Because of our current economic crisis, consumers having been cutting way back on their spending. However, as we discussed in class, for the economy to regenerate, people will need to start spending again to reestablish the economy. This causes a problem though, because people do not have the money to spend, and do not have enough credit to keep borrowing money. According to this article from The Wall Street Journal, consumer spending on technology has decline 3.8% this year, the largest drop it has seen in years. Experts say it will be a prolonged recovery for the industry. They expect the downturn to slow no time before 2010. The hardest area hit was personal computers, with sales down almost 20%. The technology industry is not the only industry suffering. In response to the crisis, the U.S. government new budget proposal has "to close a record two-year deficit of $17.7 billion, they say, the budget contains a combination of $5.2 billion in spending cuts, $5.2billion in new taxes, $1.1 billion in nonrecurring revenue and the use of $6.2billion in federal stimulus money"(article). Critics are going crazy over this plan. Similar to the video we watched in class where the the critic blamed the government for our current economic situation, critics are trying to raise public awareness. Senate minority leader Dean Skelos said of the budget, "These numbers are absolutely staggering, and the height of irresponsibility on the part of the Democrat leadership in this state. The public should be outraged." Everyone is looking for a scapegoat to blame the economic crisis on, a reoccurring theme in hard times, as was seen in the Depression letters. The government seems like the most obvious things to place the blame on because they have so much power. As the 12-year-old boy said in reference to the goverment in letter (E) from the packet, "I don't know why they [the government] won't help us." Everyone wants to be "bailed out"of this economic situation, but how is that going to correct the economy?
2 comments:
It's true-it seems to be very easy during times like these to try and blame the government for all our problems and just sit and wait around for them to fix it. The problem is though that they can't fix it by themselves, they need the people of America to go out and spend to keep the economy going. It's an unfortunate coincidence (although actually not really a coincidence at all) that exactly when people are trying to save as much as they can, what the country needs is for them to do the exact opposite.
The economic crisis is such a chaotic situation, and very much confusing to everyone experiencing it. While people are being told to spend money to help the economy, they are also being told to save as much as they can. I think I agree more with the idea to continue saving money. If people get the idea to spend, they end up spending more than they have. They also develop bad habits, and continue to lose money they could be saving. It makes sense that with such confusion, people become lost and try to find someone to blame. The first place people point the the finger at is the government.
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