Excuse me republicans, but what happened to the "strongest economy ever"???

Question

How low is the market going to go?

Answer 1

the market doesn't matter to the homeless and the people making minimum wage (that republicans think should be lower!)

What do you do when you want to screw only the working people of your nation with the largest tax increase in history and hand those trillions of dollars to your wealthy campaign contributors, yet not have anybody realize you've done it? If you're Ronald Reagan, you call in Alan Greenspan.
Through the "golden years of the American middle class" - the 1940s through 1982 - the top income tax rate for the hyper-rich had been between 90 and 70 percent. Ronald Reagan wanted to cut that rate dramatically, to help out his political patrons. He did this with a massive tax cut in the summer of 1981.
The only problem was that when Reagan took his meat axe to our tax code, he produced mind-boggling budget deficits. Voodoo economics didn't work out as planned, and even after borrowing so much money that this year we'll pay over $100 billion just in interest on the money Reagan borrowed to make the economy look good in the 1980s, Reagan couldn't come up with the revenues he needed to run the government.
Coincidentally, the actuaries at the Social Security Administration were beginning to get worried about the Baby Boomer generation, who would begin retiring in big numbers in fifty years or so. They were a "rabbit going through the python" bulge that would require a few trillion more dollars than Social Security could easily collect during the same 20 year or so period of their retirement. We needed, the actuaries said, to tax more heavily those very persons who would eventually retire, so instead of using current workers' money to pay for the Boomer's Social Security payments in 2020, the Boomers themselves would have pre-paid for their own retirement.
Reagan got Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alan Greenspan together to form a commission on Social Security reform, along with a few other politicians and economists, and they recommend a near-doubling of the Social Security tax on the then-working Boomers. That tax created - for the first time in history - a giant savings account that Social Security could use to pay for the Boomers' retirement.
This was a huge change. Prior to this, Social Security had always paid for today's retirees with income from today's workers (it still is today). The Boomers were the first generation that would pay Social Security taxes both to fund current retirees and save up enough money to pay for their own retirement. And, after the Boomers were all retired and the savings account - called the "Social Security Trust Fund" - was all spent, the rabbit would have finished its journey through the python and Social Security could go back to a "pay as you go" taxing system.
Thus, within the period of a few short years, Reagan dramatically dropped the income tax on America's most wealthy by more than half, and roughly doubled the Social Security tax on people earning $30,000 or less. It was, simultaneously, the largest income tax cut in America's history (almost entirely for the very wealthy), and the most massive tax increase in the history of the nation (which entirely hit working-class people).
But Reagan still had a problem. His tax cuts for the wealthy - even when moderated by subsequent tax increases - weren't generating enough money to invest properly in America's infrastructure, schools, police and fire departments, and military. The country was facing bankruptcy.
No problem, suggested Greenspan. Just borrow the Boomer's savings account - the money in the Social Security Trust Fund - and, because you're borrowing "government money" to fund "government expenditures," you don't have to list it as part of the deficit. Much of the deficit will magically seem to disappear, and nobody will know what you did for another 50 years when the Boomers begin to retire 2015.
Reagan jumped at the opportunity. As did George H. W. Bush. As did Bill Clinton (although Al Gore argued strongly that Social Security funds should not be raided, but, instead, put in a "lock box"). And so did George W. Bush.
The result is that all that money - trillions of dollars - that has been taxed out of working Boomers (the ceiling has risen from the tax being on your first $30,000 of income to the first $90,000 today) has been borrowed and spent. What are left behind are a special form of IOUs - an unique form of Treasury debt instruments similar (but not identical) to those the government issues to borrow money from China today to fund George W. Bush's most recent tax cuts for billionaires (George Junior is still also "borrowing" from the Social Security Trust Fund).
Former Bush Junior Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recounts how Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Cheney was either ignorant or being disingenuous - it would be more accurate to say, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter if you rip off the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for them, and don't report that borrowing from the Boomers as part of the deficit."

Answer 2

It's on it way down. The economy has been so so they have not be using good numbers with the unemployed or the kind of jobs that were created. The economy was being help along by the housing market now the game is at an end and the mortgages are due. Recession has been here for over a year. Look at the price of things compared to what they were in the ninety.

Answer 3

The economy's great. The market and the economy are not always indicative of each other. Fear and greed drive the market down and up. The economy is far more complex and robust.

And what's the problem? Make money when it's going down by selling short or buying puts. Make money when it's going up by buying long or buying calls. Use trailing stops. Quit worrying and belly-aching and start making some money. BTW, dump out of an option before it expires worthless.

I'll never understand you liberal, "the glass is always half-empty" crowd. A ton of gold bricks could fall out of the sky at your feet and you'd complain how they splattered your clothes with mud when they hit the ground.

Answer 4

The same thing will happen to the current expansion as has happened to every economic expansion - it will come to an end, and there will be a recession. In fact, it could already be happening - whether a period was a recession or expansion is something that can only really be judged with certainty in hindsight.

As much as politicians love to try to tamper with the Business Cycle, and as much as they endeavor to take credit for it's highs and place blame for it's lows, it's an inevitable thing. Economies will have expansions and recessions, and markets - especially those like the stock market - will fluctuate.

Answer 5

America is doing great right now. The stock market could have crashed after 911, but its alive and well. Even with a correction, the over all economy is doing remarkably well.

Answer 6

YOU recommend IT GOING lower back UP lower back? President Obama has prevented the 2nd super melancholy. it rather is the only ultimate monetary miracle of all time & it rather isn't any exaggeration! [top-rated monetary indicators like new housing starts off, production facility orders and new very own loan pastime teach it.] And now, client spending [70% of the monetary equipment] is likewise up. Oh, and those banks paid lower back the TARP funds early WITH pastime! [i be attentive to, employment, precise? it rather is the final element to get better, ask any economist. wait and see]

Answer 7

Ask George Carlin....unfortunately it is not the little peon government officials that decide anything in this country my friend..it is the Big Whig Corporate fat cats...the ones with the billions of dollars...that is who controls the stock market...the big shot callers. Gov. is there to make you think you have a little say so...

Answer 8

Record poverty, more people without health insurance, the shrinking middle class, this is the real face of the economy. The stock market is great if you have money but the average working man now is in a period of negative savings. You can spin it any way you want but we are going back to the time of the robber barons and the Republicans are the driving force.

Answer 9

we are at an all time high right now. the stock market is going stron, well over 13000. unemployment is at record lows, the economy is doing great. where have you been, Cuba?

Answer 10

I bought my house brand new before the market hit 10,000 points. I eat steak once a week. Crab legs once a month. $500 dollars a month in groceries. Beer every day of the week. Yeah, life sucks.

Why don't you just get a better job and stop whining?



Don C - Get a grip pal.