The Decade in Review
Below is a link to an article written by a famous economist, Paul Krugman about the goings on with the economy over the past decade. While it is pretty sobering, it also can be considered pretty biased .
Your assignment this week is to comment (350-400 words) on the article or your classmates comments.
Were things as bad as Krugman makes them out to be? Was there any positives over the past decade in terms of the economy? What will make the next 10 years different? Should the government have a bigger role or should government stay out and let the market return to equilibrium?
This assignment is due by Friday 1/7/10 by 8:00pm.
Link:
Krugman's Decade in Review
Posts
I think that this post is very true. In the near past, America has gone on the power list at a world level. I believe the economics are the cause of this. About how America has not learned from their mistakes is very truer, we continue to let our egos get in the way, and rather than taking responsibility for what has happened, we try to cover it up, causing more problems. Economically, we screw up the economy and then try to fix it with more money, which has just resulted in more badness. to stimulate our economy we need to create more jobs, through discovering more technological advances. I believe in the future, whether 10 or 50, 50 some at max, there will be many many new job opportunities based on the new technology. This will then boost our economy. I think that we are not in a depression, nor will we become into one. The article said that the number of jobs has gone up slightly since 1999, but it still has gone up. This means that the economy hasn't really dropped all that much, therefore no real depression. America may not pull everyone out of the current world economic condition. Whoever discovers the nextbig thing, like what computers was, will.
ReplyDeleteWe have made many mistakes in the last decade. We invaded a country hoping to find things that were never there. We also ignored the dangers of the fact that the stock market doesn't always go up. Our ignorance has cost us billions of dollars and the worlds view of Americans. I believe that the only way the US can return to its former economic standing is if America as a whole decides that they will help make thing right. People need to show some patience. We have dug ourselves a massive hole and it is going to be awhile before we can get out. This means that we should stop demanding that Obama take immediate action and instead, take action in your local community. Instead of buying from Wal-mart, buy things from a local store, they need the most help. And so if we stimulate the local economy the money will eventually go to the government (though Taxes) and then the govenment can use the money to stimulate the globle economy. In conclusion, the govenment needs help from the American public, in the years to come we need to make our own change instead of demanding it from the government. "I hope someday you will join us, and the world will live as one"(John Lennon)
ReplyDeleteI agree we have made many mistakes in the past 10 years. The invasion of Iraq cost us more than the precious lives of our soldiers and countless Iraqi men, women, and children. The billions of dollars a day spent for destruction in a place we should have never been could have been used to help our economy.
ReplyDeleteGreedy and slimy business practices have cost consumers their homes, their savings and their jobs. Nothing is going to get better until we, and by we, I mean everyone from the CEO's of big corporations, to government officials, to the cashier at the mini mart, deal honestly, fairly and unselfishly. Huge bonuses when jobs are being cut and businesses are closing is ridiculous. Patience is imperative considering this economy can't be fixed overnight.
We need to find a way to cut expenses and stop the extreme rise in the cost of living, while jobs are being lost and salaries are being cut.
I see little hope for change in the near or distant future.
In answer to your question, the most positive thing that happened over the past 10 years was that President Bush our war loving President is no longer in control. A huge disaster was averted when MCCain/Palin didn't take over the mass destruction. We currently have a President
who's main concern is not war. He seems to be concentrating on helping the people in our country rather than killing the people in other countries. While the government regulates so much already, it may be beneficial to our economy if government intervenes in healthcare issues and corporate policies. When there is accountability there is less flagrant disegard of honest and fair business practices committed by all. The major problem is that it is impossible to run anything smoothly when we are not all in sync. I do not see everyone being on the same page EVER, so I don't see how anything will be better. The future seems bleak, until we all work together with honesty, integrity for all, the economy will remain unstable. Keeping the every man for himself mentality is ruining our great country's economy.
A good example of miserable service and corrupt attitudes is Nicor gas. They turned off the gas for a local business by mistake and have given the owner the run around because they can. This business will be without heat until Tuesday because the employees have no accountability and can do as they wish. Villages are allowed to harass small businesses because they can, and all the corruption is ruining the economy and lives of Americans.
How can anything get better? The quote of John Lennon is inspired, if only it were possible.
God willing the future may be better than the past but the question is how much better? I guess that depends on all of us.
This article, though true, is difficult to read just because it is stating such a negative time in our nation’s economy. We have all seen the affects of this in our families in the past ten years. It’s amazing to see this negative economic situation in the past decade considering the history of our nation since World War II. Our nation has been built on economic growth, integrity of our people, hard work, and entrepreneurial spirits. To live through and see the harmful and damaging effects of irresponsible management of our banking and financial institutions is a very disappointing commentary on the direction that our country is headed.
ReplyDeletePolitically, I think Krugman was short-sided when he slammed Republicans in the fact that he says that their policies are the reason for the recession we are currently experiencing. It can be easy to blame the party of the standing president for economic woes experienced by the whole country. There can be many, many causes of our current economic distress apart from political parties. For instance, as shown by Krugman, the recent irresponsibility of accounting practices in major companies and/or banks. Other issues, I think, that have affected our nation’s economy have been various global crises, oil and energy costs and political manipulation of markets. Another key example of banking problems was our lending practices. Banks were too willing to give too big of loans to unqualified applicants. “Policy- making” figures in 1999, believed that our corporate accounting sectors were responsible and well enough qualified to make upright and respectable choices for our country’s financial future. Clearly, our corporate accounting sectors did not make upright and respectable decisions. Hopefully this is not a projected commentary for our nation’s economic future in the 21st century. We as a nation need to learn from Krugman and the mistakes we’ve made in the past decade that seeking the quick profit and selfish ambition will not help our nation in the long run. We have a global economy now. Our nations private and public sectors need to cooperate and work as a team, unselfishly, in order to successfully compete in this world going forward for the benefit, not only for the youth of our nation and world but for everyone.
Krugman poses an interesting point when he discusses the nation’s economy in the past ten years as the “Big Zero”. The sad reality is that he is right in assuming so, and it is basically our own fault for what has happened. People were not careful when spending money, never considering that the money that they were spending did not exist in certain circumstances. You could even say that there was a bit of corruption in the economic system as a whole, including the banks lending out money that did not exist and the government making reckless decisions on passionate whim. Of course the war in Iraq could be seen as a good cause for many people, but when it is causing people in your own home country to suffer, it will definitely cause a stir. This is visible in the lost jobs, for the businesses were unable to maintain as many workers. In my opinion, it is the government’s responsibility to maintain some control over the economy, especially when it is falling, and it appeared ignorant to me when they did not realize that the war could be a strong cause for such situations. Some would call our nation’s situation a falling standard of living, as people who were able to spend more liberally are not anymore. People are even more concerned when it comes to saving for their children’s education because they know that it is just going to get worse before it gets better.
ReplyDeleteThis has been one of the most frequented family gathering conversations amongst the adults in my family these past few years, and every time, they always compare the lifestyle of America to the lifestyles of other countries, using these as proofs for why our nation appears to be in such turmoil now. They always have pointed out the point that we tend to do things that we do not necessarily have to do, such as going out for dinner every two weeks, going out to the movies, buying large and luxurious cars just to show them off, and even spending money on entertainment items that individuals can survive without. They always mention that many people forget about the attached costs that come with such items, such as the forming habit and routine, the gasoline costs, and even the cost of buying cable and music for an I-Pod. We as Americans ourselves have to be much more careful and cautious of what we do with our money and wealth because from what we have seen our government do, we need to start becoming somewhat more independent to avoid problems.
I have mixed opinions about this article. I agree that our economy, specifically the investors and bankers are corrupt, and that the careless loaning of money was a big reason why this decade was not as successful as it could have been. Our housing industry is in ruins, and now loans are almost impossible to obtain for businesses, something that will definitely not help us recover. Although mistakes were made, if our government actually learns from these mistakes we could still make this decade worthwhile. Remember that we still have a year to turn things around.
ReplyDeleteSomething that hasn’t been addressed yet is how biased the author is. Although much of the data here is indicating no progress in the market that does not mean that this decade is absolute trash. We went into a recession which caused serious damage to America financially, but if we look back on past recessions, the economy came back and progressed even more than before. If we are breaking even (in a sense) at the moment, that only means that the worst is over and now the economy can begin to rise again. Honestly, this recession was inevitable, considering that the bank would not stop unnecessary loans until it was too late. It was a good thing that this came when it did instead of later, when even more damage could be done. This decade will only help the next decade be even better. Also, the author uses a sarcastic, hopeless tone to scare the reader into believing that this decade was useless. Scare tactics have been used profusely by the media in this decade to convince everyone that our nation is spiraling downwards and can never come back. I have no illusions about the state of our nation financially, but I do cast some skepticism on how bad off we really are compared to past situations.
People are never going to “be on the same page” or work together to fix this at all. The economy has always fixed itself before, what’s to say that it will not again? People will never stop being corrupt, and so only the government can set into place regulations that will help us recover. To make sure that all the money being put into certain businesses isn’t being siphoned off by corrupt businessmen in high places, the government should have regulations in place to ensure that the money is being used to better the company, not pad the executive’s salary.
Everyone is upset over the economy, but I think the real worry should be about our 12 trillion dollar debt. It's almost doubtful if the debt that the US government has accumulated throughout the years will ever be paid off. Seriously what foreseeable solution can and will solve this massive problem successfully?
ReplyDeleteForget the banks who caused the recession in the first place, what will we do in the future when the debt is still left unpaid and it even reaches a ridiculous high, such as 40 or 50 trillion dollars? The economy does go up and down like a rollercoaster and hopefully we're on our way back up. But due to the insurmountable amount of debt, each time the nation's economy hits a new low, the results will be more devastating and terrible. In other words the recessions just might grow worse and even happen more frequently.
I think President Obama should make eliminating or at least preventing the growth of the national debt one of his top and foremost priorities. One way he can do this is to drastically reduce government spending in any way he can. This also means unfortunately taxes have to be raised in addition to government spending being reduced,however it has to be done for the sake of America's benefit in the long run.
The government shouldn't step in to help the economy because it'll return to equilibrium eventually anyways. The national debt should be the main concern because pretty soon it'll be to the point of no return. The American Dollars is heading for inflation and that seems to be one of the fundamental reasons it's slowing down our economic growth. It was fortunate for the US that WWII and Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal helped out tremendously to help end the Great Depression. However if it were to happen a second time, it's unlikely because of the UN and the postmodern world we live in now that history would repeat itself and that we would bounce back from a second depression.
There has to be a solution to solve the national debt now or else future generations might have to abide worse consequences. Past presidents and their administrations have failed to stop the huge deficit and it's yet to be decided if Obama will later be grouped along with the rest of them. If the debt keeps getting bigger, it can only lead to a worse economy for the future.
Mr. Krugman aptly names the decade “the Big Zero”; however, I have to disagree that nothing was accomplished in ten years. So unemployment fell, stocks also fell along with the housing market, our nation cannot be measured just off the economic losses. However, in the past ten years, Barack Obama was elected president, there was a $787 billion Stimulus Package passed by Congress (whether it will work, we will have to wait until most of the spending is done in 2012), progress has been made with brain waves controlling prosthetic limbs and computers, the human genome was mapped out, and so much more. Although none of these are directly linked to the economic world of failures this decade, they changed our lives just the same. Moreover, he states that there were “zero economic gains for the typical family.” Not every family took a turn for the worst, people don’t need to be making hundreds of thousands a year and spending all of it. For instance, when my parents realized the economy was going into a slump they started saving more, spending less, and buying only needed big budget items (washer and dryer). The only point I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Krugman on is the fact that we, as a nation, have not learned from our mistakes. We didn’t learn after World War One, World War Two, or Vietnam that a war wouldn’t last only a year, that it would cost trillions of dollars, that it wouldn’t affect the everyday lives of a nation. Even with gas prices, we choose to ignore the issue. It is a natural resource and, therefore, will not last forever When the price went up (in 2008) everyone panicked and limited their gas usage, but then when it dropped back down everyone started buying again like nothing had happened. As a nation we need to take a look at what impact were leaving behind, and what others will view us as, the ones that started all the wars or the ones who cured cancer. People have to take control of their own situations and stop spending more than they earn. Businesses, mostly banks, need to become responsible and not propose a loan amount that someone will never be able to pay off. Pretty much we all need to stop being selfish and stop blaming everyone for our problems, ONE person didn’t get us here, but it will take all of us to attempt to fix it.
ReplyDeleteTim Adornetto
ReplyDeleteMr. Janzcek
Period 6
1/10/09
The Big Zero
From an economic perspective, this last decade has led to almost nothing as the headline employment in 2009 is only slightly higher than that of 1999. Private sector employment is even lower in 2009 than it was in 1999. Therefore, Paul Krugman has come to the conclusion that this decade should be called the big zero because there has been little to zero economic improvement from the beginning of the decade to 2009. The typical family didn’t have any economic gains. Even at the height of the fake boom of 2007, the average household income was lower than that of 1999. Homeowners have had it extremely tough as housing prices are at relatively the same amount as at the beginning of the decade and those who bought in the middle of the decade would have to sell their house at a loss in order to get rid of them. So, real estate investors are stuck paying the mortgage or finding a renter to pay for their piece of property unless they want to take a huge loss. There is a complete freeze in the housing market. Few people are buying or selling anything. When the Dow Jones first got over 10,000, economists only thought that it would keep growing with books like “Dow 36,000”. In 2009, the market had closed at 10,520. So, economic progress was extremely small if there was any since the previous decade. America had a lot of faith in the economy at the beginning of the decade, but now, many have lost their faith in it with this current regression. The majority of economists believed that America had honest corporate accounting that made good decisions and this turned out to be false. After the dotcom bubble had deflated, people still hadn’t learned what happens when people don’t make smart investments. The bank had been giving money out to anyone that asked for it and they soon found out that many people were not able to pay the loans back. This triggered a collapse in the economy that was fixed with taxpayers’ money. Even after given financial aid, banks still chose to give out large bonuses to its employees, which shows a refusal to be more frugal with spending. As for the politicians, democrats do not want to explain how we got into this economic crisis and Republicans refuse to give up their belief in tax cuts and deregulation, which are part of the cause of this regression. All in all, this decade amounted to very little progress and so it should be named “The Big Zero.”
I think that Krugman does have a point—that is that the past decade is one that should be learned from and not repeated, historically speaking. Personally I find it had to assess that validity of what he is saying to a certain extent, being ignorant of the situation in our country do to both my age and ignorance in general to economics at the time at which this whole affair started. It does seem like Americans were pleased with the most recent presidential election results, which is not to be disregarded even though it is not of immediate economic relevance because it gives most people hope for the future of the country, which is an important instrument of recovery. Otherwise finding it hard to say if there were any positives due to afore mentioned ignorance, the most I can contribute lies in the assessment of what the next decade will be like. I am hoping—living in the twenty-first century and in a world full of intelligent, well-educated people—that this kind of economic mishap will not happen again. However, that would be asking for a fundamental change in the nature of man and his innate ability to be greedy and screw things up, which would be unreasonable. The best that I feel we can hope for in the near future is a slow recovery that may or may not be complete by the end of the coming decade. I wish that people could learn from history and not repeat its mistakes, in this case the economic depression of the 1930s, which has some striking similarities to the crisis currently taking place. Following that example, the way to escape this crisis would to have Obama create New Deal II and engage in a full-war effort against the Axis Powers (probably not a good idea). The point is this: most would agree that the past decade has not been the best. Whether or not Krugman happens to be exaggerating does not matter. What does matter is a collective effort on the parts of all Americans to try to wait out this crisis and prevent the next one because any way you slice it, the people have to accept some of the responsibility for what is going on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mr.Krugman that the past decade has not lived up to its expectations. The facts that he cites about the stock market, housing prices, and employment are acturate and indicate that there has not been across the board economic growth. The timing of his analysis is convenient in that we are near the bottom of the recession. If you look at the bottom of any significant recession you could probably make a similar analysis when comparing that moment to a peak moment that occured ten years ago.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you looked at a ten year perios from 1996-2006, during which the overall economic polices were similiar, you would say the economy preformed greatly. Employment was up, the stock market was up, and so were housing prices. Therefore you have to question what was difference between those to time periods and what policies should be changed.
He is looking from a peak time in the economy(2000) to a trough time(2010) and saying that the economic policies for that period were generally bad and they need to change. But then if you look at the 1996 to 2006 analysis, which had very much the same economic policies you would say everything was going great, don't change anything.
He basically draws the conclusion that all Bush policies in the decade were bad, but when you look at the peak you can draw the conclusion that Bush's policies were good.
He does not make any specific policy recomendations for me to agree with or disagree with. He says the cause of the problem is greed and lack of regulation. If thats the case, if you look at the period form 1996-2006 there was still greed and similiar regulation. So therefore it is a very simplistic argurment to say that everything was caused by the lack of regulation and greed.
It is clear based on the current economic situation that some of the policies need to change. Mr. Krugman's arguement does not make any economic arguement for specific changes instead he makes a broad conclusion that only political changes are necessary.
So in conclusion, Mr.Krugman uses facts in his arguement to prove that the past decade has made no great economic improvements. He states that policies need to be changed, and indeed they do. His arguement just doesn't specifiy which policies need to be improved.
I agree that we have made many mistakes in the past decade that have caused us to have little or no gain. Under President Bush we invaded Iraq without considering all of the possible costs. We didn’t if consider if the loss of life and billions of dollars was less than the benefits of invading Iraq. However, the biggest mistake that lead to the past decade being a “Big Zero” was the corrupt banking system. The banks were only concerned about making money so they gave out loans that people would never be able to pay off. This caused the banks to be giving people money that does not exist creating a shortage of money and the economy to collapse. Even after the government gave the banks money for bailouts they did not use that money to help make good loans but instead used it to give bonuses and on other items that are not at all necessary. The banks’ corruption has lead to many businesses downsizing or closing down causing many people to lose jobs. The unemployment rate has risen to about 10%. This can be seen whenever you go to places such as six flags or even McDonalds that generally employ high school or collage kids because they are willing to work for little pay. However, now it is not uncommon to see an older man or women working there. The jobs that were generally held by the younger generation are now being taken by the older generations because they are willing to take whatever work they can get. With about 10% of Americans unemployed there is no quick fix for the economy. It will take patience and hard work from everyone to get the economy working correctly again. Businesses need to stop spending on luxuries for there CEO’s and start spending money to create more jobs. If we could lower the unemployment rate then the economy would begin to naturally bounce back as more people have more money to spend on luxury goods. Even though this hasn’t been the best decade for America, hopefully, we can learn from our mistakes to prevent this from occurring again.
ReplyDeleteMr. Krugman has a very negative viewpoint on the past decade. I agree there have not been many positive economic stories, but from what has happened in the last ten years we should learn from it and move forward trying to correct it. We cannot worry about what others are doing; we have to think about what we are doing to correct it. If we as an individual are not doing anything to change the economic outcome, how can we expect others to do it? We as a whole have not learned from our past mistakes, but that does not have to happen again. This time we can learn from it and continue on. There will always be up and down points in the economy, but we can make sure that the points it is down are not as bad.
ReplyDeleteTo get America back on its feet, the government has to be involved. They must regulate the money that comes in an out. They should also try to first pay off their debts and from there work on taking money from a place it is not needed and put it somewhere it is much needed. The government should be able to regulate how much people are paid so that there is a more equal distribution of money.
I think the government should try to create some programs to help unemployment. If we did not have as many people unemployed, more people would be spending money and in the future it could balance out the economy. This transformation will not happen over night. It has to happen over a period of time. When it does not happen right away we cannot be discouraged. We will eventually get out of this hole and continue on with life as it used to be. After every dip there is an up. We just have to try to make the economy better and wait for that day when it all gets better.
I agree that we have not accomplished much this past decade, but the fact that we have not learned anything this past decade is not Necessarily true, in some points of view we can learn from the fact that we have learned nothing, and do something about it this decade instead of doing exactly what we have been doing all this time. If in fact we have learned nothing then this past decade was a complete waste of time, and everything that has been attempted to help fix our economic problem was also a waste of time and money. The fact that our economy has not turned out the way wanted it to means that our government has not done its best to support our country or every other contributing factor has just been a road block along the way to a better economy. The people that are saying that they want to fix our economy I’m sure they are not as worried about this crisis because they are better off than most of us, who are barely making it by each month, every year, and especially this past decade. If all attention was focused on actually doing something about it instead of the entire country worrying about it and advertising how bad the economy really is, we could actually do something and make a difference this next decade. As we continue to spend and spend and spend we just push and push our country down deeper in dept, which we should not even be in. This is a mistake that we have made. We must prevent this from taking place again at any point in time, not just trying to change it when it’s at its worst at the beginning of a new decade. Even if "We" does not apply to most of us just yet, we must follow what is being done so that in the near future, the kids of America can change how our big an impact our economy will be on us. If we do things right, this problem will not be here to much longer, even if its a small step towards a better tomorrow, even if we don’t fix it, as long as we have learned something from all of this and we take the first real step in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this article in the sense that America has done nothing to stop its economic collapse, but I disagree with the idea that the economy collapsed due to the faults of Americans. I believe the recent recession is overblown due to the economic sucess of the previous decades. What Krugman does not realize however, is that the economy was going to fall reagardless of what Americans attempted to do to correct it. Yes the economy would not have fallen this far if Americans had looked past the sucess the country had and focused more on continual progress, but it still would have fallen. The economy peaked, and then it fell in order to balance it out. The recent economic recession is a result of the economy balancing itself out. Krugman America must realize it is not economically invincible and work through this recession. Unfortunately, the easiest way out of the recession would not work in America, due to its highly capitalistic roots. Capitalism is not bad, but it struggles in times of economic hardship, due to the frantic search for profits. If companies could take a hit and continue to hire people, the economy may be able to correct itself to the point that they will no longer have to produce at a loss. Companies, however, will not do this because if not all companies hire, than all of America will lose out. Americans no longer see themselves as the top of the world economically, but Krugman's idea of government intervention will not help America. Krugman wants Obama to get more involved with helping the economic situation of the economy, but the companies and the consumers must find a way to fight through it, and maybe aid a little bit, and the economy will correct itself. In order for America to return to its former economic glory, it must remain calm and fight through this downfall in the economy. The next time America reaches economic glory, it must learn to appreciate it and prepare for the upcoming hardships that are bound to come in the decades beyond them. America will return to its economic glory if it is able to remain calm and not panic. The economy will correct itself, and Americans must learn that the economy will rise and fall at different times.
ReplyDeleteIn this article Krugman describes this decade as “the big zero.” He believes it deserves this title because of the lack of any economic gain and because we didn’t learn anything from our loss. People predicted the “Good times to keep on Rollin” and that didn’t happen at all. I don’t agree with calling this decade the big zero because even though we may not have progressed any economically, I disagree with him saying that we didn’t learn anything. Just because our politicians don’t come out and admit that their were mistakes made and that our banks were wrong in giving us the amount of loans and credit that they did doesn’t mean that we the people learned nothing. We now know that we shouldn’t put things on false credit and that we should avoid taking loans from the banks that we cant afford to pay off. The citizens, the people that have really struggled and have had to weigh out these hard times have learned a lot from the mistakes of this decade. We can make the difference in this next decade to make things better and more profitable. If we can choose to buy things with cash and responsibly, if we take responsible loans out of the banks to pay for houses we intend to afford, we can make the difference. If we do all of this it doesn’t matter If the banks still pre approve us for money we don’t have. If we do all this the government can stay out and just let the market return to its equilibrium and let us live out this contraction in the business cycle and eventually cycle though to the next expansion. All of the difficult times at least let all of us feel and have to live through ours and everyone else’s faults. The citizens have at least learned something if no one else has. And if we act responsible with the knowledge we gained in the last 10 years we can start to truly expand in the next 10 years and finally experience some long overdue economic growth.
ReplyDeleteI think that the article when a little too crazy on the fact that for the pact 10 years this country has done nothing good. Yeah there has been a decrease in jobs and other things like prizes for basically anything going up. But I think that this country is trying to get out of the situation they just take a wrong route. They fell that by covering up all our mistakes and getting more money to borrow is going to make everything different when truly is has put us in the trillions on depth as we are right know. I kind of agree that we need to advance the technology to get more people working to an extent. There are many people that have lost there jobs because of what technology had to offer. All of the advances that this country is making with technology are not only causing us as humans to depend totally on it, its also causing the decrease of our use. Now that the there is internet and gps there is no need for maps which makes us really on technology and when one day we don’t have it, well lets just say is not going to be pretty. I think that this country should focus on trying to make our economy stronger by forcing the government out up to some extant. Why did we invade countries that had no fault for what one person was doing. Because doesn’t everyone have a choice to be who they are. What have we gotten of going to war? Protection to this country but we cannot be all around the world invading to try and protect ourselves its impossible. And that invasion to Iraq only cost money and lives of people. And the only thing we got out of it was a country that hates us now. So why not instead of looking at all the negatives from the past lets look to the future and hope that our country can come together to create the economy that we all want. Because we cannot do it alone everyone needs to come together.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the decade, I was only six years old. Although I don’t remember much about the early part of the decade, I clearly remember the later part. Just a couple of summers ago, the gas prices skyrocketed to over four dollars a gallon. I can clearly recall everyone worrying about the prices of fuel, trying to get to their destinations in the cheapest manner possible. I also remember the unemployment that spread throughout the nation. Although none of my family lost their jobs, many neighbors and family friends found themselves unemployed, unable to find a job. Although times were tough, people need to realize that the economy will not always be enjoying a boom. The economy is forever changing and will oftentimes experience a recession before it grows. It is a naturally occurring cycle and unfortunately, we are currently experiencing the recession. However, Paul Krugman names the decade, “The Big Zero”, which I think is a bit of an exaggeration. Although things such as headline employment and the Dow only grew a slight amount during this time, there was growth when we examine the statistics. The title “The Big Zero” implies no change, or even a loss which is misleading because the economy did grow, if only a slight amount. Krugman’s pessimism is causing him to overlook the positives of the decade and focus only on the negatives. Many people are disappointed in the events of the decade because they expected large economic growth. They set their standards too high because it was very unlikely that we would be able to continue prospering and growing so rapidly. Yes, we are experiencing a recession but once this is all over, we will be able to look back on this time and learn from our mistakes in order to prevent this from happening again. If anyone is to blame for this situation, I believe that this recession was largely caused by the government. Their lack of restrictions on the large corrupt companies such as Enron and WorldCom allowed these companies to manipulate consumers and trap them in a web of lies. I believe that more strict restrictions on these large companies would have evaded such a problem. The decade may not have been as promising as it was predicted to be but calling it “The Big Zero” may be a little harsh. It was just a time in that did not live up to people’s lofty expectations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this article. We have started out this decade with a recession, but at the time the recession was not as severe as it has recently become. The recession in around the year 2000 was only the beginning to our economy taking a huge beating. Our economy then endured a massive downfall from the ignorance of our financial support systems. They were so greedy and eager to make money they were practically throwing loans at anyone who asked without finding much background on them. Since the banks were handing out loans to people that did not have such good credit, the bank was losing money because the people were spending the money on a house they could not afford and then they had to file bankruptcy and the bank would lose the money and they couldn’t make it up to give back to the people. Eventually the bank had to file bankruptcy and without banks businesses and households will all fall leading to a depression and what actually did occur a huge unemployment rate. Since so many had to file for unemployment the employed people’s taxes were going to them and the government had no money to spend on anything other than the citizens which leads to a fall in the government and the entire economy. Along with all of this we have suffered from terrorism and other natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina and George W. Bush. Although Bush isn’t a natural disaster he has brutally injured our economy like one by deciding to send troops into Afghanistan when our country was already in billions of dollars in debt. He has also sent us into utter turmoil from his desires to promise other countries peace and along with it power and wealth while he could not close any deals he made. The only good thing that came out of the decade is we have gotten through probably one of the worst presidents of our time and brought in a president that has much higher potential for our economy. Now that Barack O’ Bama has entered office I believe the government should get involved a lot more and apply more stimulus plans to improve the economy and create more job opportunities. Now our economy is starting to grow back to where it was a decade ago before all of the mistakes we had made. We just have to hope that this time around we will learn from the past, and we will not keep making the same mistakes we have repeatedly made without learning from them.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article “The Big Zero,” written by Paul Krugman, Krugman’s point of view on the economy in this past decade are shown. According to the article, nothing good happened. Krugman used very good evidence describing the bad side of the economy within this past decade; however, Krugman has failed to mention some vital evidence. The vital evidence that was ignored shows the positive side of the economy which consists of many things such as the changes in peoples’ saving behavior. During this hard economic time, people have learned to become better at saving the money that they make and only spend their money on things that are a necessity. In the article, “Positive Side Effects of a Bad Economy,” written by Matt Hobbs, positive events of the bad economy are shown with in the article. Hobbs has “learned some important lessons over the last few years that are increasingly becoming a large part of [his] life. The current economic conditions in the world are forcing [him] to live out those lessons more than ever before. It has pushed us into a deeper understanding about being satisfied with what we have, simplifying our schedule and taking stock of what is actually important in life” (associatedcontent.com). I feel that this new decade will be different from the previous one because now people have learned to save their money and be smarter when it comes to buying products. Krugman makes a good case for the government to take a bigger role in the economy. I feel that the government should help out as well because there are more ways in which the economy could go bad without the involvement of the government. With the governments help, the economy has a better way for the market to return back to equilibrium. During the great depression, the “Government involvement in the economy increased most significantly during the New Deal of the 1930s. The 1929 stock market crash had initiated the most serious economic dislocation in the nation's history, the Great Depression (1929-1940). President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) launched the New Deal to alleviate the emergency” (economic.about.com). As shown above, the involvement of the government during the Great Depression, significantly helped the economy because of the New Deal. Since hard economics times have been experienced in American history, the best way to help the economy is to create programs similar to President Roosevelt’s New Deal. The New Deal, as the goals of what historians call the “3 Rs, of giving Relief to the unemployed and badly hurt farmers, Reform of business and financial practices, and promoting Recovery of the economy during the Great Depression” (wikipedia.org).
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with this article. Over the last ten years our government has not been able to accomplish anything besides putting our country in even more debt than it was already in. In addition to putting our country in debt, we are fighting a pointless war that is of no benefit. People may argue that the war in Iraq has beneficial points such as revenge and protection. However, the events taking place and the deaths of many men and women as a result of this war show that the attack on Iraq is pointless. As if the war hasn’t already caused enough problems with the economy our government found a way to make it even worse. In the last ten years there has been no job creation, no gains for house owners, zero economic gains, and all of the positive things that we expected to happen, never did. Even with the “Bush Boom,” where Bush pretended to have all of this alleged money to make it look like our economy was as bad as it seemed, our country still had economic debt. Now, people expect Obama to fix every problem our country has. This of course is unrealistic and people are expecting way too much from our new president who promises “change.” Sure, Obama will fix a few problems in his term as president but people need to be more realistic about the things they expect him to do. In order to get ourselves out of this debt people need to help themselves and not rely so much on the government. The government’s involvement has mostly put us into this debt so why trust them to get us out of it? Citizens need to be more careful with their money and watch what they spend it on because obviously the government is not being as careful as they should be. Even with all of our economic problems people need to be more patient. Eventually, we will be able to dig ourselves out of the hole we put ourselves into, but in order to make the process happen faster people need to be cautious and responsible.
ReplyDeleteWhen Krugman stated, “...that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened...” is absolutely ridiculous! Although nothing great happened, like a huge economic BOOM, and true not all of the stocks went up as high as people were told but people just lived average lives, with average incomes. People in the past decade didn't worry about much and just sort of lived in this safe bubble. “So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success” but there also wasn't inflation, market crashes and people worrying about unemployment. In recent years the unemployment has become “...completely crazy and disastrous...” as Krugman stated in a different opinion piece, so to state that nothing good happened is a bit pessimistic and in reality things were not as bad as Krugman made them out to be, but they weren't exceptional either. Things could have been much more progressive for our economy if the government and people actually considered the future, and how their decisions could impact what’s to come. But the thing is, when given a choice of living then or now, I say then! I remember gas was cheap, people weren't as stressed and so focused on saving the most money possible, but now-a-days people are shopping at sales, clipping coupons and actually comparing their spending and savings. So to me, living in “the Big Zero” era would be much more preferred than right now, where every single dollar matters much more! In the next ten years, things will just get harder for people , since some American’s haven't learned from the mistakes previously done by our government, and people don't always know what to do and tend to follow without knowing much. There are some people going on unemployment and disability now, because they see no other way out of their financial messes, so what's to say that in ten years people won't try to work hard and better themselves? No one knows. I really think government's ignorance of problems and the outcome of the future caused the economy to go haywire! Technology, previous knowledge and more responsibility along with wise choices from the government would really help improve the economy- but as of right know there are no successful plans being put into action, or on paper for that matter.
ReplyDeleteKrugman’s view on the past “Big Zero” decade is very negative and pessimistic. Granted that these past 10 years have not been the best but that isn’t just because of the economy. This decade started with a terrorist attack and then Bush put us in a war situation. This war has been costing the United States more than it can handle. This is a big reason that the economy has been in a recession and it could have been avoided. We should have learned from our mistakes from all of the previous wars and how those have affected our economies in the past. Instead we continued with the war even when our country was creating a greater debt and destroying all of its fundamentals of being a super power. It has also caused many job losses and homes to be foreclosed but come on.. really? We kind of put ourselves in that situation. Why would you buy a house that was more than $400,000 when you only have a steady income of around $50,000? When people started noticing the recession they should have started saving money and not spending it on unnecessary items like those new Plasmas and going out to eat every week. Instead they should have put it in the bank for when they really need it like now. Many people are now desperate for money and are cutting back on so many essential items like food and shelter when they should have been prepared for it.
ReplyDeleteMr. Krugman should be talking about how we can change the situation we are in. He shouldn’t be complaining about what we did wrong because we obviously can’t change that. We should focus on the future and how we have a new president that has promised us many changes and how we are starting to find other forms of energy and becoming more technologically advanced. These steps will help us bring the United States back to where it once was.
In conclusion we have made many mistakes in this past decade but we have lots of time and possibilities to turn it around. Let’s stop complaining about our unchangeable past and focus on our upcoming bright future.
Krugman brings up alot of great points when talking about the United States from an economical stand point this last decade. I agree that we have made no progress economically and I think it is the fault of all americans. While everyone is blaming the government or others about the hardships the failing economy has brought upon them; they arent looking at what they as individuals can do to help their own situation. Instead of complaining they should take action and do something. They need to stop buying things on credit they know they cannot pay off. Instead they should save up and buy those things with money they already have, that way they don’t fall into debt. They also need to stop borrowing so much money. With all of the credit and loans they are taking they find themselves in debt they cannot possibly pay off. This puts banks in a terrible position. If they dont get the money back from loans they cant give loans out to buisnesses. Without those buisness people cannot find jobs. The people of america need to think more about what they are doing. We are directly responsible for the economy we complain about so much. Sure the government did some stupid things, but if we do some stupid things how can we expect them not to do some stupid things. I also agree with Krugman’s statement that Americans are unwilling to learn from their mistakes. If something isn’t working why continue doing it? I think that we are too stubborn to admit that we were wrong. Krugman’s example is of the bankers he says, “Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.” Why would the bankers continue to do this if it turned out bad I the past. The same goes for the people who spent the loaned money but aren’t paying it back. That’s what put you into debt in the first place. Why do you continue to do it? Americans need to look at themselves in the mirror and decide what they need to do as an individual to help the economy.
ReplyDeleteIn the article Paul Krugman calls the decade "The Big Zero" because our economy has accomplished nothing and we have done nothing to help the economy. He calls it that because it was a decade in which nothing good happened. Paul Krugman had very negative thoughts about the economy. I agree with him because we have been in a recession for a very long time now and we have been doing bad things to the economy. Instead of making it better we have been making it worse. We are not learning by are mistakes. The recession all started because banks were tryingn to make money and all they did was give people loans no matter how bad their credit was. All because of that people started to lose their jobs, prices for goods started to shoot up and the government could not do anything to help, our countries GDP went down. So basically everything goes downhill from there. I also think the cause of the recession is because of one of our fromer presidents George W. Bush. I think heh is the cause of it becuase of the bad decisions he had made. Even though our country was in debt by billions of dollars he still decided to send troops to war. As Americans our decisions has cost us a lot of money and time. Because of the recession people have been forced to save their money and what until something is on sale or until it is cheaper. Many people have been left without jobs and it is nearly impossible to find a good job. I think we will get out of this recession if we get the correct guidance. I think it will take a lot of time to get out of this recession, but we will do it eventually.
ReplyDeleteKrugman does an excellent job in this article. However, I am split between opinions. I do agree that the United States should learn from the economic recession and stock loss, and not make these mistakes again. However, I have to disagree with the main idea of the article, being that this decade was a complete flop. We made improvements in some areas, and even though he state that “The height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999.” I believe that we made improvements in such areas. I think that one of the main problems that the economy suffered from was inflation. At the end of 2009, it cost more to make a penny then the penny’s worth. The government seems to be ignoring this though, because the only prices that have dropped are gas prices. Speaking of the government, they made too mistakes this decade for the people to ignore. With gas prices up to $4, all of America was taking a hard hit in their wallets. Also, all the government did nothing to stop all the corrupt monopolies and businessmen that drove Americans straight into debt. There needs to be a serious change for this decade, so that America will make a 180 and we will start to claw our way out of this recession. Another thing that we can not ignore is the trillions of dollars of debt we have collected. How does the American government expect inflation to stay done while they owe so much money that they will be over producing dollar bills, and it will take buckets full of bills to buy simple things. Krugman also talks about the stocks, which was another major problem. When stocks are dropping off the charts, people are losing their homes because of the investments that they were told were sure things by the government. We, as a country, need to tighten our belts in this decade ahead. People should be helping others that need the money, rather than spending millions of dollars on a new yacht. All in all, Krugman sums up the decade harshly, but truthfully.
ReplyDeleteIn this article Krugman declares this decade as being “The Big Zero” when it comes to our economic gain that we achieved in the last 10 years. One can not help but agree with what he is saying when you simply look at the facts about where we stand right now when it comes to our economic situation. Our housing market is in shambles with more than a quarter of all households making payments on their mortgages where they owe more than their homes are even worth. Our banks have irresponsibly lent out millions of dollars to people who knew very well they would not be able to make all of the payments on. All of this bad credit has put our economy in the worst depression since 1929. Looking at what forced all of those problems and hardships during the great depression is very similar to what is causing all of our problems today. Looking at what we have done to ourselves, by digging ourselves so deep into this economic hole has forced us to change as a country. That is why I cannot agree with everything that Krugman proposed in his article. I believe that there is some good to come from these last 10 years. We have learned that we need to change our ways. Even though we would preferably want to learn our lesson earlier next time, the point is we have learned what we can and cannot do, and are forced to make some changes. We have learned our limits as far as credit goes, and the banks have learned who they should and should not be dealing with when it comes to their much sought after loans. When it comes to government involvement with the economy at this point, I would say they should have nothing to do with it. I believe that we should just stick to our conservative roots, and protect our money just do what we have to do so we can make it through this recession. There should be no more empty loans that will never get paid back. There should be no more erratic spending on credit. We should just do what we have to, and naturally let our markets and economy correct itself, and get back to that much desired equilibrium point. So I do not believe there is nothing good to walk away from this decade with. This was a decade of trial and error. Even though that trial affected and hurt most, we will learn from our errors and not let them happen again, and will get this country up and running like we know it should be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Krugman’s article. The only thing our government has done in the last ten years is put our country in more debt than it started with. I think the war in Iraq is completely unnecessary because not only are we wasting a lot of money and time, but many American men and women have died due to the war. Many people argue that the war is protecting us more but if many people are dying, why are we still in the war? It’s pointless! The economy is also facing a high unemployment percentage; housing prices are causing homeowners to pay more than they could sell it for, and positive things that presidents such as Bush promised the country, never happened. I agree with Hosford when he said that although Obama promises “change”, he can’t change everything people want him to. It is unrealistic. He can fix a couple problems but people have to be more practical about their wants. People shouldn’t depend on the government for so much because I think the government is the main reason why our economy has changed so much in the past ten years. If the government dug our country this hole, why should we trust them to get us out of it? Eventually, in the long run, we will get out of this hole, but people need to be more responsible before we can expect anything dramatic to happen soon. I feel that we are somewhat reliving the “Great Depression”. The stock market crash created the Great Depression and the government actions like deciding to send troops to Iraq have caused our recession that is currently occurring. Even though many people were living their worst nightmare during the great depression, it is also occurring today in our nation. When Sofiyyya says that she would rather live in the “Big Zero” era, I agree with her. She has a point when she says that the stress about money has changed from no stress to coupons and sales. Gas prices were cheaper and it would be easy with not stressing about money. Many families across the United States have either separated because parents are realizing that they cannont give their children all their wants or even needs, or became closer because the kids are realizing they cant get everything they want but they do have their family who will always be there.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, i would like to begin by stating that the picture of Krugman makes him look like a failed impersonation of George Clooney. Now, with that off my chest, let's get down to economics.
ReplyDeleteI mostly agree with this article. In the last a;most 10 years, there has been a lot of, let's say shenanigans, going on in our economy, and I believe that it is both the consumers and the financial leaders fault.
For the consumers, the people who are supposed to be held responsible for their investments, as well as keeping track of their finanical situations, they have been doing a rather lacksidaisical(sp?) job of keeping track of their own financial ability. Instead of actually researching and planning out what they will and will not be able to afford in the future, they have just been going off on a spending spree, as if they had no idea they have to pay the credit card companies back for the money they had borrowed. Are you kidding me? How can you not know that you're on the verge of going bankrupt, and once you figure that half out, how do you think that it's okay to splurge when you should be doing something about your situation. It also frustrates me when people allow themselves to make pretty large purchases without doing any of their own planning. "What's that? You say I can afford this? well okay, let's do it!" No no no. How can you let someone tell you what you will be able to afford down the road, when they have no idea what your life is like or what kinds of other things you may be financially tied to in the nearby future. I believe that this is one of the main reasons that our economy has been flipped upside sown recently.
I agree with Krugman about how the economy has taken a downfall within the last couple years. However, I don’t know if it’s necessary to say that absolutely nothing good has happened and we haven’t learned anything. The US has been trying to fix the problems it just doesn’t always seem to work. But at least we’re trying and making an effort and not just watching the country struggle. It’s hard to understand that so many families are struggling with income and the need to provide for their family. This is because of the stupid choices made by certain banks. The article talked about how people are paying more then their homes are worth but most people can barely pay how much their homes are worth in the first place due to unemployment, incomes being cut, and the banks. The banks are the ones who seem to have had the biggest impact on our economy because of the power they were given. After realizing they were affecting the economy in a poor way they decided to ignore it and continue hurting the economy. Then to make up for the banks, taxpayers were hit hard with trying to make up for the money lost. Also the US just kept borrowing money, which just leads to more problems and bigger debts. Going back to the households and unemployment issue I think that the government needs to step up when it comes to helping families. Parents are unable find jobs and with no income coming in their kids suffer. It’s not fair for kids to grow up without homes or the basic necessities because the economy affected their parent’s chance of work. That’s when the government needs to start finding a way to provide for those families whether its certain programs to help unemployment or finding a way to distribute money where it’s most needed. The government gives to much money to things that do not help the economy or those being affected by it. The change needs to start now before it gets worse and there is truly nothing good to say about the economy. Americans need to start helping one another and take notice of how the economy is changing. I think Krugman is already helping the change by putting out the struggles of the economy for the past decade. Now everyone just has to help with the new one.
ReplyDeleteKrugman is right about how there was no real economic progress in the past decade. the reason i say "real" economic progress is because the Bush Boom does not count as a real economy seeing as how the only reason the stock market hit all time highs was because Bush was using borrowed money to pump into our economy any no one really knew that in essence we were using imaginary money. Now the national debt sits at a cool 11.4 trillion and keeps on tacking on about a trillion a year but hey, Bush added 500 billion a year (on average) when he was in office so his administration is to blame to some extent. He is also right when he says that Obamas financial adviser was wrong in 1999 but i think it is safe to say that in 1999 everyone was busy being a 90's guy and just thinking that no matter what the market would go up because statistically speaking, it would but just because it snowed last winter does not necessarily mean it will keep snowing every winter to come. the point i am making is that history cannot predict the future. but we did learn something in the past decade and that is that pumping money into an economy does not mean that the economy is healthy. Krugman can not just criticize people for what they said then because for all we know he could have said the same thing back then. Moving on, he is saying that nothing was accomplished and no economic growth has occurred, yes this is true but moving in a sideways market is much better than moving in a downward market so way to go America, at least you did not destroy the economy completely. also, the enron and worldcom coorporations were a big scam thats what capitalism is all about, making money. i undestand what they did was completely unethical and wrong but if your not willing to play hard ball get out of the park. Krugman was right about most things but this decade did not go as bad as possible.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Krugman, the "Big Zero" decade had a negative influence on everyone's life in the US. Men and women lost jobs left and right. Although there was some job creation, it wasn't enough to make up for the loss. The housing market's issues left people "owing more than their houses are worth." The stock market fell apart and left people in awe at how much money that they had lost in the end. The United States was a very respected nation, thriving and powerful, but the success was dependant on borrowed money. As we looked to help other countries, like Iraq, and poured more and more time, money and labor into the cause, our country began to fall apart more. Don't get me wrong, I am all for helping others, but like when you are on an airplane and they tell you to put your mask on before you help the person next to you, we should have made sure we we're secure before we put so much energy into helping them. The worst part is, as many of families struggle to keep food on the table, the big guys on wall street are still handing out more money, more bonuses, and they are part of the problem. The biggest issue is that through all of these struggles and economic breakdowns, the people responsible for them have not learned from their mistakes and continue to do the same old things that started the problems in the first place, which only creates more issues to fix. The government has made so many promises to get us out of this mess as soon as possible, but we can only wait so long. The high gas prices, the job loss, and all of the problems going on in the country are tearing families apart,leaving people fighting to keep their homes. people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, just stuggling to keep their families fed and bills paid. Hopefully this new decade will bring new opportunities, new jobs, better economic decisions, and an overall happier country once the economy begins to pick up. Janczak said we're nearing the "trough" in the cycle, so things can only look up from here, right? Let's hope so.
ReplyDeleteKris Chatterjee p.8
ReplyDeleteI agree with Krugman’s first point that this decade held no reply for the optimism for growth we all had. Other than the false market boom prediction referred to in the article, I have no other knowledge into the world economy hopes that were not reached. However, there are a few letdowns I have experienced or observed first hand. There was supposed to be a mall in Grayslake, new skyscrapers in Chicago, leaps in technology, and countless other assets to our community not followed through.
Another major point was the issue of unemployment. The unemployment rate as of January 8th, 2010, is 10%. We must remember that this is more than just a number as it has an effect on many people. New graduates with student loans, high school students in dire need of some extra cash, and adults struggling to keep up with the bills, are all finding it harder and harder to find their place in the job market. I can relate to this as my dad has lost his job twice this decade, and I am also trying to find a part-time job with no success.
The housing crisis is another giant factor as so many people cannot afford the houses they foolishly bought with the money they did not have. Other than the foreclosure signs around every block, I believe a perfect example of this is the city of Dubai. The multi-million dollar ventures on borrowed money are reaping no benefits due to the crash, and the whole city is submerged in debt. Not only does this show a magnification on our housing crisis, but also how our causing of the recession has repercussions all over the world.
Krugman mentions inflation a lot and with just cause. Going out to eat, buying some new clothes, or doing just about anything has gotten much more expensive lately. My parents’ income has not increased nearly as much as the prices of goods and services have.
As for government interference, I don’t think it’s plausible to shift more towards a socialist system. We can’t trust the government with more of the decisions that shape our lives.
All in all, I do have hope that the businesses with the strongest foundations will be able to rebound as well as the people, and we will slowly see a better future. I hope the mistakes leading to this “Great Recession” will not be made again either.
I believe that the article understated, if anything, the degression of the economy in the last ten years. He gives the decade the title "The Big Zero", however I don’t believe we have simply done nothing, but that we have made our economy even worse, digging the already existent hole deeper than it was before. The supplementary booms to the economy have only been temporary, and their wear-down brought us right into the recession that we are in. The government’s involvement in the economy has only worsened these problems, attempting to stimulate the economy with money that has no origin. I believe that the government should stand back and let the economy naturally restore itself. Perhaps subsidies like Cash for Clunkers could help, but no more 787 billion dollar stimulus plans, because that money will too have to be repaid again. The American Government and Citizens continue to attempt to take away all of our economic debt and create jobs with short-term plans, which is simply realistic. Getting out of a 12 trillion dollar debt is going to be a long-term process whether we accept it or not, so that is where we need to focus our concentration. I think that if any positive came out of the decade, it was learning from our many mistakes. As a nation we have became more educated in the areas of debit and credit, learning that a credit card is not a fantasy-world spending amount and much be used responsibly and realistically. Also banks have learned that they cannot loan unlimited amounts of money, especially when they are unsure that it will be repaid. The only problem with acquiring this knowledge is that it cost 12 trillion dollars; personally I believe that’s too high of a price. This decade has been a complete failure, however that does not mean the next ten years have to be. If we simply let the market fall back in place, we can endure a recession. So long as we do not further our problems, they are escapable.
ReplyDelete-Nick G 6th Hour
Bigandz.
Paul Krugman makes a point in stating that economically, this decade has brought forth little to no beneficial opportunity. For example, prices in the real estate market have dropped which can be thought of as a great opportunity for investment. After all, economics is about buying low to sell high. However, the majority of the population doesn’t have the cash or credit necessary to obtain a house, therefore it just seems pointless. The opportunity for financial growth is there but the means of taking advantage of it are scarce.
ReplyDeleteThere are many factors which we can attribute to the downfall of the economy. We can play the “Blame Game” but who really is to blame? Do we blame Bush and his fallen policies, or the people that voted him into office in the first place? But does finding who’s to blame solve the problem? NO! In the sector of job unemployment one can blame Wal-Mart for exploiting their suppliers and employees to keep their prices low. But the low prices are what makes Wal-Mart so popular so we can also blame the people that shop there. In doing so they’re supporting Wal-Mart’s unfair treatment. As Wal-Mart grows it runs down other grocery chains leaving those people unemployed. Sure every Wal-Mart that opens creates new job opportunities but only at the expense of others. In the end it doesn’t matter who you point the finger at, its finding the solution to the problem that really matters.
Many people try to set these issues aside because they don’t want to accept reality. We as people contribute to all these problems in which our economy has hit a serious downfall in this decade. We try to blame it as in “Oh, it’s the governments fault for not being cautious in which what situations they get involved with”, but really we can well be considered as one of the main sources of the problem but we don’t realize that. Sure it is a possibility that we will somewhat come out of this bad situation such as unemployment and financial struggles but in the end we are sure enough to fall back into the same situation yet again.
Krugman makes ONE valid point: America (and every other country for that matter) lacks the ability to learn from their mistakes. The rest of this article is completely idiotic. Yes, we are experiencing a “recession”. Yes, employment is down, the housing market is a bust, fuel prices are through the roof and people have no money. What is this guy’s point? Any 6th grader could have told you this useless information. Krugman also goes as far to call it “The Big Zero” where “nothing good happened”. This is plainly put: stupid. The economy is not a ladder; it doesn’t just keep going up. Sometimes it needs to take a few punches to continue to grow. Was the Great Depression a complete “zero”? I don’t think so. Through hard times, we learn how to improve ourselves (no matter how temporary it may be). And when this recession comes to an end we’ll all smile, hold our heads high and give ourselves a pat on the back because the economy will be BETTER. And if that reason alone isn’t good enough for you, consider this: the War in Iraq has brought a multi-trillion debt upon America. Will you forget that in your lifetime? Those memories are what improves our economy and keeps us from making the same mistakes. That is until the current toddlers, who don’t remember a “recession”, decide to make those same mistakes again. It is the curse of the cycle that comes along with having a government. This, however, is not the end of the article. Krugman goes on to complain how it is the government’s fault. Blaming the republicans for this and democrats for that. Our government definitely has its (large) share of blame. But that’s where Krugman stops. Never once does he explain what our government could have done differently nor does he give us a solution. I believe another share of the blame should go to certain citizens. Citizens, who whine, complain (just like Krugman) and just cannot see the long-term benefit of a little pain. Citizens who blindly swipe away their credit cards, buy cars they cannot afford and end up bankrupt. And then, they rely on the GOVERNMENT to pay for their expenses. We all need to step up, stop complaining and be part of the solution. The complaining needs to stop because complaint articles like this need to stop; it does none of us any good. As for government intervention- who knows? It shouldn’t really matter because there could be multiple solutions. It’s just the matter of repeated mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Paul Krugman’s pessimistic views on economics. Although it is a harsh reality, our economy is not where it could be. Going into a war for several years, and not acknowledging that stocks are unpredictable have caused our nation to go into a recession. Another major reason for our recession was our banks loaning out money that never existed. This could be a sort of corruption, and has caused people to be wasteful with their money. Millions of people in the US waste money every day on useless items. It is okay to buy something that is not a necessity once in a while, but not if their money situation is not in the greatest state. People in the US need to focus more on what they need and not what they want when it comes to their expenses. Going back to the topic of the war in Iraq, I completely disagree with everything about it. It has not done our economy, our citizens, or our government any good. All it has done is caused confrontation, arguing, debt, and people losing their lives over something they do not necessarily agree with. Many people in the US have lost their jobs due to said war and the government needs to take action. In my opinion, they should get out of the war as soon as possible, or at least show some sort of effort. They need to take action on the economy and do something about it. Our government needs to look at a different country’s economy that is successful and see what they can do to be more like them. Take Canada for example, their dollar is significantly stronger than ours, and all we’re doing is arguing about our health care dilemma. Why don’t we model more aspects of our lives off of them? I’m not saying completely do everything they do, but they are doing something right and we can take note of it. I think the problem with our nation is pride; we are always looking to help other countries before ourselves because we have been successful for a while. But when our economy is bad, we need to worry about ourselves before others. It’s exactly like they say when you’re on a plane, “put on your oxygen mask before somebody else’s.” The US cannot help other countries before we help ourselves, or else nobody will receive help.
ReplyDeleteThe past decade ought to be known as “The Big Zero.” I agree with Mr. Krugman completely. Economically this past decade has not lived up to its standards and even expectations. Mr. Krugman specifies many topics in this article. Such as, housing prices due to inflation, stocks, America’s business and political establishments, and politicians. All of the listed topics signify the biggest struggles our country is going through/ went through.
ReplyDeleteAs a nation, we have lost our way and feel there is no way out of this mess. Every aspect of our economy and government has been corrupted. Our leaders tend to focus on issues that are least concerning to us at this moment in time. Therefore I feel as though as a nation we are unwilling to learn from our previous mistakes. Once we have made a mistake once there is no reason to repeat it again. Such as the Bush Era. President Bush made the same mistakes over and over. His Era didn’t begin when he took office. It was when he spoke to the nation and told them that the terrorists were successful in letting the world hear them, and they would hear us soon. Bush repeatedly spoke when he shouldn’t have. I am not blaming this decade all on bush and the congress. However, maybe if they would have acted differently our country would quite stand where it is at right now.
In another sense, our nation should be moving forward in a decade, not moving back or staying in the same spot. This was not the case for homeowners. We are roughly back to where we began the decade when it comes to housing prices adjusted for inflation. Since inflation is still occurring it seems as though the housing market should be getting better and we should be making an improvement as a nation. Therefore the mortgages we owe on our houses are more then the house is even worth.
We have dug ourselves into this hole, the nation digs deeper and deeper hoping for change. The only way we can overcome and start putting the dirt back into the hole we have created is by working together, not blaming the leaders, and patience.
In conclusion, things are as bad as Krugman sees them to be. It is no illusion, it is reality. The next ten years will be a struggle the nation needs to work together to rebuild our country and return to equilibrium.
This article may be addressing the negative side of the past decade’s economic progress a bit too heavily in the opinion of some people. But in the opinions of others this article may just be spelling out the reality of the declining economy that resulted in an economic crisis! But in my opinion, it does not really matter. I believe we should not look to the past or the future, but first address the present. I am completely positive that the politicians and economists that are working in the government are aware of what happened in the last decade economically, and the next logical step for the government is to try to fix this crisis! Now this of course is not easy, because obviously the government has failed trying to fix the economy in the past! For example this article addresses the bush boom and the policies of the previous Republican government that was a contributor to the economic decline. In the last decade, the government’s efforts may have hurt the economy more than helped it, but all of us must accept this and move on. What’s done is done! All of us are responsible for the economic crisis in some way. We may not have directly caused the crisis, but we are the ones that voted the politicians into office, that made these decisions correct! So, not only the government should try to fix this economic decline, we must do our part also. We could help by making smarter investments, not getting into credit card debt, and making sure we can pay off our mortgages before we buy a house. All of us need to come together and do our part. We must also help the government to make the correct economic decisions. In reality, our economy has slowly declined because we as Americans have been ignorant to basic economic principles and logic. If we did, then why did we “buy into the hype about investments” bankers made and why are credit card debts so prominent amongst our society? I am not saying that we are solely responsible for the economic crisis, but I am saying we should stop blaming the government and instead taking responsibility for ourselves. We should do all we can in the present to make the future of our economy something to look forward too. But the first step to moving forward is, accepting the past!
ReplyDeleteI agree with this article. I think that Paul Krugman says a lot of true things, but I also think he is exaggerating on how bad all of the past ten years have been at times. The last ten years have not been very beneficial to the economy. But, I think people have learned from these years that put the country in such debt. People were buying way too much stuff on credit and not being able to pay it back. People should only spend money they are capable of paying back. They were receiving money on loans expecting that in the future it would be able to be paid back. But, you cannot plan on the future being able to help you. You have to have the money to spend it. In the middle of the decade it wasn’t too bad, but then lots of spending on the war increased the debt. All the deaths that happened because of it was bad enough, but it also caused way too much spending. Therefore the countries debt became even worse. The government was spending way too much money, and spending money they didn’t have putting us into debt. But, now they are just making it worse. I don’t think the government should make programs like the New Deal to help the economy recover. The government only makes things worse when they interfere, and I think the economy needs to recover on its own. Government is part of the problem and so I don’t think we should depend on them to be the solution. With what the government is currently doing I don’t think it is going to get better very soon considering they got us where we are. I think the economy will recover, but it is going to take a while to get there since the government is only currently making it worse. But, it is not as bad as the depression and I think it will eventually recover as it always does. But, I think it will take a while and it has to happen naturally.
ReplyDeleteI think Mr. Krugman makes a good point, but it is very one sided. I agree with him, that basically nothing good has happened in the economy over the past decade or so, but I think that part of the blame has to go on the people too and not just the government. People have to start being smart with their money, and not spending money in which they don’t have. If one looks at each person individually, they can see that each individual has their own “economy” according to how they spend and save their own money. For example, Sally might be wasting all of her money on vacations to far away places that she can’t afford. But Fred on the other hand, might be saving up a life’s fortune by wisely choosing when and where it is necessary to spend and save his money. Because most of the population is not doing well, like going into debt for purchasing useless items, or pretending that they have money that in reality isn’t there, the population as a whole has basically failed economically. If every person at least made a conscious effort to sensibly spend and save their money, everyone would be in good shape, and it would be harder for the economy of the USA fail, by having a strong foundation of people who spend their money well. Also, our own government is not spending their money wisely either. The war going on in Iraq is a major contributor to our shortage and misplacement of our money. So much of our money goes to Iraq and it is also contributing to our stress as a country because loved ones lives are being risked that don’t necessarily have to be risked. And yet, this war is still going on, after it was thought to be over years ago. Although we are going through rough economic times right now, soon enough things are going to start to turn around and head for the better. So in conclusion, I think this decade can be used for learning from our mistakes. Even though Krugman said that we don’t, that is not true. Sure, everybody messes up. Nobody can be perfect all the time, and if you look at every single person’s life, you will see that that is true. Since man is not made to be perfect, what can we expect? So we are having some rough times right now, but we have been through this before, just like the 1920’s. Right now, we are just going through some bumps in the road, and maybe in a couple of years or so, our economy will be right back on track.
ReplyDeleteThis post explains the feelings and thoughts that every American should have. Krugman's nickname towards this past decade has "The Big Zero" exemplifies how our nation failed.
ReplyDeleteThe expectations we had, such as the Dow Jones, were so great, that disappointment easily came to us. The fact that our expectations about stocks were so high, shows that we the citizens of America care towards the nation. But the outcome of stocks not increasing to our expecatations shows that the last decade was nothing but a disappointment.
Krugman states the 45 percent of mortgages are underwater, meaning that it cant be payed for. This is a huge dilemma because not only does this lead to an inability to have a successful society, but it causes part of our debt that we have. Now in order to fix our debt and our structure of living, I believe that we need more government intervention. They need to step up and take more action and control that will better our situation, otherwise we will have an even worse ten years coming up. I believe because we are in such a bad debt, if the government stayed out or interferring, nothing will be accomplished. The government has so much power that with the right decisions, they can fix it.
Krugman's overall statements were believed by me to be true. He thinks realistically, and to be honest, i think the whole government should learn from this guy.
I agree that the past decade has been a difficult one and it seems we have created more problems than we have solved. However, instead of constantly pointing fingers at the economists and the government and everyone else I feel that people should look at themselves and think of how they can improve the economy. The economic problems that have surfaced over recent years are not going to be immediately solved, as we have learned. Also, it is going to take more than one person to improve the large problems. I, being a young student, have absolutely no idea what steps should be taken to resolve our financial issues, but I think our country as a whole should be taking action. It does not solve anything when some people just blame others for being selfish and for not thinking things through or acting irrationally. The damage is already done and everyone makes mistakes, so instead of focusing on who created the problems, let’s focus on how we can fix them. I know that not everyone can solve the problem and there is a reason we have certain people to take care of these sorts of things, but it clearly has not been working for us, so we need a new approach. Not everyone is able to fix the wrongdoings of the past, but those who are, should, and probably are working to resolve them. I am not saying that no one is at fault and I am not saying that every time someone makes a mistake we should fix it then pretend it never happened. I just think we need to get ourselves out of the current economic situation and think of ways to avoid it for next time. Obviously we are going to need to do things differently next time. However, I feel there are more important things to worry about right now than whose fault it is, for that is not going to accomplish anything. I believe the future is looking brighter and the only way to from here is up, so we must remain patient, and hope the best is yet to come.
ReplyDeletemine continued......
ReplyDeleteI think the economy will sort it self out, just doing what we are doing will eventually get everything back to normal. The next new "computer" as i was talking about in the last post will be what stimulates the economy. I believe no matter what country gets it, the world economy will be stimulated. I think this will happen in the near future, and will most likely be what takes us out of the "recession." I think the government NEEDS to stay out of the economy. The economy is a free flowing entity that has the all important feature of autocorrect. Although it can take time, it will happen. I think the government should reduce taxes and whatnot as much as possible. The government has not really helped the economic situation, and if anything has stunted it. Overall I think we are in a just fine position, even though there hasn't been growth at all in the last decade. Let's look forward to the next!
I think Krugman is correct for the most part, but his claim that nothing good has come out of the decade is not completely true. In the article he says that the job market has expanded, if only slightly. After all, a small increase is still an increase. Overall though, I think his statements are correct. The overall status of the economy has declined drastically, with many people not being able to keep themselves afloat, losing their homes in the process. This has also led to a decrease in the morale of the United States, and our willingness to improve ourselves may be impacted by that. This economic slump is a direct result of the reckless actions of businesses and consumers. Nobody has considered the effects that their spending would have, and this has put everyone in a deep hole that will need a lot of work to get out of. This process has continued to occur, but the government has not done anything that will make a big improvement in the economy. As a result of this, I think the government should get a little more involved (but not take control of) the things that are causing the decline in the economy. They should make sure that those that are reckless spenders do not continue to spend money that they do not have. In order to completely rid ourselves of this national debt, we must take in to account the things that have led us down this path, and we MUST stop lending money away that is not or never was there. If we can change the way we are going about handling our economy, then we can bring ourselves out of our debts and start to rebuild our reputation for innovation that we had a long time ago. I think the next decade will be better for America, simply because we should be able to make up for our mistakes and get back to doing good business.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the article was correct in saying that we have made no progress in the economy in the last ten years but I do not believe it stopped there. He states that the housing market has remained the same when you look at inflation rates and so has any other financial growths. Although there were booms in the economy it was artificial booms. It was made with credit and money that did not really exist. There was a false sense of hope that we made large improvements. The government could play a larger role in regulating banks and who receives loans but other than that our economy is a free market economy and is setup to fix itself. Programs that create jobs and opportunities are other steps the government can take that can increase cash flow and more consumer money being spent. The economy showed some growth in competition and innovation but it ultimately showed little if any progress. As people in charge of our own financials we sat back and just expected the market to go up or for our housing prices to continue to rise even though many people knew it was a bubble waiting to burst. People needed to make sure they knew how to handle their own finances before they went off and bought on credit knowing they would later have to pay back those debts. As a government we thought that throwing money at our economic problems would solve it but it only helped a little. That money even ended up getting used in the wrong way. Banks also needed to restrict the amount of money they could be handing out to people because the people were unwise with their money. People spent that money but still did not understand they need to pay it back. That is why you saw all the foreclosures on homes because they simply could not afford the payments on their mortgages. This helped to bring about the collapse of the housing market because there were plenty of houses to buy but not enough buyers because they could not afford it. This decade has shown a false sense of progress.
ReplyDeleteIn Krugman’s article, “the big zero” is used to describe Americas present recession over the past decade. Although Americans experienced many gains, the visible truth is that we have not advanced much economically. But like most, the economy will have low points only to rise again and expand outward. Currently we are in the stage of contracting and within the next few years we will be beyond contraction and into the stage of expansion. I do agree that we have not learned from our mistakes and that these mistakes are responsible for many of our current economic issues. And if we do not eventually learn from these mistakes, the economy has a chance of being even worse than it has ever been. If the government continues to give banks money because they pinky promise to stop giving away ludicrous amounts of money as bonuses, lets just say history is bound to repeat itself. We may have recovered this time but what about the next 4.9 billion we give away. The current job market is absolute insanity. When the G.M. plant in Janesville Wisconsin closed, the newly opening Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant received thousands of applications for weeks. Teenagers who are also job hunting for the summer find nothing and are forced to turn to farm labor such as corn tassel removal. In this state of being, everyone needs a job but no one has the money to pay businesses for their goods and services so the businesses have no money to hire more employees.
ReplyDeleteIn the article, Krugman calls the last decade "the big zero", and I agree with that name, and his article. There were almost no economic gains or advances. And all of the attempts to help get the country out of the recession were failures. Like for instance the stimulus bill that was passed a while back. That bill was mainly just a waste of time and money, seeing as it didn’t help at all and left everything the same as it was before. I do not agree with some people who say that the war held a major part in the recession, and that the war has caused a lot of the economic problems. I think the main problems are the housing market, the banks, the stock market, businesses not hiring, people trying to live above their means, and people who aren’t putting any money back into the economy (not spending). People are also putting everything on credit cards, and getting tons of loans, only to find themselves not being able to pay off the loan and the credit card bill.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the housing market could’ve easily been prevented. People who were making below average incomes started taking out huge loans so they could pay for homes they could not afford. And of course they couldn’t continue paying off that loan/house, so they didn’t pay back banks, and they left unfinished homes everywhere. That or they just couldn’t finish paying off the house. In my opinion, giving out large loans like this is like giving money to a kid. The more you give him/her, the more they will spend, regardless of if they will be able to pay it back. They’ll just keep spending. However, not everyone is like that. The banks didn’t realize this, so when people stopped paying them back, they just stopped giving out loans altogether. Which effectively stopped the growth of things like small businesses and housing purchases.
The problem with joblessness I think is caused by businesses not filling vacancies, laying people off and not hiring new staff.
The problem with people not putting money back into the economy isn’t really the peoples fault, and it is caused by the rest of the problems stated above. This is what the stimulus bill was supposed to help with, it was supposed to get people to go out and buy higher priced things that they didn’t really need. But instead, people saved the money, or spent it on things they needed. It’s not like you can really blame people for not wanting to spend money on luxuries, when the prices of essential commodities like food, fuel, and other things are going up. Another reason for this is inflation, peoples salaries stay the same, yet how much the dollar is worth goes down, meaning prices go up. Inflation is just "fanning the flames" of the recession.
However, one thing surprises me about this recession, yet it is understandable. The prices of things like stock, and property have both gone down, waaayy down. Yet, no one is buying. There are many repossessed homes that banks will sell off at insanely low prices, yet no one wants to bid. This is understandable because people just don’t have the funds to spend on things like that. Though people taking chances on things like that, buying homes and stocks, is exactly what this economy needs. People buying these would increase both the housing and the stock market.
The last thing that I think is a major contributor to the recession is paranoia. People start to worry about the future, and how things will play out, so they start saving and saving and saving. No spending, which is effectively lowering the nations GDP, because when people aren’t buying, the companies reduce the amount of production in order to reduce inventory.
I agreed with everything Krugman said throughout the whole article. The Big Zero is an excellent nickname for the decade because the economy as a whole has had zero growth. In fact,many americans have regressed. Financial institutions and the consumers are both to blame for many of the problems existing in the housing market.Banks were approving loans that should never have been approved and the people were overextending themselves and ultimataley could not fulfill their responsibility to pay their morgage. Another negative influence of the economy is the stock market, many americans saw their pensions and savings cut to nearly half. The stock market dramtically plummeted because buisinesses and banks were failing. People lost confidence in the stock market and economy, and because of their pessimistic attitudes, they invest less money in the stock market. The Government tried to stimulate the growth in the economy with the economic stimulus package passed in the year 2009. So far, it hasn't shown to be effective because the unemployment rate is still really high,and the banks continue to give high bonuses at the expense of the tax payers and are not lending businesses to promote growth. If we want our economy to thrive in the next decade we need to learn from our mistakes and live within our means
ReplyDeleteKrugman is correct that the past decade has not been ideal for the economy and job market. What he does not mention is ways to try and make the economy better. Instead, he completely bashes all past events and blames everything on economists and government. I agree with David Cho, Krugman’s article makes it seem as if he was not loved as a child. His past issues have caused him to have a pessimistic viewpoint on America. Although many families are struggling through this unbelievably hard time, many of them have faith that the economy will bounce back. It may not quickly return to the way it was before but patience is a virtue. Our current recession started very similar to the way the Great Depression did and America have came back from that. I also agree with Mike Wiggins, the country should help their own citizens first instead of others who don’t want our aid. Why should our government waste money on other countries when they can help their own. Now everyone should start supporting their communities and the small businesses that are around. Regardless if an item is cheaper at Wal-Mart or Target buy something from a local market. It is the small business that people are able to relate to, they are struggling as much as some of our families. The government should attempt to help out the smaller businesses as well, instead of the big corporations. I’m not saying we should have another bailout or stimulus for smaller businesses, but the government should help out a little. I believe that the economy can return to equilibrium without complete government supervision, but they must look over certain aspects. All Americans must wake up and try to fix our economic situation instead of sitting on their couches and watching FOX News or CNN. This goes for all people, from President Obama to celebrities. However, celebrities should not push their political views onto their fans because they’re not paid to do so. As most people, I have hope that everything will return to normal and that our huge mass of debt will begin to be paid off. None of this will happen though if the government does not stop overspending and start to focus on their own economy and problems.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this article truly brings up a good point. Although many may say that the failures of the past decade could serve as better knowledge for the future, its faults were deeply similar to that of the 1920s therefore giving us no excuse for making such mistakes over again. We basically made the same mistakes over again and wasted ten years worth of time in which the economy could have been in a much better state. The fact that the government did not see this coming, or if they did, did nothing to stop it makes the situation far more embarrassing. Their failure to act on the spot puts a lot of the blame on them as well as the bankers who allowed ridiculous amount of loans to be given out without consideration on how they were going to be paid off. Many of them could even blame the recession on the effect of 9/11 which could be a valid point if the recession had not lasted this long and to this extent. Truthfully, the government made a fool of itself in allowing this to happen and has therefore lost the respect and trust of its people making the economic situation even worse as it is accompanied by further distrust and uncertainty. Because of this lack of action millions of people are finding themselves without jobs and the country is well on its way to another depression strictly parallel to the crash of ’29. Therefore, in this decade, instead of making discoveries and building new, strong economies, we have taken a step back and wasted 10 years suffering the consequences of the fake peak we reached in the nineties. We have spent all out effort and knowledge on figuring out how to get out of the recession we’re in instead of using it to expand out economy. As a result of this the decade is characterized by sheer unrest and failure. Our “success” in the nineties is overlooked by the amount of time we are spending paying off the debts it created. Perhaps if it was the first time this had occurred we could comfort ourselves by saying it will never happen again, but the fact of the matter is it has already happened again.
ReplyDeleteThe very first thing I noticed about Paul Krugman is that he is very, very pessimistic. I agree with his big idea that we are, in fact, under an economic recession. But honestly, who would want to listen to a negative Debbie Downer like him? People need positive criticism in order to improve. If he wants the economy to grow better, like all economists should, he should at least mention the goodness that there HAS been during the past ten years and how we can escape this recession.
ReplyDeleteWhat Krugman said has a point – it is true that our country, and many other countries as well, have been digging a hole into a bigger debt. Yes, what he is saying is the truth, and he is pointing out the harsh reality that many people tend to want to overlook. But does that necessarily mean that the past decade has just plainly been a “Big Zero”? No, I don’t think so. Do we have absolutely no money in our hands right now? No, definitely not. If that were to be true, why were we able to create a movie that cost us over $230 million to make this past year, like Avatar? And what about the 44 million copies J.K. Rowling sold a few years ago with the last book of the Harry Potter series? I’m sure that she has tons of money in her pocket now. This proves that there definitely is money out there, and our job is to develop an efficient method of using it, instead of blaming the government and politicians, like what most people and Krugman are doing. There is no solution if everyone sat back and watched the government attempt to fix this by itself. We need to take the initiative to solve this problem. Likewise, people like Krugman should focus on the more positive side to our economy right now, like what we can do to better the situation, instead of listing all the negatives and discouraging everyone. If more people can promote optimistic ideas to encourage positive thoughts and actions, we can make this world a better and happier place! :)
For Lack of a better phrase, Krugman is an idiot. Everything he says is entirely negative. Sure, the past few years have sucked. So what? The rest of the decade wasn't that bad. Think of all the time before the recession. Sure, it may have been an artificial bubble, but the times spent weren't that bad. I wonder if Krugman's ever heard of the phrase "It's the journey, not the destination"?
ReplyDeleteSafe guards should be taken in the years to come to fix this mess and prevent it from reoccurring, but to say that it was a complete "zero" is just the spouting of some crackpot who needs to take his head out of the sand.
Krugman does good point about the past decade’s economy. Sure, the past ten years of economy seemed to have no improvement since there was zero net job growth. The people who were employed were also hurt by the economy so that was no good at all. I’ve seen people in the past few years having hard time supporting their families and people who lived a normal lifestyle began to collapse. I think the biggest blame for the past ten years is the war in Iraq. George bush has done nothing GOOD for the economy. National debt has increased drastically since both Bush(es) became president. He had spent over one hundred billion on the war in Iraq which left states to come face to face with the largest budget crisis. When bush took charge, it immediately became a large number of unemployment. I remember being six or seven years old, the gas price was like ninety-nine cents. Now… the worst I’ve seen in the past years was four dollars and fifty cents! Now buying everyday needs is even difficult for only just me and my mom, just worrying about taxes. I don’t even agreed with Krugman calling the past ten years "the big zero" because seriously, taxes and unemployment were raised…it’s more like a loss to me. As of today, we’re still in a huge debt and to regain the equilibrium or when everything was good, it will take decades because of what one man named stupid George Bush did. I honestly have no faith in Obama. The “Yes We Can” poster hanging in my room is just there to make me feel better but in reality, I don’t think anyone can really get our economy the way it was. Thank you Bush x2. But to make this post a little bit more optimistic, I do hope Obama, as a president can make our economy slightly better than theses makes past years.
ReplyDeleteJenn Aguinaldo
ReplyDelete7th Hour
Krugman’s article was a rather sad perspective on the past ten years. He really had no positive comments to say and Mr. Roger’s on PBS would be very disappointed in his pessimism. I guess I can see his point when he mentions Bush and his “terrific” job as President, but I do not believe that the past decade was completely terrible. Sure, we may have been lead into a little recession, but there is still hope that our new president Barack can pull us out of there. It is possibly true that not much has been accomplished in terms of the economy because of some politician’s mistakes, but it is not necessarily true that none of us have learned from it. Paul Krugman has it in his head that the previous decade brought nothing but miserable occurrences and mistakes that caused everyone to go down. His opinion on the housing crisis seems about accurate, because a lot of the news on television mentions homeowners wallowing in debts worth more than their homes. In my fifteen-year old opinion, Krugman should have focused a bit more on how we could fix his mentioned problems, rather than just complain about it. It seems to me that he really just likes to hear himself talk, or rather blog, about what is wrong with the world instead of put attempts into fixing the problems. Instead of pessimistic economists like him gallivanting around blogging on the internet about how terrible of a job politicians and leaders are doing, they all should team up and learn to come up with the answers to the problems, together we are all facing. If it is just not possible for Paul Krugman to turn his frown upside down, perhaps it might be best if he turned his negativity into a song. If he had done like Lil Wayne did in Jay Sean’s song down, at least Krugman could come up with catchy phrases like, “Indefinitely, not probably, and honestly I’m down like the economy.”
As pessimistic as this article may seem, Krugman makes a lot of valid points that I agree with. The past ten years have not been particularly great for the economy for many reasons. While some people could say that the war in Iraq has brought greater security to our country it has also of course brought upon an insane amount of debt to the U.S, that who knows how we’re going to get out of. Along with the issues with the war and the government and the “Bush Boom” people at home had their own issues going on too. A lot of people seemed to get loans for a house that they could not afford and was priced way more than it was even worth, and also depending on credit cards way too much. And now those people are stuck in their own debt too. Yes I do agree that this decade hasn’t been exceptionally positive and nothing really fantastic has came out of it, however; I do think that all these problems that our country has faced in the past ten years also brought lessons to be learned. We all learned not to buy something that we know we cannot afford and not to just think “oh I’ll just pay it off later” because that never ends well. Also, everyone knows that our country is in debt and has taken a beating economically in the past few years, but everyone also knows that we must fix this problem. So what people have to realize is, is that it’s not going to happen right away. It is going to take time to get things back to normal, and I do think it is a cycle. There have been time periods where things are great and booming and other times not so much, and this decade just happened to be part of the not so great.
ReplyDeleteReading Krugman's "A Decade in Review" definitely showed me how some people see the economy as a terrible thing and how it is at one of it's lowest points but I do think that he is over exaggerating a little much. I do agree with Krugman that in the past 10 years nothing significant has happened to helped the economy however even he himself said that there was some good that came out of the decade. Although the goverment had said that they were going to make the changes, it seems as if the changes didn't help or they never even attempted to make the change at all.
ReplyDeleteKrugman does make very good points that the economy has not gotten better at all even though we were told that it would get better, however I don't believe that we should only be blaming the economists and government for our bad economy. As humans, we often play "the blame game" so we are blaming the economists and governent when it is not completely there fault. I do believe that we can in some way help to make the economy better it's just that it seems like not enough people care to make a difference and help out. I do think that the government should just stay out of it and let the market ease back into equilibrium because then the government won't make any stupid mistakes that could hurt us anymore. The government has gotten here but I think it is our job to get us back to normal.
Employment has basically stayed the same since 1999, as Krugman said in the article. Whats alarming though, is for the first time ever, job opportunities in the private-sector have been decreasing. This means that fewer people are going into business for themselves, at the same small businesses are closing. In turn people find employment with larger companies. In are bad economic times, these companies have to cut costs, which may mean letting a few people go. This raises the unemployment rate severely. This is a vicious cycle fueled by the lack of opportunity or the lack of people wanting to start a business. Krugman has said this “was the decade of zero gains for homeowners.” This basically means the house you bought in 1999 is the same value today. This is bad because the average person is paying so much interest in their homes that they are not making an investment. Just as Krugman said, “45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.” This leaves people with lost money and no gains. So if one wanted to sell their house, they would be taking a huge loss of money that cannot be regained. Krugman said that in 1999 most people believed that America had “honest corporate accounting.” As people put their funds into these companies and bought stocks, trusting them, they found out what a joke they turned out to be. Most companies went out of business and people lost tons of money, which could have been their retirement funds and other important accounts. On the subject of retirement funds and 401k accounts, with the stock market trading at the same as it traded in at in 1999 and the rate of inflation people have lost 40 percent and up in retirement funds. This has forced people to work longer then they had wanted. After reading this I basically agree with what Krugman has said about our past decade, although I believe tax cuts would help this economy.
ReplyDeleteKrugman makes the argument that the economy has had no gains at all throughout the past ten years, however I do not agree with how bad he makes things out to be throughout his article. Sure, statistically there was not much good that happened over the last decade. Jobs were not created, unemployment basically stayed the same, and private-sector employment decreased. Income declined and the housing market suffered. Stocks stayed the same without taking inflation into consideration. But maybe we should look at this in a different perspective. Even though the economy suffered tremendously during the 2000’s, there may be some positives in this. There were mistakes that were made that, if we learn from them, should prevent things like this from ever happening again. Also, the banks and other financial institutions will be, or at least should be, monitored to prevent too much rejection of loans and funds that may help boost the economy. If we learn from history as we should, although we haven’t done this much in the past, we should be able to keep the economy from suffering and perhaps prevent another “Big Zero” decade. The next ten years should be considerably different. When banks start lending out more loans and spending starts to increase again, the economy will increase. Companies will receive more revenue and stock values will increase. As this occurs people will receive more benefit from their increase in stock values and have even more money. In all, the economy will return to equilibrium. And this is why the government should not interfere with the economy. It will always come back to normal, and government input may harm the natural ups and downs of the economy. So what I guess I’m trying to say here is that even though the last decade was the “Big Zero” and nothing positive really occurred, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything positive that came out of it. We will learn from our mistakes and learn that there are times where the economy doesn’t do so well and that it will always rise up to where it should be.
ReplyDeleteThis article summarized the economy of the past decade. It described the decade, as “the big zero” meaning all of the economic growth we expected to go through did not happen. There are many reasons for the lack of economic growth, such as companies like Enron who appear to be making money, but in fact are not doing anything at all. Companies like this are a problem because their “growth” attracts people to buy stock of that company. Since the companies are not actually making the money they say they are the people that have invested their money are going to lose it all. The loss of money causes the economy to shrink because people are saving their money instead of spending it. Also people would take out mortgages that they could not afford on their salaries, and this eventually lead to the collapse of the banks because they did not get paid the money owed to them. Krugman says that the worst part of this is that we as a country did not learn from our mistakes, but instead kept doing the same thing that our neighbors had done. People kept buying houses they could not afford until the housing market “bubble” deflated. Before the housing “bubble” deflated, the dot-com bubble deflated, meaning that what happened with the housing market happened recently with other markets causing the economic problems that we are facing now, to be intensified. Now, as we enter a new decade we can hope to learn from our mistakes of the last decade and hope to get ourselves out of this economic crisis. I also think that other problems that we have been faced with as a nation can help with the economic struggles we are going through. There has been talk that the oil supply of the world is running low and that we need to quickly find an alternative energy source to power our cars and planes. I would say that we need to use electricity to power the cars. I believe that if we were to switch electricity to the main energy source for cars than the economy may be helped. We would need a way to provide all the electricity for the cars, and that can be done with windmills. Although they would be temporary, building the windmills would definitely provide many jobs, but once they are in place we would not need to import nearly as much oil as we are today. Importing less oil would mean that our net export number would rise along with our GDP. Although finding alternative fuels is more an environmental problem, I believe that finding a solution to that problem would help the economy.
ReplyDeleteI think Krugman was for the most part right. We finally got to the point in the U.S. were it seems the country’s dominance in the economic world can’t get bigger, and will in fact only get smaller. One of the major factors that I feel Krugman didn’t hit on for the reason of this detraction was the advancement in technology that has been seen in this decade. A world that was already small in the spreading of information sense, got even smaller. Things have been made so easy that there has been great disparity between job creation and job loss. Having people work is the core of a stable economy, and since this factor has been weakened, so has the entire system. The key for the next decade will be the changes made in response to these difficulties. Though it may be true that there are debates going on amongst those in government about the changes, I think it will come down consumers and our individual choices. Are we going to find a balance between having what we want vs. what is best as for the country? This balance stated plainly would be spending enough to stimulate business while also saving enough to reverse the drastic trend of American’s having a negative savings rate. However, one issue that must be resolved or least planned out by the government is the national debt period. With health care, bailouts, and foreign affairs our country has put itself in a very dangerous position in the world of finance, and while making all debts disappear is completely unthinkable, within the next decade we need to at least ease the pain. Krugman states that in the 2000's we really learned nothing, and interpreted one way this is true. But I think that maybe we will learn more about the last decade as this one progresses, we will only have learned nothing if we let this 10 year stretch repeat itself.
ReplyDeleteThe article by Krugman describes the economic times in the past decade as "the big zero". Over the past decade deregulation has opened the door for banks and corporations to make false claims and trick people into investing in their bad corporation. This is just one of many injustices that has become common in the past decade. Krugman demonizes this decade however, it is only as bad as he says if we do not learn from our mistakes. Lets not forget who put our money in bad investments, lets not forget who bought a $500,000 home when you only make $50,000. As a society we must make a conscious effort not to get suckered into credit card debt, and not stand for the injustices of the past decade. We must be more vigilant in economy. We must recognize the good that has come out of the decade, a growing need for alternative energy which I believe will eventually lead to technological breakthrough which will help us become not dependant on foreign oil and create jobs at the same time. Being realistic this will not happen for many years. As a nation people are spread into two catagories, people who go to college and study, who then get better jobs and money. A larger group however, never gets that opportunity and is forced to take dead end jobs where opportunity for bettering ones life is much more difficult. We must become less of a service economy and more we must learn to create and produce more products. The government's interaction in the coming decade should be to be to reform the banks so they not give out bad loans to poeple and businessess that are doomed to fail or not be able to make the payments. The government should also monitor corporations so they not forge their productivity. In this way we can get a real sense in our economy and invest in the right companies. These changes will help get the USA back on track.
ReplyDeleteI think that Paul Krugman is a pessimist on the subject. Even though we didn’t gain much of anything in decade, with the recent economic problems we are fortunate that we didn’t lose economic progress. It is disappointing that we did not gain more economic wealth, but it could have been much worse. He says that housing is back at the point where it was before the start of the decade but we weren’t in terrible economic shape at that point. There was excitement when the stock market closed at 10000 in 1999 and there were predictions for the times to keep on going. The stock market did still continue growing even though that it just wasn’t at a very quick pace. The Dow closed at 10520 this year and even though it is a very little increase it is better than losing those 520 points. Krugman is right to say that Americans trusted stocks to much which caused the recession we are in now. Americans thought that their system was perfect and that nobody would mess with it. We were wrong and when fake companies were set up and we bought the empty stocks, people lost trust in the system. This caused a failure in the system and our economy. People are just now beginning to trust the stock market again as some of the fake companies have been found and the people are more careful. This new found trust can be attributed to the small but still existent gain in stock market points since 1999. So although he is pessimistic about the economy’s recent gains or losses over the decade even though there was a slight gain. His reasons for this are all very accurate and people need to become aware of the stock markets imperfections and failures.
ReplyDeleteThis opinionated article could not be more accurate or truthful. Most of the past decade has been cast into the shadows because of the large economic failure that has occurred. While the recession that surfaced over the past few years had a large impact on the outcome of the economic standing after the decade, this is not the only problem. There was little to no gain for all household owners and the market for houses just recently moved back to where it was at the start of the decade. On top of that, mortgages are now biting back the people who took them out in the middle of the decade and causing many of the owners to be in debt for more than the cost of their house originally. The stock market has returned very little with the DOW being the biggest let down of the decade in terms of economic viewpoints. In 1999, the DOW just hit 10,000 points and it looked like the new decade would be a great time to invest and see the DOW continue to climb and exceed all expectations. Instead, it has increased and dropped straight back to where it was at the start. The continuous pattern of economic details starting to climb and fall back to where they started is a sign that the decade was indeed a failure and only damaged most American citizen’s lives. The unemployment increase over the past ten years is certainly the most significant factor in determining how successful the United States was. The only thing I disagree with Krugman with is that America did not learn from its mistakes. I believe that it was more of a result of 9/11 and the fact that Americans were afraid and needed some leadership to take control and save the county. It is because of this that they lost interest in the economy and paid little attention to what happened to it until the end of the decade. Now that they realize how bad their lives were affected by this economic loss, they will learn from their mistakes and make the next decade one to remember.
ReplyDeletePaul Kurgman stated that this decade should be called the “The Big Zero” he went on and on about how nothing good happen this decade, I strongly agree with him. When Bush was president we had a false sense of economic security because Bush had our economy running off of barrowed money and sooner or later that debt would have to be paid. Kurgman also referred to the house market and that people would buy houses that they could not afford, he stated that “Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth”. This leads me to one question for those home owners, when you bought that house did you ever think about the future, and did you see any of the warning signs? Another thing I found interesting in this article was that Kurgman say “after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.” Now after the world went into an economic collapse, bankers are still careless with money. I am surprised that the banks haven’t realized there ways don’t work and its time for a change. We can no longer rule out taxes raises because it’s a very good chance that we will see taxes raises in the next few years. After reading this article to me it seems that our economy needs to find ways to get out of debt and stop inflation. As pessimistic as Kurgman may have seemed in this article, he made a lot of valid points. I think that President Obama has to be careful not to make the same mistake as Bush. We can no long barrow money form other countries; otherwise we will just make this recession even worse.
ReplyDeleteI think that this fellow is being a little bit too negative about our current situation, honestly, yes things have not been the best in the economy and a lot of people have been losing their jobs and going through hard times but it’s not as bad as the great depression or anything, we as a nation have seen and survived through worse situations and always come out better on the other side, also we exist in a market economy. You can’t expect things to be all perfect all the time, there is going to be ups and there is going to be downs. There will always be stupid people out there willing to buy into all the schemes and scandals that we are in now and there will always be people looking to make an extra buck or two by scamming people, then eventually people start trading around money that isn’t there and we get where we are now. Honestly though, I think that everyone just got caught up in all the excitement of what seemed to be like an economic surge and spent much more than they should have, and when they turned to the banks for help the banks gave out more than they had which is what ended up sinking the whole situation. A lot of people made small mistakes that ended up in a sort of snowball effect that over took everyone and we got in a bad position, but hey, on the bright side there is no where to go but up right? If you listen to this guy you would think that the world is ending because no one knows what is going on and everything is all a mess. It’s not going to be an easy fix by any means, but is anything that is truly worth it in the end every an easy fix? As Americans it is our job to set a standard for other nations to follow because we are on the cutting edge and we are like a little experiment, we can’t let people like this guy get everyone else to think that we are failing every time that we hit a rough spot.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that something has to be done to the U. S. public school system. I think that it is time we start to imitate our competitors (They imitated us and then became more efficient and overall better). I always here that more and more of the technological breakthroughs come out of Asia, and that it is “they have longer school day and have more school days in a year”. This makes me ask, why don’t we just do what they do? Why don’t we have longer school days, or why are we only in school for 185 days? I still don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do know that if we had more time in school there would be more time to cultivate creativity and ingenuity (which is what Friedman said was necessary for the U.S. to be more competitive in the global job market) in the minds of the students. There would be more opportunities for students to take classes they want instead of classes colleges want. If students take more classes they choose and enjoy, then they will be more think deeper in those classes and be more creative. That creativity can then carry over into their future jobs and make them more “untouchable”. The school system needs to find a way to give students more opportunities to take the classes they want. This can be done by having each school day be one extra period, or maybe by having more days of school in a year. If Grayslake Central were to make every period 5 minutes shorter and add only 5 minutes to the school day we could have a ninth period and give students more chances to take classes they are interested in. There may be other ways to make U.S. workers more competitive, but I believe that if students have more opportunities to do what they want then they will become more competitive workers.
ReplyDeleteI agree that schools need to change in order to become untouchable. Public schools need to improve reading, writing, and just basic skills over all in order to achieve their maximum potential. But, kids are losing interest because they take classes they do not need nor want. For example, I want to become a Spanish teacher when I am older, I do not see the point in taking pre calculous as a sophomore in order to achieve this job. The two subjects are very unalike and there is no need for it. I should not have to take classes that do not pertain to the job field I want when I am older. Also, high school needs to get rid of so many credits. Why do I need credits in a fine arts class when I want nothing to do with them? Kids are not going to get a good grade in a class they do not want to take or are not interested in. In my school system, there would not be a certain requirement for credits in each class subject, just credits in the general field you want to go in to. If you want to be a neurologist, you do not need to take art foundations. As for gym, I agree with 6.r.pate in the sense that it can be offered. There are many people who give zero effort in gym, and if it is a waste of time for them they should not have to take it. Another thing could be offering classes on certain days, such as science and math one day, and social studies and English another day. This way kids can fit several classes into their schedules without clogging all of them up into one single day. Schools cannot force some students to have motivation though, that’s why I think there really isn’t a way to make schools “untouchable.”
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that something has to be done to the U. S. public school system. I think that it is time we start to imitate our competitors (They imitated us and then became more efficient and overall better). I always here that more and more of the technological breakthroughs come out of Asia, and that it is “they have longer school day and have more school days in a year”. This makes me ask, why don’t we just do what they do? Why don’t we have longer school days, or why are we only in school for 185 days? I still don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do know that if we had more time in school there would be more time to cultivate creativity and ingenuity (which is what Friedman said was necessary for the U.S. to be more competitive in the global job market) in the minds of the students. There would be more opportunities for students to take classes they want instead of classes colleges want. If students take more classes they choose and enjoy, then they will be more think deeper in those classes and be more creative. That creativity can then carry over into their future jobs and make them more “untouchable”. The school system needs to find a way to give students more opportunities to take the classes they want. This can be done by having each school day be one extra period, or maybe by having more days of school in a year. If Grayslake Central were to make every period 5 minutes shorter and add only 5 minutes to the school day we could have a ninth period and give students more chances to take classes they are interested in. There may be other ways to make U.S. workers more competitive, but I believe that if students have more opportunities to do what they want then they will become more competitive workers.
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