Economy

elleng

(130,973 posts) Tue Dec 30, 2014, 03:23 PM Dec 2014

Greenspan Throws a Wet Blanket on Hopes for Growth Breakout. video

Just when you thought the U.S. economy was roaring back to health, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is here to tell you otherwise.

“The United States is doing better than anybody else, but we’re still not doing all that well,” Greenspan, 88, said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop” with Betty Liu. “We still have a very sluggish economy.”

Greenspan said the economy won’t fully recover until American companies invest more in productive assets and the housing market bounces back.

“Almost all of the weakness in the last four, five, six years has been in long-lived investments” in capital goods and real estate, Greenspan said. “Until these pick up, we’re not going to get the kind of vibrant growth that everyone is hoping for.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-30/greenspan-throws-a-wet-blanket-on-hopes-for-u-s-growth-breakout.html

3 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Greenspan Throws a Wet Blanket on Hopes for Growth Breakout. video (Original Post) elleng Dec 2014 OP

Seems realistic to me yeoman6987 Dec 2014 #1

I agree. elleng Dec 2014 #2

What's unrealistic is that he seems to have no clue how to go about it. Warpy Dec 2014 #3

yeoman6987

(14,449 posts)

1. Seems realistic to me

Reply to elleng (Original post)

Tue Dec 30, 2014, 03:43 PM

Dec 2014

We are doing ok but not great. I don't think we are in great shape.

elleng

(130,973 posts)

2. I agree.

Reply to yeoman6987 (Reply #1)

Tue Dec 30, 2014, 03:46 PM

Dec 2014

Among other things, need infrastructure and minimum wage improvements.

Warpy

(111,274 posts)

3. What's unrealistic is that he seems to have no clue how to go about it.

Reply to yeoman6987 (Reply #1)

Tue Dec 30, 2014, 07:16 PM

Dec 2014

He's still got those top-down economic blinders on, which means he doesn't have a clue that his policies have choked off the demand side completely and where there is no demand, there is going to be no recovery.

He still thinks Hoover was right and that if manufacturers produce it, people will snap it right up. Well, the supply side pipeline is stuffed and has been for years. The demand side is completely tapped out, especially young people carrying a mountain of student loan debt, and unless that is addressed by raising wages considerably and accepting the inflation that will come with the kind of wage rise that is necessary, we will continue to have an economy that punishes labor and rewards indolence at the top.

That is no way to get an economic recovery. Greenspan just can't see it.

Reply to this discussion