HAHAHA either way. Basically its a question for those against the fed cut. If they think the fed cut is such a terribe idea than what do they think the fed should do? Dosen’t have to help if that is not what you want i guess lol. I just made the question open ended to get opinions from everyone.
I don’t really have an answer, but I do think too much attention is being paid to bank lending/mortgages and not enough to the value of the dollar. The dollar and the cost of oil are directly tied and now that oil is over $100/barrel it’s really dragging on consumer spending. It’s not just the price of gas, but the price of everything that’s gone up because it’s either made with oil (aka anything plastic) or delivered by oil (aka 98% of everything you touch).
mofokin werd.
People are becoming financial introverts, seemingly. They’re afraid that they aren’t going to be able to finance new spending, so they are gasp saving their pennies.
Ironic, huh?
Ironic that the fed is putting all their effort into making sure banks are able to lend people money and sacrificing the dollar to do it, but no one is going to want to take a loan to buy a house when they can’t afford their heat, gas and groceries because of the low dollar/high oil.
At least that my car guy/software engineer take on it. It’s probably why they haven’t called to ask me what they should do.
I think they should send out either cookies or a fun toy(stretch armstrong) with the stimulus checks. Being because as you go cash you check you would be in a good mood and more apt to treat yourself to somehting you want. Discuss
yay… I wish that my prize was a lower rate on my home loan… but I guess I can’t be too disappointed with the 5.5% fixed that I locked in a couple days ago.
Are you guys familiar with the Volcker recession? I really hope it doesn’t come to that, but in the long run it might be what we need, to a much lesser extent, depending on how bad oil prices affect everything else. The problem is, I don’t think the politicians would risk their short term future in appointing someone that would make the tough choices, in order to maintain the greater economic good.
and therein lies the problem with the system. IMO
^ We were just talking about this at work. The answer is double digit rates, but you can’t do that yet because it would cause the entire economy to collapse. Make no mistake though, we are heading to double digit lending rates in the future.
If it wasnt horrible timing with the housing collapse, double digit rates would be a possibility right now. They would have stopped people from buying more house than they could afford to begin with. It just seems like every rate cut on the path we’re heading is borrowing against the future. None of the 3 candidates coming in would want to get a recession dumped on their shoulders, because they’d be out in one term, likely before the gains are realized.
OMG… the stupidity is mind numbing…
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/18/markets/dollar_fed/index.htm?postversion=2008031814
The U.S. dollar pared some of its losses against major currencies Tuesday after the Federal Reserve failed to provide the full percentage point cut that some investors were hoping for.
Did they already forget about the .25 they got on Sunday? It was only 2 days ago. All last week they were talking about a 1 point cut, they got .25 sunday and .75 today. That’s one. So investors that can’t add .25 and .75 together and come up with 1 are driving our economy and we wonder why we’re in trouble.
The Fed also said downside risks to economic growth remained even in the wake of the rate cut, suggesting an openness to a further lowering of borrowing costs if needed.
…there it is…
Quoting this now, so you won’t be able to bitch about “President Obama making the fed raise rates again!” 
:lol:
Quoting this now so I can re-quote it when McCain is being sworn in as our next president.
I agree 100%. they don’t have the balls to make a tough decision because they are too afraid of hurting someone. This country didn’t become the world’s superpower because we were worried about hurting one person’s feelings. We did it because 100 years ago people worked for a living (instead of leaching off everyone else) and had the balls to piss of one person to help 100 people
A recession is when your friends are losing their jobs.
A depression is when you lose your job.