Do you think there could be a second Great Depression?

[Fletch]

Around here it's the "we'll shut off your streetlights and see how you like it when the saltheads come around" routine. Always works, too.

Gee, yesterday you taught me about rum-sprung coast-defenders, and today you come around with saltheads.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Gee, yesterday you taught me about rum-sprung coast-defenders, and today you come around with saltheads.

Saltheads! Yes, thanks for that! New to me, too!

 

[Undertow]

Dollar No Longer Primary Oil Currency as China Uses Yuan

Anyone care to weigh in?

 

[John in Covina]

Dollar No Longer Primary Oil Currency as China Uses Yuan

Anyone care to weigh in?

China as a financial powerhouse has made inroads on so many fronts. They are the greatest buyer of US debt which is even more worrisome, because if they don't buy our debt we'll find it hard to finance it, our ratings will slide again and debt will cost so much as to be untenable.

China made known that they are pursuing the Pacific as their sphere of influence. They are building more aircraft carriers and subs so they seem to have enough strength to pursue guns and butter at the same time.

 

[jamespowers]

Dollar No Longer Primary Oil Currency as China Uses Yuan

Anyone care to weigh in?

I was afraid this would happen and I mentioned it earlier. If the currency to buy oil becomes the Yuan then watch out. Inflation will hit us in the form of higher gas prices as we must buy Yuan to buy oil and we could win or lose in the coversion making gas prices even higher than they are today. The price of gas hits us at every level of the economy. Our economy runs on oil and we need it. The effect of increased oil prices could cripple our economy even worse---unless we exploit our own resources more than we have been doing.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I just got back to the forum, so I may have missed this...but you should see the price of non-ethynol.
Right now I still see the benefits of purchasing it for both cars, because the mileage increase per gallon is still at least 3-4mpg better.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

$1,001.08: How much more someone making the median household income in 2011 is likely to spend on payroll taxes next year.

No matter which party comes out on top in the November elections, nearly every working American is likely to pay higher taxes in 2013 than 2012.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/09/29/number-of-the-week-expect-higher-tax-bill-in-2013/

Also, here in Maine, heating oil is about $1 higher per gallon than I paid last year, and gas is 42 cents per gallon higher than a year ago.

 

[sheeplady]

$1,001.08: How much more someone making the median household income in 2011 is likely to spend on payroll taxes next year.

No matter which party comes out on top in the November elections, nearly every working American is likely to pay higher taxes in 2013 than 2012.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/09/29/number-of-the-week-expect-higher-tax-bill-in-2013/

Also, here in Maine, heating oil is about $1 higher per gallon than I paid last year, and gas is 42 cents per gallon higher than a year ago.

The payroll tax holiday was always a bit deceiving to me. It did change the figures in my check, but not substantially, since I don't make a high wage. I never understood how it was supposed to fix our economic woes- I believe most people spent the extra money on debt (rather than spending) which doesn't grow our economy. And if you didn't have a job, it didn't help at all (unless someone else was employed- but still- a drop in the bucket compared to one member of the household getting laid off.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think I may have spent the thirty-cent difference it made in my paycheck on getting the large fries once a week instead of the small. Never let it be said I didn't do my part.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

There are many dual income families with kids who will be hit by this. $1,000, or even $500 less, combined with the increase in the cost of gas, food, heating will be felt.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oil will crash right before the election. It always does.

 

[Undertow]

Just saw this today in the NYT. There are already Americans doing this today; Americans with families and jobs, not just the faceless homeless we might imagine. Let's hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal

 

[LizzieMaine]

I see that every day of the week in this "creative arts-driven economy" town I live in. Right now we have three people who support themselves entirely by collecting and returning empty bottles, and they fight ferociously over territory. Dumpster battles will be the next big thing.

 

[John in Covina]

$1,001.08: How much more someone making the median household income in 2011 is likely to spend on payroll taxes next year.

No matter which party comes out on top in the November elections, nearly every working American is likely to pay higher taxes in 2013 than 2012.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/09/29/number-of-the-week-expect-higher-tax-bill-in-2013/

Also, here in Maine, heating oil is about $1 higher per gallon than I paid last year, and gas is 42 cents per gallon higher than a year ago.

I just heard that a household making $40K-60k will pay at least $2000 more in taxes per year. So much fortaxing the rich.....

 

[sheeplady]

Just saw this today in the NYT. There are already Americans doing this today; Americans with families and jobs, not just the faceless homeless we might imagine. Let's hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal

The kindest stores in my area (in fact, all three places I have lived over the past 25 years I've been aware) let people come and pick through the soon-to-be-discarded vegetables and fruits before putting them in the dumpster. If your local grocery store doesn't do this, you should be asking why they are throwing usable but non-sale-able food away. I have heard of people coming and picking through it for the local food pantries too.

When I was in school, I knew plenty of families would go to one of several grocery stores in the area and pick through the veggies and fruits, often canning the good parts. It is a way of life for many people who depend on it to feed their families. It was a way to avoid or supplement food stamps and to get fresh vegetables (most food pantries don't carry fresh items). When I was in college, I knew a couple of people who also did it for survival. I have always believed it was an admirable thing to do to feed your family; and I am always loyal to the shops I know allow it.

I don't think I grew up or went to college in a place that different than the rest of the U.S. More than likely not, there are people already doing this in your neighborhood to survive, you just don't know it.

 

[Atticus Finch]

...I knew plenty of families would go to one of several grocery stores in the area and pick through the veggies and fruits, often canning the good parts. It is a way of life for many people who depend on it to feed their families....More than likely not, there are people already doing this in your neighborhood to survive, you just don't know it.

My work normally puts me in a position to see the worst aspects of our community...and I know that what you say must be true...but for some reason I don't see our local people in worse financial condition than they were, say, twenty years ago. In fact, it seems to me that there is more wealth in my area than I ever remember...even though there really shouldn’t be.

Try as I may, I can't seem to reconcile the national economic news I'm hearing and the way I'm seeing people live in my area. Kids still go to their private schools. Heck, a new private school just recently opened here. Families still buy new cars and trucks. Houses are beginning to sell again. Even our local boat dealerships are still in business. I don’t see families dumpster diving to survive. I don’t see many…if any…involuntarily homeless people. I haven’t even seen an increase in property crime.

And I think I should be seeing it all…

AF

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Try as I may, I can't seem to reconcile the national economic news I'm hearing and the way I'm seeing people live in my area. Kids still go to their private schools. Heck, a new private school just recently opened here. Families still buy new cars and trucks. Houses are beginning to sell again. Even our local boat dealerships are still in business. I don’t see families dumpster diving to survive. I don’t see many…if any…involuntarily homeless people. I haven’t even seen an increase in property crime.

And I think I should be seeing it all…

AF

That's because there's still that thing called "credit" out there that didn't exist during the Great Depression. People didn't have credit cards, and if we didn't have them today you' be seeing a lot more of the reality. also, banks are still handing out money they shouldn't....

 

[jamespowers]

My work normally put me in a position to see the worst aspects of our community...and I know that what you say must be true...but for some reason I don't see our local people in worse financial condition than they were, say, twenty years ago. In fact, it seems to me that there is more wealth in my area than I ever remember...even though there really shouldn’t be.

Try as I may, I can't seem to reconcile the national economic news I'm hearing and the way I'm seeing people live in my area. Kids still go to their private schools. Heck, a new private school just recently opened here. Families still buy new cars and trucks. Houses are beginning to sell again. Even our local boat dealerships are still in business. I don’t see families dumpster diving to survive. I don’t see many…if any…involuntarily homeless people. I haven’t even seen an increase in property crime.

And I think I should be seeing it all…

AF

You live in North Carolina. You shouldn't. Try coming out here and you would see the correlary of all that. You can be thankful to your local leaders for not taking the easy outs that would put them where we are here.

 

[AmateisGal]

Some parts of the country just weren't hit as hard by the economic downturn as others. Nebraska suffered relatively unscathed - we didn't have a housing bubble, so we were okay there. The mall had a few empty spots a few years due to businesses closing, but they've already been filled. Construction is booming. New houses, new businesses, etc. Of course, this is all Eastern Nebraska - western Nebraska, which suffered much worse with the drought than we did, is suffering more. Plus, they are mostly an agricultural-based economy, so the effects are going to be felt for awhile.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can go seven miles down the road here to a town where five thousand people will insist that poverty isn't a problem. It's a town full of upper-middle-class affluent transplants who've created their own little picture-postcard community where only the right people live. And yet when I lived there, not all that many years ago, I had homeless teenagers squatting in the alley next to my building and prostitutes soliciting johns in the parking lot behind the drugstore next door.

I saw those things -- but most people who lived there then, and most who live there now, will insist that those things don't happen in *their* town. There are none so blind as those who will not see.