I am posting 2 articles that contain bad news about the economy. DON'T read them if you would prefer to keep your head in the sand. Or read them and post your thoughts, concerns, rebuttals, and opinions.
My 2 cents: I hope these articles are proven to be wrong in the near future. I, just like most of Americans, rely on other experts to tell me about the complicated things in life that I don't have the time to study. The authors of these articles may be wrong and if they are I would love to get a honest answer from a credible source. I can only wish that the Mainstream Media is actually reporting "real news" and that these articles are just written by paranoid bloggers. But, I won't hold my breath on the last one because some of these same bloggers and alternative news sources were the people who kept writing articles years ago that the housing market would implode, that the de-regulation of the mortgage industry was a scam for the Wall Street boys to make billions at the expense of poor homeowners. And at the same time the Mainstream media experts kept repeating, "No, no the housing market is fine, the economy is healthier than ever."
Maybe the economy will come in for a "soft landing" as the mainstream pundits keep saying or maybe it will just plain crash... I guess only time will tell.
Yeah the experts have been screaming about this for a bit now. The housing market has been struggling for awhile and should only get worse the next few years.
Best advice I've heard is to try to dig out of any debts and start saving. Of course that always great advice no matter what market we're in. Those with a little money might come across some great deals.
Of course you've got to take into consideration that some of these experts keep their jobs and readers interest by exagerating a bit. Always remember that it's still possible to make money in a down market... just watch the info-mercial.
This may turn out to be a big topic for the elections if Iraq keeps improving and the war improval ratings keep rising. With AlQueda on the run and starting to fight the Taliban things might turn around pretty quick over there and the we can focus on something other than pulling out and ending this war.
With AlQueda on the run and starting to fight the Taliban
rmpeddie,
I've seen this posted a couple times now. Can you guide me toward an article or two about this? Just curious as to what you are talking about, hadn't seen this in any news source yet.
As for things turning around over there, didn't we just have the deadliest year in Iraq with 2 months yet to go? I also recall a change in the way the administration was measuring indicators too. "Things are getting better"... how many times have we heard that since April 2003? The trend has continued to get worse and worse as they continue to say what great progress is being made. How is this one different?
-d
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Could it be that intense partisanship unhinges us all, leading us to being with the conclusion we prefer, and then to reason backward to reach it? -William Falk
I missed the signs/reports that things were improving in Iraq. From what I can see the terrorists are doing what we did to the russians. We outspent the Russians till they went belly up. We spend like a billion dollars a day to fight terrorism, they probably spend $100 a day to create it. How long can we keep that up with a 1/4 of our population retiring?
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"I'm not here to make a record, ya stupid cracker" Governor Pappy O Daniel
Despite my supra-genius level intelligence (say that like Wile-E-Coyote, please), economics for me is PFM (pure effing magic). I don't understand it.
I do know that it took from FDR to Reagan for the US economy to rack up its first Trillion Dollars in debt, and it took from Reagan to Bush II to rack up 8 Trillion more. That ain't good.
We've reached a point where countries in Europe and Asia recognize the United States foreign policy power is now seriously undermined by foreign debt. Of course, that works both ways - China can't very well start a pushing match with the US when they carry such a large portion of our unsecured debt.
On to the mortgage scandal of the age: It's shameful that lenders would make such loans on such a grand scale but it's not shameful that it was tried. For some families, it has and no doubt can work. It depends on the region, and it depends on the economic sense of the borrower. But economics and financial viability are things most people (including myself) know too little about, and we have a debtor nation mentality. People don't understand compound interest, and that's the fault of our education system (which isn't funded poorly, it's just poorly linked to results). I'd rather kids learn about interest, debt, and real assets in school than learn a damn thing about biology or chemistry. If money makes the world go round, that's the most important lesson they need to take from school, right after learning how to effectively communicate.
As far as Iraq getting better/worse, there are some positive indicators. Roadside bombs are down. EFP bombs are WAY down (which indicates Iran is listening to the United States about not interfering to some extent), Anbar province has gone from being the most dangerous to the safest in the course of a single year, Iraqi Ex-Patriates have indeed returned to Baghdad to some extent, and US casualties are down in the past two or three months.
However:
It's unknown whether the terrorists and Shia militias have taken the lesson that right now is a good time to lay low until "the surge" is over. The US Military has inflicted great casualties to AQI in the past year, but that doesn't mean they're gone. If you know your enemy has a clock, why not wait it out?
The most disturbing thing to me is that every leading political candidate from both parties is not talking about withdrawl. Indeed, "She-Who-Is-Inevitable" as the democrat nominee (Ms. Clinton) seems to favor the idea of an indefinite occupation. No one but Ron Paul on the Republican side is calling for immediate withdrawl, and I haven't seen anyone on the Democrat side do so that I've heard.
The economy seems to be going into recession, but the Fed is being aggressive with interest rates. That's a good thing.
It's too soon to say what 08 will bring economically, from what I understand.
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Remember the dollar value to human life. Mine is priceless. Yours is negotiable. - unknown
While I agree completely that effective communication and a healthy understanding of the importance of money in our society are essential lessons for high schoolers, I'm concerned about your claim that school "isn't funded poorly." Everyone understands at this point that NCLB inadequately punishes schools with low scores by removing the necessary funding to improve those scores, but I don't think the average person understands federal school funding that is regulated by State and Federal guidelines that were in place before NCLB. Even without having funding taken away for low scores, this is what it looks like: I teach Secondary English and my budget for all classroom supplies is $139.00 a year- Yeah, that's one hundred and thirty nine dollars. With 180 school days, that's just over .75 a day to spend on paper, staples, pens, pencils, paper clips, classroom books, markers, highlighters, construction paper, ink, projector bulbs, etc. for 150 kids in 5 classes every day. And what was the average budget in Iraq? A billion dollars a day? I'd say our schools are poorly funded and our priorities are skewed.
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Originally Posted by heliodorus04
and that's the fault of our education system (which isn't funded poorly, it's just poorly linked to results). I'd rather kids learn about interest, debt, and real assets in school than learn a damn thing about biology or chemistry. If money makes the world go round, that's the most important lesson they need to take from school, right after learning how to effectively communicate.
I said the system isn't funded poorly. The system does not mean "classrooms".
What we put in compared to what we get to the classroom is one of the travesties of the system.
Incidentally, I work for a private company on a government (military) contract. When we do poorly, the government takes away the money, and we're expected to improve to get the money back. We do improve. We make do on less. I've always wondered why schools can't do that (and the reality is that it's in the administrators, I'd argue).
And paragraph breaks are your friend (no offense intended - your large blocks get difficult to read sometimes).
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Remember the dollar value to human life. Mine is priceless. Yours is negotiable. - unknown
I apologize for not using more paragraph breaks- I'm more familiar with formal writing than blogging.
I have to wonder what it is that you must improve upon in your line of work. And I wonder what the criteria is based on.
In schools it is based on the ability of every child to take the same standardized test despite a variety of differentiating factors- everything from learning ability to cultural differences to whether or not they ate breakfast that morning.
But, as an educator, that's all I will say about that- the fight will obviously go on with very few people really understanding what the fight is- including the people who created it.
Now I'm going to go get on a river for Thanksgiving Break and hope that everyone else has a great week too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by heliodorus04
I said the system isn't funded poorly. The system does not mean "classrooms".
What we put in compared to what we get to the classroom is one of the travesties of the system.
Incidentally, I work for a private company on a government (military) contract. When we do poorly, the government takes away the money, and we're expected to improve to get the money back. We do improve. We make do on less. I've always wondered why schools can't do that (and the reality is that it's in the administrators, I'd argue).
And paragraph breaks are your friend (no offense intended - your large blocks get difficult to read sometimes).
I have to wonder what it is that you must improve upon in your line of work. And I wonder what the criteria is based on.
previous thread from Helio...
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I work in the military industrial complex. My company makes money on the materials we use for warfare. I'm not sure what exactly we're making money on in Iraq (we run satellite systems),
Sorry, but I think it is a far far far stretch to try and compare gov't contracts and building satellite systems to teaching children and public education.
Quote:
Incidentally, I work for a private company on a government (military) contract. When we do poorly, the government takes away the money, and we're expected to improve to get the money back. We do improve. We make do on less. I've always wondered why schools can't do that (and the reality is that it's in the administrators, I'd argue).
I'd argue that you are pretending to know something which you have very limited knowledge about. Listen to the teacher from Durango... she speaks from EXPERIENCE. Maybe I'm wrong, Helio... have you ever worked in the public school system?
Sorry... just my observation. I have no worthwhile knowledge to add to this debate about public education.
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