Biden: U.S. Economy in Danger of 'Absolutely Tanking'

Ouch.!.!



blogs.abcnews.com...

Vice President-Elect Joe Biden said the U.S. economy is in danger of "absolutely tanking" and will need a second stimulus package in the $600-billion to $700-billion range. "The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," Biden told me during an exclusive interview -- his first since becoming vice president-elect-- to air this Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That's the only short run," Biden told me.

reply to post by LookingAround


That's the problem with Biden. He just keeps telling the truth!
BTW, I didn't vote for his ticket, but I do like Joe, because he has this habit of opening his mouth and telling the truth, truly an unusual habit for a politician. I've often wondered how he survived in Congress for 36 years.
I think if you polled most people, very few would disagree with his statement. About the worst you could say about his remarks, is that he was stating the obvious.
Good for Joe. People should know how bad the situation really is. Just look at your 401K statements, or look at the news and read about people like Madoff and his $50 billion Ponzi Scheme, or the cooked books of virtually all of the financial firms that the taxpayers bailed out. Look at oil, now at $33 a barrel, even after OPEC's 2.2. million barrels a day production cut.
Things are bad, and will only get worse, because a lot that has still been hidden will be coming out, and it won't be pretty.

great post

s/f

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Yes he tells the truth. But he has shown that he also likes to exaggerate a lot and sometimes gets his fact all wrong. On this one it is basically a DUH!!!!
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that US economy is in serious trouble. Now if he could have told me this a year or so ago I would give him more credit. In a way, I see Obama, Biden and their peons coming out more regularly here soon telling us how bad the economy is so that they can lower the high expectations Obama had set. Focus because they are about to pull a major magic trick in front of your eyes.

reply to post by jam321


How about the people that were saying the economy was bad years ago?!
Setting the stage against Obama already, eh?
Oh well.

As to Biden's comments specifically? What in the HELL is up with this 600-700 BILLION dollar range?
The war in Iraq? 700B
The Bailout? 700B
Now a second stimulus? 700B

Good lord, do these fools not understand how much money that is?!!
They speak of it as if it is just another bill.
If we hadn't heard the 700Billion thrown around so much, people would be crapping themselves over the 50Billion fraud. As it is, people are kinda' passive towards it. Afterall, what is 50Billion when people are talking about TRILLIONS?
Eh, I am tired of this crap.

reply to post by Jay-in-AR


I'm sick of it too but it's not like any of us can or would bother to do anything about it....so they keep taking and we keep watching. Our ancestors would be proud?

reply to post by jam321


*4U!

In a way, I see Obama, Biden and their peons coming out more regularly here soon telling us how bad the economy is so that they can lower the high expectations Obama had set. Focus because they are about to pull a major magic trick in front of your eyes.

Yes, we could see this coming!! They will have a field day blaming everything on Bush and every president before him, as to why they cannot perform the promised miracles.

Does this fit?:

"Reformed idealists are the worst. Once the fairy dust gets out of their eyes, they don't want to play anymore." - Elizabeth Lowell

It just tells me that the Government has been waging a psyops war against its own people for a long time now. It has gotten to the point where people are so stupid that they simply think that the Government has their best interest at heart. This simply isn't true.
(on this note your signature is pretty kickass, imo)

I don't even know where to begin with all of this. It disgusts me.

Suffice to say that NO my ancestors wouldn't be proud. I am composed of nearly equal parts Irish and Native American... I think that this is a part of why I care so much about these things. I KNOW that they don't care about you or I, but nobody seems to give a damn.

PS: More on topic. I remember not too long ago discussing with people how the wreckless spending of this government is going to lead us down a path of LITERAL bankruptcy. I considered that the point in which our GDP was overshadowed by our debt. At the time, it was still under the limit. In just a few short years, it has what?... Tripled it now?!
It was about that same time that I started talking about exchanging my dollars for yen and euros. I still kick myself for not doing that.

My reasoning was that once your debt surpassed your ability to pay it people would lose confidence and you would see the markets tumble. This has, in effect, happened.
The specifics may not have been exact, but I couldn't have been more correct in my forecast. It honestly scares me because it seems as if the government officials tried to create a debt based system instead of correcting their course. You have two options: 1) Either reign in your spending or 2) Outspend everyone else and strong arm people into keeping your securities.

We chose number 2 and now we are in for a very bumpy ride.

[edit on 19-12-2008 by Jay-in-AR]

I'm starting to get the feeling that they need all this money for something other than what they are telling us!

Anybody remember that line from that sci-fi movie
Deep Impact

were the president told the reporter that they had to come up with all this disinformation to hide this huge project but that the dept got to the point were the public was going to find out sooner than they hoped.

or something to that effect

reply to post by Jay-in-AR

How about the people that were saying the economy was bad years ago?!
Setting the stage against Obama already, eh?

It wasn't Obama or Biden. And people like Ron Paul , David walker, and others simply got ignored.

Check Slayer69 thread out.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

No, I'm not setting the stage against Obama. Every other President lowered their expectations, why wouldn't he?

reply to post by jam321


In Obama's defense, I don't think that it would be wise for people to continue to think he is a messiah. He isn't. Of course he is going to level with the people the gravity of the situation.
It won't be any major news to people here, or places like this one, but to the morons who believe that he IS going to rescue this mess, they NEED some sense slapped into them.

The only way to fix this mess is to reshuffle the deck. Start a war. Lay your hand, if you will.
This will happen. In fact, it has already begun. It won't end any time soon and it will get worse.

Edit to add: Well, that isn't the ONLY way, but it is the way of the Government. The best way would be to kick the international bankers to the curb. Fat chance.
When the people you get ALL of your money from lend it to you on interest, you are their slave. Simple as that.


[edit on 19-12-2008 by Jay-in-AR]

[edit on 19-12-2008 by Jay-in-AR]

You don't stop an aneurysm with a band-aid. That is all this bail out money is...A BIG BAND-AID forced on the people of the United States.

Has anyone noticed that we are no longer flooded with spam and snail mail offering PRE-APPROVED credit cards?


[edit on 19-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

Originally posted by SLAYER69
I'm starting to get the feeling that they need all this money for something other than what they are telling us!

Anybody remember that line from that sci-fi movie
Deep Impact

were the president told the reporter that they had to come up with all this disinformation to hide this huge project but that the dept got to the point were the public was going to find out sooner than they hoped.

or something to that effect

Ding Ding Ding Ding we have a winner. Except the money isnt going into some secret project it is literally going to fill a big black hole of debt. These companies were leveraged at 50 to 1 and lost their arse. Now they are trying to monetize all of that leveraged debt. This is why the $900 billion dollar mortgage mess is standing so far at around $8.5 trillion. When its all done the government will have to print around $50 trillion to monetize all the debt. We are already almost 20% there. Thank the banks and thank your government.

READ this folks if you want to know what the Federal Reserve and your government are doing to you and your money.

www.naturalnews.com...

The Real Agenda: A Massive Transfer of Wealth
We are not watching an economic rescue, friends. We are watching an economic coup. Creating and dumping trillions of dollars into the money supply is an act of war. But it's a war with a specific purpose.

What's happening right now is that the United States is being taken over by King Henry and his accomplices. More than fifty percent of the housing and nearly twenty percent of the entire U.S. economy is now controlled by one person -- Henry Paulson -- and that person answers to no one. He isn't elected, he can't be removed from office, and he's subject to no law.

King Henry controls unlimited funds. He can print any amount of money, or confiscate any amount from the taxpayers (by spending taxpayer dollars to bail out his rich friends). If the Federal Reserve is the new Third Reich, King Henry is its Hitler.

[edit on 19-12-2008 by Muundoggie]

Thank them for what?!

If what you say is true, then they are creating a balance of books based on the deliberate hyperinflation of OUR MONEY!

reply to post by Muundoggie

Although the Federal Reserve is not counterfeiting the money, as the article says, the results are the same. The value of each dollar currently in circulation is being diminished with each new batch that Congress is authorizing the Fed to "create". They are slicing the "American pie" smaller and smaller, and each of us is seeing our "piece" diminish. Pretty soon, we'll need an electron microscope to see our slice of the pie.

the Treasury department and the federal reserve are now Cranking Up the Presses for the nation been able to survive economically.

This is not funny and while we may wonder how they are able to get away with it actually they are at a very risky and very expensive price.

The U.S. government is apparently going to continue to just crank up the presses and print more dollars, T-Bills, Government Bonds, etc. to pay for the negative balance of trade, government payrolls, bailouts, entitlements, pork barrels, operations, social schemes, wars, new infrastructure, wealth re-distribution etc. every time they need to pay the bills.

Since the U.S. government stopped redeeming U.S. dollars for gold, foreign governments and foreign individuals continue to use these dollars (and other U.S. securities they earned from their exports to the USA) to purchase real estate, industries, breweries, hotels, factories, financial institutions and everything else of value that is located in the USA.

www.economyincrisis.org...





[edit on 19-12-2008 by marg6043]

welcome to the Corporatocracy, where everything is for sale to the highest bidder, no matter what the cost to people or the planet

ROFL!! Okay then!! You have the first 700 billion dollar stimulus package that failed miserably! Now you have a SECOND one that is also gonna fail more miserably then the first one! Then we are gonna have a third that is gonna be so expentually big that it totally wipes out the economy and dollar! How brain dead are these financial experts?!? You guys are supposed to be experts! Now the elect president says that the economy will be fixed by borrowing more money to businesses and industries that are still having trouble keeping up with the hard times, that should stabilize the economy a bit. Or at least put another cap on.


Why doesn't he plainly say that it's another bailout package?

The U.S debt is building up at an incredible rate at $5,000,000- $6,000,000 per minute. Adding a second $700,000,000,000 package isn't gonna help the $10,660,350,000,000 bill mmm kay?

I totally agree that the government will try to neutralize the debt all in one swipe (50 trillion) bang! Problem solved! Then you have hyperinflation then goodbye dollar. Those $100,000 bills will make me feel rich today, but not tomorrow.



[edit on 20-12-2008 by Shrukin89]

I don't have any faith or confidence in Paulson and the bail out crew. But it is still too early to judge what effects or how effective these measures will be.

Macroeconomics are a vastly complex field and the goalposts keep moving. The money being used isn't being flushed down the toilet, exactly. The real questions are things like how much will it stimulate growth, what percentage of return there will be, etc.

Will, say masses of mortgaes being purchased return at levels of 75% 50%, 25%?

Some of the money being put out will flow directly back into the system. Hopefully most of it.

As the lay of the land looked so radically different two years a go, the world landscape may be different in two years.

We may look like the losers, but how do you measure success and failure when everyone else is losing big time? What happens if Europe implodes economically, China, India, even the Middle East.

Even with the US sub-prime debacle, the Chinese and Japanese are suffering more from the write-down than Americans.

We are entering unexplored territory with the global interdependencies we have.

Expect the unexpected.


Mike F