By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
akuma587 on 11 July 2009
Edit Thread
Avinash_Tyagi said:
NJ5 said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
People are still eating out, going on vacation and buying cars (not American, but who can blame them), as well as dong the forms of entertainment that you mentioned, yes everything is depressed and people are looking for sales and good deals, but that is expected, it wouldn't be a recession if that wasn't happening, however it shows, that the economy isn't in a massive retraction that would indicate that things are going to get much worse, it just shows people are being cautious but not panicking.

It seems you're assuming that a severe contraction needs to be severe right from the start. No one is saying the sky is falling and there's misery everywhere, that's not what a prolonged and severe recession means.

 


No i'm not assuming anything of the sort, i'm saying to get to the stage that you seem to believe it will get to, things need to get a lot worse, I don't see evidence of that happening, I see us being at about this level for another 6 to 12 months before things start to turn upwards.

Exactly.  Things don't just go over the cliff unless something pushes them over the cliff.  Its simple cause and effect.

6 months ago - yes, we were definitely in danger of going over the cliff.

Now - people are no longer worried about going over the cliff, they are just worried that it will take us longer to get back to normal than we thought before.

The difference between those two states of mind is considerable.  One reflects utter panic, which is what leads to things like a Great Depression.  And I don't think anyone would argue that we have "gone over the cliff" so to speak.  The banking system toppling over was the main reason that would have happened, and the banking sector has already recovered considerably notwithstanding more foreclosures on the horizon.

The second state of mind, the current one, just reflects people are used to being in a recession and wanting it to end more quickly.  That strongly suggests we are in the transitional phase from contraction to recovery as there is not really anything on the horizon that would make this recession significantly worse.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson