Uh-Oh, How Bad Is This Going to Get?

[Lemur]

Not a reassuring read ...

It's quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama's transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse... a lot worse. As in -- double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. [...]

Where the discussion isn't going, at least in public, (or the PR level), is the possibility that the first foreign policy crisis the administration will face will be the complete economic collapse of a large, unstable nation. To be sure, Pakistan is nearly broke, and U.S. policy makers seem to be aware of that; but a worldwide demand crisis could lead to social unrest in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, Singapore, the Ukraine, Japan, Turkey or Egypt (which is facing an internal political crisis of epic proportions already). The U.S. won't have the resources to, say, engineer the rescue of the peso again, or intervene in Asia as in 1997. [...]

The question: what's the administration's policy in this area? Which countries can we afford to let fail? Which unstable states would concern us the most? Is there something the U.S. can do, in advance, should do, in advance, to forestall the collapse of other economies?

Wait, so we not only have to worry about our own deepening recession, we have to worry about the Ukraine and Egypt as well? Dang.

I guess Obama really did win the worst job in America.

[GeneralHankerchief]

If there's been one constant in the past year, it's the fact that economists have been consistently, utterly wrong about almost everything. Therefore, I wouldn't be too worried.

[yesdachi]

I just got an e-mail update from our local business newspaper on how some experts are expecting the unemployment rate to increase by at least 2.4% here in west Michigan over the next year. I thought things were going to get better, maybe they will, after they get worse.

I find it difficult to care much about other countries economies (especially ones so far removed from my day to day life) while this one is falling apart.

[Tribesman]

Which countries can we afford to let fail?

Might I suggest since coupled with a worldwide economic meltdown there is a major worldwide food crisis then the countries that the US should support are those that have reasonable crop yields and who have not yet banned or restricted the export of staple foodstuffs .

[yesdachi]

Might I suggest since coupled with a worldwide economic meltdown there is a major worldwide food crisis then the countries that the US should support are those that have reasonable crop yields and who have not yet banned or restricted the export of staple foodstuffs .

Wow, you have just solved the US’s economic problems. We let those food growing countries fall so we can corner the food market, artificially inflate the price and then sit back on our windfall profits from farming while the banking and auto industries recover.

[Vladimir]

Damn. Another global depression AND a Democrat in the White House? I hope it doesn't take another ten years for the next world war to start; I might be too old by then!

[drone]

You want to know how bad things are going to get? How about this:
Fed: household debt, net worth post declines

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

U.S. households, hit by declining home values and stock market losses, have cut back on their debt levels for the first time on record as loans remain scarce amid what appears to be a deepening recession.

The Federal Reserve on Thursday released it latest quarterly look at consumer and business finances showing that households reduced their debt levels by 0.8 percent at an annual rate in the July-September period, the first drop on records that go back more than 50 years.

Americans are beginning to live within their means. Truly, the end of the world is nigh.

[CountArach]

I'm worried about how far this thing is going to go, but I am excited about what it might mean coming out of it. I think that Economic Rationalism will be well and truly dead by the end of it and interventionist governments will be back on the rise.

What truly concerns me is that there probably won't be too much action on climate change until this is over...

[ICantSpellDawg]

Part of me wants to see the fall of an empire in my lifetime. It will be awesome to see the murderous chickens come home to roost... to part of me.

The ultimate pendulum swing from PC boring.

Nah. I don't trust Economists. You'd be better suited flipping a coin.

[Incongruous]

Pakistan, should definatley be one worth thinking about, what with those nasty bombs it has, and all the Islamists.

Apart from that, maybe none, the U.S can't afford it.

[Lord Winter]

...and so nations fall.

Honestly, even if things get really really bad, and we're not turned into radioactive ash, we'll just act like Russia has throughout history. We may get knocked down but we're just to big to go away and properly die.

The 21st century will certainly be interesting, seeing how several major nuclear armed powers react to each other.

[lars573]

Pakistan, should definatley be one worth thinking about, what with those nasty bombs it has, and all the Islamists.

Apart from that, maybe none, the U.S can't afford it.

There is a very good governor for any crazy that tries to take over Pakistan. And it's called India. With an army thrice that of Pakistand and enough "buckets of sunshine" to lay waste an area about the size of Pakistan.

[Shaka_Khan]

Part of me wants to see the fall of an empire in my lifetime. It will be awesome to see the murderous chickens come home to roost... to part of me.

The ultimate pendulum swing from PC boring.

You will no longer want to see it when you experience it. You won't just see it. You'll feel the hunger and fear too.

[Husar]

Maybe we can delay the megasuperduper inflation until I'm done with uni so I can pay my loan back with just an hour of work.

[Tribesman]

There is a very good governor for any crazy that tries to take over Pakistan. And it's called India. With an army thrice that of Pakistand and enough "buckets of sunshine" to lay waste an area about the size of Pakistan.

Yeah that make sense
India has a big army and enough nukes to destroy Pakistan .
Pakistan has a smaller army and enough nukes to destroy India .

[lars573]

Actaully I've seen diagrams in a National Giographic piece about Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan can destroy an area about the size of Pakistan with their buckets of sunshine. Meaning Pakistan would be wiped from the map and India would be less screwed.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Actaully I've seen diagrams in a National Giographic piece about Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan can destroy an area about the size of Pakistan with their buckets of sunshine. Meaning Pakistan would be wiped from the map and India would be less screwed.

The USA had that kind of an edge during the late 1960s with the much higher dependability and maintenance standards of our solid-fueled ICBM fleet as opposed to their largely liquid-fueled fleet. There were those who concluded a first strike would cripple the USSR as well as decapitate it and that the USA would ONLY have to cope with a few dozen hits from Soviet silos and subs.

Fortunately, those voices were not listened to.

[lars573]

I'm not saying India should pro-actively erase Pakistan either. But it's just another avantage to India (which already has several) in any India-Pakistan conflict. And anyone in a position of power in Pakistan knows that. Which is what I am saying. That Pakistan has much larger a western leaning hostile neighbour.

[CrossLOPER]

Meaning Pakistan would be wiped from the map and India would be less screwed.

Look up "nuclear fallout" on wikipedia. Please. Both nations would be uninhabitable and the areas around would not be much better off.

[lars573]

Don't have too. And who gets the poison rain woud depend on which way the wind was blowing.

[Marshal Murat]

Both nations would be uninhabitable and the areas around would not be much better off.

But the U.S. economy would improve as telemarketing returns to America.

[Furunculus]

I'm worried about how far this thing is going to go, but I am excited about what it might mean coming out of it. I think that Economic Rationalism will be well and truly dead by the end of it and interventionist governments will be back on the rise.

What truly concerns me is that there probably won't be too much action on climate change until this is over...

you actually want that, why?

[Alexanderofmacedon]

We'll spend our way out, don't worry.

[Tribesman]

We'll spend our way out, don't worry.

Isn't that the theory of Reaganomics that started the current financial collapse .

[CountArach]

you actually want that, why?

What? Action on Climate Change? Of course I want that... it is far and away the biggest threat to not just the economy of Australia but the survival of humanity as well knokw it.

[Husar]

What? Action on Climate Change? Of course I want that... it is far and away the biggest threat to not just the economy of Australia but the survival of humanity as well knokw it.

If our ecenonomies are doing well we can just bribe the climate, just like we solve most other political problems.

[Vladimir]

Isn't that the theory of Reaganomics that started the current financial collapse .

I'll bite

What? Looking at history through a tankard? You're confusing his top marginal tax cuts (trickle down for the uninitiated) with his defense strategy of outspending the Soviets to oblivion. This part of his defense strategy (which caused them to compete and go bankrupt) was the most effective part.

But you'll probably mention some abstract fact, taken out of context, in an attempt to prop up a straw man (if this isn't one already) and laugh yourself all the way down to the pub. lolz haha haha roflmaoroflmao ad infinitum.

[Husar]

Well, when people cannot argue with Tribesman's pinpoint-accurate logic, they always attack his posting style, it's so...desperate...

[Lemur]

I just wish Tribes would link to a source every now and then.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

And ruin his 1-linkie-per-six-months average? Pshaaw.


Tribes:

Vladimir is over-simplifying Reaganism it a bit, but his basic point is on track. So, however, were you over-simplifying with your jibe. America's current government debt issues have antecedents stretching back to the turn of the 20th (and a convoluted combo of factors are involved). At best, Reagonomics is only one facet contributing its brilliance to the current economic gemstone.