Zuckerman: Bush Recession barely begun - 3/08

[valglass12]

What are all the libs complaining about? This got Obama elected POTUS. They make it sound like the recession was counterproductive. I would think in liberal circles that Sep. 15 is a national holiday.

[genYprogressive]

Only in America can someone as stupid and ignorant as Mort Zuckerman can get so rich.

Yeah Mort I got some prime real estate for you. Next to the Baghdad airport at the shooting range for Depleted Uranium Wepons, you should go there and take a drink of the ground water.

[BI30]

Mort was pretty stupid thinking in March of 2008 that the Bush recession wouldn't be over by now. What an idiot. /snark

[genYprogressive]

I was talking about his foreign policy views. He has been called a expert on foreign policy when every single prediction he has made there was wrong. I am sure Mort can afford good enough consultants to tell him what to put money in.

[xukeith33]

Horrible editing and reporting. SPIN. Where is TRUTH?

[BI30]

Considering that this video is over 16 months old, pre-TARP and pre-Bailout, and was already predicting the disastrous Recession to come, I'd say your sense of "spin" vs "truth" is a bit off.

[JohnnyRock2000]

The narrator said that Zuckerman blamed some of this on "hundreds of billion", that the wars cost. I heard no such thing.

[innyopti]

What about the Obama stupidity that you lost your zillion $'s with- when will it end??

[A86]

"What about the Obama stupidity that you lost your zillion $'s with"

Investing in workers and consumers (the backbone of any economy of any type) getting back on their feet is "stupid"? What would you Republicans suggest instead? Another $1.4 Trillion bailout for banks and corporate America? Another $3 Trillion in god awful tax cuts (we see where tax cuts got us - the current recession) like the Republicans proposed as an alternative to the stimulus?

[antiiraqwar]

mort sucker-man! he won't be able to slush fund aipac anymore!

[Edenglaender]

Come on guy´s! - keep it upbeat!

When Japan faced recession meltdown a few years ago, they (the Gov) organised 0% interest rates and encouraged everyone to go have a big big spend...

[maximumvalues]

the carrot was dangled and every american bunny went for it. now they must eat thier own! this will be interesting to watch.

[JohnR22926]

Yeah, the lending institutions got greedy and they should NOT be bailed out.

But, lets admit the borrowers got greedy too. I know a number of people that went for APR loans to get that monthly mortgage payment down...so they could buy a bigger house. They bought more house than they could afford and they KNEW it. They KNEW those rates were eventually going up.

Also, lets stop gibbering about people being thrown out of their homes. All they'll do is downsize to something more affordable.

[TheRealCritique]

Zuckerman is a hypocrite. He says nothing on the PBS newsshows he appears on, and now he says the recession will last a long time. This guy is also the biggest patsy for Israel, center of insanity in the world. Establishment dumbass. I hope he loses his shirt.

[33115566]

It's confounding. A definite recession while the government reports positive GDP growth in the 1st quarter.

[BI30]

"Negative" GDP is actually quite difficult to achieve. You'd have to produce (net) "less than nothing" to have "negative GDP". Business's borrowed less because there was lower demand for their products. No need to borrow money for materials when your products aren't selling. So they instead sold off existing inventory, resulting in positive GDP.

[rlink73]

What!?! The country is not exporting. The administration is grossly spending BILLIONS in the war. Businesses borrowed less because the U.S. dollar is worth about four cents. There is no purchasing power. Look at the Euro compared to the U.S. dollar. We should be greatly embarassed!

[Stan1208]

I watched CNBC today and the stock market is doing well, the earnings reports are good, and the country is safe and free. I think we are doing pretty well.

[BI30]

Oil closed at $117 a barrel today. Gas hit $3.38/gal, pushing food prices higher. Airlines are going bankrupt because of it. The mortgages crisis rages on while brokerages seek billion dollar bailouts from the government. Unemployment continues to rise while the value of the dollar continues to plummet. That stock market that's doing so well is a mere 1100 points higher now than it was eight years ago in January of 2000. On the plus side, gold is back below ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS AN OUNCE. Yea!

[Stan1208]

And with all the terrible problems you just named, we still have plenty of food, water, clothing. We still have the highest standard of living in history. We still drive nice cars and have hospitals on every corner. We still have 5000 different kinds of bread to choose from at the myriad of stores we still have. What do you want? This aint heaven its earth.

[BI30]

No one has argued that the U.S. has turned into a 3rd world nation overnight. But today's generation will be the first in history not to live better than their parents. "Plenty of food/water/clothing" assumes you can afford it. With rising prices and a sinking dollar, fewer and fewer can. My "nice car" is 9 years old and I can't afford a new one, which means fewer car sales and a UAW worker is loosing his job. How safe am I with OBL still alive and a nuclear Pakistan in chaos? And if I get sick?

[pholland]

I'm no Bush fan but I agree with Stan - we've never had it better than we do now. During the Great Depression people waited in lines for hours just to be able to buy bread. Today they wait in lines for hours to drop $500 on the newest iphone - something not even the richest of Americans could afford 5 years ago. How many people had laptops 25 years ago? Air conditioning? Cable TV? Internet connections?

[BI30]

You certainly set the bar low with: "better than the Great Depression".

People stood in ridiculously long lines to get Windows95 and the first XBOX as well. That's not an indicator of economic health. It's an indicator of "effective marketing". What *didn't* people buy to save up for that iPhone?

A/C has been around since the 60's. Cable TV, the 70's. They were in nearly every household 25 years ago, but electric costs have many doing without this year. And thank Gore for your Internet.

[pholland]

In no way did I mean to set the bar so low; quite the contrary, because we in fact live in the wealthiest time in our nation's history. If people have the disposable income to afford things like needless video games and tiny communication devices that let you surf the web, I think that is most certainly an indicator of economic health. This is America - people are free to choose what to buy; you can't "effectively market" something if the people don't want/can't afford it in the first place.

[BI30]

This is hardly "the wealthiest time in our nations history". In case you hadn't notices, we are on the verge of the second recession of the Bush Presidency. While *some* people have the disposable income for luxury items, that number is smaller today than it's been in the last 28 years.

How many people whose homes are in foreclosure do you think were in those long lines for iPhones? "Long lines for luxury items" doesn't equal "widespread prosperity". Often it's just "scarcity" for that item.

[LetItFloat]

Financial difficulties coming are the result of careless lending tactic and greedy corporate bosses. I think it is better to let those finacial institutions sink and their assets and holdings will be absorbed by the poor and low income earners they set out to target. Bailing them out is wrong.

[bryanao]

"Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

E.Burke

[quicksite]

Thank you for clipping this video... The importance is that it is "packaged" for American consumption -- that is, about 2 minutes long, and no longer -- in order to withstand our incredibly short attention spans.

This is the kind of thing you have to pluck out from the daily onslaught news-stream -- and set it up on a top shelf and say: Play this again. And really tune in. Pay attention. And don't expect some new news announcement tomorrow, or from Almighty Decider, to eliminate the crisis.