Business Idea

[Hoosier Daddy]

9/11 was good because it forced a quick sharp drop in the markets. It should have taken 10 years to build back the drop that took place in 2001. Instead, creative financing created an economy of froth which is going away instead of an economy built on substance.

This sort of echos my thoughts on the "global economy". While I don't have a problem with international trading, shipping manufacturing and technical jobs overseas leaves America with a service-oriented economy. I've never been totally comfortable with that because I don't believe we can sustain ourselves in the long term on jobs like telemarketing, Wal-Mart cashiers and door greeters, and the fast food industry's career offerings. We need to MAKE something here and sell it.

[Bob Campbell]

K-Rock has a good idea. That's why I said take 144 bill and make the mortgages current. Re-set interest on arms to original value and fix. Then see what happens.
Hoosier, fun to think of the good old days, but we're never going back to that. We are now a de facto one world economy. Nothing short of a large scale natural disaster or nuclear exchange will ever bring manufacturing back here. Though the high cost of fuel is bringing some furniture and textile jobs back to Carolina.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Hoosier, fun to think of the good old days, but we're never going back to that. We are now a de facto one world economy. Nothing short of a large scale natural disaster or nuclear exchange will ever bring manufacturing back here. Though the high cost of fuel is bringing some furniture and textile jobs back to Carolina.

I'm not looking back, but trying to look forward. Way forward. There are a number of decent service industry jobs that are realtively bulletproof. Government and education jobs can certainly be improved upon, but not really outsourced. We'll still need our morticians, barbers, insurance agents, accountants, and, yes, bankers, too. I see our future manufacturing jobs being more cutting edge technology and innovation-related. Maybe Detroit can re-tool (with a new attitude) and make some great cars again. We need that kind of productivity here. One can hope ...

[cgarison]

Hey Hoosier! I hate to break your bubble, but do you know how many accountants that I have off shored to India since November 2005???? I lost count this spring when I was counting whole departments falling from the books and not just headcount. Utterly brutal.

[genlock]

Do those Philadelphia people think of you as a third-worlder 'cause you are from Kentucky?

[Jay Nunley]

What happens (without politics, I already know everything bad is a result of liberalism) if there is no bailout?

[fearpeddler]

What happens (without politics, I already know everything bad is a result of liberalism) if there is no bailout?

from the way I understand it, the apocalypse machine will finally kick into full gear..

[Bob Campbell]

Worst case scenario Jay. Total credit freeze means hundreds of businesses can't float funds to make payroll. Millions get laid off. Businesses fail. Thousands of banks go under as customers pull funds (quarter of a billion dollars pulled out of banks by customers in the last 2 weeks, a scary foreshadowing). Countries get pissed at each other, make it harder to trade across borders. World wide depression results. 5- 10 years of extraordinarily tough economic times.

[Jet Black]

What kind of businesses make payroll with short-term loans? Maybe they ought to fail. As far as banks, nobody is going to pull money out of FDIC insured accounts. So what's the real problem? Neither can people jerk all their money from 401k plans. What's the real problem? The big firms have failed, or been bought up by solid firms. Let the market go.

[genlock]

Lots of companies depend on lines of credit to purchase inventory, make payroll and
do everyday business. I do wish someone would re-pay me for all of my bad decisions tho.

[Dave Loudin]

Back to the Community Reinvestment Act for a moment... Here's a post that seeks to add data to the discussion about root causes for this debacle. What I got from it:

* 50% of the bad mortgages came from entities not subject to comprehensive Government supervision
* the markets most impacted by bad loans are not areas where CRA would have made much difference
* nobody was forcing institutions to engage in questionable practices (there's a laundry list given)
* maintaining a Fed discount rate of 1% for a year overheated the housing market and inspired a frantic chase for underwriting profits

I don't think the CRA had much to do with this.

[Bob Campbell]

You're right Loudin , but that means the nutjobs will now have to look for a new way to blame this on Clinton.
Just kidding nutjobs, I know you don't really need a reason.

[genlock]

The CRA was a causative factor.
Cra enabled questionable behavior.
There is plenty of blame to go around.
Pitchforks, torches and shovels.

[Hoosier Daddy]

I don't think the CRA had much to do with this.

Despite the corporation-protecting smokescreen being blown about by the FAUX News bobbleheads, this is what I've been reading too. The downward slide started over 25 years ago, and now, we have mistake upon mistake upon mistake that brings us to where we are today. Looks like significant deregulation and unfettered capitalism and "let the free market decide" wasn't such a great idea after all, unless you had one of those Golden Parachute thingys.

There's a business lesson for Radio in this message.

[AmpedNow]

Looks like significant deregulation and unfettered capitalism and "let the free market decide" wasn't such a great idea after all, unless you had one of those Golden Parachute thingys.

Agreed. It apparently only worked for those at the top, and they're the ones largely responsible for this mess.

As I said, the free market is a great system, but deregulated without checks and balances, it provides ample opportunity for rampant greed. And that's exactly what happened.

Remember, Marx came to his conclusions as a reaction to capitalism run amok in 19th century England. It was far worse than this because there were absolutely no protections and safety nets for the "low brows", which were about 97% of the population. While the top 3% lived in luxury, everyone else lived in absolute squalor that we today wouldn't consider fit for stray animals, much less human beings... There was no middle class, period.

While there are big differences between now and then, the root cause is still the same: greed.

The "free market" financial system has forever changed. The irony is the greed of the dereg maniacs are the reason for our new socialist system.

Welcome to today.

[The People's DJ]

Just kidding nutjobs,

Nutjobs? NUTJOBS? The only nutjob I see is you.






Oh oh...wait sorry. You're not a nutjob. But from what I understand you get great blowjobs.