07-16-08

Recession?

IndyMack Bank collapses, sending 200+ ppl to the bank yesterday demanding their cash. Looks familiar? No?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke didn’t call it a recession today, but he might as well have.

Yeah dude. It was a recession last year.

Maybe former Sen. Phil Gramm isn’t the best person to make the case that much of America’s economic gloom is self-inflicted.

Yeah, but last century’s depression wasn’t exactly caused by unseen forces either.

Yet the former economics professor shared with Americans an important lesson. He was right that, despite what it feels like, the economy is not in a recession because there haven’t been two consecutive quarters of negative growth. He was right that the problem could be our response to adversity and our collective state of mind – what Gramm called a “mental recession.” Most of all, he was right that we’ve become “a nation of whiners” who find it easier to complain about our problems than to turn off the television, get off the couch and do something about them.

Well, kind sir, whiners cause recessions. A recession isn’t going to happen without a fall in consumer “optimism”. We whine, others hear, we all cut back on our spending and walla…the economy slows down. We FREAK THE HELL OUT and pull our investments from stocks, pull our money from banks and watch everything collapse like dominoes. One thing the media doesn’t tell you…it’s your own damn fault. They are too busy making you freak out. You’ll tune in, they get more ratings. But those ratings will eventually mean crap when the effects of their shock and awe tactics trickle down to their advertisers and they stop getting as much revenue.

In all honesty, knock on wood, our family really hasn’t been effected that much. Maybe because we haven’t lived outside of our means. We didn’t fall victim to the “american dream” ARM scandals, we still rent. We don’t have a big screen tv, an ipod, our kids don’t have sooo many toys that we cringe everytime a recall is made. We can still almost afford food minus towards the middle of the month, when, god forbid we actually have to get creative and turn the stove on and cook that frozen chicken/ a pie/ frozen veggies. Ick.

Gas has gone up. We get a tank a week at the most, but public transportation is right down the street and it is our own fault for not using it more often. A tank a week is costing us $80 more a month. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of gas, of crude oil which refines to 19 gallons-sih (and the rest is used for things like heating oil). Oil is at $139 a barrel or ruffly $3.31 a gallon before the cost of processing, transporting and distributing. $4.15 a gallon for gas seems about right. I doubt drilling in the states will help…anyone but the Bush families agenda.