America is heading towards a great depression.

As the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, there is time to rise and time to fall and that the end of America is very near.
President Bush's 700 billion financial bailout plan failed today when congress voted against it which implies the fall of wall street. the fall of wall street generally implies the fall of America. the market is dropping 400 points in every 10 minutes. According to Dow Jones, 162 stocks rose on the NYSE and 3,073 dropped today.. Is this the end of America? Is America heading towards a great depression? Can America remain America for the next ten years? well, i doubt. what do you think?

[Atubiga]

You are right Ben! but let's say America have a second chance here. I heard President Bush immediately signed the bailout plan after the majority of congress members voted for it yesterday. The bailout plan is now in action and let's hope it works. at least that can sustain America for the next couple of years. Both candidates Obama and McCain support this plan and i think it is the best for America in times like this. President Bush did a good job on this one.

[KelseyMN121]

You both give still-president-Bush too much credit on the bail out. It's true he didn't veto it like he could have (should have?) but it is mostly Congress' deal. The Dow isn't dropping hundreds of points every 10 minutes. It IS extremely volatile, however, fluctuating in triple digits every day, both up and down. The US market will be stable again relatively soon. (In economic terms, not normal- so in a month or longer). Economists knew the markets would do this as soon as the low-rate mortgage bubble burst. When the market starts to stabilize, there will be billions pouring into the market to take advantage of the low stock prices. It is because of these investors (many of them average people) that the US economy will bounce back in due time. So, Ahmadinejad will have to check his motor mouth on the demise of the US and their allies in Israel. This game isn't over yet.

[chikoo]

US Dollar are now devalued. Trading in currencies is only one of the abuses. The banks are lending more money than they have. They actually go to the people to persuade them to borrow. Their clients can borrow 100 per cent of the money to buy a house for example.

They need not worry about paying or servicing the loan. The price of the house would appreciate. You may even have a second mortgage. You may even sell at a profit. In the meantime the bank would register the loan and add the projected earnings from interest maybe over 20 years. That done the bank can put all the loans together and sell it to the hedge funds at a discount after adding potential interest.

The more risky the loan the higher would be the interest and the higher would be the profit. The hedge funds which buy the loans can basically sell the mortgages to investors in the fund or to the huge Government financed Federal National Mortgage Association, nicknamed Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation, nicknamed Freddie Mac.

Now the hedge funds and the banks would feel safe and enjoy the huge profits that they have made. But when hundreds of thousands of house buyers find themselves unable to pay simply because they have no money, and could not sell the houses and could not borrow from banks, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would not be able to pay the hedge funds. Then the hedge funds would collapse and drag down the banks with them.

That was simply is what happened.

[technica]

Might be recession is the reason of depression. There was no insurance on money in the bank. The whole world is affected by it not only america. Asians are also affected by it.

[liowkc]

No doubt this economic crisis is a very serious one perhaps more so than the 1997 Asian economic crisis triggered by the devaluation of the Thai Baht. But if history is any guide, I am optimistic that America will bounce back, perhaps not in the short run but within a time frame of 5 to 10 years. And when it recovers, America will be economically stronger.

[boredg]

Yeah this economic crisis is bad. no houses being sold, banks being nationalized. but I believe that America will come through it in the next few years even economically stronger than they were before.

[Right]

I would not agree any less......

In my opinion, America is past its hay days and it is only in very near future that it will see itself on a steep downward slope.

There is a cycle to every phenomena and old giants are replaced by new ones. America's dominance in world economy would soon be replaced by Asian countries.....probably China or India.

Regards,

Right

[ebittner]

I do not think that we are heading towards a depression at all. A recession is just part of the business cycle. You can only go up for so long and we did that for quite some time and now it is time to go down for a bit but things will start to go back up with time. It is just part of the cycle and that is how things work in the United States economy.

[flaco]

If we were heading into a depression, I believe it would be a lot worse by now. This is a temporary recession that is going to cause problems in the short term, however, we will regain some of our strength as a country very soon. Our economy should change with new policies put in place by the new leaders elected and things should begin to work themselves back into a cycle.

[Geminiamp]

America is definately in a recession and could end up in a depression. The problem is it wouldn't just be a problem for us Americans but a problem for most of the world.

Most of the products we buy come from other countries....you could say we are largely dependent upon other countries for the things we use every day from food to gas.

The problem is if our money loses a lot of value or is no good then we aren't going to be buying other countries products any more and a lot of other countries are dependent upon us buying them.

So a depression would be very bad for everyone in my opinion.

[ppcmaniac]

BBen, yes I do believe that America can remain 'America' not only for the next 10 years, but for a long time coming as well.

With Obama giving a press conference today about getting our economy back on track and taking advice from the financial gurus behind the success of the Clinton administration, I wholeheartedly believe that we will get our economy back on track in the coming years.

As far as Ahmadinejad, he says a lot of things. In fact, just yesterday or today even, he wrote a letter congratulating Obama for winning the election. I know he hates America and Bush(name me three foreign leaders who don't), but he can see that change is coming to America and I think he hates America and the 'western evils' just a little bit less now

[Albert]

I would guess that Terrorism and the cost spent on it has drained all resources world wide , especially in the USA. Bush's overspending on terrorism has now lead to this recession and maybe a depression.

[brsonrr]

The way the modern economy work is completely different than it was some 50-100 years back. The modern economy is technologically driven and has huge human resources involved, The financial Markets are driven by huge popluation. The depression is far away. What we are experiening is now is the SLOWDOWN in the economy. it is not DEPRESSION. Yes, we must agree that time plays its own roles. The slowdown may take its own time to put itself into the speed. So it will obviously take time. The 19th Century was dominated by British, The 20th Century was dominated by Americas. Now its 21st Century and INDIA is going to dominate the century. India wil be the super power nation by the year 2050.

[Walker]

American economy does seem to be in doldrums...at least as of now....

The flawed economic policy persuaded by it leaders are mainly to be the culprit.
There is practically very less savings done by majority of its people and they have somehow trusted themselves to live on borrowed money.

Of course, social security available to everybody is partly to be blamed since it has made people not to worry about their future and people end up spending more than what they earn.

Too much leveraging has definitely spelt doom on its economy.

Regards,

Walker

[Marth]

Sounds like the Iranian president is the only one at this point in major politics that has a realistic view. This American debt & all of our consumption will catch up to us & we are starting to see the effects of this. We spend so much on our departments such as the FDA & department of education currently.