What Could Cause the Next Recession

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Frankly, I think the blame is quite probably far more general than most of us are willing to admit. Though I won't make specific accusations of anyone of being ill-meaning, consider that many of our current financial problems are, ultimately, rooted in poor decision making. From what I've seen, many of those poor decisions seem to be driven by greed trumping wisdom--and not all of those decisions were made by others. And now, we're all reeling from the blow.
It makes sense for people, in difficult economic times, to want to "baton down the hatches" and be more careful. While this may be a bad thing for economies driven by consumption, perhaps we ought to take time to realize that a consumer-based economy consumes, meaning that it will always be dependent on those who produce.
I suggest that we may want to take some time to see if we can't--albeit slowly and painfully--adjust our economy back to one that is more a producing economy that can sustain itself.
To that end, I suggest that we teach our children both fiscal and moral responsibility, and let them learn from our mistakes, rather than letting them make these same mistakes some years from now. I think we should teach our children to live within their means, to be very, very careful with the risks they take, and to be willing to accept that they don't need to be in the "top-fifth" of earners in order to be worthwhile, "successful" human beings.
This "Great Recession" took a couple of decades to properly set up. I don't think we can fix it overnight, and I don't think that blaming others will do much toward that goal.

S Johnson of UT 9:24AM December 06, 2010

The Chinese are in a position to win a "war" for world domination economically rather than militarily. They own Wall Street. If they call our notes economic chaos will follow. So what if their citizens experience a bit of hardship because Walmart can no longer afford their products - they were all 3rd-world until very recently. China takes the long view - they've been around for thousands of years. We can't see past the next election cycle. Time to pay off our debt.
We can take steps to pay down the deficit: a national VAT, a gradually increasing gasoline tax, eliminating the wage cap on Social Security, eliminating the home-mortgage deduction, etc, but I doubt that the new revenues will actually go to deficit reduction - Capitol Hill will just spend it all. And even if they didn't now, would any policy survive the next election cycle?

rowlandw of MA 8:39PM December 05, 2010

The government is looking for major chaos and control, taking the wrong steps on purpose. They know at our currrent population rate the earth will be in jeopardy. Subtle actions are taken in order to avoid pandemonium, and finish their agenda. Government manipulates lies into the mainstream media, which speak of a better tomorrow.
The only true source is biblical sustainability, I have found it to be the same fingerprint match of our current timeline.

Mr. B of FL 12:29PM December 05, 2010

Since earlier this decade Private Equity (Leverage Buy Outs) have borrowed about as much money as the housing bubble involved. They strap this heavy debt onto otherwise successful companies and vacuum out every penny of profit to pay off the debt as rapidly as possible. But now profits are down. If there are too many business defaults we will see the banks falling all over themselves again. Read the Buyout of America by Kosman.

LBO observer of AL 5:31PM December 01, 2010

What will bring next recession?
We must think about the reasons why this recession happens before we answer the above question? Why this recession happens? It is because the avarice of the bankers and other relative shareholders. If we want to prevent the next recession, we must introspect ourselves, knock on our heart, are you greedy? Maybe somebody say this is virtual, but i say we have to ask ourselves and take actions to avoid the greedy. But this is one of human natures, we can not expect to eliminate it, so we must control our heart, prevent the next recession!

Wyatt 10:30AM October 24, 2010

The U.S. economy is not growing. The figures are so doctored they cannot be trusted. The Economy is actually experiencing negative growth and has been for some time because U.S. GDP only represents a group of meaningless rising prices which reflect real inflation and not growth in Wealth. Why don't you start repeorting what is really going on . . . . . America is in serious decline and the country is not Recovering . . . . . things are actually getting worse as the FED and Treasury try to hold things together.

SWiss Genome 7:51PM October 19, 2010

hey everyone think of the time 11: 15 and then visualize a clock long hand pointed at 7 o' clock and the smaller hand pointed at the 4. now read this absolute innuendo >>>>>>> five coca cola two liter bottles jumps over a bridge counterclockwise and three thumbtacks run around in four circles after completing the turtle race which could have beaten the two cheetas and 15 rhino's that were running at the 1,000,001 babboons which were trying to climb the 49 1/2 foot tall oak tree then switched the light on after drinking seven gulps of water then the rainbow arised above the three thinner sheets of wallpaper and a crazy calico cat wanted to go under the siamese cat after being ran around the yard for 2 feet away from the 2 spider monkeys that were wearing a green v necked shirt. 5,.

dustin of TX 7:51PM October 18, 2010