Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Oil will exceed $100/barrel some time this winter. The ever-weakening dollar will lead to smaller profit margins and rising retail prices on all imported goods (which means almost everything we buy in the USA). Transport costs will rise with pil prices. Stock prices will erode along with profits. With so many savings tied up in stocks and home equity, consumer spending will be crunched, and personal debt and bancruptcies will rise like a tide. Businesses will retrench and unemployment will rise. No end in sight.

I hope I am wrong.

-- Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:07 (14 minutes ago) Link

The coming of $100/barrel oil is not Bush's fault. It's yours and mine and everyone else's for using too damned much energy. I agree Bush could and should have done a lot more with policy to encourage energy efficiency, but there's little he could have done to stop oil's eventual rise to that price level.

Part of the pricing of oil represents the weakness of the dollar. This hurts the USA more than it does other countries. US citizens are paid in dollars and the US government collects revenue in dollars, so they are stuck. EU countries can use euros to buy increasingly cheap dollars, so they don't see the same rise in prices as we do. The weakness of the dollar is mainly Bush's fault.

The US also uses way more oil than other countries.

he could have done to stop oil's eventual rise to that price level.
Not starting a war in Iraq would definitely have helped here.

http://bp3.blogger.com/_pMscxxELHEg/RxzD0s_7EYI/AAAAAAAABB4/ljDSXZhMG3o/s1600-h/IMFresets.jpg

arrgh, if that won't work then
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/10/imf-mortgage-reset-chart.html

tombot u r freakin me out

i hope my small apartment + modest savings plan + job in "information services" is enough to weather the shitstorm, if it comes. i got myself out of credit card debt a few months ago, at least

well if you can hold down a job and don't have to worry about an ARM reset you should be okay, it's the homeowner with kids and a subprime loan and two cars who ought to be shitting themselves

apart from some student loans and binging on credit cards over a few years, i'm kind of debt phobic.

which has actually made me lose out over the past several years, i realize, since i pay for EVERYTHING with a debit/check card... i could have just paid that balance on a credit card with some rewards scheme and has some air miles or something

rolling gff personal finances into the shitbin thread, ha

This will give you a boner Tombot

http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39952/

the economy increased by 3.9% this quarter! bull market forever, baby. economy's better than ever. golden age.

yet me and so many people I know are getting laid off next month. granted we're all in the writing/design field, but urhhhhh. gggg.

http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/catastrophist071105_560.jpg
http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/catastrophist071105_2_560.jpg

^^^ lol

most of that guy's scenario is not really news to regular bigpicture/CR readers I don't think. But #5, the "we don't pay attention" thing, yeah, well, evidently the awareness campaign is underway, but hell if the big players are paying attention.

He also leaves out the approaching demographic catastrophe as millions of inexperienced thirtysomethings and even some late-twenties kids are forced to move into arguably tougher jobs that the boomers have been holding for two decades. Beyond the social security and healthcare costs associated with mass retirement, I don't really know if this generation has the work ethic and definitely not the rolodex to just start filling in and not fuck up royally. too busy updating their linkedin pages.

can someone explain what "being upside down on your mortgage" means, in plain English?

essentially, owing more than your home is worth.

also Tombot I'm not going to blame this generation as much as I blame their parents.

isn't that the way people buy homes? by paying for the privilege of a loan?

When you enter into a contract with a bank for a mortgage, both you and the bank assume that the property value will not plummet. The bank doesn't want you to default any more than you want to default. But if for whatever reason you need to sell your home, and you can't get what you owe on it, then you will owe the difference to the bank. And the bank knows that when that happens, you probably will not have enough assets to cover the difference.

Predatory-type loans (which seems like a nebulous description to me) typically compound the problem because they have higher transaction rates (points, etc.)

oh certainly! well played baby boom letting healthcare slide for the 20 years you've owned the electorate

yeah Tracer it's also called "negative equity"

Not to mention saddling us with ridiculous expectations. Why do I have to be the one to tell my PARENTS "No, I can't make a living doing whatever I want."

I know several people who live in homes that cost more than $500K that signed unbelievably stupid loans.

Today the news is telling me the economy is going great - no need to worry. about anything. I'm glad all this mess is finally, somehow, over.

I love how the financial press keeps reporting that the subprime crisis is *not turning out to be as bad as we thought* when it hasn't even come near its peak. No one could have predicted the levees wouldn't hold, etc.

No one could have predicted that Bin Laden was determined to strike inside the United States!

No one could have predicted that he would use planes as missiles!

Dear US economy,

I love you. Send money. Thanks loads. Ta!

oh certainly! well played baby boom letting healthcare slide for the 20 years you've owned the electorate

Yeah, that's something, among numerous other socio-political phenomena that baffles me. Does that mean that all that "hippies done sold out and became heartless, vacuous yuppies" stuff is true?

sure, whatever that means.

side note: the word "yuppie" did once have a specific meaning. I'm a little tired of it just signifying everyone upper-middle class and below retirement age.

how funny will it be when affluent boomers need their money to pay for their own lifestyle instead of being able to just throw it away on their kids' rent and shit?

It once meant a specific kind of douchebag, now the term encompasses too many douchebag subcategories.

xp

I agree, Hurting, Abbott...I think that "yuppie" is about as useful a word as "hipster" (or arguably, "hippie"). But, I'm thinking of all the press about baby boomers -> "yuppies" that was the subject of Time and Newsweek, etc., cover stories when I was growing up in the eighties.

Not all that funny, if it also means my already-rent-paying ass has to start supporting my parents, which is already a situation I have a small reason to worry about (xpost)

Yeah but overall pretty funny, right?

even that's pretty funny - the last 50 years of not giving a shit about our elders are something of an aberration, no?

also funny because my brother is way more successful than me and any duties are going to fall on him. haha

gotta get back to my law school applications...

This is where repeated viewings of the movie "Disorderlies" becomes inspiration for a lucrative career path, I guess...

So, are there any nurses or people going to nursing school or working towards related professions in this bitch?

Dollar is now at a 26-year low against the pound after that rate cut. $2.08!

i'll never save up enough money to move back to the uk at that rate.

Hurting, when the financial press say that sub-prime is not turning out as bad as expected, what they're really talking saying is: it's not turning out as bad as expected for the big financial institutions. No doubt, a lot more *individuals* are going to start defaulting when they come off teaser rates, but the investment banks have already marked to market the securities backed by them so, in theory, they have no exposure left to them.

The judge said the church's financial statements, sealed earlier, could be released to the plaintiffs.

Ooooooooh! I want to see these.

Who the hell lawyers for PhelpsCo.?

The weak dollar is also driving up the cost of oil since the leading petroleum nations trade oil in US currency and buy most of their durable goods in Euros.

god hates the us economy xp

Dollar is now at a 26-year low against the pound after that rate cut. $2.08!

-- stet, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 22:43 (Yesterday) Link

i have so many unwatched US dvds from the last few months, but they're giving them away.

when the financial press say that sub-prime is not turning out as bad as expected, what they're really talking saying is: it's not turning out as bad as expected for the big financial institutions. No doubt, a lot more *individuals* are going to start defaulting when they come off teaser rates, but the investment banks have already marked to market the securities backed by them so, in theory, they have no exposure left to them.

I've heard this explanation before, but I'm still not sure it makes sense to me -- how can the holders of those securities know exactly how bad the fallout is going to be when more of the mortgages reset? Like do they know exactly how many people are going to default? What if it's a lot more than expected because other economic conditions are worse than expected?

The markets sure weren't expecting the UBS writedown this morning. I think it is unravelling worse than expected.

I added the google DJI chart to the top so we can watch shit meet fan

Germany reaches out: arschlöch

you can't win with China
They've shown an incredible tolerance for suffering over & over again

government efficiency is negotiating 70 bilateral trade agreements at once baby

China says: You want it to be one way … but it’s the other way.

lol

um, Jesse Watters sits behind a screen all day... I wonder where they are in their transition

― Andy the Grasshopper

look, i was willing to make a lot of sacrifices in order to transition. there's basically no sacrifice i wouldn't make in order to be who i am now.

talking to HR, though? i'd do anything to transition, but i won't do that.

you can't win with China
They've shown an incredible tolerance for suffering over & over again

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, April 8, 2025 11:08 AM (nine minutes ago)

works out well, then, america's shown an incredible tolerance for inflicting suffering over & over again

China might hold out but I expect the EU and the UK will capitulate sooner rather than later.

Not sure what capitulation means here. What can these countries really give the US? The demand here is on the likes of corporations to move their site of production and keep their costs down so that enough ppl can consume them.

probably just means making some vague promises that team Trump can claim are massive wins and proof of his great dominance

The main problem the rest of the world would have in cutting the USA out of the globalized trade system is that without our endless appetite for consumption there would suddenly be a lot of excess production capacity without a gluttonous US market to sop it up. The period of adjustment would be quicker than the USA re-industrializing, but it would still be highly painful for everyone involved.

the world needs a new glutton to step up

also: reducing the trade deficit with the U.S. is gonna be difficult when the entire population has sworn to never buy anything American again

AnnetteRosieP
Hats off to anyone boycotting supermarket chains!
It's interesting to hear what's happening in Canada, for anyone not at the 'total boycott' point.
Canadian shoppers are laying down/turning upside down any US products on the shelves & of course, not buying them

There is plenty the US is demanding of the EU, U.K., Canada, etc - end VAT, privatise all state-owned businesses, get rid of GDPR and hate speech laws, remove product safety standards, remove environmental protections over and above those the US has agreed to, etc, it’s just all so stupid and implausible, it can’t be agreed to. Unless they can do a deal on bleached chicken, or whatever, to help him save face, there isn’t much they can do. It’s also not clear that Trump is particularly interested. Israel preemptively removed all tariffs and still got hit.

Noodles - yes it's an incoherent set of demands that is actually fulfilling an election promise, which will need an 'out' sooner or later xp

israel has generously promised to buy more genocidal weaponry

we need a new thread so I made one

The shittest of bins - rolling the Global Economy back to the Stone Age

this one has lasted us seventeen years seems pretty solid

Very on theme, then, to just toss it out and try something else for no reason.

thanks Ed
Everyone go to The shittest of bins - rolling the Global Economy back to the Stone Age now