Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Economic trouble coming

The American economy is not producing anything. The economy is based on asset prices, and when those assets decline in value, as they inevitably must, the consumers will quit buying and the economy will go into recession.

Bondad has the story and references at MyLeftWing.

It should also be considered that right now demand for oil in the U.S. is at a low, after Summer vacation and just prior to cold weather up north that will require a lot of heating oil. World-wide, supply of oil is barely meeting current demand and there is no excess oil available to come onto the market, even in Saudi Arabia.

Gas and oil prices are going up within a few weeks when it gets cold. The economy will then start slipping into recession, with unemployment and interest rates both going up. The term is "stagflation", last seen in the late 70's and early 80's until Jimmy Carter's appointee to the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volker, put the country through a three year-long recession to wring the inflation out.

The major cause will be the profligate spending of the Republicans together with their tax cuts. Without those two pieces of bad judgment, the federal government could use fiscal policy methods as described by Keynes to ease the recession and hold down interest rates and inflation.

This is what Republican mismanagement has brought our nation to. They have done as badly or worse than the Generals who ruled Argentina.

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