Ask500

Regardless of what the Bush administration would like everyone to believe, the US is indeed on the verge of a recession.

The cause of this future rough period in the nation's economy is the credit bubble, which caused the housing bubble. The sub prime mortgage situation was a result of the combination of easy credit, and greedy lenders.

I have heard that the Fed is planning on lowering rates as needed. This is NOT the solution to the problem. The problem in the first place was easy credit, and artificially low rates. Lowering rates will just complicate the problem, and cause further damage in the future.

The companies that fail because of the subprime crisis should sink or float on their own, without government hand outs. Support from the government sends the message that poorly run businesses do not have to deal with the consequences.

Therefore, I believe that the majority of stocks will likely decline in 2008. I would advise putting money in state bonds/government insured savings accounts, and other things that will provide interest without the risk of stocks.

When the market bottoms, it will be advantageous to be in cash to take advantage of the perfect buying opportunity.

Just my two cents.

Bush created more terrorists than he managed to kill.

He killed more civilians than terrorists...

Each of those civilian's have families if they also weren't killed. Don't those families now have more reasons to hate the US than they did before the invasion of Iraq?

Wouldn't it now be easier for a terrorist organization to recruit those individuals?

He used fear as a political instrument to accomplish his agenda.

Terrorist - a person who terrorizes or frightens others - a person who tries to frighten people or governments into doing what he/she wants by using or threatening violence.

Couldn't the definition of terrorist be applied to Bush?

Ya, horrible question.

Was this a:

A) Horrible question or B) The Opposite of Fantastic question

Who is ready for prime time?

Bush sure as hell wasn't. It will take quite a person to reverse all of the damage Bush has caused in the US and abroad. At least Ron Paul knows what that damage was.

Like Frenchie said

Fact: The Earth is warming

We might be speeding it up, we might not be. No one knows for sure. If we are, how much?

Like he said, we're coming out of an ice age, and we will eventually be going back into one. We probably just won't be around for it.

Should we treat our planet better either way? Of course.

The media contributed to the housing bubble just as much as they are contributing to the bubble bursting. The real problem wasn't in real estate, it was in credit. Americans have been borrowing way more than they could realistically pay back at lower rates than would have been necessary to justify making the risky loans. The real-estate market is far from done correcting itself. Look for another 2 years of falling home prices. There are still billions of dollars worth of worthless pieces of paper floating around the markets right now. Just wait until all of the companies book their losses.

I personally believe that people believe in heaven for one simple reason. They want to. It's wishful thinking. That is why religion is so successful. It gives people reason to believe that life does not end at death. Therefore, people tend to overlook the lack of evidence for religion, and the harm that it causes. I have no problem believing that when I die, I'm dead. In fact, it makes living that much more special to me. Also, I hate being labeled "atheist". Why should the lack of any belief in the supernatural be labeled. I don't believe in the supernatural, I'm a free thinking person, so that makes me an "atheist". How about some people are religious, and I am not. Why does it need a title, considering people invented religion, no one invented atheism, because it is the lack of religion. Atheism I feel has a negative connotation in the US, which is not surprising because of the number of religious people, and the agenda of the organized religions.

If China wanted to they could crush the dollar over night. It would just hurt them as much, if not more, than the US. China is sitting on billions in US currency. If they were to diversify their holdings, it would send the dollar down. However, by the time they offloaded half of their dollars, their other half wouldn't be worth that much. Therefore, they don't. Expect them to offload dollars slowly though over time, effectively weakening the dollar. It's all supply and demand.