Economy in crisis? The Yahoo! Answers community is on it!
Earlier this month, representatives from the world’s largest economies (aka the G-20) met to discuss our global economic crisis. Some of you may recall our post about the G-20 in which we asked:
How can our governments work together to overcome the global recession?
Our global Answers community came out in full force to offer some clever, funny, and often very insightful ideas on how to overcome our global recession and get us all back to work, free from recession panic, and safe from further losses.
As promised, here are a few of the best answers to this very important question from around the world:
Here in the United States, pfranklin offered this analysis of the current situation:
We are witnessing a the post industrial era in world economic development. Many people are describing this situation in an historic perspective. And most likely it is. Just like the prior industrial era of the early 20th century economic development and ideas must progress in a pragmatic way. And for the first time each nation has become much more interdependent on other nations. For example so much of the production of goods have moved off-shore from the United States. As a nation the United States is more dependent on other nations for financing our growing debt. These were not issues during the Great Depression nor were they issues during the great industrial growth following WW2…(read more)
Responding to the same question on Canada’s Yahoo! Answers, Carrot had this to say:
Governments should not work “together”. We should start to produce things locally again as much as possible. Outsourcing and globalization must be stopped. Global trade should be reduced to a minimum. It will be good for workers, good for consumers and good for the environment.
Llordlloyd of Australia’s Yahoo! Answers community gave us this astute and thoughtful response:
The answers were mostly found by John Maynard Keynes, supported by other economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith, in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. They saw the need for a regulated economy with the government happy to step in to address market failure, and prevent the irrational, psychotic behaviour that occurs when capitalism is allowed to do what it wants- say, lending money to people who can never pay it back.
As Galbraith noted in 1952 in ‘American Capitalism’, business leaders, whose theoretical model held no place for government, were disgusted by Keynesianism because it put government institutions and employees on an equal footing as economic controllers, and they resented this loss of prestige. One look at executive salaries, compared to performance, shows that prestige and myth is what allowed them to extort such deals for fawning boards of directors…(read more)
Ultimately, the answer to the question of how to revive and reinforce our economy lies with us as individuals, as much as it does with banks and world leaders. We might need to rethink our personal decisions to spend more than we can afford, and to leverage purchases of our so-called “needs” against our homes, our credit, and our peace of mind. In the words of Michael Stipe, “What we want and what we need has been confused.”
Thank you to everyone who responded. We had a really fun time reading all of your answers.
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The Economy will improve by itself, so get a life
the problem is not production; we need a new way to distribute access to the supply
energy is the only true measure of wealth.
all of human history untill 1800, energy was human muscle power, AKA slaves.
now we have mechical muscle guided by human brains.
what do you think will happen when production is 90% computor and robotic
Bailing out economies, big business and even nations is not the answer. I see where the World Bank is ready to foreclose on several small Nation due to their impending bankruptcy. So now the world financial leaders will be regulating trade, controlling world markets, shaping economies and legislating (dictating) governments indebted to them.
If this trend continues I fear we shall all be indebted to and controlled by a handful of wealthy businessmen whose main concern is their own well being, not your and mine. regards, Dr. Awkward
What a bunch of crack heads…of course a San Francisco based webiste gets advice on how America needs to be run by people from Canada, Australia and someone who see’s it as “pragmatic” that we adjust so that other nations can carry our debt…it seems Yahoo uses the same logic as our President…ask the international community what’s best for the US instead of the people of the US themselves….What a steaming pile…I don’t trust anyone who uses “keynsianism” as a basis for logic in economics…that’s like saying Donald Trump would be more succesful if he ran his company like the DMV…whenever someone says “public sector” or “government” you can replace it with DMV or Social Services office….the only thing government or the public sector does efficiently is spend money…they can spend billions in a few short days and have nothing to show for it.
Leave the academia at the door and talk reality…you can’t study your way or read through issues you need to act through them…talk and words are cheap. Action is the key. And the government’s inability to do anything efficiently leads me to believe that the private sector is at the center of the solution…the same arrogance that the Aussie said was prevalent in the 50’s in Financial Leaders is present in our current day politicians…they didn’t make it in industry or the private sector…so they spent their life bleeding the private sector of tax dollars so that they can survive and ursurp power from those with the key to prosperity.
You socialist blow my mind!
An Economy is built on consumption. While being paid for by production. The business cycle is shorten as technology advances.
Before the 1970’s quality was defined as how close the product met spec. If a product out lasted it’s self destruct time period it was therefore also defined as poor quality. Economies were kept running on planned obsolescence.
In the 1980’s Japan changed the definition of quality to durability. With this increased durability the demand for product went down. To keep the economy running both new consumers had to be found for the old product & innovation had to happen at a continually faster rate.
New customers mean new areas have to acquire enough income to purchase the more expensive products from the 1st world. 1st world was willing to give up some of their manual labor jobs. They hadn’t thought that the technology had advanced to the point many white collar jobs now could be done anywhere. Yet very little infrastructure was built in these 3rd world countries. Infrastructure allows both the rich & the poor to create product/wealth. Without the creation of wealth by the poor not enough of the of Maslow’s hierarchy of need products are bought from the 1st world to keep the 1st world able to by from these new producers.
Many of the high priced durable goods had to keep their value, because they were leased from the factory. They were considered part of the value of the company. What a company can barrow is based on its value & selling price of its stock. Also the keep the price of these leased vehicles the price of new product had to rise.
With advancing technology cheap energy becomes more of a driving force. At the same time the supply is drying up & more consumers are coming on line. A new supply of energy has to appear.
Renewable Energy Infrastructure makes Renewable Energy more expensive than the energy to produce it. For at least Solar the main cost is the energy to purify the silicon. One has to design the infrastructure in a way that creates sell able spin-off benefits the masses are will to pay for.
In a day when entitlements are taught to the 1st World, most items have to be subsidizing by the government & business. When I talk about what people are willing to pay for, there are main only 3 categories. 1) Comfort/Convenience 2) Recreation 3) Prestige.
Now how does one get the masses to have faith in themselves enough to consume & be innovative to create new wealth? Teaching entitlements is definitely only a way to create criminals. Obama is good at that. One has to be more like JFK & Martin Luther King III, they both ask for the people to be productive & have character.
For regular citizens like myself, I found it difficult to keep up with all of the lingo in today’s discussions on the economy. After reading “The 21st Century Economy—A Beginner’s Guide,” by Randy Charles Epping. I finally feel like I can understand what’s going on in the world economy. Why can’t economists explain this as simply as he does?
the problem is govrnments wants more tax but they does not provides resources for cheap.
energy costs should be decresed.
and oter reson is govs leaving anything to capitalist companies. but they still wants much money.
if they leawes all the work to companies what stays to gov. just secutrity?
governments should make factories and do the work themselve if they wants money.
eg government companies.
but they too will not work.
first thing is security.
not someoneelses secrity.
systems security.
eg somali pirates.
that will make hundreds or much more peoples think international trade is unsafe and useless.
and there is some other securitiy issues too.
for work to be done together ?
stable and trusted international laws.
all the worlds countries follows laws as they hawe income.
if not simply they ignores it.
thats another reason making internatinal trading unsafe.
and hell there is also companis who wants more money put they wants liwest quality costumer can accept.
thats another reason creating a potential for crisis.
and there anther wrong things about that..
How did this government let these banks do such risky business?
I do believe that governments should work together to build some confidence and get the world economy out of this horrible situation.
But there is one thing I hate when governments lower interest rates. The citizens are already suffering from unemployment, and now that the interest rates are so low, how will these people survive?
One simple way to help out the American economy is to Legalize Marijuana.
I completed a huge research paper in 2002 covering the years from 1999-2001 and the results that I attained were crazy.
Here goes, more than half (58%) of the 620,000 individuals in state or federal prisons (not including city or county jails) were in for some form of Marijuana charges.
I am not the smartest man on the planet, but I can tell you that I saw then and there that a whole lot of money was being spent on keeping Marijuana illegal.
Think about half of everything that is needed to keep those inmates in prison and half of the people needed on the streets that put them there. Half of everything spent just to keep a benign substance illegal. Not only that, but you could also tax it. Most marijuana smokers asked during those dates 1999-2001 said that they would be glad to pay taxes so long as they did not get in trouble for “using” their substance.
Many sceptics say that it is the gateway drug. That is just to keep it illegal. If anything is the gateway drug it is alcohol, which by the way has killed more than a million people and counting.
This problem is too important.Because we are all lives in the world ,so need to improve this ecnomic resis.Let’s more than to shopping !!! for exsample,
phi-lip-pin
Dr. Awkward,
We already are controlled by a handful. Wake up and smell the coffee and carbon tax.
kaki
It doesn’t take an economist to figure out how to get through the recession…
The answer? Socialism! Forget investing, refuse to pay your mortgages and leave your homes and join your local communist front! I’m not joking.
1 in 8 people are starving (no lie) here in America and we’ve been crushed by these corporate fat cats and their lackies for far too long. the wealthiest five percent possesses enough money to give every citizen of this country free healthcare, free education, free transportation and the like. Do you guys really want to hold on to an idealistic capitalist system that DOESN’T WORK in the real world? capitalism looks GREAT on paper but this is reality and it clearly hasn’t been working.
and the economy won’t fix itself. it will just appear that way. we’ll just have another “boom” period followed by an even WORSE “bust” period mirroring the great depression if it isn’t happening already. is anyone else fed up with the system as much as I am? socialism IS american!
Instead of asking the government why, read it yourself, read how all the previous causes of economic collapse were a trigger created by wall street, how they took over the government, instead ask yourself why isn’t the Government the one that prints the money but rather the Federal Reserve, which isn’t federal but PRIVATE, find out who are the private bankers that print money out of nowhere and expect us to pay interest, but you can’t find the name of those bankers, why? read it yourself, this isn’t because the way it is, or because we are in a different century, start reading, and no not from fox or cnn.
-How can our governments work together to overcome the global recession?
Shut up, sit down, don’t do anything. That is the best thing they can do. If I’m sick I’m going to go to a good doctor, not government. If my plumbing is clogged I’m going to call a good plumber, not government. If my car isn’t running right I’m going to take it to a good mechanic, not government.
Anyone who thinks government is the solution should consider this. Who created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Who’s rules were they following when they fell on their sword? Where were the House and Senate Banking Committees when AIG and so many others were going down the toilet?
Many people will loose wieght in Crisis and they will become more Healthier and futurs childerns will.
Kaki…I agree. You’re just making my point even more. It’s only going to get worse. I smelled the coffee a long time ago. A real tax revolt is required along with major changes in spending. Make the bureaucrats criminally responsible for wasting tax dollars. There are ways that will work but the Fed will never implement real change. State’s and citizens should take back their power over Washington. They work for us, not the other way around.
Nationalsozialismus did not work in Germany or Russia and will not work worldwide. Yet people keep chanting for more social programs..spread the wealth and bailouts…the World Bank will eventually have everyone working for them and your pay can be directly deposited into their account. You will receive credits to pay for your necessities…all you need is a number. later~Doc
It’s a pity that the bail-outs were not loaned to the citizens of America. As they would surely spend it right back into the economy, and NOT withhold it like the banks are doing!!
Amen.
The banks have to start lending money again. Until then, people will be out of work and small businesses will close down. Remember that the majority of jobs available in the US are in small businesses.
The government should stop the stimulus payments and pass regulations to keep the banks from doing the nasty things they have done to people including interest rate hikes without notice. There were regulations that kept the banks separate from investment firms like Merrill Lynch. The government should reinstate those rules. This is how we got into this mess in the first place.
AND, the people of this country have to become more innovative and find something to sell. The lack of creativity will only get worse because there are so many young people graduating without having a creative education.
Only God can get us through this – rebellion of God is the reason we are in this to begin with!
People having 72 children or more – look at the divorce rate and homosexuality!
God said be fruit full and multiply he didn’t say pollute and overpopulate the earth + be immoral
Protectionism is a product of myopic thinking. The scope of one’s analysis of the problem should be broader than how many leather factory jobs got lost in their town. Its a problem of rules and incentives. Tempting as it may be for the local politician, protectionism still remains to be the “poison” of our economic thinking.
change the value system to quality of life based on health, happiness and healthy natural resources.
if greed where based on this then you would have too much happiness(?) too much health(?) and the natural resources would be too plentiful(?).
so far we have prospered by ideas that made life easier – but that died – then we prospered on stolen wealth that too is dying and we properpered on the depletion and destruction of air, water, land – that too is dying.
so lets try quality, liberty and justice for all based on quality not quantity and most certainly not money.
it is time for a quantum leap of awareness – it can come easy or hard – it is up to us.
no.1, I DO NOT BELIEVE WE ARE IN THAT BAD OF A RECESSION,MONEY MAY BE A LITTLE TIGHT, YES,BUT AN IMMINENT DEPRESSION, NO. I WORK AS A HAIRSYLIST IN A MALL. WE JUST OPENED IN JANUARY AND WE’RE DOING GREAT.IF $25.00 TIPS,FOR A $25.00 HAIRCUT ARE A SIGN OF THE DECLINING ECONOMY, THEN MY CUSTOMERS MUST BE MORE WORRIED ABOUT KEEPING A ROOF OVER MY FAMILY’S HEAD AND FEEDING MY CHILDREN THEN TAKING CARE OF THEIR OWN…HUH? SOUNDS FAMILIAR,DOES’NT IT? I GUESS THE GOVERMENT HAS BRAINWASHED MY CUSTOMERS. SERIOUSLY THOUGH, I THINK THAT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS RECEIVING OUR WELFARE, WORKING UNDER THE TABLE AND AT SLAVE WAGES BECAUSE THEY CRAM THEMSELVES TEN TO TWENTY TO ONE APARTMENT THEN SEND THEIR WELFARE CHECK MONEY OR THEIR UNTAXED WAGES TO FAMILY OVERSEAS DOES’NT HELP US .THEY ARE KILLING US AND SPENDING AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE HERE,SO THEIR (OUR) MONEY IS’NT EVEN CIRCULATING IN OUR COUNTRY.
if thay been honest. payed me for putting out nuclear desatear’s. I could lowered intrest rate’s. but do to thy were dishonnest intreast rate’s go higher. it’s a +llus 10% per insulit. On the $880.0 Trillion thay owe me. this is not a joke.
I smell a rat, and it is a very big one. It is time to knock off the crap.
If you don’t have it it’s up to you. You can’t count on any institutions nor anyone else to help out. With my experiences the last several years, i think it’s time we have the attitude “its every man for themselves.” thats just how it is. We could waste more time speculating, worrying, or calling one another things like “crackheads”, I guess thats ok too. It does take one to know one.!
I am not happy with ads seen on this site
this site has gone over board with not working correctly with Domian Service errors found on this website
I agree with sticking with your local markets not some major melt retail stores that mess up everything
Well Meril Lynn is mortage company – I bet they have stock with you know who the largest retail store check there stock quotes and see if there duing well and you will find out the answers
and know that second that other retail store to do better she steals competion
We need to bring jobs back to our country. The governemnt should put such high taxes on any and all imports that it wouldn’t pay for big companies to have goods made outside of the USA and then import them back in. Also, the companies that do their manufacturing here should get HUGE tax breaks and write-offs. We also need to reinstate the “Ellis Island” approach to immigrants who want to come into our contry. At some point in time we need to start closing our borders, as we can only sustain so many people in this country. We’re running out of room and money.
Governments all over the world should quit subsidizing the rich at the expense of the poor. There should be a standard set for personal income. Here in the U.S. for example, the president is considered the most important person with the most responsibilities. He is paid $400,000 per year. Any corporation which compensates any one person more than that amount should be ineligible for government bailouts, contracts or special tax breaks. The average person now works 3 – 4 months per year just to pay their tax burden. How much of this tax money ultimately goes to enrich the upper class? Putting limits on how much people can enrich themselves at government expense could result in lower costs for the government with the savings either being applied to the national debt or reducing taxes.
The so called “toxic assets” are what is holding everything up. Without them, the economy would quickly heal itself. So whats the problem? Greedy bankers trying to keep their paper assets intact. If the assets were allowed to float on a free and open market. I repeat, free and open- what irony. The one thing they claimed for years to desire, they flee from like stampeding sheep.
As I was saying, if the assets were allowed to float on a free and open market, several of the banks would be bankrupt and deservedly so. They are the ones that foolishly invested in ventures they did not understand. They must bear that responsibility. Allowing them float would give a realistic value to their worth and get them cleared off the books. It would restore the banking system to health and those that failed would enter the receivership system that already exists to reorganize the banks. Credit would once begin flow freely and the debt to posterity would be paid.
I love the ludicrous self-importance of this site. Give me a break.
Everyone keeps bringing up the past on how the recession happened before and how the economy survived it. Also everyone tries to type “big words” on here to make them seem sophisticated. blah blah blah blah blah. It’s the same story all around. I can’t believe we bailed out banks. The same banks that already received the bailout but still continue to charge us high interest rates, bank fees, decreasing lines of credit to whom have never been late and have perfect credit score of 800 plus, the same banks that got us in this bad economy in the first place. What about bailing us out?
They should have just gave everyone a million dollars. That would automatically increase spending. We’d probably be in a better situation by doing that. Rather than being in this current situation.
The question is posed wrong in the first place.
Its wrong to assume government can fix this problem.
The issue is that we have a system that demands exponential growth. This simply isnt sustainable, we will probably get out of this one but the next crises will surely berry out current system.
Im 23, and very attentive to everything thats going on… As far as the bailout goes, i think it is rediculous how they are handling that much money, i wish they would have done more to save the people who are foreclosing on homes, like maybe bailed them out instead of all of those banks, i think they should have let those banks fail, i understand what that means, but i dont think bailing them out was the solution. Maybe they could have taken the trillions of dollars and divided it up between each and every individual from ages 18-55, and given it to them. I think thats only fair considering how much tax we will be paying into that throughout our lifetime, which not to mention wont even touch the principle of the amount owed and also, i think its only fair we see a more direct impact since we will be going down in history for this as the people who let america fail. I think this is only the begining of the worst time in americas history to come.
Maybe we should let the economy die. Look, it only does bad things for humanity.
Not paying our growing debts for decades, it would make sense that this will stab us in the back eventually. Maybe avoiding spending our funds in the Iraqi and Afghan wars, the president could have spent our taxes on more than just the interest of the debts, but the debts themselves.
http://storyofstuff.com/
Sorry, I just had to be a bit conservative over all the liberals.
Well, im going to start practicing my “Eh’s” so I can go north. America has lost its pristine. We will never be prosperous again. The de-regulations of the financial sector ruined our economy. The more and more money the government spends, the more debt we create. Why is that? The government does NOT print it’s own money. The Federal Reserve, a PRIVATE company, not affiliated with the government, prints our money. So, money = debt. We need our government to print our money and not these private company. It blows my mind that we keep bailing out the companies that put us in this. Trillions of dollars, borrowed from the federal reserve. Thats al it is, is borrowing from the reserve, and then handed out to as as currency. We are screwed.
Over and over again…the same ridiculous statements about the economy as if it were not a part of US!!! WE ARE THE ECONOMY and the decision makers of our economic health. There are no magic wands needed to rectify the illgotten and ilegitimate wealth that we have allowed major corporations to receive. Enough with opinions, ideas, and pathetic philosophies…we have always had the answer: We grew successful as a tribe, we will always and only be successful as a tribe!!! There is this individualistic nonsense that America has created as if Bill Gates did it alone, blah, blah, blah…never in the history of America have people been so ignorant about the reason we’re all in this absolute nightmare of a financial mess: IT’S BECAUSE WE HAVE A STUPID POLICY OF BEING INDIVUALISTIC!!! IT’S AN ABHORENT PHILOSOPHY THAT MUST GO. We are a tribe, albeit a very complicated one with many cultures involved in this what I like to call “The Great Experiment” and we’ve done amazing things as Americans, but please, please, please…it’s time to ban together, pick up our less fortunate brethren and realize that only one way will help us out of this mess and prevent future messes, IE; This obsession to be individualistic and we must learn we are a tribe. Yes, a tribe full of many ideas and faults and wisdoms, but we will only succeed as one tribe nevertheless.
Always and forever, please read history and never forget that any PAX period was a period where people got together and worked together to make this happen.
God save us from our insidious need to be left alone and our desire to do it alone. We will never achive the paradise that is so simple to have if we always believe that we as a nation don’t need, and I mean desperately need, community to solve all of our problems. It is the formula for success.
I’m done. Call it overly simplistic, but realize that I’m talking about the first step and BTW not a first step.
Wolfy
Economies naturally go through ups and downs. This just happens to be a big down, which btw follows an economic period that saw the US and the rest of the world economies booming at an unprecedented rate. Naturally we will have a lower low following such a high.
The real problem is that no one in charge has a clue how to fix it – Not Bernanke, Not Obama – none of the so-called financial experts have a plan – Obama has never run a business and Bernanke is an academic, not practiced in real life. We just have to hang in there until the American People pull the economy together, not big brother..
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1687915/an_obama_uaw_and_gm_alliance_to_form.html?cat=3
Bipartisanship!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The economic problem that WE afford (yeap we cannot afford, but we afford=cost next generation) today is in part for the tension that WE inject to a global system that cannot afford more economic tension. Offer and demand, more demand-there is no offer because we get to the pick of the offer or in other words there is no credit for that offer … If WE consume less WE can contribute to lower the impact to the tension of the global economy and of course that tension is to natural source …
when i put out Chernobyl: I won the bet with US DOD.
A trillion to one odd’s at a dubble or nothing. i put up a $220.0 billion for charnobl to go out. It did go out.
the winning should be $880.0 Trillion. Intrest at 10% that’s $880.0 billion per year. on the side bet.
Buy law i have to recive it. first befor it a tickel dowen.
the capitel put in to the paper to do the technogy desine’s come out my owen pockit.
Hey guys!
Well, the economy is a sensitive issue to some, due to the hard problems it made around the world.
But regardless, let me say this:
What do crisis make? A mess, right? And what’s next? battles, wars etc.
Why can’t we live in peace? It’s like a complicated chain>> we have wills> we can’t get them> we fight to get what we want> we ruin our world> there is no peace.
I think that everything can be corrected, if we only wish to do so, and to correct ourselves from INSIDE. Then the outer world would look good as the internality. It’s like psychology, Self convincement..
I think I’ve found a good method to get this, and we still haven’t used this to help ourselves.. check this link out:
http://www.kabbalah.info/eng/content/view/frame/35851?/eng/content/view/full/35851&main
It’s really a worthwhile reading article, I think.