I think the depreciation of the dollar has been way overdue. The fact that we were able to to print money for the gov't inablitiy to blance the book and inflation remained around 2% year over year for the last decade was a testament to how much the USD was in demand in part due to China. The FEDS under Greenspawn should have raised interest rates to keep spending down instead waited till 2006 before aggresively raising interests. As such the US budget deficit has balloned to an a mind boggling 68 billion in Jan due to overspending as a result of a overvalued dollar.

From what i can see the current subprime mortage mess was a disaster in the making which would have been avoided if the interest rates were higher. Now that we are in this mess the FEDS are making things worse by constantly dropping Fund rate trying to keep the U.S. from sliding into a recession when in fact they should let the recession occur and keep inflation in check. I honestly dont know what these people are doing.  With the decrease value in the dollar there might be hope in closing the gap as US goods become cheaper and more competitive. And by maintaining the interest rate they can create incentive for people to acutally save money which would also help with curb the spending. There is no way the treasury can continue print money as everyone and their mother is dumping the USD for the Euro so the Gov't will need to stop spending my tax money on garbage!!

Now that ive done my little rant. I think the Feds need to deal with the mortage mess. Stop letting it be so cheap for banks to borrow money and have them take a loss for their practice and mistakes, force them to sell the illiquid assets at a lost this is capitalism not socialism!! The government needs to balance the book, Americans need to stop spending like its the end of the world... for god sakes the America has the lowest if not one of the lowest saving rates even so far as going negative... the feds need to maintain interests rates and stop trying to bail out wallstreet! Recession and booms are part of a cycle get over it!

Americans are just spoiled. You had years of 3-4% growth and a PPP(Purchasing power)-GDP that is 10000$ higher than most other First-World countries like Germany, France....
While for example Germany had 10 years of stagnation you had a party. Now some of the imbalances start to unload, you are not even yet in a recession but you all seem to think world end is coming.

Yes there will be a difficult economic future in the near to midterm for the USA. On the other hand your taxes are lower, your economy has fewer red-tape, US still dominates noble prices and scientific papers, you are the leader in some of the most promising technology areas (The first big global non-US IT firm is what SAP?) That's what is ultimately important and after this dive the US economy will do fine.

Regarding the low dollar: A long slump would be bad but for example its great for american exports (which had a huge growth) and will rectify some of the big imbalances between imports/exports. (It sucks when you travel though)

Regarding subprime: A few banks and fonds should die, the worst thing would be if the state tries to hold them alive with tax-payers money something that happened to Japan in the 90s which caused lots of Zombie companies to live on and drag down the economy) Some banks miscalculated and they should pay the price. If you play it correctly the economy as a whole won't have a big problem, rather the shareholders of the bank. Yes that is painful but risiko is always part of investment because of that you have to diversify.

Amen to that. The banks royally f***ed this up and I hope the government does very little to help them out of the situation. This economy has been floating on smoke and mirrors for too long and frankly, we as Americans need to just buckle down a little bit and weather this out. The continued "all is well" needs to stop and the Fed needs to stop artificially supporting the economy through interest rates and let some bad shit rain down for awhile. It will pass, though it may take a few years. The dollar is getting crucified because of their actions.

And while we're at it, let's get someone in the White House who doesn't spend money like a pedarest on a trip to Thailand.

As a Pederast who's been to Thailand, I resent that statement. The sex tourism packages available during my stay were quite the bargain.

True, but if you sign up for 6 "packages" a day, it starts to add up.

In the past few weeks, the prices of most food items have risen 10-25%. I've been keeping track of every price increase. Its been a tad bit worrisome.

My store is also cutting a lot of things from its selection. I heard they were cutting all their stuff from England so I ran and bought some mushy yesterday haha.

I think every business in the US right now is bracing for some economic turbulence.

I come for cake and THIS is what I find!?