Let's cut the bull shit and get down to the truth. The beginning..

[Avorysuds]

The REAL truth, is what we had under Clinton created the most booming economy we have ever seen. Everyone pays their fair share, we support those that are the real job creators, small business, and support those that make american great, the middle class.

From Clinton's strong progressive view the economy skyrocketed, we had the biggest surplus in US history, employers were nearly begging people to work for them, 10$ an hour to start signs in McDonald's windows,...it was great times.

From there W came into office and decided to throw Clinton's game plan to have the nation debt free into the trash and decided to go back to the proven failed GOP "trickle down" economics. Once enacted things began to plunge.

Now that W slashed revenues, he decided to go on a spending spree by enacting medicare part D, and going to war with afganistan, and the big one, the false war in Iraq.

To insert the cliffs notes, Bush allowed the big banks to run wild with predatory loans, destroyed the housing market, enacted TARP giving trillions to bail them out, and so the frat boy party is over, leaving the nation in shambles because of the republican way of doing things.
Spend like maniacs, but don't have a way to pay for it.

I don't agree that this caused the recession. For one thing, Clinton enjoyed then benefit of luck. He was potus during the Dot Com boom which had absolutely nothing to do with him or his policies. I am pretty sure that it was the housing situation that caused this mess. I am sure because people smarter than me have stated such. I won't totally discount your theory, but I'll have to hear more than that to convince me, and your avie kind of detracts from your credibility.

It's the typical response when you bring up how successful the Clinton administration was for the right wingers to instantly say "Ooo ooo! That was only because of the dot com boom!" Though the thing is without Clinton, who knows if the technological advances such as the internet ever would have come to light, or be anywhere near what they are today.

The internet was essentially just cracking out of it's shell under Clinton and got under full steam under Bush. If it was that successful, it should have launched Bush and even to this day to the most thriving economy that we have ever seen, though like I stated before, other circumstances created the opposite.

The internet keeps growing and now you could say is in it's adolescence. The dot com was never a boom, it's something here to stay.

I think the OP was specific in saying they wanted to avoid the very thing you're doing.

Clinton had a housing bubble and a DoT com bubble.

Clinton had a Republican Congress.

Clinton raided SS so that it looked like the US was on it's way to a surplus while adding to the deficit every year.

Clinton had far less regulation than we do now.

Clinton cut taxes.

Clinton worked with congress, even when he didn't get what he wanted.

Under Clinton the Government was vastly smaller than it is today and yet it was doing much better.

Now, about the OP.

I feel this recession is the side effect of many things. In general it's Big Governments fault and that's important because I don't think this is just any recession. I believe we are reaching the end of this countries rope.

If overspending spending is the definition of Government stimulus than anytime this country has run a deficit we are by definition seeing Government stimulation. Currently we are doing that at about 1.5 trillion a year. The addiction to floating the economy, bubble to bubble, through perpetual stimulus has caused what we are calling "the great recession."

This recession might pass, that is possible. But another recession will occur, and soon. The deficit spending will not be resolved and paying down the debts will not even be on the table as something to even be looked at.


Stimulus = mal investment = deficits = recession = personal debt = depression.

For a long time we were able to dwindle the personal savings of people, float the economy to the next bubble. What has happened over the last 15 years or so is the bubbles have destroyed much of the personal saving, debt from school, housing and so on was created. This debt was created though Government programs and welfare, or “stimulus.” That stimulus created mal investment. High deficits created a need to clear the markets and a recession is born. Personal debt on near every American family is a new thing, this creates a situation where the FEDS can’t create a new bubble and float the economy to it… that equals a depression.

That is my view.

 

[Sallow]

PredFan..

I highly recommend this film to you.

Too Big to Fail (TV 2011) - IMDb

 

[Mustang]

I'll offer my view first:

It was a combination of greed (banks, investors, consumers), and political posturing.

It all stemmed from the housing market. The fault lies in many areas, the CRA, deregulation, a sense from the common man that there was no limit, and politics.

Not any one person or any one political party is to blame, except that there is plenty of balme to be assigned if we just have to assign blame.

I am no economist, I am no housing specialist, nor am I a political science major. These opinions that I have laid out are borrowed from another smarter person who also said it more eloquently. I am starting this thread to hear something lie that again. To get to the bottom of the issue.

I welcome input from all sides.

It's not just a question of DEregulation. Some financial instruments like Credit Default Swaps were never regulated in the first place. In the area of shadow banking, much went on that was not only unregulated, it wasn't even reported, and nobody was keeping track of the numbers. The SEC didn't have a clue about the numbers. Neither did the banks. And Congress? They just turned a blind eye to any practice once the banks pushed for the embrace of laissez-faire financial markets which would be 'unerring in self-correction.' And Greenspan was one of the biggest cheerleaders. But for self-correction to work in real time, one must believe (assume, really) that public knowledge was full and complete. It wasn't by a long shot. Then there's the greed factor. That's something that advocates of the concept of a 'rational' market never seemed to understand. Greed is about emotion, not rationality.

Let's not forget Greenspan, the ideological cheerleader who was blinded by his ideological vision.

Then there was the corruption of the campaign contribution system where powerful people bought the regulation they wanted, or, more accurately, prevented the regulation they didn't want.

 

[TheGreatGatsby]

Let's see if this group can actually do this. I want us to get to the root of problems and weed out the truth. Not the truth according to the left or the right, but the truth.

I am conservative but not an idealogue. If we can get to the truth here, I can accept it.

First issue on the table:

What caused the recession?

Recessions are inevitable. I think you mean, what caused prolonged unemployment. The answer is simple. Corruption. And you can blame government but that let's the constituents off the hook. Frankly, government is just a reflection of the people. People have lost their morals and we can't pretend that doesn't affect everything. If you do, then you're naive.

 

[DiamondDave]

The REAL truth, is what we had under Clinton created the most booming economy we have ever seen. Everyone pays their fair share, we support those that are the real job creators, small business, and support those that make american great, the middle class.

From Clinton's strong progressive view the economy skyrocketed, we had the biggest surplus in US history, employers were nearly begging people to work for them, 10$ an hour to start signs in McDonald's windows,...it was great times.

From there W came into office and decided to throw Clinton's game plan to have the nation debt free into the trash and decided to go back to the proven failed GOP "trickle down" economics. Once enacted things began to plunge.

Now that W slashed revenues, he decided to go on a spending spree by enacting medicare part D, and going to war with afganistan, and the big one, the false war in Iraq.

To insert the cliffs notes, Bush allowed the big banks to run wild with predatory loans, destroyed the housing market, enacted TARP giving trillions to bail them out, and so the frat boy party is over, leaving the nation in shambles because of the republican way of doing things.
Spend like maniacs, but don't have a way to pay for it.

I don't agree that this caused the recession. For one thing, Clinton enjoyed then benefit of luck. He was potus during the Dot Com boom which had absolutely nothing to do with him or his policies. I am pretty sure that it was the housing situation that caused this mess. I am sure because people smarter than me have stated such. I won't totally discount your theory, but I'll have to hear more than that to convince me, and your avie kind of detracts from your credibility.

It's the typical response when you bring up how successful the Clinton administration was for the right wingers to instantly say "Ooo ooo! That was only because of the dot com boom!" Though the thing is without Clinton, who knows if the technological advances such as the internet ever would have come to light, or be anywhere near what they are today.

The internet was essentially just cracking out of it's shell under Clinton and got under full steam under Bush. If it was that successful, it should have launched Bush and even to this day to the most thriving economy that we have ever seen, though like I stated before, other circumstances created the opposite.

The internet keeps growing and now you could say is in it's adolescence. The dot com was never a boom, it's something here to stay.

Now you are talking out of your ass.. coming from someone who has worked at EVERY level of the internet business during and after the dot com bubble...

The boom and bust would have happened without Clinton.... this was not anything to do with government.. this was technological advances, price drops, and consumer driven progress....

BTW.. the bust started BEFORE Bush....

 

[Sallow]

Short answer: A global derivatives speculative bubble.

That's a major part of it.

There were root causes that go along with that..like doing away with many regulations on financial markets and repealing Glass-Steagall.

Indeed.

Not just doing away with regulations. Some derivatives were never regulated to begin with. Like CDS.

Derivative were the result of some really clever people making complex algorithms that were essentially unreadable by government regulators..

That's if they even had the inclination to read them.

SEC is so undermanned and over worked..it's miracle they enforce anything at all.

 

[Liability]

The REAL truth, is what we had under Clinton created the most booming economy we have ever seen. Everyone pays their fair share, we support those that are the real job creators, small business, and support those that make american great, the middle class.

From Clinton's strong progressive view the economy skyrocketed, we had the biggest surplus in US history, employers were nearly begging people to work for them, 10$ an hour to start signs in McDonald's windows,...it was great times.

From there W came into office and decided to throw Clinton's game plan to have the nation debt free into the trash and decided to go back to the proven failed GOP "trickle down" economics. Once enacted things began to plunge.

Now that W slashed revenues, he decided to go on a spending spree by enacting medicare part D, and going to war with afganistan, and the big one, the false war in Iraq.

To insert the cliffs notes, Bush also allowed the big banks to run wild with predatory loans, destroyed the housing market, enacted TARP giving trillions to bail them out, and so the frat boy party is over, leaving the nation in shambles because of the republican way of doing things.

Simply put, the economic crisis was caused from the GOP slashing revenues, while at the same time spending like lunatics.

Crack_Babble, the stupid hack bitch can't be honest even in THIS thread.

 

[DiamondDave]

The REAL truth, is what we had under Clinton created the most booming economy we have ever seen. Everyone pays their fair share, we support those that are the real job creators, small business, and support those that make american great, the middle class.

From Clinton's strong progressive view the economy skyrocketed, we had the biggest surplus in US history, employers were nearly begging people to work for them, 10$ an hour to start signs in McDonald's windows,...it was great times.

From there W came into office and decided to throw Clinton's game plan to have the nation debt free into the trash and decided to go back to the proven failed GOP "trickle down" economics. Once enacted things began to plunge.

Now that W slashed revenues, he decided to go on a spending spree by enacting medicare part D, and going to war with afganistan, and the big one, the false war in Iraq.

To insert the cliffs notes, Bush allowed the big banks to run wild with predatory loans, destroyed the housing market, enacted TARP giving trillions to bail them out, and so the frat boy party is over, leaving the nation in shambles because of the republican way of doing things.
Spend like maniacs, but don't have a way to pay for it.

I don't agree that this caused the recession. For one thing, Clinton enjoyed then benefit of luck. He was potus during the Dot Com boom which had absolutely nothing to do with him or his policies. I am pretty sure that it was the housing situation that caused this mess. I am sure because people smarter than me have stated such. I won't totally discount your theory, but I'll have to hear more than that to convince me, and your avie kind of detracts from your credibility.

That's incorrect. Clinton/Gore funded massive telecommunications upgrades and expanded access to the internet. That along with providing funding for re-training of people displaced by NAFTA. Most wound up training for Information Technology.

There was also a huge paradigm shift in the financial markets...in that they went from an analog way of doing business to a digital one.

Bullshit... the AOL's, UUNETs, Qwests, Compuserves, etc had influxes of capital from venture capitalists, larger existing firms etc... Coming from someone IN the business (as I have been since 94), there was not 'help' from the government on this

 

[Sallow]

I don't agree that this caused the recession. For one thing, Clinton enjoyed then benefit of luck. He was potus during the Dot Com boom which had absolutely nothing to do with him or his policies. I am pretty sure that it was the housing situation that caused this mess. I am sure because people smarter than me have stated such. I won't totally discount your theory, but I'll have to hear more than that to convince me, and your avie kind of detracts from your credibility.

It's the typical response when you bring up how successful the Clinton administration was for the right wingers to instantly say "Ooo ooo! That was only because of the dot com boom!" Though the thing is without Clinton, who knows if the technological advances such as the internet ever would have come to light, or be anywhere near what they are today.

The internet was essentially just cracking out of it's shell under Clinton and got under full steam under Bush. If it was that successful, it should have launched Bush and even to this day to the most thriving economy that we have ever seen, though like I stated before, other circumstances created the opposite.

The internet keeps growing and now you could say is in it's adolescence. The dot com was never a boom, it's something here to stay.

Now you are talking out of your ass.. coming from someone who has worked at EVERY level of the internet business during and after the dot com bubble...

The boom and bust would have happened without Clinton.... this was not anything to do with government.. this was technological advances, price drops, and consumer driven progress....

BTW.. the bust started BEFORE Bush....

Most economic theories take highs and lows into account. Both Friedman and Keynes advocate for government intervention at times of economic distress.

The question becomes, how it gets financed.

 

[DiamondDave]

It's the typical response when you bring up how successful the Clinton administration was for the right wingers to instantly say "Ooo ooo! That was only because of the dot com boom!" Though the thing is without Clinton, who knows if the technological advances such as the internet ever would have come to light, or be anywhere near what they are today.

The internet was essentially just cracking out of it's shell under Clinton and got under full steam under Bush. If it was that successful, it should have launched Bush and even to this day to the most thriving economy that we have ever seen, though like I stated before, other circumstances created the opposite.

The internet keeps growing and now you could say is in it's adolescence. The dot com was never a boom, it's something here to stay.

Now you are talking out of your ass.. coming from someone who has worked at EVERY level of the internet business during and after the dot com bubble...

The boom and bust would have happened without Clinton.... this was not anything to do with government.. this was technological advances, price drops, and consumer driven progress....

BTW.. the bust started BEFORE Bush....

Most economic theories take highs and lows into account. Both Friedman and Keynes advocate for government intervention at times of economic distress.

The question becomes, how it gets financed.

And this has WHAT to do with what I said??

 

[Sallow]

I don't agree that this caused the recession. For one thing, Clinton enjoyed then benefit of luck. He was potus during the Dot Com boom which had absolutely nothing to do with him or his policies. I am pretty sure that it was the housing situation that caused this mess. I am sure because people smarter than me have stated such. I won't totally discount your theory, but I'll have to hear more than that to convince me, and your avie kind of detracts from your credibility.

That's incorrect. Clinton/Gore funded massive telecommunications upgrades and expanded access to the internet. That along with providing funding for re-training of people displaced by NAFTA. Most wound up training for Information Technology.

There was also a huge paradigm shift in the financial markets...in that they went from an analog way of doing business to a digital one.

Bullshit... the AOL's, UUNETs, Qwests, Compuserves, etc had influxes of capital from venture capitalists, larger existing firms etc... Coming from someone IN the business (as I have been since 94), there was not 'help' from the government on this

Nonsense.

You're talking about indivdual companies taking advantage of the infrastructure upgrades.

UNIX was INVENTED in government/academic labs.

I've been working with financial IT since 1997.

 

[occupied]

That's a major part of it.

There were root causes that go along with that..like doing away with many regulations on financial markets and repealing Glass-Steagall.

Indeed.

Not just doing away with regulations. Some derivatives were never regulated to begin with. Like CDS.

Derivative were the result of some really clever people making complex algorithms that were essentially unreadable by government regulators..

That's if they even had the inclination to read them.

SEC is so undermanned and over worked..it's miracle they enforce anything at all.

I read somewhere that banks employed autistic math savants to write derivative equations and still do.

 

[Sallow]

Indeed.

Not just doing away with regulations. Some derivatives were never regulated to begin with. Like CDS.

Derivative were the result of some really clever people making complex algorithms that were essentially unreadable by government regulators..

That's if they even had the inclination to read them.

SEC is so undermanned and over worked..it's miracle they enforce anything at all.

I read somewhere that banks employed autistic math savants to write derivative equations and still do.

Worked with plenty of them in IT.

 

[Avorysuds]

It's the typical response when you bring up how successful the Clinton administration was for the right wingers to instantly say "Ooo ooo! That was only because of the dot com boom!" Though the thing is without Clinton, who knows if the technological advances such as the internet ever would have come to light, or be anywhere near what they are today.

The internet was essentially just cracking out of it's shell under Clinton and got under full steam under Bush. If it was that successful, it should have launched Bush and even to this day to the most thriving economy that we have ever seen, though like I stated before, other circumstances created the opposite.

The internet keeps growing and now you could say is in it's adolescence. The dot com was never a boom, it's something here to stay.

Now you are talking out of your ass.. coming from someone who has worked at EVERY level of the internet business during and after the dot com bubble...

The boom and bust would have happened without Clinton.... this was not anything to do with government.. this was technological advances, price drops, and consumer driven progress....

BTW.. the bust started BEFORE Bush....

Most economic theories take highs and lows into account. Both Friedman and Keynes advocate for government intervention at times of economic distress.

The question becomes, how it gets financed.

Keynes leads to perpetual stimulus through deficit spending, that is the main problem with his economic plan. It has never worked and never will.

Keynes extracts greed from the equation, this is where he fails because that’s not reality. Politicians are people too, creating bubble after bubble through stimulus is greed. That greed is why the US constantly runs deficits but never finances the debt.

 

[whitehall]

Let's see if this group can actually do this. I want us to get to the root of problems and weed out the truth. Not the truth according to the left or the right, but the truth.

I am conservative but not an idealogue. If we can get to the truth here, I can accept it.

First issue on the table:

What caused the recession?

This is the political forum. If you want to talk about the economy there is a place for that discussion and if you are looking for history history go to the history forum.

 

[Jackson]

The question shuld be "How do we get out?"

 

[DiamondDave]

That's incorrect. Clinton/Gore funded massive telecommunications upgrades and expanded access to the internet. That along with providing funding for re-training of people displaced by NAFTA. Most wound up training for Information Technology.

There was also a huge paradigm shift in the financial markets...in that they went from an analog way of doing business to a digital one.

Bullshit... the AOL's, UUNETs, Qwests, Compuserves, etc had influxes of capital from venture capitalists, larger existing firms etc... Coming from someone IN the business (as I have been since 94), there was not 'help' from the government on this

Nonsense.

You're talking about indivdual companies taking advantage of the infrastructure upgrades.

UNIX was INVENTED in government/academic labs.

I've been working with financial IT since 1997.

You are talking out of your ass.. (and by 97 I was already dealing with multi million dollar departmental budgets and expanding infrastructure exponentially each year)

Unix... why not mention COBOL, SS7, and everything else??

The expansions in infrastructure did not come at the hands of the government.. perhaps you should actually learn how companies such as Qwest evolved and how they came about laying the largest amount of dark fiber in the late 90's and early 00's...

This was not a government driven boom... this would have happened with Clinton, Perot, Dole or whomever else

 

[Charles_Main]

Let's see if this group can actually do this. I want us to get to the root of problems and weed out the truth. Not the truth according to the left or the right, but the truth.

I am conservative but not an idealogue. If we can get to the truth here, I can accept it.

First issue on the table:

What caused the recession?

No one thing. A long list of Factors played a Part. One of which was Decades of Bad Government Policy.

 

[g5000]

As good a summation as I have ever read, Lowly carpenters I talked to knew it was coming a long time before I ever heard a banker even mention the word bubble. You can't build spec houses forever, had to end up with someone holding the bag, never would have guessed we would have unconditionally bailed them out so completely that they would not even take a lesson from the whole mess.

Yep. I followed the new housing developments in my town for years. When one neighborhood was still just surveyed dirt squares, the price for the future houses was about $240,000. A couple years later, they were going for over $300,000.

That house I eventually went to the action for reached $320,000. As I was looking at it, a broker approached me. The builder had a broker in the development office to make deals right on the spot.

I wasn't the slightest bit interested in paying $320,000 for the house, but I listened to her pitch.

She told me I could have the house for a monthly mortage payment of $300 a month for the first two years.



That is one bitch of a negative amortization.

I had also recently found a Wachovia internal memo online which described their incredibly aggressive Pick-A-Payment program.

It was these two things which told me we were in for one helluva crash.

I contacted a reporter I knew at a local TV station to let her in on what was happening. Sadly, she could not understand what I was trying to tell her. Too bad. She would have been two years ahead of the curve on the story.

No one believed me.

Oh well.

So, yeah, construction workers probably had a real good idea what was coming.

 

[candycorn]

What caused the recession?

I would say that the single most important factor is this; the lack of regulation (either no regulation or toothless regulators).

Why does anybody do anything? Because they can. Republicans should remember that. Had we not had that housing bubble, Wall Street types would be bundling student loans right now and selling them on the open market as "can't fail" securities. Why? Because they could.