It’s time to get real about the recession
Spiked
by Rob Killick
08/04/09
At the moment, the impression that one gets from public discourse is that the recession was a relatively painful dream, a nightmare from which we are now waking up. After about half an hour of remembering how horrible it was, everyone will start talking about ‘green shoots’ and returning to ‘business as usual.’ I currently feel a little bit like Cassandra: someone who is trying to tell the truth about the recession, but who is not being believed...
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7226/
The recession isn’t over
CounterPunch
by Dave Lindorff
08/04/09
There is simply no money to rekindle the orgy of consumer spending that kept the US economy afloat for so long.People can’t even borrow if they want to. Banks are not lending, because they know that the happy talk is nonsense, and they don’t want to loan money to people and businesses that are liable to go belly up as the recession continues. That’s why card companies like American Express and many Visa and MasterCard issuers, instead of just charging a late charge when card-holders miss a monthly payment deadline as in the past, are now just jacking up the interest rate they charge — in American Express’s case to 28% or over 2% a month! That’s not the action of a bank that is expecting to get repaid by a valued customer — it’s the extortionate action of a usurer that wants to extract as much money as possible from a borrower that it expects to have go bust. Banks are canceling personal and business credit lines right and left too, making a joke of the Obama administration’s claim that it bailed out the banks so that they would ’start lending again’...
http://counterpunch.org/lindorff08042009.html
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recession
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=consumer+spending
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rob+Killick
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dave+Lindorff
by Rob Killick
08/04/09
At the moment, the impression that one gets from public discourse is that the recession was a relatively painful dream, a nightmare from which we are now waking up. After about half an hour of remembering how horrible it was, everyone will start talking about ‘green shoots’ and returning to ‘business as usual.’ I currently feel a little bit like Cassandra: someone who is trying to tell the truth about the recession, but who is not being believed...
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7226/
The recession isn’t over
CounterPunch
by Dave Lindorff
08/04/09
There is simply no money to rekindle the orgy of consumer spending that kept the US economy afloat for so long.People can’t even borrow if they want to. Banks are not lending, because they know that the happy talk is nonsense, and they don’t want to loan money to people and businesses that are liable to go belly up as the recession continues. That’s why card companies like American Express and many Visa and MasterCard issuers, instead of just charging a late charge when card-holders miss a monthly payment deadline as in the past, are now just jacking up the interest rate they charge — in American Express’s case to 28% or over 2% a month! That’s not the action of a bank that is expecting to get repaid by a valued customer — it’s the extortionate action of a usurer that wants to extract as much money as possible from a borrower that it expects to have go bust. Banks are canceling personal and business credit lines right and left too, making a joke of the Obama administration’s claim that it bailed out the banks so that they would ’start lending again’...
http://counterpunch.org/lindorff08042009.html
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recession
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=consumer+spending
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rob+Killick
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dave+Lindorff
rudkla - 5. Aug, 10:50
