Has recession hit the U.S.? What does it mean for the Phils?

**moe** · March 8th, 2008 09:04 PM

the government giving out tax rebates to stimulate economic growth through spending is another indication. however, i guess the people won't spend the bulk of that money. most will be saved due to the impending/ongoing recession.

**empy** · March 9th, 2008 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by moe

the government giving out tax rebates to stimulate economic growth through spending is another indication. however, i guess the people won't spend the bulk of that money. most will be saved due to the impending/ongoing recession.

i'm not getting a tax rebate :cry2:

**tidus1203** · March 10th, 2008 09:00 AM

The tax rebate is a sham anyway. It doesn't make any economic sense (any form of bail out does not make sense PERIOD) at all.... Politically though it makes a lot of sense, and normally politics and economics don't mix well its like oil and water....

**uls** · March 10th, 2008 10:42 AM

and guess where Bush is gonna get the $170B for the economic stimulus...

he's gonna borrow it...

from foreigners...

**tidus1203** · March 10th, 2008 10:47 AM

Precisely.... So its just a spiral of debt that grows and grows and of course they are going to have to run the printing presses again to repay those debts with newer debts that is bigger than the previous debts because they have to pay interest besides the principal. Its just all a spiral that is never ending.

**shadow** · March 10th, 2008 01:00 PM

recessions? nah...America has too much money to burn....seriously stop spending on a losing cause....

Studies note Iraq costing US $12B per month

Monday, March 10, 2008 10:22 AM

(AP) The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the US budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.

Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

**tidus1203** · March 10th, 2008 01:28 PM

Its a fallacy to think that America is rich. They look rich (their lavish Iraq war, their lavish foreign policy, their huge bureaucracy), but they ain't rich because all those things are borrowed money anyway. You want rich, look to China and the Middle East countries now that is rich and they are the ones financing the US annual budget. Well the US can always print more money but thats not consider new wealth, its called currency debasement that's why we have inflation.

**uls** · March 10th, 2008 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by shadow

recessions? nah...America has too much money to burn....seriously stop spending on a losing cause....

Yes, the US has a lot of money. Coz they create a lot of it.

it's all paper... debt paper.

it's not backed up by anything but by faith.

Faith that the US will pay u back... with more paper hehe

Would u lend a rich guy money? well, yes, coz u know he has the capacity to pay u back. U can see his factories running at full steam.

But would u lend a FORMER rich guy money? What if that rich guy really has no obvious source of income? He used to have lots of factories... pero sarado na lahat...

Pero papautangin mo parin... ano collateral? wala... promissory note lang... tiwala lang.

That's the US.

The US uses debt to finance it's govt and military. The US uses debt to finance wars.

It borrows money from exporters like China, Japan, the Middle East. They get paper as collateral...

**gearhead** · March 13th, 2008 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by jeffrocks

...U.S. is like a machine,if the machine broke-down, we all broke down [who will police the world?] but let me tell you...they will not
succumbed to that, ibang klase ang kanilang characteristics...still the
undisputed the great super power...

Is the machine as you call it on the verge of breaking down with the info being presented?

Also isn't a Superpower in Superdebt?

**mang ponso** · March 17th, 2008 07:07 PM

"The former boss of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, told the BBC that there was a 30-40% chance of a full-blown recession when people realise how bad the housing situation is, and that Fed studies had shown there was a very real - but delayed - wealth effect.
Others, such as Merrill Lynch, put the chances of an absolute decline in the economy, at above 50%. So there is a wide divergence of views among economists as to whether the US economy will recover in the second half of 2008. "

The above I saw on one of BBC's website business pages. For full report see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7078492.stm

Should we be worried?