[Lancey Howard]

Please correct any misperceptions here (not a great background in economics!): I’ve been questioning all along exactly what our situation is, because initially I didn’t see indications at all of the widespread financial meltdown. It’s largely a matter of confidence, right? And I just didn’t see evidence of lagging retail sales, for example. It seems to me that we believed we were in recession only because we were TOLD we were n recession. No I guess there’s downturn regardless of how we started out. Was it manufactured?

If not flat-out "manufactured", then at the very least it was greatly exacerbated by the actions of the Administration and Congress. They say the markets quake every time the Fed chairman coughs, so can you imagine what happens when the Treasury Secretary proclaims the end of the "global economy" as we know it? It turns a nervous tick into a seizure of panic; it quickly feeds on itself (as you correctly observed) and becomes a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Paulson and the rest of those animals could not possibly have sabotaged the economy and stirred a panic any more effectively than the way they did it. There was a reason for doing what they did - - improve the election odds for Barack Hussein Obama.

But hey, I'm just tilting at windmills here.

FRegards,
LH

[Arizona Carolyn]

No, actually you are not tilting at windmills. Look back at my posts here a couple of years ago when Alan Greenspan came out (even when he was no longer "the man") and said housing was going to crash... he didn't say it one time, he said it over and over until people started to get scared and stop buying houses. I kept saying when they stopped it didn't make sense since interest rates were at a record low level as was unemployment...but Greenspan said it often enough he turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy...

Granted prices were going up too fast and all that, but what they Fed (who Greenspan no longer controlled) could have done was thing that were much more subtle and would not have led to this massive housing melt down that, indeed, affects every corner of our society... They could have encouraged our then GOP congress to stiffen lending regulations, for example, so people who didn't have the income couldn't buy a $500K house when all they could afford was a $100K house.... what Greenspan did was every bit as irresponsible as Schumer hinting at Indy Mac and then the comment not long after AIG was bailed out that a larger insurance company was likely to fail and the stock market tanked.

But, then, WE the voters are at fault because we keep returning people like Schumer, Frank, Dodd, to office year after year.

[UCANSEE2]

Paulson and the rest of those animals could not possibly have sabotaged the economy and stirred a panic any more effectively than the way they did it. There was a reason for doing what they did

The 'reason' they did it is that the parasites at the top of the system got caught 'spending' money that wasn't real.

Now, Not-for-profits and the elderly set in Florida are being thrown under the bus.

The big political and Media investors got their money out of the first bailout. That's why you will not be told 'where' your money went.