? what happened the last time the Fed printed up trillions in 2002? commodity bubbles! excess liquidity ALWAYS creates inflation, and inflation always chases up the value of finite stores of value, namely commodities. nothing goes straight up or straight down...the thirty year commodities ultrabubble is just getting started, and has experienced its first (of many) breakdowns towards an eventual higher price once this pocket of deflation is monetized. zimbabwe here we come!

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#20

Post by gjm11 » Sat, Dec 27, 2008, 3:53 AM UTC

I've seen maybe half a dozen articles that say "everyone agrees that this might be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression" (so presumably there are far, far more than that, because I don't spend a lot of time reading that sort of article).

I haven't yet seen one that acknowledges the possibility that it might be worse than the Great Depression.

That seems to me to be obviously wrong. If what we're in is likely to be worse than everthing else since the 1930s, can it really be so clear that it's not actually worse than the G.D. too? It seems like the readily available journalistic cliches just don't allow for that possibility...