It seems like America's economic plunge started with high gas prices. Is that what caused it?

Great question and this may be hard t believe so yo may want to google "morgan stanley manipulating high oil prices". This was done due to the fact that certain regulations that prohibited it had been removed, much in the same way with the mortgages. The mortgages started under Clinton's adminsitration adn went on in Bush's administartion.

They gave bad loans and certain regualtions were also removed, but let's take a look at the oil. MS used the media to manipulate the price of oil up to $140 a barrel. If you know people with friends inthe oil patch overseas, you know that most of those countries overproduce everyday by millins of barrels, so there is really no shortage of oil. That's why some of them are hollering about the OPEC guys enforce limits right now.

Anyway by kicking the price so high they really gutted the economy since everythng is tied to it. Think about people that actually make minimum wage, they were paying almost as much for a gallon as they made an hour.

This did help cause our problem, but they say the bad mortgages all failed at one time which is bs as people with bad credit sorta have a history and will fail on payments after a certain time period.

What does this mean? Well it means that something else was going on. No one of the CEOs that made 100s millions have been called on the carpet, the CEO of Bank of America bought Merrrill, a dog and didn't even look at the books and admitted it and he is still there. Also know BOA was buying up any debt for oavber two years as if they knew they would be bailed out.

So thjat's it. Also funny that new York got buzzed, AIG bonuses upset the congress, torture stuff, Rush stuff and on and on. it's like no one wants to find out how and why the financial crooks did this. Guess what they can now do it again and really screw up things even more, so beware of the market and buy gold.

It's a game since the lobbyist give congress over $4 billion in bribes each years, no joke and they also employ their kids and spouses. I thought it was good when Obama said he was going to hold the financial people accountable, until he said they would 'self police" themselves, what a joke. These people charged hookers on company credit careds, renovated offices with $850,000 worth of antiques, the jets, and more. How can crooks police themselves, I mean! Ha, ha.

I think that was a sign that the economy was going to turn in this direction, but the ultimate reason for this downturn is our monetary system, also called fiat money.

Since it's not required to be backed by a precious metal, banks can "create" money with a keystroke or a pen. In essence, our money isn't created until it's borrowed.

The banks have been busy creating fiat money for years now, creating a 'credit' bubble (easy credit such as credit cards, sub-prime mortgages, etc), which has to deflate and/or burst at some point.

Moonshine you got it right, I all most left the Republican party due to Bush letting those gas companies start the mess we are in at the present. I have said it ever sense they did this to America, that this action would bring America a lot of trouble. Sort of like Bush pushed over the first domino, and it has gotten worse. To me it is like everybody is trying to get all the money they can, before they flee to their secret hideaway.

No, an insolvent real estate and mortgage industry would be the direct cause. But in the big picture, the problems we are facing have been coming on for a long time and won't be over easily.

YES! IT WAS!

It wasn't caused by Oil Companies either, it was caused by the obstruction of our obtaining any economical fuel or energy sources, done by democrats purposefully it seems, or they are the stupidest people on the face of the earth. No Oil Drilling even though off the coast of Santa Barbara oil is naturally spilling into the ocean causing ecological problems, and we could get to it in a couple of months and start drilling and stop the spillage, but it's not about ecology as the democrats said, it's about doing what was done to our economy so they could take over.

No clean cheap Hydro electric, no natural gas, no clean nuclear as France is getting big into, no nothing but unpractical means of energy and fuel because Democrats deliberately put us in this condition to help them gain power, and I saw this coming long before the election, long before.

The fuel crisis was used to set off the time bomb they had set long ago in the credit industry by bastardizing the housing industry in the name of spreading the wealth. By regulation and intimidation by groups like acorn which Obama belonged to, they forced banks to make bad loans, and caused this predictable credit crisis, which piled up on the destruction of reasonably priced energy which is the life's blood of our economy.

Democrats pushed regulation which put us in this situation, while fighting regulation of Fannie and Freddy even after there were known problems. Democrats fought against republicans to keep them from regulating Freddy and Fannie, which were THE BIG causes of this situation, run by prominent democrats who've worked for Clinton, and got millions for doing what they did to us. 90 million for Reins, and 20+ million for Gorelick, both of whom were Obama friends and advisers and huge political contributors of $$ from a quasi governmental agencies! To Obama! and Frank, and Dodd, and Reid, and Waters ... and the list goes on, all democrats as highest recipients by far of those crooked $$.

We are EXACTLY where the democrats wanted us, and if you don't wake up, you will lose everything.

Things were going good till the spring of 08 when the media and the democrats began their race to the white house. Telling everone that the state of the union was in turmoil. So people stopped spending and it backfired on our country. asssholes

Probably not

Im thinking that people are taking out all their money from stocks, some of the top investors who had millions got out of the stocks

Also the economy is constantly changing through a business cycle so its never stays still. Its just one the downride of the economical roller coasters

Yes. But I don't specifically blame energy companies so much as human nature. Did you know that the costs of producing well over 99.9% of all the world's food depend first and foremost on cheap energy?

Fertilizer: fossil energy based

Tilling: fossil fuel

Plowing: fossil fuel

Planting: fossil fuel

Irrigation: fossil fuel

Harvesting: fossil fuel

Transport to Processors: fossil fuel

Conveying as feed to Livestock: fossil fuel

Transport of Livestock to slaughter: fossil fuel

Transport of processed foods to grocers: fossil fuel

Electric energy for Efficient Dairy Machinery: fossil fuel (and nuke)

Energy to Refrigerate: Fossil Fuel

and... on and on.

I have no respect for any political party and don't intend to backtrack. If I lean at all, it is toward the Constitution and to wisdom, education and that means small government.

We didn't need government to become the world's largest producer of automobiles under Henry Ford. He did it in spite of big government and IN SPITE OF OIL!

Ford designed all his cars to run on ALCOHOL, first... roof-tar (gasoline) second. There was an adjustment on the dashboard to switch from one to the other.

Read into it.

It just boggles the mind.

...

I've had the opinion that $4.00 a gallon gas was the straw that broke the economy's back.

Lets hope it isn't he straw that turns the recession into a depression, it will happen again sooner than we would like to believe.

Bill Clinton and the Democrat-run Congress of the early 90s enacted legislation that enabled millions of Americans who could not afford mortgages to have a house regardless. When these people could not continue to make those payments, the housing market crashed, taking most of the rest of the economy with it.