Crowd check: The economy at street level
The Mole is no economist, and chances are you aren’t either. But while professional economy watchers continue to debate whether we’re in a recession yet, the air of panic among analysts, investors, and people on the street grows more unmistakable by the day. Earlier this week, the stock market fell nearly 500 points in morning trading before the Fed revived it–for how long, we’ll see–with an emergency rate cut. The real estate crisis shows no sign of reaching bottom anytime soon (Behind the Mortgage blogger Alex Stenback said in a recent Molecast that he thought the bottom was still 12-18 months away); consumer debt, government deficits, and foreign trade deficits stand at record levels; and the dollar is so weak that experts are speculating about when it will fall from its throne as the world’s benchmark currency (previous Mole post).
Our question: What’s your dread level about all this? Does it strike you as just another one of those cyclical downturns we go through periodically, or something worse? Again, we’re not asking for expert speculation here. Just your gut sense, and whatever you’ve been saying or hearing about it.
More: The Molecast I did two weeks ago with economics journalist Doug Henwood is the clearest rundown of current economic indicators I’ve heard from any source. I highly and immodestly recommend you check it out, if you didn’t listen at the time.
2 Responses to “Crowd check: The economy at street level”
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I fail to see much relationship between it’s precipitous rise in the past 7 years and the amount of money most people make. The dow has gone up, but where has all the money gone? The only people making more are those making money off other people, and the dow is emblematic of that.
Working class people have also been kind of dumb using the equity in their homes and dumping on the credit card to spend beyond their means.
Conversely, I’m betting there will be repercussions if it does drop dramatically, and those repercussions will be felt the hardest by the people who don’t own one share of stock.
This “downturn” in the economy is different. I am unsure, personally, if attempting a fix strictly within our borders will do anything.
Most of the money being made in the stock market is by the top one percent or from international investors who, like it or not, are financing the out-of-control spending that led us to where we are today.
Like the previous commenter said, the pinch will come in the working class because while a miniscule percentage have been hoarding the profits, it has failed to trickle down to those who make their earnings possible. Ideally, the top needs to make some concessions because the divide is getting wider and those people you and I silently wonder about, thinking “How can they afford that house” and so on are the ones in most danger because they are financed far beyond what they could ever afford without some serious correction.