US President George W. Bush denied Tuesday that the US economy was in recession or would go into one despite a spate of downcast reports and gloomy indicators.
“We’re not in a recession, I don’t think we will go in a recession. We’re in a slowdown, and there’s a difference,” Bush said in an interview with American Urban Radio Networks. “No question there is softening now.”
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“I am confident in our economy,” he said.
Shaky loan portfolios continue to darken the landscape for the nation’s banks, as federal regulators prepare for the possibility of an uptick in failures of financial institutions, according to recent government reports.
snip
All of this is happening as the FDIC, established during the Great Depression to provide a backstop to depositors during a rash of bank failures, solicits banks’ input on ways to accomplish as orderly a wind-down as possible in the event of a major bank’s demise. The FDIC sent a notice out to banks requesting their ideas last month.
“The notion that a bank is too big to fail shouldn’t be out there,” says Jim Marino, of the FDIC’s Division of Resolutions and Receiverships.
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers’ ability to repay, making loans with deceptive “teaser” rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
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What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
all emphasis mine
In terms of expertise, indeed even in blogging terms, I don’t know Jack about economics.
I do know a couple of things though. The economy is what we eat, where we live, and whether or not we have work and/or jobs to pay for those things. The economy is the basis for practical life, everyday life. The difference in an ever increasing number of cases, for instance…between having a roof over your head and sleeping in the streets, between eating three meals a day or one meal a day. Of having food and clothes for your kids….or not.
It is not a playground for Republican get rich quick schemes. At the expense of regular folks. And their kids.
But every time these asshats get elected, that’s what they turn it into.
So really, it’s very simple. Electing Republicans is bad for the economy. The economy that puts food on the table, not the one that enriches the cronies and partners of whichever Republican in office. Not the one that turns billionaires into multi-billionaires. Sure, it’s fun for them, for the rest of us? Not so much.
Trickle down….the idea of basically GIVING money, through tax breaks and loopholes and lax or nonexistent regulation to the already rich, and then expecting them to reinvest the money in the economy for the benefit of ‘those less fortunate” (everybody but the already super rich 1%)……..DOESN’T WORK.
And it imperils the stability of the economy for the vast majority of Americas who are NOT rich…and especially those living paycheck to paycheck…or those who have lost that check.
This isn’t a game or a grand experiment or adventure, this is the very lifeblood of hundreds of millions of Americans. Stop fucking with it, please.
Yell it Louder: Electing Republicans is bad for the economy.
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Michael Jackson faces forced sale of Neverland
just one more foreclosure….sigh….
and we have to REALLY push this point…because if GWB et al are allowed to hold on to their illusion of a managable economy, the recession/depression we’re surely sliding into is going to be blamed solely and harshly on our next president…a’la jimmy carter..paving the way for a ‘new reagan’ to sweep in and put the final nail in the coffin (youre welcome for deciding not to go with the ass-fucking metaphor) 😉
if you aren’t somehow tied to the 1% that rule corporate America. Not to mention the corporate Democrats that are Republican light in all ways. Remember Operation Mindcrime by Queensryche? Gotta make a million, doesn’t matter who dies. Yep.
He manages to steal all the money he wants for him and his friends, and both the Republican and the Democratic partys help him do it.
If he wasn’t such an asshole he might comprehend that no one else is “confident in our economy”, though. Although he might have enough brains to comprehend that, but just doesn’t give a shit.
That line up of moving images of bush reminds me of the pop up duck things that we throw baseballs at, at the carnival.
Heh!
“Never believe anything until it is officially denied.”
They certanly would deny this statement of yours, buhdy:
Painfully, true, however.