>My coworker announced today that he thinks the
>collapse of the U.S. economy is at hand. He said the
>bankruptcy laws are changing Oct. 17, and that he
>expects General Motors to declare bankruptcy before
>that happens. As a result, the government will be
>crippled by the shifted burden of GM's pensions; all
>the people not getting pension checks will stop being
>able to buy things; and investments will lose value.
>"As GM goes, so the country goes," he intones. He
>says other countries are already starting to sell
>their U.S. treasury bonds, and that all this is going
>to result in inflation and a devalued dollar. I guess
>people like me won't have much to lose, exactly
>because we don't have much to lose, but people like my
>mother, approaching retirement age and nursing a
>little nest egg while managing a mortgage and whatever
>other debt, could lose a lot.
I'm highly allergic to crisis talk. Yes, things could fall apart someday, and that someday might just be around the corner. But a lot of people, from folks on the street to hardcore Trotskyist revolutionaries, amplify concerns about a problem into a crisis. I think the entire US recovery/expansion that began in 2001 has been troubled - despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus it's been able to generate the weakest GDP growth of any of the 10 post-WW II expansion, and the worst employment growth by far. GM and other firms in the auto industry are in terrible shape, and workers and pensioners could get hit hard. With energy prices and interest rates rising, we may have a recession next year, and it could be deeper and longer than the ones of the early 1990s and early 2000s. But that's different from "collapse."
>Hope this is an appropriate post for this list, and
>not an annoying newbie sort of thing to write.
>Apologies if it is.
No need to apologize, and it's not annoying or inappropriate at all.
Doug