Relmar

This is for the U.S. people here, but just wondering, how are you guys gonna spend it? Personally, mine's going straight into my credit card balance. The funny thing is, a recent poll showed only about 21% of Americans plan to actually spend it on something. Most people either plan on saving it, or like me, paying money back they owe.

Seancho

i dony owe anything. so i think i'll spend half on a Wii and the other half back into the bank. pending on how much I get. if not much its going to a Wii

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BHack

40's and blunts, I would imagine.

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Secretary of Keepin it Real

bleckuhffinity

this, this is how we will come out of the recession

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-F- bleak

cg_

well since ill get 1200 bucks its going into bills/save a little for vacation.

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Santa

Stimulus package is silly, and not because im not getting any Most people are going to save it, which isnt going to help the economy as much as people spending money would. If they would just lower taxes people would get the same amount of money back, but since they wouldnt see it in one large lump sum theyd be more inclined to spend it.

jepzilla

Won't have quite the same immediate effect, but frankly Americans could do with saving more and borrowing less. That's basically why we're in this mess now.

DugLess

Yes, it has absolutely nothing to do with oil being over $100 dollars a barrel, the housing bubble bursting or the sinkhole that we're spending billions of dollars a month on, that is Iraq.

Ironically, I believe these factors may have brought the borrowing trend to a head, before that bubble got too big. Only time will tell.

Nemesis

Housing bubble burst because people overborrowed and/or were just plain stupid regarding what they could afford.

But hey, that's the American public. It's never MY fault for anything I do!

As far as the Stim package money goes, I plan on spending it eventually. Hell, even if people are using it to pay down some debt, it's still going back into the economy in one form or another.

I agree with Santa about lowering taxes though. Should have gone to a flat tax system a long time ago but that would be too easy. And we may be cheap, but we're never easy.

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It's all in the Reflexes.

jepzilla

The US spends $100 billon on Iraq a year. US consumer debt (basically credit cards and similar forms of debt) has skyrocketed to $2.5 trillion dollars. The housing bubble burst because it was a bubble fueled by people picking up ridiculously large mortgages, at the very limit of their cash flow, for ridiculous terms and with variable interest rates. Seriously, who the fuck thinks a 50 year, or even worse an interest-only, variable rate mortgage in the middle of a real estate bubble is a good idea?

And sure, the price of oil is going up. Demand is outpacing supply due to the rapidly modernizing economies of China and India. But most of the increase in oil prices is due to the US dollar tanking. America has been running half-trillion dollar current account deficits for the past 10 years... the US dollar stayed strong as long as it did from inertia alone. America has been selling itself off and borrowing money hand over first for the past 15 years to finance this uncontrolled binge spending, and the rest of the world isn't quite as excited about the prospect as it used to be.

I laugh because the prescription for the current economic troubles from all the politicians and talking heads is about trying to get American 'consumers' to buy more stuff, like the stimulus package. The way they bemoan that people probably will use most of it to pay down current debt, and won't go out and buy stupid crap with it is extra retarded.

Hey assholes (I'm refering to the politicians here:-)), I've got a long term to plan to fix the American economy: Don't buy shit you can't afford.