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US Has Been In Recession Since December 2007
The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the US has been in a recession since December 2007. The NBER is a private, nonprofit research organization of academic economists who determine business cycles. The stock market took a dip on the news that reached double-digit percentages for some tech stocks.
step aside intel 45 nanometer chipset, cloaking materials, telepathic controllers, and internet technology....its time for an economic recession story from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
you nerds can thank us later after you're done spending your way to patriotastic victory over the stock plunge and housing crisis.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Sure they are more accurate but they are mixing up precise esoteric terms with the 'generally understood' terms.
People understand what the general term means in terms of their daily lives and for them "recession" is bad. What started in 2007 it wasn't "bad" for the ordinary Joe - in fact a recovery might have occurred and we'd never have known about it. Now that it's the 2 quarters of negative growth thing, it's a real recession.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
As long as there is a Republican president in the white house, the press will do everything in their power to convince the populace that we are all doomed.
As soon as Obama takes office, prepare for the heralds to sing: The recession is over! We are winning in Iraq! Global warming has reversed!
As far as the "recession" goes, if history is any indicator we only have a few months of it left anyway. All we need now is a few executives being charged with various crimes to appease the masses and life will go on.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
It's sort of like a junkie being asked diagnostic questions like "Where does it hurt?" by a doctor who is prescribing him opiates.
Seastead this.
Since the only growing industries seem to have been weapons and war, it's only natural that when you take the influence of government debt out of the picture, the economy has been shrinking for a long time.
There are some people who think you can replace economic growth in the private sector with economic growth in the public sector and it's the same thing. That may be true in Soviet Russia, but in the free world, pork financed with debt is an inflationary measure that doesn't increase the actual size of the economy.
What's worse, this 3.4% growth in the economy financed by debt is going to cause a cascade plunge. Right now we're like a family using debt to pay off debt (the growth in the national debt is equal to the money spent maintaining the current debt). What always happens in cases like these is the debt supply runs out, and the family goes bankrupt. If you think we're seeing hard times today, just wait. Paying back this 10 trillion is going to send the US back to the stone age by comparison.
It's been a long time.
Recessions are a normal part of the capitalist business cycle. Recessions wash out excesses in the system by shaking out inefficient companies, thus clearing the way for new competitors, and they work to keep supply and demand in sync over the long term.
[...] recessions are considered a normal part of a capitalist economy [...]
Etc.
As for your assumptions about Bush:
1. I didn't vote for Bush.
2. I voted for Obama.
So it's kind of funny you just called me "one of the last hard core republicans" when I'm anything but. What I don't like is hypocrisy and the one-sidedness of always only blaming one political party or one President -- whether it's Clinton and the Democrats or Bush and the Republicans -- for whatever ill is at hand. For the current economic situation, we had unprecedented political opportunism: it was politically expedient and beneficial for some liberals to push the notion that we're in really bad shape, even rolling out the Great Depression talk, and that Bush (and all the other things you hate about Bush, like the war!) is to blame for it.
There are so many contributing factors that it would be ridiculous to assert that economic decisions made in the current administration in the last 8 years have nothing to do with it. But at the same time, it's equally ridiculous to put blinders on to the incredible irresponsibility and shortsightedness of the decisions with regard to sub-prime lending in the name of getting people into homes. We never fully paid the piper for the internet bubble collapsing, and a lot of that, on a large scale, was parlayed into a booming housing market (and artificially created, so some extent, because of changes encouraged in lending practices).
If people spent money they had
The economy would not be so bad.
Our god's Mr. Gekko,
The White House a wreck. Oh,
Responsibility! You're merely a fad!
Where did anyone attack Bush for this?
DO you watch any television news at all? Read a newspaper lately? A news magazine? Even a quick glance will reveal to you that he and his administration are being blamed. You obviously read Slashdot and I assure you he has been blamed here for the economy, along with everything else bad that has happened since he took office.
my relatives that don't have high paying jobs are having to pawn stuff and as my friend's fathers become unemployed.
Nice anecdote. I'm past suprise in finding a liberal offering up information intended to generate an emotional reaction rather than inform. Jobs have been lost in every year and under all economic circumstances.
economists like Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan can make money off this. So can Buffett and Soros and Bush and Cheney and Gates and everyone else involved in it. Why is it that we blindly accept advice from people who have spent their entire lives amassing fortunes that most of us can't even imgine? As if they suddenly decided to stop looking for angles that would allow them to leverage their weay past the next guy so they can further fill their already full pockets, as if they suddenly decided to give back, developed some concern for the people you allude to above who've lost their jobs and had to sell their possessions.
How many of the people who supported the bailout also support raising taxes on their income group to pay for it?
If that consumption is financed by mortgage debt and the housing boom - which is not included in GDP calculations, I have to wonder about these numbers that economists throw around. Sure we technically haven't been in recession because the numbers are skewed that way. What if we did include new housing? We'd be showing a huge decrease in output. Why aren't we including housing in the GDP number? Many of these measurements are created based on consensus and for political reasons. They are not based on any physical laws.
If healthcare was included in the inflation calculations, we would have double digit inflation. But that wouldn't be good for the Government and corp America because all the benefits that they pay (Social Security, Veterans benefits, etc... ) would have to increase dramatically.
How does it go again? Figures don't lie but liars can figure?
For a lot of Joes, the economy hasn't been right since about the 5th to 7th year of that long period where minimum wage froze. For other Joes, it really hit about the time they were asked to pay for the whole 'End of the Cold War Peace Dividend' - for example the incredibly filthy trick played on the Airline Pilots Unions. (Don't know why banning the strike and busting the union led to the shortages of pilots, technicians and even air traffic controllers we see today? Then why are you commenting on economics?). People have been getting screwed over since Cain couldn't get a jury trial. This time, it's just about everybody reading this thread.
Who is John Cabal?
Not quite. Even if people don't spend the handouts on good or services, that money goes into the financial businesses as investments or debt repayments. That's billions going to those that can lend to people and businesses. So unless people put it under the mattress, the money does get back into the system one way or another.
It's time to stop the bailouts and put that money into the peoples' hands. To date, we're looking at around $25,000 per person in the US. Put that into the hands of the people instead of failed or corrupt companies, and the economy will go nuts. People will make huge holes in the debts, buy cars and a stack of other things. Cash will be flowing like never before and ultimately it'll end up back in the govt's pockets via taxes.
Not to stir the conspiracy pot, but I find it odd that we've been in a recession for a year, but we only hear about it a month after an election. One could postulate that the administration worked very hard to keep this announcement quiet in order to not look worse.
Up until a few months ago, the republicans have been saying the economy is strong and NOT in a recession. OK, so now they lose, and we find out the truth.
It could be innocent timing, but given the record of this administration I suspect it was known for some time.
Our entire economy, since we've moved from the gold standard in the 70's to a pure fiat based monetary system is still entirely, 100% based on faith. Your money has no value other than what other people think it's worth.
Of course, you can't say that the financial industry is much the same, that all these speculators add nothing, are fluff. But that is what happened, we had the financial industry fluffing itself up by selling itself its own products over and over again. This whole mortage reselling would be similar to Ford and Chrysler (apologies if they are the same) buying each others cars over and over and counting that as total production. The financial industry obtained a far larger share of the total market then it really is supposed to have. It worked because everyone believed it, believed that Wall Street really is important. It isn't.
Then it collapsed, people did indeed loose fate. Somewhere someone burst the bubble. What we got now is not so much a reccesion, as a re-appreasal. We now got to decide what exactly the role of the financial industry is supposed to be. Is it a service industry to the rest of the industry (exactly like say a cleaning company is a service industry) or is everyone else in the service of the financial industry.
It is a mistake to assume that the current financial clusterfuck is because of bad mortgages or a bubble burst (we didn't have any serious issues with the Dot Com bubble). The bad mortgages are nothing but the trigger to two serious underlying problems:
(1) Most people in western countries live beyond their means.
(2) But most importantly: Credit Default Swaps.
The current financial situation is due mostly to [banks/investment firms/everyone and their dogs] betting on the failure of different entities. This is all due because of Credit Default Swaps are totally unregulated and they are a speculator's wet dream. The current house of CDS cards of about 50+ trillion $ (yes, trillion) is crumbling. First wave was MBIA and other bond insurers being downgraded by rating firms. This immediately triggered a metric fuckton of CDS collateral calls. Bear Stearns and Merill go under (well, saved last minute). Freddie and Fannie get bailed out, this immediately calls for another round of collateral calls. This second wave caused the collapse of Lehman, the nationalization of AIG and the massive cash infusion into Citi. If either big auto makers goes down, prepare for the worse. Oh and Goldman Sachs has started to write down bad assets too, no bank is safe.
This all thanks to speculators betting on companies with their unregulated toys: the Credit Default Swaps. It has nothing to do with believing or not in a system or losing faith in Wall Street. It's all about making a bunch of really bad bets without having cash on hand to cover the losses. And now that the bets are lost, it's time to pay. But t here is no money ...
From an interview with James K. Galbraith:
But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and youâ(TM)re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis?
Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.
What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?
Itâ(TM)s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/magazine/02wwln-Q4-t.html?_r=1
Why are these people still employed and why does anyone listen?
This is all a lie! You can't trust statistics or facts. Where there is money, there is wealth.... at least so I am told. Just look at the government's own numbers for the number of dollars in the economy (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE Federal Reserve) - they have created $650billion more dollars in the last three months effectively increasing the total number of dollars in the economy by only 61%. Wealth has nothing to do with the goods in the economy, only the number of pieces of paper exchanged as currency.
I say the only way to create more stuff is to let the government print more money. Just think how much better everyone will be.... you know.... when everyone is a millionaire.
Bottom line - we boned.
A pyramid scheme only works when the people involved have faith in the system. Also, when a pyramid scheme collapses it is only the ones at the top who get to make for the hills with all the cash. Perpetuating a system that is designed specifically to move money to the top then allows them to fuck off with it leaving everybody else in the shit is not acceptable in a supposedly democratic state. Boom and Bust benefits only those at the top. Occasionally a few others might catch the wave and get out before it breaks but they really are in the minority.
I have great difficulty taking seriously, any system that regards continuous growth as a given state of affairs. Nothing is infinite, so that growth has to come from some other part of the budget. As we have recently seen, what happens is growth is fuelled by debt, which ultimately collapses, resetting the "growth" clock which then allows future "growth". Increasing the money supply is not growth if it is borrowed from somewhere else. Especially if it is borrowed from me, then pissed up the wall leaving me worse off.
In short, capitalistic systems going through boom and bust are only normal and accepted by those who have a vested interest in allowing them to collapse. Real growth requires that you hold on to what you've got and build, not place your bets, follow the lady.
Or do you deny the markets are a gamble ?
When the bank puts my mortgage up because they're short of money, how is that my fault ? Do we allow the addicted gambler to forcibly take funds from people just to cover his debts ? That is one abusive relationship.
We're still seeing the effects of the blasted internet bubble when stocks went sky-high on nothing but pipe dreams. Well it aint going to be a recession until the market drops below 1995 levels, where it finally broke the 4000 mark on Feb 23, 1995 according to http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/index.cfm?event=showavgstats
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
That is one of the great benefits of internet, people have the opportunity to critize, discuss and have some fun without fear of persecution.
I suppose you are in favour of bravely writing your name on the ballot every time you vote as well?
As many "experts" have explained, right about the time we finally admit to the recession it usually is the start of the recovery.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Christmas, like Halloween, father/mother/grandma/grandpa days, are commercial inventions, fake joy and fake happiness destined to make you shell out your hard-earned money
Well, I agree with you that all those holidays have been made commercial (the recent death due to Black Friday shows only how much), there *is* actually a true meaning behind Christmas. Whether you celebrate it (or even believe in it) is up to you. But, some people (myself included) appreciate the holiday for that reason and try not to let the commercialism of the season get them down.
That's great, unless I'm 65 and expected to live on the money I get from selling my house, moving to an apartment, and liquidating my investments. The stock market, had I got in 10 years ago and invested in a safe S&P 500 index fund, has done absolutely nothing. Zero return in ten years. Ten years is pretty close to "long term" in my book.
Which is why all the retirement lit I've seen strongly recommends redistributing assets as you get closer to retirement - the closer you are, the more your should be in "cash". Generally you should have 5 year "buffer". There are even funds that do that automatically in 401K's. So actually if you're 55, you don't have 10 more years in the market, its more like 5. Except now with the market tipsy turvy, not a good idea to sell low, which is why you have this 5 year "buffer". Of course if our problems continue after 5 years...and will things even recover to what was before after that time... Well I agree, it sucks.
Should'a sold a couple years ago so I wouldn't have to keep going up hill both ways.
Now get off my lawn!!!!
I hate to point out the obvious (at least to me):
The stock market ... safe S&P 500 index fund
There's no such thing as safe when you're dealing with the market. You may beat the trend by diversifying, but it's far from "safe." If you wanted to be safe, you'd be purchasing real estate and other tangible assets as well. Money can vanish overnight. Most land will still be there tomorrow, in ten years, and even 100 years. If you do it wisely, you could even retire by owning farmland, selling off parcels of land each year, or even renting if you want to go that route. Hire a farmer to plant and harvest it and you'll get a nice check each year. Pay off your taxes and you still have a very good quantity of money left over. My parents have been doing this for years. They take the money they get from the farms and turn it over on more land.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I am incredibly far from knowing anything about economics and the housing market in general, but I'd like to see if the gist of what I picked up is more or less right, so I'll give it a shot...
There wasn't any money actually lost - it's that banks were trading CDSs and assuming that they had great value, when now everyone realized that they have absolutely no value. It seems like the bailout is giving those banks the money they thought they had so that they can continue business as usual.
Someone please correct me if (where) I'm wrong or oversimplifying something.
Even if GP wasn't referring to it, some of us like to celebrate the secular meaning of Christmas: peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. While I think we should practice these ideals EVERY day, it's nice to have a holiday that celebrates and reminds people of these things explicitly.
You don't have to get behind that; nobody's forcing you. But you shouldn't try to disparage those of us that DO find happiness through it. It's just not the Christmas spirit =)
That it is, a "rule of thumb", the offical definition of a recession is when the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) business cycle dating committee agrees that there is (was) a recession, and they have now agreed to that. This is the definition which also showed that the Bush1.0 Gulf War 1.0 recession ended more than a year before newly elected Bill Clinton was elected and took credit for the recovery. And the "y2k" recession began before Bush2.0 was elected to take the blame. (That being said, his and the fed's management of that recession and the 9/11 "recession" has certainly created more long-term damage to the economy than either Clinton or the two Bush's could ever do on their own.) NBER's claim that we've been in a recession is akin to your doctor pointing out that you have a hangnail after you've been beheaded. For a look at some real scary statistics, at the St. Louis Fed's Net Free or Borrowed Reserves of Depository Institutions numbers going back to 1950 or Excess Reserve of Depository Institutions going back to 1925. or The Adjusted Monetary Base going back to 1910. Or any of several other monetary statistics that are several black swan SD's away from their multigenerational mean.
Bush's Treasury chairman Paulson and Bernanke have engineered a truly astounding experiment in monetary policy topped only by Robert Mugabe's 10^21% hyperinflationary monetary policies. The economy has enough inertia that we will see 1-5 years of deflation or disinflation as the "imagined" debt money supply virtually disappears, leaving too many goods chasing too few dollars. But the medium/long term effect is inflation, because only currency printing presses and inflation can reduce a debt brought on by a mad government and personal debt fueled spending spree that powered the economy for at least a decade.
They invested in real estate backed by a banker with a virtually unlimited wallet and no moral standing. The bank was handing out credit and money to people that couldn't afford it. When investing in land (especially if you plan on living on it) you better go over the costs yourself instead of believing the bank selling you the mortgage that is "cheaper than renting!" If you make an educated investment in real estate that you know you can afford, it can be a very lucrative ordeal. Your S&P fund is putting money in someone else hands. You have no idea if they will spend YOUR money on carrots or cats. You only have their performance and faith in their systems. When you lose their faith due to mal-investment many others will too, sell off, and the value of that investment drops like a rock.
Real estate can be VERY safe if you do the research and run the figures. In a way, real estate is like the market. If you go into it thinking you will make millions easily and quickly you are looking to be ripped off and disappointed. However, if you go into it right, it's an asset that can't vanish because of loss of faith. It's still there, waiting to be used or sold.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
When it's so easy to game the numbers, why not redefine the numbers?
It's like looking at the people with $500k sub-prime mortgages and concluding they must be rich.
They're not rich at all. The sort of house you live in was once a good indicator of wealth, but then the metrics changed and you could get a massive mortgage by lying about your income, and suddenly the indicator become meaningless.
Similarly, the US government in the past 8 years has spent at a greater (inflation adjusted) rate than any time since WWII. That's a significant portion of the economy dominated by the federal Government borrowing money. It may not be the intended effect, but this has the effect of "gaming" the system in that increases in federal spending and borrowing offset a private-sector recession. Since this isn't Soviet Russia, the public sector can't simply offset the private sector like that.
It's been a long time.
I agree with your math, but it is the $700 billion figure is not accurate. Try $8.3 trillion thus far. That would move your figure to around $30,000 a head.
There's plenty of blame all around.
When someone signs a contract, it is their responsibility to carry through on that contract, and their fault if they don't. Poor/rich...I really don't care.
So from the banks that loaned vastly more than they should, all the way down to the "poor schmoe" who bought into a mortgage that he couldn't afford...they all are to blame.
What I don't like is that all of them are now coming to me asking for money. I didn't do nothing, but apparently a democracy means that reckless can take take what they want from rest of us.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
While I agree largely that much of this was from those weird, unregulated repackaging of debt...you're saying that the 100's of thousands of defaulted home loans, the severe (in some areas) devaluation of property, has nothing to do with the possible pending recession?
I know it takes two to make a contract (ie for a mortguage), the lender should never have been giving out loans to risky people to begin with (and yes, I do believe CRA and that type of push by government and private groups did have a lot to do with it). The 'poor' buyers have responsibility too. If they were stupid to read and understand exactly what someone was trying to sell them...well, everyone in the US has a right to be stupid, but, responsibility for ones actions, even stupid ones, should and do fall upon that same individual. I truly feel for anyone losing their home, but, it is a fact of life that this happens....and if the only way someone could afford to own a home, was to essentially take a crap shoot gamble on a loan that COULD go too high, well, you gotta take the consequences of the gamble. I feel however, there is HUGE fault with the banks and brokers for giving these gambling opportunities in the first place. I'm sorry...but, there is not an inherit human right to own a home, it has to be earned, and you should only get what you can afford.
I can see some silver lining in all this. First, housing values are correcting from the insanely overvaluation they had in recent years. They will be now affordable to good credit and good credit risk purchasers.
And housing loans will once again be a bit harder to get in order to make sure that only risk worthy people get them. Go back to the old way...20% down, good credit score...steady job/income...you get a home loan....one that is within your budget to pay.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
>>The Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with the subprime crisis
Don't believe the hype. I've read that article before (or a close enough cousin to it), and found it to be not just wrong, but deceptively so.
To wit, it's points are:
1) The CRA is a well-respected law that's been on the books since 1977.
That's a whopper. What it doesn't say is that it was a limited program until the Clinton administration rewrote and expanded it in 1995. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act)
Claiming that it's been "on the books since 1977" is deceptive. The CRA as we know it was started in 1995 under the Clinton Administration.
2) CRA doesn't require loans to be made, to minorities or anyone else.
Hugely deceptive. Banks make loans, and the CRA requires loan making to follow diversity targets (including neighborhood, income, and race) which include forcing banks to make loans to low-income populations that they would prefer to avoid. This means the CRA forces banks to make bad loans.
(I mean, sure, technically, a bank could just choose not to make any loans at all, but then the CRA would be shutting down banks from lending entirely, which would be worse. I think that's how they're trying to weasel out of that claim.)
The CRA requires banks to write reports on how they're achieving diversity targets with their loans, and exposes banks to lawsuits if they do not meet diversity targets. Let me rephrase: If banks do not make loans to poor people they would not otherwise give a loan to, they will be sued by someone -- like Obama, who sued Citibank for not issuing enough bad loans.
3) CRA only applies to federally-regulated banks and thrifts whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Sure. Maybe a zillion non-CRA bad loans were made. What difference does it make?
This does not excuse the CRA forcing banks to make bad loans.
4) Federally-regulated banks, which are covered by CRA, have operated under more supervision, and therefore the failure rate for mortgages made by those institutions has been significantly lower
Deceptive again. What difference does bad loans made by others make?
Even before the housing meltdown, CRA loans had much higher default rates, and lower profitability than other loans. Here's a report from the Fed in 2000: http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/Commentary/2000/1100.htm
CRA default rates are much higher than normal mortgage default rates, and securitized CRA loans, pioneered by Wachovia and Bear Stearns (sound familiar?) are some of the premiere poison assets that congress then wanted to bail out.
Why did we get securitization in the first place? Because banks could meet their CRA targets by making a bad loan and then passing it off to someone else. Why did these securitized loans have higher default rates? Because banks issuing the loans didn't have to bear the risk for them any more. why did securitized loans have a high credit rating? Because banks normally bore the risk of the loans they issued, so the default rate was lower. It sounds like a circular argument, but the base engine for the entire mess was the CRA.
CRA only applies to designated low-income neighborhoods
Why, yes. Yes, it does. And it tries to do away with traditional checks on bad loans, like "low income" and "credit history" in the loans it forces banks to make. Like I said, bad loans made elsewhere are irrelevant... unless one claims (and with some evidence, too) that the subprime craze was triggered by the CRA forcing banks into bad loans, and thus pioneering vehicles to deal with such loans, which were then used in non-low-income neighborhoods, since they were an easy source of money.
I also lived within my means. I was going to buy a house 2-3 years ago, but didn't because I saw the writing on the wall. I figured when the collapse came, I could buy a house at probably less than half of current prices. I saved and lived frugally and hoped to be rewarded for that foresight. But that hasn't happened.
Instead, I now have over $2000 of new national debt in my name, housing prices have been propped up artificially, and that much more of my taxes are going into the toilet for others irresponsibility instead of doing real work for roads, schools, new companies, etc. And with a moratorium on foreclosures, it makes me wish I had gone out an lived stupidly.
And now we're about to do it again for automakers who haven't been competitive in years. Bloated with poor products, union handcuffs, and an apathy worthy of the name 'fat lazy American', we're about to enter a world of US automakers that are just as wonderful as our airline industry that goes bankrupt every 5-10 years and a lovely cycle of restructuring and dollar stocks. GM is now worth less than Nestle.
Everyone likes to talk about Obama's plans just like the 'new deal' but it's not the same. When you lose 10 years of investing in 6 months - the 'long term' is starting to showing its true colors. We're using new debt to pay off old debt and this can't go on. We're in uncharted waters. What's the answer? I don't know - I think we've done the best we can. We'd have had a real 1929 this year if the govt hadn't stepped in. But it's not sustainable. I personally am thinking long and hard how to get my long-term investments out of the US. As it is, we'll likely find ourselves in the same 'lost decade' Japan did when it's housing bubble burst. 10 years of no real growth while we pay off debt (yes, we're being much more proactive, but it's very likely the pattern we'll follow). Meanwhile everyone else walks out your investment doors and when you are open for business again - it's all moved on. I'm thinking China is looking better now - which has a national *savings* rate of over 50% as a better bet with people that know how to make money and keep it with real products.
A final note for those of you that like pointing fingers - point them all at ourselves on this one equally. Yes, the loan companies were out of control - but you know what - so were all of us. This wasn't Enron sitting on a hill - this was each of us living beyond our means.
Tell average Joe that he's losing *his* job because *you* run up so much debt and had to be bailed out. Because that's the hard truth.