There’s More To Fear Than Fear

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  • Posted By: leonel @ 01/26/2009 1:07:56 PM

    Obama is starting out as Clinton 2.0. Even Bill would be more assertive in hindsight. In order to address world recession Obama needs to solve Middle East muddles. Work with China, EU, Russia, UN, ETC, to help get past Israel, Iraq, Afgan stalemates. Admit US too close to Jews to settle that problem and also leave Afgan to UN. Plan for some time and then have World Summits. Until world recession gets deeper and "stimulus" spending turns out to be temporary palliatives, Obama will not have enough support. But he needs to have everybody's hair on fire to pull out big plans. He also needs it before reelection time.

    • Posted By: Doc Howl @ 01/26/2009 1:41:02 PM

      "Obama is starting out as Clinton 2.0. "

      Stopped reading right there. Your credibility just bottomed out.

  • Posted By: leonel @ 01/26/2009 12:57:39 PM

    Obama starting out as Clinton 2.0. and its not enough to solve global econ crash. OK, so it's Clinton 2.1 but Bill would also improve on his 8 years. What is needed is global solution with China, EU and Middle East. Let UN settle Israel problem on admission that US is too close to Jews to be objective and also specific exit-plan for Iraq and Afgan. Share fiscal plans and not blame games. Need to plan for a while and then World Summits, etc. But Crash has to go on until everybody's hair is on fire. Until "stimulus" schemes are proven to be short-term palliatives that will not cure world recession. I hope I'm too pessimistic. We may know before reelection campaign starts.

  • Posted By: wilsan @ 01/26/2009 12:26:35 PM

    Fareed Zakaria used to be a bright spot in an otherwise dismal "Newsweek swamp". So much for that idea. He is going to the Newsweek Far Left. Must have had a job review by Sr. Editors.

    So far, the stimulus is loading up with Pork payback to special interests (ie, Democratic party Supporters). I am not seeing a lot if difference from this Recession to the last one. WE got through the last one... and the one before that... and before that...

    Let's be careful what we do here - we could be setting up the next big bubble. Democrats are good at creating bubbles.

  • Posted By: brianmean @ 01/26/2009 12:12:56 PM

    I am in the renewable energy sector and the one bright spot was for Congress to advance the growth of the industry and what do these morons do instead-issue tax credits for non-existent businesses. Are these clowns serious? We are actually paying these idiots to collect a salary from the American people?

    • Posted By: mistermcfrugal @ 01/26/2009 12:15:54 PM

      Yeah, and I think they need to give me a billion dollars too!

  • Posted By: gommy goomy @ 01/26/2009 11:52:37 AM

    Wow. Isn't it amazing, how perceptions take a 180, when YOUR guy holds the reigns? I thought that guys, like Fareed Zakaria, were all hip to the old definition of insanity? Weren't THEY the ones, who thought that they were being so clever, by reciting the 'Definition of Insanity', as 'doing the same thing over and over again, and always getting the same results'. THAT was, supposedly, what the SURGE was gonna be. Of course, they were wrong. They're ALWAYS wrong. Like, SOCIALISM. It NEVER works. They use F.D.R. as the Poster Boy, for everything that was right about the NEW DEAL. Even though, EVERYONE, who doesn't have a poster of CHE on their wall, AGREES, that a massive influx of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, is what PROLONGED the Depression, and turned it in to the GREAT Depression. He even praises the Japenese model, as the way to go, even though it was a disaster. You see, it was just a 'timing' thing. they weren't 'quick enough. F.D.R. was 'right', but he didn't go FAR ENOUGH. So says the 'NOBEL PRIZE winning IDIOT, Paul Krugman. How long has Fereed been an Economist? Probably as long as Al Gore's been a CLIMATOLOGIST.
    Here we go again.

  • Posted By: Econ Guy @ 01/26/2009 11:46:21 AM

    Fareed, It's moronic articles like this which result in massive drops in circulation for Newsweek because guys like me, who work, won't pay for this childishness. Perhaps it's just a plan on your part to wreck the US economy? Remember the old adage when thinking of Fareed everyone- "You cannot fix stupid!"

  • Posted By: ymohite08 @ 01/26/2009 11:23:41 AM

    Just stick to your alleged expertise in "International Relations". Your innane, 20,000 feet high views are as useful as a Kindergartner's proposal to fix School's financial problems.

  • Posted By: ymohite08 @ 01/26/2009 11:22:37 AM

    Just stick to your alleged expertise in "International Relations". Your innane, 20,000 feet high views are as useful as a Kindergartner's proposal to fix School's financial problems.

  • Posted By: Bill K. @ 01/25/2009 8:57:37 PM

    The economy DOESN"T need massive spending that creates additional debt. Too much debt is the problem that got us here and it will not be the solution. We need to realize that we have spent beyond our individual and collective means for too long. What we need to do is pay down our debt, spend less and build a solid foundation from which to grow again. While this approach will take several years and would be unpopular it is the only way we will get out of this mess.

    Of course because it involves pain, personal responsibility and responsible unpopular decisions by our government leaders we will not actually go down this path. Instead we will continue to live in a fantasy world and that will lead to our ultimate ruin.

    • Posted By: R.G. Rogers @ 01/26/2009 8:42:52 AM

      All this deficit spending is going to catch up to us some day. We will have more and more people living off entitlement programs while fewer and fewer are paying taxes. At some point the US government wi going to have to admit that it is bankrupt and can not pay its creditors. Who are these creditors? According to the treasury department the following 7 own 2/3s of the debt- Mainland China, Japan, UK, Carribean Banking Centers, oil exporting countries(3), and Brazil. Some of them are our allies for now but what do you think will happen when we tell them we are defaulting on our debt. Also, keep in mind that by the time this happens China will be the major superpower in the world.

      • Posted By: R.G. Rogers @ 01/26/2009 9:33:02 AM

        BTW, this does not include the roughly $164 billion in Treasury bonds held by American's. Nor does it include the roughly $1.7 trillion in IOUs the government has given to the Social Security Trust Fund when it used the Trust Funds surpluses to offset it's deficit spending. These, I suspect, will be the first debts the government will default on.

  • Posted By: Munsta Boy @ 01/26/2009 8:54:19 AM

    God is calling for your attention I hope that we as a nation turn to Him during this time of crisis and start learning how to care for one another. "For I was hungry, and you gave me food" " I was thirsty and you gave me drink" "I was homeless and you let me in" "Whosoever does unto these the least of the kingdom of heaven does it unto me"

  • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 01/25/2009 12:58:57 PM

    The basic problem is too much credit of all kinds is out there. Clearing toxic assets off the bank's books does NOTHING to cure this most basic problem. This is why the bank bailouts have been ineffective. The fallacy of the current path is that by the time these debts become toxic the damage to the businesses and consumers is already done. It's like curing an infection after the patient is sick instead of slowing the infection in the first place. The most effective path is to directly pay down debt, a la the spring stimulus checks. Until the debt is paid to the point that the agregate income can cover the aggregate debtload the economy will continue to falter. Any program that requires the creation of even more debt, good or bad, was, and still is, doomed to failure or at least slow the recovery. We need cash injected into the private sector directly, so that the consumer and consumer oriented businesses can start functioning again. We need to stop attacking symptoms and start attacking the fundamental problems. The bank problems are symptoms. The inability of the consumer and private business to spend is the problem.

    • Posted By: summer1216 @ 01/25/2009 5:10:05 PM

      The stimulus checks were abject failures because nobody used them. They still wouldn't use them. Mine went right under the mattress, and another would go to the same place. I wouldn't spend a penny of them. But for the purpose intended, what good are they? It would let this situation languish on for another 10 years.

      • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 01/26/2009 8:42:36 AM

        Summer1216: but the stimulus checks wern't a fiailure. You may have put yours under a matress, but others paid down debt, which is good, and the rest, including me, spent theirs, which is also good. The problem is that the government expected the checks to mostly be spent when so many of the people receiving checks needed to pay down debt first. In this case the failure was that of meeting Hank Paulson's objectives. The checks did not fail to solve economic problems to the point that they could be solved, so they were in fact succdessful in assisting the economy. The problem with the checks is that $100 billion was far too small to have a significant impact on the economy. At that time the Treasury, along with most analysts, did not have a clue (or chose to ignore the clues) as to the size of the problem. The problems in this country are the sum of individual problems. Giving bailout funds to the individual will allow those individuals to solve their individual problems, which in turn will solve the overall problem.

  • Posted By: olderwiser @ 01/25/2009 2:45:56 PM

    Save. Save. Save. Do not borrow. Do not borrow. Do not borrow. If you don't have the money, then don't buy it. Sooner or later, then, we will be solvent again. Expanding the credit now simply expands the problem, as we have seen with each new effort to encourage people to borrow to buy more than they need.

    • Posted By: TECho @ 01/25/2009 4:59:50 PM

      The problem is the money you save (in a bank for example) is borrowed and loaned out to their buddies, the myopic brain-dead tunnel-vision MBAs to waste on nonproductive or counterproductive activities, buying more foreign goods, financing consumer junk, or worse yet on 'investing' in overseas factories and technologies. And the more you save, the more they can damage us in the long term.

      Warren Buffet, for example, invested over $250 million in a Chinese car company. How does that help us? Certainly US auto company management and unions here both have squandered huge amounts of time and money for their own short term narrow interests and empires. But our investing in foreign manufacturers while madly sellling our industrial base off as quickly as possible leaves us with the ability to export what? Corn, soybeans, meat, raw materials, and a few Hollywood movies (that are easily pirated anyway).

      Foreign countries are wisely and carefully buying up our valuable assets - manufacturing capability, capital goods and Intellectual Property. Aided by US investors using your 'savings'. We are meanwhile buying consumer trinkets from overseas, short term junk of little value that's discarded in a few years.

      So the situation is reversed, the Europeans in the 1600's bought Manhattan Island (something of substantial permanent value) from the Native Americans for $23 worth of shiny trinkets, long lost or rusted away. In the 21st Century the wise spendthrift Asian economies are buying our long-term capital goods of value and selling us short-term consumer junk. And we are not only foolishly buying it from them, but encouraging the all-knowing US Wall-street investors to get wealthy by assisting foreign companies in this undermining.

      So go ahead and save your money, the bank CEO's will get their bonuses in the short term by lending it out to those 'credible' investors playing games in international markets or financing the purchase of foreign trinkets here domestically. Its a bit of an oversimplification, but not by much.

      -TECho

      • Posted By: Holly Garfield @ 01/26/2009 8:27:46 AM

        Olderwiser: Warren Buffet invests to improve Warren Buffet & Co. (Berkshire Hathaway), and he is the best there is at choosing investments. How does that help the US? It brings profits from the worlds thrid biggest and the fastest growing major economy to the US. That's what the new global market is all about. The 'us' is becoming the entire world and not just 'US'. Anyone who improves him/herself in a sustainable way is helping the US. We are a country that is the sum of its individuals, and Warrent Buffet is one of those individuals. He helps the employees of Berkshire Hathaway, who are also US citizens. And he is the biggest single contributor to the Gates Foundation outside of the Gates family. You want Warrent Buffet to help you without you helping him. He is showing you how to help yourself. And that should be more than enough. He is as open with his business acumen as Wall St. bankers were closed. If Wall St. had been run by Warren Buffet disciples we wouldn't be in this mess.

      • Posted By: olderwiser @ 01/25/2009 8:13:02 PM

        TECho, I have heard bundles of excuses for not saving one's money, but yours wins hands down. "Don't put it in a bank because the wrong people will borrow it".

    • Posted By: TECho @ 01/25/2009 4:50:41 PM

      The problem is the money you save (in a bank for example) is borrowed and loaned out to their buddies, the myopic brain-dead tunnel-vision MBAs to waste on nonproductive or counterproductive activities, buying more foreign goods, financing consumer junk, or worse yet on 'investing' in overseas factories and technologies. And the more you save, the more they can damage us in the long term.

      Warren Buffet, for example, invested over $250 million in a Chinese car company. How does that help us? Certainly US auto company management and unions here both have squandered huge amounts of time and money for their own short term narrow interests and empires. But our investing in foreign manufacturers while madly sellling our industrial base off as quickly as possible leaves us with the ability to export what? Corn, soybeans, meat, raw materials, and a few Hollywood movies (that are easily pirated BTW).

      Foreign countries are wisely and carefully buying up our valuable assets - manufacturing capability, capital goods and Intellectual Property. Aided by US investors using your 'savings'. We are meanwhile buying consumer trinkets from overseas, short term junk of little value that's discarded in a few years.

      So the situation is reversed, the Europeans in the 1600's bought Manhattan Island (something of substantial permanent value) from the Native Americans for $23 worth of shiny trinkets, long lost or rusted away. In the 21st Century the wise spendthrift Asian economies are buying our long-term capital goods of value and selling us short-term consumer junk. And we are not only foolishly buying it from them, but encouraging the all-knowing US Wall-street investors to get wealthy by assisting foreign companies in this undermining.

      So go ahead and save your money, the bank CEO's will get their bonuses in the short term by lending it out to those 'credible' investors playing games in international markets or financing the purchase of foreign trinkets here domestically. Its a bit of an oversimplification, but not by much.

  • Posted By: silversurfer @ 01/26/2009 4:28:55 AM

    The central question is whether the american public is indeed serious about changing or is it just another cosmetic make over with a token black president.

  • Posted By: Cheyenne2 @ 01/25/2009 10:57:36 PM

    John Dough, I believe that's $246 Billion per year if all 50 million were alive to pay & of age to work. Man that is a lot of Money.

  • Posted By: John Dough @ 01/25/2009 9:52:06 PM

    So far in all this stimulus talk I see no initiatives to cut spending. Did you know that Ted Kennedy has a staff of 50 people working for him. This is absurd. Nancy Pelosi buys a 200 seat 1 billion dollar jet to fly her back and forth to California every week to the tune of 5.7 million a year in just fuel costs. Add maintenance and security costs and your talking another 3-4 million a year. All this for a job that pays 175K a year. She had a small corporate jet that was provided to the Speaker but it had to land once each way to take on fuel and this was just not acceptable to her and her entourage. She should fly commercial like everyone else as should all senators and congressmen. Now we are counting on these morons to fix our economy good luck with that. We should have voted all incumbents out in both parties. We need term limits for the senate and congress too. Twelve years maximum and no persion or health care for life if you have more than 5 Million in personal assets. Maybe we could then get sometihing done to fix this mess.

  • Posted By: pusscat @ 01/25/2009 6:53:40 PM

    I don't believe it can be 'fixed'. I'm (in my moderately educated opinion) sure it can't be fixed by throwing billions at the same people who put us here. The way to at least make things better would be to give people a way to actually pay back what they owe- NOT a way to borrow more.
    When property insurance, healthcare, gas, groceries, and utilities drive the output up over $1000 a month, as in the last 8 months, the last thing people need to be looking to do is borrow more. They need higher wages and more opportunity for employment. If main street could pay their bills, wall street wouldn't need a 'bailout'.

  • Posted By: drewand @ 01/25/2009 5:43:45 PM

    Good people, it has taken many years to dig this hole, it will take many more to fill it. Why is there no accountability for the misdeeds of the last several years. These greedy people have brought the greatest nation in the history of the world to it's knees and there is no accountability. We as Americans should be ashamed of ourselves for not demanding action. I weep for my Grandchildren.

  • Posted By: Mwalimu @ 01/25/2009 5:10:42 PM

    We are giving the banks $ 700 billion dollars, and that's not enough. They want more. How much more? And, when is enough enough. Why should we continue to bail out the same people who created this problem in the first place? We keep pumping billions of dollars into our defunct banking system, and the bankers use this money for personal bailouts. Worse, we have so-called experts who want to continue such questionable practices as "derivatives."
    Furhtermore the housing market is almost beyond saving. Look at the housing prices today, Look at the average wage. Using a 30 year fixed, what sort of a house can a person earning an average wage afford? That should be the average price of a house. Is it? The housing market will continue to tank because nobody can afford to buy a a house. The same applies to businesses. It's useless for banks to lend money to businesses. Most of them will fail because no one has any money to buy anything. Furthermore, with everyone losing his or her job, fewer people will be able to buy anything.
    If we must bailout the banking system, we must have a very strict record of accountability and responsibility. Incidentally, we must also slash the salaries of all the CEO's. Maybe if they earned the same amount as the average school teacher, they'd understand why the housing market is not going to stablized anytime soon.
    I'd also suggest the bankers finance their own bailout, in the form of higher taxes. We need to cancel all of the tax breaks wealthy corporations and the rich enjoy. When the wealthy learn that they must pay personally for their mismanagement, maybe we will get a better performance.,

  • Posted By: jaydyep1 @ 01/25/2009 1:26:28 PM

    Everyone talks about bailing out the banks and corporate sector when, in fact, it's the poor Joe (you and me) who really could use a stimulus to pay down bills and to stimulate more spending - and I am not talking about a pathetic $500 which barely goes to cover a monthly utility bill these days. We have been hit hard by job layoffs and losses, insanely high credit card interest, medical bills, etc. that it is almost impossible to get out of this negative credit spiral. Now, they are dreaming up a new way to keep us oppressed by instituting yet another credit measurement system. How have we allowed this to happen to us? It is so degrading, insulting and discriminatory against the American people. People have actually been refused jobs because of their credit standing...what does that have to do with having integrity and performing well at your job? Because they try hard to keep their ships from sinking...they are penalized for that? Corporations go to the government when they want a bail-out - where do you and I go for a loan? This credit rating crap has to stop...I am not a criminal because I lost my job and the economy is pathetic and i can't find work...why should I be penalized for it? I know of folks who want a new start and are leaving the country where they won't be looked down on because of their poor credit. Equality in this country is a farce. No one is equal in the U.S. People open your eyes and see what is happening to you...Washington needs to know we won't stand for it any longer.

    • Posted By: summer1216 @ 01/25/2009 5:05:46 PM

      The US has long been the only nation that has basically criminalized poverty. In other countries, being poor is unfortunate, but it does not refect on your character, and you aren't continually threatened with fines that escalate into jail time for every little infraction (your windshield is cracked and you get a ticket you can't afford, you need emergency room medical care, and the hospital providing it sues you to repay, when you would already have gone to a doctor if it had been possible, you lose your wallet and don't have the $15 to replace your ID) on and on.

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