xiphias: Woah. The US economy is in really bad shape
xiphias: Woah. The US economy is in really bad shape
So -- as far as economic leadership goes, our current president is the equal of Jimmy Carter.
crude oil is at the same price, and to again quote xiphias,
When Bush took office, gold was trading at around $260-$280 an ounce.
Now?
Eight fucking hundred twenty three dollars.
Of course there are other measurements we can take -- but. . . fuck. In terms of gold, our dollar is worth one-third what it was when Bush took office. Every single person in the United States who gets their money in dollars has lost TWO-THIRDS of our money.
'splain to me again how this isn't a recession?
1 Comments:
Because the OFFICIAL definition of a recession is not based on the worth of the buck, but on how bad US businesses do on the stock market. The dollar is in recession, but the US Economy isn't technically in one. We just might be at the beginning of one right now, but we won't know until 7-8 months from now when we've had another 2 quarters of consecutive losses on the stock market.
I've heard some really interesting conjecture about this weird state of a plummeting buck and rising economy. At some point something will hiccup and the old bugabo, inflation, will hit again, forcing the fed to raise interests rates, which in turn makes borrwing harder and thus making doing business that much harder. Combating inflation hurts business, but inflation hurts EVERYONE more than combating inflation.
That said... yeah. Our economy is not in a good spot. Consumer confidence numbers are down. Foreclosures are up, though that isn't QUITE universal yet. Unemployment is slowly moving up. We're primed for a recession, we're just not QUITE there yet... technically.
And the Canadian dollar is worth more than ours. To make matters EVEN BETTER for US merchants in border towns, Canadian prices haven't been changed to reflect that; so a shirt that costs $15 USD still costs $20 CAD, even though their dollar is worth more than ours. This makes it very worth-while to endure 2-4 hour waits at the border to shop in US cities.
Post a Comment
<< Home