What’s The Biggest Threat to The U.S. Economy?

Question of the Week

What’s The Biggest Threat to The U.S. Economy?

Posted Jun 19, 2008, 09:22 am CDT
By Jill Schachner Chanen

BigLaw firm DLA Piper recently surveyed more than 100 corporate clients (PDF) about their priorities for the second half of 2008 and to gauge their predictions for the business climate.

More than half of the survey respondents (53 percent) had a negative outlook on the economy. And when asked what they considered the biggest threat to the economy, nearly a third (31 percent) said a recessionary economy, nearly one-quarter (24 percent) cited inflation and/or the value of the U.S. dollar and 18 percent were most concerned about the federal budget deficit.

This made us wonder ...

What do you consider to be the biggest threats to the U.S. economy?

Answer in the comments below. Our favorite answers may appear in an upcoming issue of the ABA Journal.

Read last week's question and answers about the most outrageous juror conduct you've seen.

Our favorite answer from last week:

Posted by Judge Judith Chirlin: A juror appeared to be taking copious notes in a civil case. After it was over, my court attendant—who was tearing up the jurors’ notes—brought me that juror’s.

Turns out he was drawing caricatures of all of the participants in the trial. (I particularly liked the one he did of me!) But he was obviously paying attention to the evidence: both parties had testified that plainitiff had become so angry with defendant over his investment loss that he walked into the lunch room of their mutual employer and poured a pot of honey over the defendant’s head.

And sure enough—defendant’s likeness had him sitting at a lunch table with a pot of honey sitting upside down on his head, honey dripping down his face. It looked like it came right out of a Winnie-the-Pooh book!

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Comments

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Posted by msg - 2 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour, 29 minutes ago

Liberals.
Posted by associate - 2 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour, 2 minutes ago

1. The inability of our elected leaders to lead.

2. The lack of competency and coherency of people working in every level of government administration. Form over function is now the rule.
Posted by Abbey =) - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 23 hours, 53 minutes ago

Gas prices! Everyone feels that pain!
Posted by 2vote - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 23 hours, 41 minutes ago

Previous comments are good.
Biggest threat, how about worst reasons why the economy is problematic? Would like other better questions listed.
Rome collapse syndrom, incentives, injustive, fights, pursue outside interests as private armies build, etc.
We have meet the enemy, and they are us.
Culture is pump and dump, shorting, pay me or else.
Posted by Kenneth G. Galica - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 22 hours, 31 minutes ago

Gas Prices. They touch every aspect of the economy from consumer spending to the basic ability to work for some.
Posted by Todd Rainer - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 4 hours, 13 minutes ago

Apathy of the American People to do anything about it.

The fact that we’ll put any moron int he White House they throw at us.

The massive spending (right about $500 bn so far) on a war that leads to nowhere… you can’t fight terrorism with bullets...you just make more terrorists.

But the greatest potential threat would be an economic partnership between India and China.
Posted by Bob from Georgia - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, 19 minutes ago

A spineless congress. Our economy has been slowing for some time now. But what has congress done? Investigate steriods in baseball and let Nancy Pelosi pretend that she’s the president.
The one branch of government that is truly meant to represent the people has done nothing in the last 8 years to address the issues that dircetly affect the people (ie. an economy on the verge of recession).
Posted by MEM - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, 11 minutes ago

Biggest threat to the U.S. economy? Easy. The bills those 100 corporate clients got from DLA Piper for last month...and the one they will get in about 2 weeks, and the ones they will get about every fourth week thereafter.
Posted by Richard Carmody - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 2 hours, 30 minutes ago

An ill-conceived pre-emptive war that has sucked the lifeblood out of our economy and the life out of the human victims.
Posted by Jeremy - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 2 hours ago

Simple. Energy costs and a long-term solution.

With gas prices at record-highs, almost every other industry will be adversely affected. One example? Oil gets food to our supermarkets. If you want to see something really scary, keep allowing diesel prices to raise until truckers have had enough and stop rolling. At that point (mark my words) ALL supermarkets will be cleaned out in one week, people will riot and cities will burn. It’s one thing to have to take the bus when you can’t afford your car’s gas, but it is a completely different ballgame when the average American cannot find food to feed his family.

Drilling here is only part of the answer. We also need alternative energy initiatives (nuclear, wind, solar, coal-to-oil, etc.) and a moon-shot effort that will perfect a viable long-term energy source.
Posted by RF - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 1 hour, 53 minutes ago

1. Laws authored by lobbyists instead of elected representatives (resulting in banking, energy and health care crises, among others).
2. Unscrupulous investors who drive up prices.
3. Our misdirected, expensive, and ineffective foreign policy.
Posted by William - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 1 hour, 27 minutes ago

Deficit spending is one of the biggest long-term threats. Ultimately it is the stupidity of the American voter who thinks that tax cuts equal more revenue, and that they can receive government services without paying for them.

The tax cut and charge Republicans have put us in this unenviable position. What do we expect when rich oil and gas execs own our government? The biggest threat is that our political system is structurally unable to process outcomes that are in the public interest instead of outcomes for the benefit of the highest bidder.

America is a semi-transparent crony capitalist system reverse engineered to rip-off taxpayers to benefit the wealthiest individuals and corporations. The difference between Indonesia and the U.S.? Our forms of bribery are legal and semi-transparent.
Posted by David Scull - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 54 minutes ago

Tragically, all the western democracies are self-destructing financially, borrowing their economies into oblivion to pay senior citizen medical and pension costs. The culprits: nothing more sinister than the will to live, and advanced medical technology.
Posted by Dave - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 51 minutes ago

The lack of a gold standard, a federal reserve that prints money like it’s scrap paper, and a Congress and populace that borrow and spend without limit.
Posted by Devin - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 27 minutes ago

Deficit spending compounded by the prospect of higher taxes, rising inflation, decreasing value of the dollar, and rising medical costs. Ringing in spending and trimming back social programs needs to be a priority.

What happened to rugged individualism, or individual responsibility, self reliance, or simply looking at for one’s family and their neighbors?
Posted by Jeremy - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 7 minutes ago

Good call, William (sarcastic). What fool could possibly think that allowing businesses to keep their money would provide them with the means to employ more people and expand their business, thus resulting in increased revenue and more employees?

Tax cuts DO equal more revenue! Why do you think we had such an economic boom during the Reagan years? Because he drastically reduced taxes which reciprocated in businesses acquiring more revenue.

I do agree with you, however, on the deficit spending crisis. Ugh!
Posted by Hilary - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes ago

The massive population of illegal immigrants. Our country cannot afford to provide free services for children born here to illegals. It is a crippling drain on our economy and grows at an unreasonable rate daily. Shame on us for letting this happen.
Posted by William A. Wheatley - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours, 20 minutes ago

The biggest threat to the US economy is the US Government. The economy has natural cycles, and the US Government invariably tries to “mitigate” the downside. This artificial interference in the economy prevents “natural” forces from concluding their corrective action and “killing” businesses that are not fit to survive. Yes, it’s hard on the wage earner, but that can be mitigated using workmens’ compensation insurance. Let the natural cycles play out in a free market and everyone would be better off.
Posted by Simon deMontfort - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 23 hours, 8 minutes ago

The biggest threat to the US economy is the Federal Reserve & the fiat currency (Greenspan admitted the Fed was responsible for the Great Depression). The Federal Reserve is not a federal agency. It is a group of private banks that usurped the role of the US Treasury with the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. Whereas the Constitution stipulates that the currency must be backed by gold or silver, the Fed issues paper money not backed by anything. This leads to inflation & the devaluation of the dollar (the high oil prices are a reflection of this - not a scarcity in supply). Whereas the Treasury used to print & coin money at cost, the Fed charges interest to provide the same service. Nearly all of the money collected from the Federal Income Tax goes to paying the bankers at the Fed interest for doing what the Treasury used to do. Please research the Federal Reserve for yourselves.
Posted by William - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 22 hours, 29 minutes ago

The American electorate and its total lack of understanding of economics.
Posted by JH - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes ago

The biggest threat to the U.S. economy is an epidemic entitlement mentality fueled by the evil triumvirate of greedy plaintiffs’ lawyers, sensationalist media and opinion-poll puppeted politicians who paint corporate America as a collective Dickensian despot, bent on sacrificing its dirt-poor, downtrodden employees at the altar of the Holy Dollar.
Posted by Q - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 21 hours, 21 minutes ago

The absolute corruption of poltics, the crypto-fascism of the executive branch, the compliance of the media, the apathy of the people, the impotence of Congress, the power of the lobbyist (particularly oil as they make record profits, get giant tax breaks, and are bilking the entire nation).

Basically all of the people with power are robbing the country blind and since they own the media they are covering up how it all works - a.k.a. - we sell the ground from unborn feet forever
Posted by RL - 2 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 19 hours, 25 minutes ago

The news media which covers every lame bit of celebrity news ad nauseum but either doesn’t cover the important news stories in any depth or sometimes not at all or covers it with so-called news programs on cable that mereley have people shouting at each other. Add to that a public that puts up with this and prefers to be entertained but ignorant.
Posted by Alan Singer - 2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 1 hour, 4 minutes ago

I think the greatest threat to our economy is a twofold but intertwined threat: our as of unmet needs to switch to a better fuel source and for efficient mass transit infrastructure. The ideal fuel source would have some or all of the following qualities. It would not be non-renewable. It would not contribute to global warming. It would not be dependent on foreign countries. It would impose an energy neutral carbon footprint. It could be hydrogen, perhaps. Our political leaders’ failure to do everything possible to encourage development of some such new fuel source to replace fossil fuels is ultimately a tremendous failure to all of us. Our nation’s transportation infrastructure has also evolved based entirely on the availability of cheap and seemingly plentiful gasoline. Mass transit, such as trains, has a huge place in our economy right now that gas prices are soaring. Unless our leaders confront this problem and lead, we will see unbearable consumer price increases and environmental degradation. If global warming’s effects are as severe as some scientists believe, our economy faces tremendous future worsening from global warming’s effects alone..

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