What do you think the economic crisis really is?

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Do you think it's a bump in the road or the failure of the entire global capitalistic system?

The economy has been down since December 2007, which is quite a while ago. They have been claiming 'recovery' since at least 2009 but nothing has got better since then, in fact it's probably only got worse.

An ongoing problem. A ticking bomb. We cannot know how important it will have been until it is entirely however.

I'd go with a major bump on the road for the global economy, and the beginning of the end for western economies based on exploitation of other regions' resources. If our money isn't worth that much, and Asia is on the rise, why would even the most corrupt parts Africa send us resources we cannot ourselves produce?
For Europe as it is, it's the beginning of the end. Not sure about the United States - it might be able to hold on to a leading or semi-leading role in global economics and politics for another few decades, or until other regions can offer better services and comparatively superior industrial products.

The worrying thing about Europe and the United States is that much of their economies is based on the premise that words, knowledge and paper of debt or currency can be exchanged for physical goods, which, in a world with an increasing population, increasing pollution and decreasing natural reserves of almost anything can only be maintained for a very limited period of time. If no significant reserves can be found, scarcity something as simple and taken-for-granted as fresh water or oil can cause major global conflicts (the latter already having inspired a few) and isolationism by countries or regions that do have them.
If given a choice between starving or not accepting nicely-coloured paper in exchange for limited food supplies in an uncertain time, even the most corrupt rulers would choose the latter.

The world economy is based on appearances and now reality how broken through many of the facades. We are entering a period where politics and economics are not up to meeting the challenges we face. Remember change is really a four letter word. Things will not better until many corporations, governments, and individuals can make significant changes.

Hopefully people will eventually realize that economic issues are in fact moral issues, that's it's not just about numbers and profit margins when people start to actually suffer.

Or until it gets worse...I personally think by the time these corporations, governments and individuals want to make significant changes it will be too late. Not that I like that idea but it seems that is the direction things are going in.

I view it as a failure of the American government since they meddled where they shouldn't have and didn't meddle where they should have meddled.

That sums it up nicely.

ruveyn

I think it's our comeuppance for the Reagan-Thatcher era deregulation. Not that many people are heading the warning... Oh well, I expect that by the 2040s we'll see a revitalized global left.

A major flaw in the consumerist ways of our society. Capitolism isn't the problem.

capitalism leads to consumerism so wouldn't capitalism then be the problem?

No, consumerism doesn't automatically follow capitolism. We've been a capitolistic society for much longer than we've been a consumer society. Consumerism was pushed to get us out of the Depression of the 1930s.

Please, the western world is more or less a leftist paradise these days except for the States where the Militant Christian-right is swinging closer and closer into power as the economy gets worse, internal friction between different groups increases, the rhetoric becomes more hate filled, overt threats of violence are made against the existing government at political rallies, ... and somehow I feel like I'm telling the story of Germany ca 1933.

In Europe on the other hand most governments during the period were in fact socialist governments a majority of the time. Most of Europe in the period if not all of it had (and still has to a degree) a bloated public sector where public workers steadily approached the salary levels of the private sector, yet retained extremely lucrative pension plans far beyond private sector pensions and unrivaled job security compared to the private sector. The whole thing financed by borrowing heaps of money.

Its not so much about deregulation, that only catches a small part of what has been going on for the past 20 - 40 years, namely incompetence in Government. The responsibility of the Federal Reserve is to control the money supply, yet they let it go wild in a series of Greenspan puts. The jobs of regulators is to make sure that companies aren't overly leveraged, insolvent and so on. Any idiot could tell you that if you're leveraged 70:1 in geared financial products you're screwed if the market goes against you.

When you're leveraged with 3:1, in a position size of lets say $100.000.000 (which is small for a lot of banks and funds out there) 3:1 would mean, $30.000.000 of your own money and $70.000.000 borrowed money. If the size of your position goes down by 1%, this equals a loss of 1.000.000, but you still owe the bank $70.000.000 and you only have $29.000.000 left. So on that 1% drop you lost 3% of your equity. If you had a 70:1, the bank would put up $70 for every $1 you put up, so with $30.000.000 you could buy stocks for (30.000.000x70) 2.100000000. If the stock dropped by 1% you would in this case lose 2.079.000.000(2.100.000.000*0.99) - 2.100.000.000 = 21.000.000. Which is 21.000.000/30.000.000 or 70% of your equity. Imagine what would happen if it dropped by 10 - 20% in 30 minutes?

Well of course capitalism was going to lead to consumerism....what the hell did they expect.

... No it doesn't. Consumerism was a novel idea introduced during the Depression in order to boost the economy.

So you're saying we could have a non-consumerist capitalist society? I just don't see it.