Cause of the recession?

[tRidiot]

There are many issues that have contributed to the recession, most notably;

1. An era of entitlements -- Everyone should own their own home, everyone should go to college, everyone should have health care, etc.
2. Greed -- Wall St. was strong armed into making bad home loans to those who shouldn't be buying homes. Then they chose to buy and sell risky mortgage backed securities because they could not because they should. This is only one example of their greed and dishonesty but it was one of the biggest recently.
3. Irresponsibility -- This mentality goes from the President's office (notably for the last 18 years) to the person working the drive thru at your local fast food restaurant. Everyone spends more than they have and thinks they will somehow, eventually catch up, even though they have less of their paycheck every week because more and more of it is going to cover things they've already spent their money on. Buying houses you can't afford is just one example. It contributed to inflated home prices, a false housing boom and set us up for the current correction.
4. Disintegration of the American work ethic -- We used to take pride in our work. We now take pride in not working. A 40 hour week is now the max instead of the baseline, blue collar jobs are regarded as a consequence for not being "over educated" instead of noble professions, factory unions reduced efficiency while increasing wages and put our manufacturing facilities at a disadvantage. Their are still people who take pride in their work, but sadly there are fewer and fewer of them.

I find myself thinking our economic recession is the result of a moral recession. I don't believe our society holds dear the same values that made us great in the first place. I am not just being a moralist here. I am talking about basic things we should all agree on like individual responsibility, a strong work ethic and honesty. These issues are not unique to America.

When I heard this talk when I was younger, I always thought it was just older people over reacting, not keeping up with the times, etc. Maybe that is what I'm doing now. It just frustrates me because I don't think this train can be stopped or slowed and that it will lead to our eventual demise. It likely won't happen in my lifetime or my kids' lifetimes but I think it is inevitable.

Wow.... much much wisdom in this post... now to read the rest of the thread.

 

[rlongnt]

Asinine business decisions made by executives for short term massive personal gains at the cost of long term company viability. This is like a construction worker who pawns all his tools and thinks he is cash heavy but then can’t work as a result. Sure it’s fun for a very short time but then what? Actually that’s a bad example because they cash out and could care less what carnage they leave behind.

Hello McFly…… How about Offshoring?

Even worse is the H1B program where an employer signs a document stating that they can’t find a qualified U.S. Engineer, Developer etc. and must therefore sponsor someone from the global pool. Often a US based Engineer winds up teaching the incoming worker before he himself is Right Sized” in the next force reduction. The H1B program should be called what it is. Indentured servitude! This is fraud pure and simple more often than not. What the employer should state is we don’t want to pay a fair wage and would like to have someone we can pay little and work as many hours as we see fit. We also want someone who will not speak out for fear they’ll get sent home. This leads to a crappy product because they replace some of the brightest minds with plain old crap! Crap in crap out, what does anyone expect?

Just my two cents. It’s not worth a damn.

 

[Dr_Mitch]

The culture has also moved to a system of completely risk-based savings. This is absurd. The value of stock-holdings is ever changing, and events that have no weighted bearing on the economic system cause huge fluctuations of its liquid value. Wall Street is great for your long-term dollar value until terrorist attacks cause a four-thousand point plunge or the entire mortgage industry is revealed as a fraud and eliminates a third of all the dollars tied up in stocks in the ENTIRE world. This nonsense is what your 401k-type plan is based on, no matter how hybridized it is. And only the smartest citizens will come up with a better system, which will have nothing to do with ideals or religion and everything to do with hard math.

Also, Nixon's free-trade deal with China allowed your bosses and their bosses, and their previous generations of bosses to send OUR jobs overseas, and we've been complaining about the cheap **** being sent back for decades. The problem now is that cheap **** actually often-times has great quality and value. But the jobs haven't come back. Manufacturing is the most stable and lucrative form of wealth-creation, and is why manufacturers stocks have a far greater ranking and value than companies identified as financial institutions.

And the great majority of Americans have been raised in a system of steadily-declining quality of educational instruction, and simply will not ever understand any of this, or not until it's too late.