Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Economists predict tough times ahead for US economy

The impact of what started as a housing crisis that devastated the US financial system is now weakening the world's biggest economy. The credit squeeze, job losses and high commodity prices are combining to deliver tough times, which analysts predict could persist well into next year.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy, I am so glad that you are back on-line. We all missed your postings. We have been waiting patiently!

I respect Jared Bernstein a lot, and he appears to be an optimist in many ways. He has analyzed our economy very thoroughly in the past with his books, The State of the Economy 2006, then 7, but there are so many factors still unearthed.

For one, Mike Whitney has written, on his latest blog entry, what if Russia/Putin decides to call for the abandonment of dollars as a reserve currency when purchasing Russian oil and only accept Rubles or Euros. And, what if Putin decides to sell the $50 billion in Russian held mortgage backed bonds, as well as other U.S. monetary and financial assets if Bush and McCain don't stop telling Putin and Russia what they should do regarding their aggression against Georgia.

The Pravada paper is already telling Bush to "Shut Up" because he is a hypocrite with his invasion of Iraq, torture camps, etc. I guess it is the pot calling the kettle black kind of thing.

Russia could easily take down the U.S. economy several notches without ever firing a single shot across the bow as a way to humiliate America and Bush and McCain specifically.

There is too much uncertainty to really understand what the economy will look like 18 months from now. There really needs to be economic changes but not in the direction of the uber-rich.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Randy said...

Thanks Jerry and it's always great to hear your well-versed insight w/the problems at hand.

Randy