leafing through

Why are all these economists talking about a looming recession? As far as I can tell, we’re already in it.

Indisputable Evidence: The people in my neighborhood looooove gaudy X-mas/winter decorations. Usually, right after Thanksgiving (some even before), they adorn their homes with enough lights to outshine NYC. But dooode, this year, I only saw a handful. That’s about 5 to be imprecise. I loved walking around my hood taking in all the lights and nativity scenes and Santa-reindeer lawn ornaments in previous years. It’s near X-mas, where’d they all go?!

And just in case ya’ll were wondering what all this talk of the weakening dollar is and why we’re so worried about it, as well as the latest quarter percent Federal Reserve rate cut and what that’s all about… From what I understand, Wall Street is unhappy with the cut saying it wasn’t enough. But maybe they’re being doofy about this all. The purpose of our central bank is to protect the value of the dollar. By lowering the federal funds rate, they’re doing the opposite, devaluing the dollar. I know!! And they keep doing it! They’re hoping the banks will start feeling more comfortable and give out loans and borrow and move money around. But y’know what? I don’t think they will. They’re scared. I don’t blame them, these be funny times (Collateralized Debt Obligations went sour, housing bubble pop) . So who cares if the dollar is weak? When the value of the dollar decreases, the price of imports increases, which then causes our own U.S. goods prices to follow suit. To match that, labor costs rise because we all have to make more money to keep up with the cost of living. Now everything gets more expensive. Inflation. To correct that, interest rates rates and taxes rise. That takes $ out of commission because when interest rates rise, people will save. Then we get the whole recession thing. …just in case anybody cared about that stuff. This guy has some interesting things to say.