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Feedback ForumIn a time of record-breaking stock market numbers and plummeting housing figures, how confident are you in U.S. economic health?Submissions for this question are no longer being accepted. Previously submitted comments appear below. Comments may have been edited for content or space. Poster: Philip Comment: The economy goes in cycles and we are nearing the end of a cycle. The housing market is taking a hit because of lack of regulation. Those 2 items spell doom. However the democrats have taken much control this will reduce the republican brand of corruption plus bring the economy closer to the middle class. The war is a vary large drain and the US - world influence is reduced, this will have both short term and long term effects. I feel that we will have an economic depression whoes severity depends on the next election. If I had money to invest I would be conservative and looking to forgin currencies and investments. Poster: Mike J. Comment: I believe the middle class is going the way of artic ice, slowly melting away. The world views the health of the U.S.economy as they do the value of the dollar, slowly melting away with little chance of recovery. Poster: Tam Nguyen Comment: The record high stock market is no help to American sand Iraqi innocent lives that are lost daily in the mismanaged war. It is of no help to senior citizens and tax payers for the disgraced prescription program. It brings no security to the US with its oil-addicted energy policy. It is of no help to the broken health system that values profits, increasing premiums, delays, and denial of claims rather human lives. It is like a speculative market that is bragging the booming of the real estate that was drunk in the high of subprime lending practice and in the denial that recognized no danger what so ever! Poster: Paresh Patel Comment: Despite current, what appears to be housing bubble, wealth of this and other nations will continue to improve and therefore will also improve the human life in general. The rate of continuous acceleration in stock market (and the rate of continuous deceleration in housing figures for that matter), however is somewhat concerning and may impact the economic temporarily. But the health and wealth of this nation will continue to improve. Poster: seth v Comment: The economic pundits and CEOs are getting extremely rich while common people are paying thru their nose and struggling just to keep up with basic payments for housing, education, healthcare, food and energy, not necessarily in that order. What will happen to all our hard working people as it falls behind in education, healthcare and other fundamental strengths that made our country so great? Common people have no future, no savings, no security, just day to day living. Poster: John R Comment: The way numbers have been manipulated and spun lately. I do not trust anything that comes out of Washington. In the early 90's I prepared income taxes for about 300 clients. My clients showed unemployment benefits on 15% of their returns. The government numbers were at 7%. So where did they come with their numbers from? They were meaningless in my town. Poster: Jan Barnett Comment: Benefits of the stock market upswing go to a relatively small minority of American citizens who really don't need the benefits. The problems associated with the housing slump, lack of living wage jobs, increasing cost of a college education will go to the less fortunate American citizens. The numbers just don;t tell the whole truth. Poster: S. Maguire Comment: President Bush kept encouraging everyone to buy a home whether they could afford it or not to keep the economy going. So the bank made it happen by offering mortages that they knew would eventually collapse when interest rate would eventually rise. Why isn't anyone mentioning the facts about the Bush adm. scheme? Poster: Joy Comment: A number of areas are worrisome: middle class incomes have been hit by tax law changes such as payroll taxes which seem higher than income taxes, huge trade deficit for the US with vulnerable dependence upon China for cheap consumer goods and costs of higher education which is our future. More than ever, most Americans are hungering for vibrant leadership and a more open media. Long term, the future seems uncertain for our children - question is what are we doing proactively to address these issues ? Poster: Waymon Roberts Comment: Take a look at one of the currency value charts. The U.S. dollar has lost 5% of its value since last December. Meanwhile the EURO has grown almost 15%. Our country is borrowing far too much from China and Japan. The U.S. debt equals a stack of $100 dollar bills over 5000 miles tall. The interest is over $1 Billion per day! Poster: Johanna Comment: I have little confidence in an economy managed by Bush Republicans and greedy CEOs. Poster: Patricia Hughes Comment: I do not trust the government figures when I look around my own area. Here, I see an ever widening gap between the wealth of a very few and a growing number of those at or below the poverty level. Most can barely afford the essentials of food, housing costs and utitities. Prices on essentials are spiriling upward to fill the pockets of the few. We are in a perpetual war economy where adaquate housing for all citizens, quality education and health care for all just are not part of the political equation (despite the rhetoric). The media distracts itself with the antics of movie stars and the drone that terror is around every corner. Both the government and the media are out of touch with ordinary everyday living. Poster: Eugene Comment: I have little trust in any nationwide figure to deal with the housing problem for lower and lower middle income families and senior citizens living on pensions, social security, or who have lost pension funds because of the callous indifference of big business and the Republican party. These are the people who are being pressed by the current economic policies of foreclosure and increased costs for housing. They do not have annual raises to fall back on. It is a very subtle form of Ageism! Poster: ROB G Comment: Man are we in for a real wake up call.Oil and all of the products connected with it ,from plastics and transportation of all the things we buy are creating a unreal economy.No economy can stand on one foot for long. Poster: Tom Lazarich Comment: I’ve been amazed that the stock market continues to go up as long as it has. But I suppose as long as our multi-national corporations are making large profits in other countries because of what those countries are doing right with their economic policies, and off of the huge profits they are making off of this crazy war, the financing of almost our entire government debt to pay for it by Chinese and other foreign bonds, and as long as those corporate CEO’s continue to get multimillion dollar salaries on our credit, the stock market will continue to rise. But when it stops, we will all have to pay a huge price. When that happens, I’m sure the Republicans will blame the Democrats for their failed economic policy. Until we stop living on the world’s credit, start living within a sustainable means, and put our potential economy to work at those ends, e.g. alternate sources of energy, fuel efficient cars, upgrading the infrastructure of our country, and all the other things we could be doing that would keep our economy strong, I’m not optimistic. Poster: JoelJT Comment: I don't trust the domestic reports regarding the strength of the dollar. I have moved a third of my investments into Europe and Asia currencies. When the dollar recovers, if it happens during my lifetime, I'll return. Poster: Anna Boyle Daniher Comment: DOW 13000 and record profits are not due to better products or services. Corporations simply keep wages suppressed,cut benefits and 'create' an impressive bottom line. Poster: Chic Young, PE, EHF Comment: As we outsource ever more of the necessary production of both consumer goods and that required for our industry and Military, our economy becomes tied almost exclusively to our demands for consumption that exceeds what is necessary for a comfortable and enjoyable life without such stressful demands placed upon us - and on our Earth's resources. This has accelerated global warming to an untenable degree, but one that modern economists are trained to require of us. TV led advertising budgets are used to manage consumption for profit. Now that production is either automated, outsourced -- or both, to eliminate as many jobs as possible Stateside, jobs must be made in distribution and sales -- and management of same -- almost exclusively. We have become committed to global warming, and increasing waste -- to support this new economic model. Poster: Joan Manning Comment: When I was in college, tuition was free. When I was a single mother, jobs were plentiful. When one of my children developed a brain tumor, my employer's health plan paid most of the cost. When I bought my first house, in a middle class section of a Bay Area city, the cost was $25,000. I did this on women's pay - 70% of men's wages. When life is no longer affordable for the middle class, it means the richer are getting richer at our expense. Poster: Pam Reichmann Comment: The economic reports covered in the newspaper don't seem to reflect the economic situations of me or of most people I know. Everything costs more - from food to toilet paper to medicines to gas for cars. These increased costs take a larger percentage of available income relative to what it do for people having incomes of $1oo,ooo or more. This leaves us with no emergency fund to fall back on. Poster: Francis Collins Comment: As long as George W. Bush is our president I am not at all confident in the economic health of Americans. He might be great for corporate profits, but that does not translate to more money in my pocket. The price of gasoline has gone up over %100 percent in the last decade....remember when it was like $1 a gallon...$1.30 even? My wages have not gone up %100, or %50, not %20, more like %2. Rising Cost of Living + Stagnate Wages= Exxon getting richer, me staying poor. Poster: Jane S. Comment: I wish we'd stop spending worrying so much about the middle class housing market and start focusing some of that energy and economic inventiveness toward affordable housing for the poor. I heard somewhere that a true economy (country's worth?) should be measured not by the richest, but by the poorest of its participants. We'll be a healthy economy when people have living wages. Until then, it's just sick. Poster: Frederich Comment: I don't trust any nationwide figures -- what matters more to me is the price of bread, gas, and college. The other numbers really just pay for the salaries of analysts, and think-tankers. They cycle anyway. Other things, like the ones I mentioned, go up and up....not that any politician knows the price of bread nowadays. |
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