It is the DURATION of the downturn that will cause the most pain, not the depth.[/quote]
I kinda agree… except that we are not in a downturn anymore. I’ve had a recovery, not a strong recovery, but still a recovery.
I honestly don’t believe that if we had let the financial system completely collapse, we’d be in a recovery.
So far our $15 trillion economy is growing. If he had let it collapse to $12 trillion, we’d still be in the hole (that’s what peak buyers of real estate are facing; they won’t be made whole for a long time).[/quote]
Please understand that an economic recovery is NOT at all about making speculators or asset buyers whole or even profitable. An economic recovery (in my mind) means that the root causes of the downturn are purged (too much debt, and the too-high prices that were caused by all that debt). It means that people who want to work are able to find jobs that can support themselves and their families. It means that we have **stopped making all of our purchases with debt/leverage,** and are able to use our wages to buy what we need and some of what we want.
It means we are not digging ourselves a deeper hole, but filling in the hole that caused our problems in the first place.
We are nowhere near a true recovery. They are masking the symptoms of the problems, but the problems are every bit as real and as large as they were in 2008 — but with the way we’ve “financed” the bailouts, it is now the taxpayers who are taking the losses rather than the speculators who caused all the problems in the first place. THAT is what makes me so furious about all the bailouts — the wrong parties are being harmed, while the perpetrators are walking away with their cash. That is clearly very wrong.
BTW, I agree with you about where the money should have gone — infrastructure, unemployment insurance, jobs programs, etc., NOT to the financial players.
