Inflation or recession? Give us your perspective

its arecession and everyone is afraid to say the word!

All of this is not really about recession-inflation;
It is about
1;George Bush sr;

2;Bill Clinton;

3;Goergie Bush jr;

This lunacy of George Bush sr. NEW WORLD ORDER;

Basicly they have destroyed the US industrial infrastructure so they can make money with global investments;

Clinton and his Nafta pact which has caused the loss of millions of american jobs;

And Georgi Bush and his republican investors trying to wreck american jobs by flooding the country with illegals;

All of these jobs that have been lost(given away) represent lost wages and spin off service jobs that would generate growth and and oppurtunity for USA workers;

They like to placate us by saying thing are cheaper to buy now because of"Free Trade"

Are they; Factor in the loss of wages for workers and the amount of revenue lost by taxes not to mention the loss of self esteem and hope;

They tell us about the environment really well true there is less pollution now in the USA but look at what is happening in Asia, with such little enviromental regulation;

We should have kept those jobs here and with good enforcement we could have reduced the total amount of pollution;

The fundemental problem is the growth of federal workers and federal regulation

Inflation is getting pretty bad, the cost of food and fuel are really up. I have had raises in garbage bill, sewer from the city, telephone company,utiliteis are higher all so last but not least medical insurance. Im holding on to what cash I have left over and not spending. Things are to uncertain. We were going to buy a new can, but have decided just to put some money into the old one and not spend the cash and get into debt. I think a lot of people are doing the same.

The government has done a magnificent job of snowing the American public. The average Joe sees that his income has risen a tiny bit more than the core inflation rate and mistakenly assumes he is slightly ahead of the game.

Great, except that the core inflation rate is a useless measure of how we live. Why? Because inflation by any reasonable calculation is closer to 8% than 3.9%. government calculations deliberately exclude items that they claim would "skew" the numbers, and make ridiculous assumptions about how consumers might substitute their purchases to keep the number lower.

It's total B.S. Of course if the inflation rate was calculated realistically, a lot of people would be shocked, and would demand more wages to keep up. And of course, the government would have to increase payments on all those inflation adjusted payouts.

STAGFLATION! Aren't any of the economic "experts" and talking headson TV old enough to remember this word? The economy is experiencing BOTH inflationary AND recessionary pressures. Prices of energy, food and imported goods (European) are going up. There is a huge slow down of retail sales. Job growth is slowing or has gone negative. Consumers are having increased problems in servicing increased debts on mortgages and credit cards. Add a major credit tightening caused by loose lending practices. The Fed's lowering of interest rates is not trickling down to the consumer level becasue banks are having to make up for all the red ink by charging higher credit card rates; which will in turn cause a "credit card bubble" to burst. The Fed can only lower rates so much because foreigners will not continue to carry American debt at low interest rates. The political fixes are meaningless. The pain needs to work itself through naturally, even if big lenders go belly up. Otherwise, we will have prolonged suffering like the Japanese economy. We have the makings of the "perfect storm" for the US economy. HOLD ON!

too much greed has caused this problem in the first place. In my opinion, banks should charge a very low interest rate which would then keep the spending going to help our economy. Also they should tighten up the requirements for who qualifies for a loan, for example do away with no doc loans. It is the house industry after all that has a lot to do with this melt down. I am totaly against the banks being bailed out since they are the crooks in the first place. Might as well bail out Enron,,, right?