How's the economy?

I'm trying to get an objective understanding of the current economic situation in the US. Looking at manipulated stats won't help so I turn to you instead, to tell me your personal view on how bad things are. I want to know if someone you know may be in trouble because of the housing crisis. And how fast is the cost of living going up? Is inflation noticable when you go shopping? Have you noticed any difference with credit card loans yet?

I read a lot about people having a rough time right now but I'd like to know how wide spread this is. If you have personally noticed something that's out of the ordinary, please tell me.

I'm broke

I don't personally know anyone who is trouble because of the housing crisis.

Food prices and gas prices are noticably higher. Most people are cutting back on discretionary spending and travel. People are still buying beer, but they're buying cheaper beer.

The building trades are just now (in June) starting to get busy again. There's always a slow season in the winter, but it lasted longer than usual this year. Very few people are building new houses, but there are lots of people remodeling.

I don't notice any differences with credit cards.

I live in Ohio and supposedly Ohio is one of the worst hit states. The situation is greatly overexaggerated in the media.

Well sure I still buy beer...

everything is over exaggerated by the media

media aint exaggerating shit.

a developer i know used to be a multimillionaire. he is now no longer, and losing like 30k a month or something ridiculous after making tons of cuts. this is solely due to the recent housing situation.

my parents and brother took about a 40k hit on a house they bought before this shit but needed to sell during it.

a friend living in arizona has been trying to move back up here, but cannot because he owns a couple homes, and they wont sell reasonably.

my sister has a two year old minivan that runs just fine but bought a new car that gets better gas for the sole reason of gas.

think about it this way: most of americans live paycheck to paycheck, but now our overall expenses are increased. this fucks us in almost every way.

this could easily be the beginning of the worst depression in our nations history. it will hit the entire world hard too, but US the worst. oil demand continues to increase while supply decreases. this was not always evident due to other factors, but we are now at the point where it will not change. the ONLY option is in other methods of fuel and power, but those will take veeeeeeerrrry long to set up. our entire transportation system is oil based. converting to another base (most viable now is hydrogen, which is what it is actually now except the fact that oil is the packaging) will take sooooo much money and sooooo many years. this will likely fuck us.

my plan is to get rich over the next couple years so i dont have to put up with this garbage. this is going to be a very long issue because its an issue of forced energy conversion.

and this is only one side of it. the housing bubble or whatever i dont understand so i wont say anything else about it. afaik, some banks need to bite the bullet that they tried to shoot at consumers, and that will be the fix. i could be way off on that though.

I live in Michigan in the suburbs of Detroit and we are being hit pretty hard. In some way almost everyones job seems to be connected to the automobile industry. The auto industry is on hard times and it is trickling down and effecting a lot of people. Unemployment is high, there are just not a lot of jobs.

My dad spent all of last summer looking for a job after the place he worked at closed down (a company that packaged auto parts and had its contract dropped out on by ford).

A lot of auto companies are forcing older employees with higher salaries into retirement so two of my uncles live in constant unknowing of if they will have a job next week.

For a summer job I work at a grocery store at the fish counter, and because of gas prices and economic uncertainties people just are not spending as much as they use to on food. So I get bitched at by my managers for not being able to sell $20 a pound fish. They are also cutting hours for part time employees.

But personally I do have to take a step back and realize that I am better of than most people, I own my own car, I can afford go out and party with friends once in a while etc etc. But compared to three, four years ago things are tighter.

That is just stuff I have noticed personally, hope it helps.

Yeah, there's very little exaggeration going on about this.

Over past years my parents were paying all their bills and living fairly comfortably, able to save some money in the process. Last year and this year they're getting closer and closer to breaking even after everything is paid.

Ya gas prices have affected nearly everyone and nearly everything. I've heard people from other countries say how our gas isn't that expensive, which may be true, but its the sharp increases that are killing everyone. Around 2 years ago gas was like around $2/gal. and now its at $4 or more. And Americans commute a lot more than other countries I think. I know people that commute like 70 miles a day each way!! Used to pay like $150/week for gas now like $300! Thats $600/month taken from savings/bills/enjoyment.

And I blame the banks/mortgage companies for being very greedy and f***cking up the whole industry and lots of people in the process. Although, people bit off more than they could chew, which is their own fault.
But I don't think its the start of a depression and I'm hopefull the country will start to pull out of it by the end of the year *fingers crossed*.

God bless America Laughing

BTW these are the times that smart with a little money become wealthy people later in life. If I had extra cash I'd be investing as much as I can. Warren Buffet was once asked, how can the average American become wealthy through investing, and he said, "Be cautious when others are being greedy, but be greedy when others are being cautious."

most americans dont know how to manage money, and are bad at managing debt, which is why they are having issues making ends meet. so yes consumer confidence isn't the greatest, as for the economy, our gdp increased in the first quarter. in other words, the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States increased. That doesn't happen in a depression. We aren't in a depression. And, we aren't really in a recession. Americans haven't stopped spending money, they have just switched what they spend their money on. Less entertainment, material goods; more on basic necessities and debts incurred from uninformed decision making when banks were "LIKE OMG HERE HAVE A LOAN I DONT CARE WHAT YOUR CREDIT IS..........but the interest rate is variable, or only fixed for x months/years"

When I bought my House in 2000, Home Heating Oil was .89cents a gallon. Now Its $4.69 a gallon. But just last winter it was 2.79 a gallon.
Multiplied by 800 gallons a year
That is a HUGE difference. So instead of the thermostat at 65degF this winter it maybe 62degF or even less.

to give an example of american's warped sense of needs vs wants, i've asked a few of the people i work with, who have been bitching about how they have to cut back on their spending and can't get x or y anymore and have to settle for z, if they still have cable/satellite. they look at me like i'm crazy and say "of course". so i don't really have that much sympathy for most of these people.

Hmmmm, How I cut back:

got rid of Netflix video service saving $10 a month
Bring Lunch to work everyday saving $10/15 a day
Quit drinking for 8 months saving SHITLOAD of $$$$
Switch all light bulbs in my house to CFL's saving $20 a month on the electric bill
Planted a garden to save $$ and eat better
Turned water heater down to 110 deg, saving $
Less eating out at night.
Only have Basic/basic/ cable
Minimum phone services.

I cut all this shit and then my wife goes out and bought a Horse, so guess what? I'm Fuked.

I feel like there are a few simple things the government or companies could do to improve the economy.

*Automakers in America have been fighting against fuel efficiency. Why? Because most American cars have such pitiful fuel mileage they can not be sold in some countries for example China which has a requirement of 41mpg for light cars and 21mpg for trucks. Automaker sales are slumping and they are bitching about imported cars. If they increased fuel efficiency they could open up new markets to sell in.

*Unemployment is really high. The electricity produced to power peoples homes causes undesired effects. Solution: Set up federally funded program to install solar panels in peoples homes. People get employment and it cuts down on energy.

you are not comprehending my posts and are repeating yourself.

I am comprehending you fine. Do you not think people should fix their own issues when the resources are out there to do so?

[quote="wufwugy"]

nm last post, pythonic beat me to it. damn poker interfering with my commune time

lol, you made some nice points though frosst.

My wife is in school and we are doing fine right now. We are frugal with our money, at least for the time being while she's in school, so I'm sure that's why. When she gets finished she will have a guaranteed three-year contract, and because she's a nurse she will always be in demand. I am a teacher and although I don't rake in the big bucks we will probably always be okay as far as money goes...

I do have a few friends that are hitting semi-rock-bottom right now, though, if not total-rock-bottom. Some of these friends are good people that had really great jobs a year or two ago and now they are barely living month to month (of course in the houses that are bigger than they need, SUVs they're driving, etc, but not all of them are that way...).

Still, our country is in it's biggest downswing since the Great Depression (1929-1941). In the 1920's people were living outside of their means like you wouldn't believe, then the housing market started to suck, then everything got worse because of that, then the depression happened. Even though it's a totally different time period, you can draw a lot of parallels from the 1920's to today's situation.

I personally think the worst is yet to come, but I hope not. I hope we swing out of this, but it's going to be ridiculously tough to do so. Somebody made the comment earlier, "Well, people are just buying what they need to survive now and that's all, and that's a good thing!" What about stores that sell stuff we don't need but we buy it anyway (like nicer clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, etc)? What about restaurants that people no longer go to (we don't need to eat at TGIFriday's every week, lets eat bologna and cheese sandwiches at home)? What happens to those businesses, and more importantly, those people that have jobs in those businesses?

At first they start getting their hours reduced, then they get laid off......then *they* only have money for the essentials, if they have it at all. Then what about the money that they used to spend at stores where they didn't really need the stuff, and at restaurants they really didn't need to eat at? They keep it! Cycle keeps going and going and going......and you get my point.

This doesn't even cover the American industries (those that are still left, and there ain't many!) and the hits they're taking......especially the car industry, just look at Ford as an example.

To be honest I think we're fucked and we just don't realize it yet. I guess we'll see how things are going in a few years...

EDIT: Also, I'm not guaranteed a job or anything because I'm a teacher...the government actually didn't have enough money for teachers during the depression at some points and schools totally shut down. I'm not saying we're going to get to that point, but I'll be damned if history hasn't repeated itself before a few times over.......so I'm a bit worried about how things are looking right now.

Im fine with the war because we need to help Iraq take care of itself. If we left now it would just happen all over again. However I'm not alright with all the aid we are giving to other countries.

The war with Iraq was based on bullshit intelligence and leftover fears from 9/11 for an ultimate agenda that we (thought but we did but we) didn't understand then and we don't understand now.

The current shitty-ness of the economy was not caused by the Iraq War. As I said, it didn't help the matter out, but it didn't cause it. Please don't get off topic here people and turn this into OMFG IRAQ.

Starbucks shutting down 600 stores.
http://dailybriefing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/07/01/starbucks-has-a-bitter-plan/

To get back on topic, I was just reading CNN.com a few minutes ago and I saw this. 600 Starbucks stores shutting down. Why, because people are cutting out things that aren't essential. Well, these 600 stores had employees that thought their money was essential, and now it's gone.

Fuck I know it's not the end of the world when a coffee store does this, but hundreds (if not thousands) of companies are doing this same thing...The sky isn't falling......................is it?

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