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2005-10-24 Home Front: Economy

World economy's eggs all in US consumers' basket

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Posted by lotp 2005-10-24 13:14|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 We control the world. Resistance is useless. You will be assimilated.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-10-24 13:38|| 2005-10-24 13:38|| Front Page Top

#2 I'm sorta resigned to always be following the baby boomers. I'm in the generational cohort right behind them; we were the generation the Boomers desperately tried not to have. (Reliable medical birth control and Roe v. Wade both came of age just as the Boomers hit their childbearing years). We work patiently through their various enthusiasms, and try to figure out how not to get screwed when they've all retired. I hope *The World* is working on that same question...

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2005-10-24 14:02|| 2005-10-24 14:02|| Front Page Top

#3 Sea, some of us Boomers are working the same issue. Some of us even had kids .... LOL.

BTW, for all that the omnipresence of the boomers is understandably annoying, consider what it's like for us to have been in the largest generational cohort in the world's history. We had the most competition for:

attention from teachers and parents
finding spouses
finding jobs
finally breaking into political and business leadership roles - at a much later age than the generation before us

etc.

Hold the fermi-violins - this isn't a request for sympathy. Just a note that it sucks to be a boomer as well as to be in the generation just younger than us .... ;-)

Posted by lotp 2005-10-24 14:16|| 2005-10-24 14:16|| Front Page Top

#4 Oh yeah, on that retirement thing ... a bunch of us expect to work into our 70s. We, at least, will pay our own way and not saddle you guys any more than we can help ....

Posted by lotp 2005-10-24 14:17|| 2005-10-24 14:17|| Front Page Top

#5 No doubt, LOTP, no doubt. Even my dad (from the pre-boomer generation) is working, and he's 78 now.

But when the Boomers got into stocks, the stock market went way up (and way down too). And when they got into real estate, well, all I can say is *dang*.

Dave Barry asks us to think about the cocktail parties when the Boomers all get into Death. Heh.

Just feels like I'll spend the rest of time adapting to the boomer breeze ablowin'...

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2005-10-24 14:28|| 2005-10-24 14:28|| Front Page Top

#6 WRT raw materials for manufacturing, I've no doubt that as soon as petrolium prices started their dramatic increase, American manufacturers(and no doubt those in other countries as well) turned to their R&D departments to find adequate, non-petrolium based substitutes (I worked in R&D briefly, pre-kids). And I equally don't doubt that as soon as Katrina's path over the refineries was confirmed, the same manufacturers set about securing contracts for those substitute materials. Even as India and China become more dependent on outside petrolium supplies, the U.S. economy (and First World, overall) will become less so.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-10-24 14:44|| 2005-10-24 14:44|| Front Page Top

#7 Petroleum price rising? Gas is down to $2.19 here. After this horrible hurricane season is over, higher interest rates take effect here, all the low mileage SUV's are returned to dealers' lots, demand slackens in China and Global Warming gives us a mild winter, I would not be surprised to see crude back at $30 per barrel next March. Life on the bubble.

As to boomers, you cannot beat the book Generations not only as a personal forecast but as a way to look at history. Sea, you'll be happy to know that the book forecasts the boomers will die in poverty as Social Security is redirected to pay for the coming crisis. Unfortunately so will the X'ers like you. But the latest Greatest Generation fighting in Iraq will get back on the gravy train after they successfully overcome the crisis.

Posted by Hupeanter Glith6585 2005-10-24 15:18|| 2005-10-24 15:18|| Front Page Top

#8 If the Boomers are impoverished, their children will have to take care of them. An economic wash for the nation, but a blow to a generation that prizes its independence.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-10-24 16:10|| 2005-10-24 16:10|| Front Page Top

#9 If they think that consumer spending can bring about growth, they deserve what happens to them. Trying to boost consumer spending has never worked to end a recession or extend a boom (though it can make a bubble).

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-10-24 18:24|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-10-24 18:24|| Front Page Top

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