Why do people think that this "economic crisis" can be solved with some painless solution?

It's not just the government that feels they have to "fix it". The American people are demanding it.

As for gold, if the dollar is no longer valued (as in people lose all faith in it) will any form of currency matter?

Disagree. The bill had essentially zero Republican support. No fiscal conservative would support it. Yes, a good chunk of Americans are dumb (and getting dumber, and more liberal) but not all of us share those views.

Obviously I was speaking with regards to the majority of Americans. The Senate, the House of Representatives and the White House are all controlled by the Democrats, which is a product of this majority.

Gold will always, always, always have value....it's one of the few things aside from food that holds it's value or increases in value in a depression

Money floats freely and is now backed only by the faith of investors (thank you Nixon). What's more, money isn't even represented by paper anymore as it has been replaced electronically (to some degree at least). This is unprecendented so any predictions as to what will retain value are, in my opinion, only speculative at best.

Why do people think that this "economic crisis" can be solved with some painless solution?

It can - If the government hadn't been messing with crap, we'd probably already be on the road to recovery.

The FIRST bailout wasn't supported by 'the people' but bush rammed it through anyway, im sure this second bailout was even less supported. When it all collapses, are we allowed to string up these idiot politicians?

I don't see how he could ram it through. That's the whole nature of checks and balances. Not that it works flawlessly, but I don't place the blame entirely on Bush, and both McCain and Obama supported that bill.

easy to ram through!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/17/cafferty.stimulus/

What a joke. Your Congress has voted to spend almost $790 billion of your money on a stimulus package that not a single member of either chamber has read.

The 1,073-page document wasn't posted on the government's Web site until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote to pass it was taken. I don't care if you're Evelyn Wood, you can't read almost 1,100 pages of the lawyer talk that makes up all legislation in eight or 10 hours.

The criminal part of this boondoggle is divided into two parts. The first is the Democrats promised to post the bill a full 48 hours before the vote was taken to allow members of the public to see what they were getting for their money. Both parties voted unanimously to do this ... and they lied.

I don't see how he could ram it through. That's the whole nature of checks and balances. Not that it works flawlessly, but I don't place the blame entirely on Bush, and both McCain and Obama supported that bill.

I should have said, the GOVERNMENT rammed it though, with almost zero support of the people.

Why do people think that this "economic crisis" can be solved with some painless solution?

Because American politicians are stupid.

The only part of this stimulus thing that makes any sense is the idea of actually improving the infrastructure of the country, because that is a hard asset, it's tangible. Giving tax dollars to banks so they can lend more money (their own money!) to people who are already struggling under their current loans is just stupid. "Gee, I know you can't pay the bills you've got, but we're going to loan you MORE money so you can fuck your future up even worse!" And what happens?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Credit is what got us into this, not what's going to get us out. "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!" What happens when you're hungry on Tuesday? It's a repeating pattern, and it's just dumb.

Maybe it's time we tuck our fucking tails in Iraq and get the hell out. Think how much money could be thrown into our own hole, rather than into an Iraqi hole?

Maybe it's time we tuck our fucking tails in Iraq and get the hell out. Think how much money could be thrown into our own hole, rather than into an Iraqi hole?

+1

I've been saying this since before we even invaded.

It can - If the government hadn't been messing with crap, we'd probably already be on the road to recovery.

If this is what you believe then I am not sure that you really understand the situation.

Because American politicians are stupid.

The only part of this stimulus thing that makes any sense is the idea of actually improving the infrastructure of the country, because that is a hard asset, it's tangible. Giving tax dollars to banks so they can lend more money (their own money!) to people who are already struggling under their current loans is just stupid. "Gee, I know you can't pay the bills you've got, but we're going to loan you MORE money so you can fuck your future up even worse!" And what happens?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Credit is what got us into this, not what's going to get us out. "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!" What happens when you're hungry on Tuesday? It's a repeating pattern, and it's just dumb.

Maybe it's time we tuck our fucking tails in Iraq and get the hell out. Think how much money could be thrown into our own hole, rather than into an Iraqi hole?

Everyone says infrastructure is pretty much a home run, but I disagree. A very small portion of the working population is able to participate on these improvements to infrastructure, and frankly, I don't see this as being anything but New Deal government (which doesn't work by the way).

Money Talks is a daily business column from CBC radio.
By Michael Hlinka, CBC business columnist.


Barak Obama’s plan to rescue the world economy has cleared its first two hurdles. The House of Representatives and Senate passed a stimulus package amounting to $838 billion US. There will be more than half a trillion dollars of spending and about $300 billion worth of tax cuts. This is supposed to reflect the compromise necessary to get the deal done. Broadly speaking, Democrats favour spending increases and Republicans prefer tax cuts. Apparently, there is a consensus in Congress that no one is interested in balanced budgets, no-one seems remotely interested in looking past the next election cycle.

Let’s look at the biggest part of this deal, the spending part. “Infrastructure” is the mantra of the day, and you’d have to be a particularly sticky wicket to be against the idea of building roads and power plants, or improving schools.

However, buried inside the infrastructure spending is a whole bunch of very questionable projects. My personal favourite is a request from Miami’s Mayor who wants $1.5 million to build the Grapeline Flowrider – it’s a waterslide for goodness sake! And I’d be surprised if the Mayor doesn’t get it.

In addition, you’ll see lots of refurbishments of public schools and this will provide some employment and be at least mildly stimulative in the short run.

Now, I’m the last person to oppose waterslides. I like good clean family fun as much as the next guy. And how can anyone be against spending money on education? But it’s not about either spending or not spending money. It’s about what you’re spending it on.

If you believe that these expenditures will improve student learning, there will be fewer dropouts and more students will be graduated to produce goods and services of real value, then it’s money well spent. Of course, if this is your opinion, then there’s no justification for waiting until unemployment spiked and the economy slowed to make these investments in the first place.

When I look at the American stimulus package, it seems to be driven by a combination of short-term thinking, desperation, and most fundamentally, utter cluelessness about what it takes to get an economy going. And this has to concern us. On Tuesday our own Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney, essentially said that his recovery projections for next year are contingent upon the U.S. economy bouncing back. But it’s impossible to see any sign that things are turning around, even with this looming $838 billion injection.

To get out of this economic funk requires hard work and sacrifice – but why choose that route when instead we can amuse ourselves by playing on water slides?

...

can i point out and yeah i know the great US of A is the be all and end all but, the whole world is going through this economic crisis all of the countries in this world seem to be getting stimulus packages of some sort my goverment would rather give us money, spend it on schools makeing sure little people and big buisnesses alike dont have to "trim the fat"
wether it works or not remains to be seen but, it isn't just america

If this is what you believe then I am not sure that you really understand the situation.


Maybe, but what I do know is that to get out of a hole, you don't start digging.

Disagree. The bill had essentially zero Republican support. No fiscal conservative would support it. Yes, a good chunk of Americans are dumb (and getting dumber, and more liberal) but not all of us share those views.



Gold will always, always, always have value....it's one of the few things aside from food that holds it's value or increases in value in a depression

Gold is worth whatever currency value is attached to it. Trading in commodities is a fine idea, but exchanging cash for actual bullion is pretty much a worthless idea.

Say that there is a worldwide economic collapse. What is your gold worth? It is worth what people are willing to pay for it with their currency, which is worth nothing. You'd be better off stocking up on food and booze, something that has some intrinsic value in a time of crisis that people would want. Hell, if there was a total collapse I'd rather have an ounce of weed than an ounce of gold. I'm positive that I could get a hell of a lot more for it.

Everyone says infrastructure is pretty much a home run, but I disagree. A very small portion of the working population is able to participate on these improvements to infrastructure, and frankly, I don't see this as being anything but New Deal government (which doesn't work by the way).

The whole plan is retarded. Not only will it not create nearly as many jobs as they claim, the jobs that it does create will be temporary, and of no use to the majority of people that are on the unemployment line. If you are a construction worker and are out of work, you'll be happy. If you worked for Lehman Brothers or pretty much any other white collar job and are looking for work, you're fucked.

ok, "American people" is a bit too general



all the better for gold....when world economies collapse, the only thing left is tangible assets that will always have value...problem is, you can get robbed

which is where the guns come in :)

Nah, when world economies collapse the only thing that will have any value to people is shit that they need. Gold is not one of those things.

I try to stress this point to people pretty often. You know those commercials that you see on TV that make these claims, such as "gold is the only safe blah blah blah"? If that were the case, why are they selling their gold for dollars? Wouldn't it be in their best interests to hold on to all of the gold they have?

In the case of a worldwide economic collapse, the only thing of value are items that people need for survival. Gold is not one of them. Even if there was an effort to establish some new form of standard currency, gold would not be it because there is simply not enough of it to go around.

Gold is worth whatever currency value is attached to it. Trading in commodities is a fine idea, but exchanging cash for actual bullion is pretty much a worthless idea.

Say that there is a worldwide economic collapse. What is your gold worth? It is worth what people are willing to pay for it with their currency, which is worth nothing. You'd be better off stocking up on food and booze, something that has some intrinsic value in a time of crisis that people would want. Hell, if there was a total collapse I'd rather have an ounce of weed than an ounce of gold. I'm positive that I could get a hell of a lot more for it.

this is something I've been telling him since he got on his gold kick. Food, water, ammo, fuel... these are things people will want/need if/when the economy collapses.

Gold is worth whatever currency value is attached to it. Trading in commodities is a fine idea, but exchanging cash for actual bullion is pretty much a worthless idea.

Say that there is a worldwide economic collapse. What is your gold worth? It is worth what people are willing to pay for it with their currency, which is worth nothing. You'd be better off stocking up on food and booze, something that has some intrinsic value in a time of crisis that people would want. Hell, if there was a total collapse I'd rather have an ounce of weed than an ounce of gold. I'm positive that I could get a hell of a lot more for it.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I do, however think that gold is a good investment simply because it will stand alone from inflation, but it's pretty naive to think that if the dollar becomes worthless, people will be buying shit with gold. That just doesn't seem to make sense.

The whole plan is retarded. Not only will it not create nearly as many jobs as they claim, the jobs that it does create will be temporary, and of no use to the majority of people that are on the unemployment line. If you are a construction worker and are out of work, you'll be happy. If you worked for Lehman Brothers or pretty much any other white collar job and are looking for work, you're fucked.

I think we will see an initial increase in economic activity from these projects, but not anything that lasts beyond 6 months or so. In the long run, this will hurt much more than it helps.

Here's another thing to think about: the US has thousands of banks. Banks pay insurance for in the case that they go under. However, in the past, these banks have had the finances that were strong enough so that they were never really seen as being at serious risk of collapsing. As this was the case, insurance companies have not prepared for such an occurance. Very soon I believe that we will begin to see banks go under and this is where we could have a domino effect, as insurance companies, unable to pay the banks, are forced to file for bankruptcy. Without these securities backing the banks, more banks will be forced to file for bankruptcy and so on. Just a theory, but it could be trouble.

gold isn't rare YZF

er.. yeah it is, misty.

gold dont seem rare if i can walk to the jewery store and find one. gold for free is rare

ok maybe i should have said something like gold isn't rare in australia we have shitloads of gold mines right across our country

Lanthanum

Cerium

Praseodymium

Neodymium

Promethium

Samarium

Europium

Gadolinium

Terbium

Dysprosium

Holmium

Erbium

Thulium

Ytterbium

Lutetium

are the rare earth metals

gold and diamonds etc are uncommon

me and steel can walk up to an old gold mine in az and find gold.

Yeah a tiny tiny bit of it. You know if you took all the mined gold in the world, and melted it all down and made it pure it would make a cube 20 feet on a side.

Iron is not rare.
Aluminum is not rare.
Copper... is not rare

Gold is rare. the jewelry you buy is usually not pure gold. And theres not much of it in nay jewelry piece you get.

ill take your word for it. Diamonds found in the Earth are down right rare in az. gold is not. that is how I look at it. now if you live in Detroit, both diamonds and gold are rare, but whores and sluts are not.

eh, bullshit....gold could be used to buy food or other necessities in that situation, no question about it

Tobacco could be used as well, that's not the point. The point is, the value of gold is determined by what people are willing to pay for it. No different than any other asset, equity, etc. The idea that physical gold is the ultimate safe haven for dollars is a myth.

Im just throwing this out here but based on some of Marks comments here lately Im going to say he has www.rense.com in his browser history somewhere.