Do YOU shop at Walmart?

[ChelC]

After reading Darren's comment about supporting a chinese invasion I wondered what everyone thought about this.

I have always shopped at Walmart since before they became huge, and way back when Kmart was considered superior. Used to just be for camping stuff or whatever when they didn't do groceries. I still shop there because our budget is tight and things are a ton cheaper. I've been trying to even it out with shopping at our locally owned grocery stores more often, not because I really thought about the Chinese stuff, but because I want to support local businesses. It would take a lot to convince my husband not to shop at Walmart because we stretch our dollar hard.

So what do you think?

[shadow]

It's not just Walmart that supports China. So does Shopko and Kmart and.......... Just look at where stuff is made. Look at the tag on your shirt or shoes or your kids toys. It's all from China.

But I don't shop at Walmart. I can't stand the place, plus I live south of Logan and Walmart is north. I hate driving through town.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

Self Sufficiency or dependency, that is the only real question, not the brand of dependency.

[Col. Flagg]

Target is also a Chinese department store and it's actually pronounced 'Tarjay', with little emphasis on the 'j'.

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

We are buying in bulk from the Mennonites and the Amish mostly now, but we will get our eggs from Wal-mart simply because we have not found another place that will give a better deal on 10 dozen.

[drjme]

I don't by from a lot of places specifically for that reason. Not because I don't want to support the chinese economy, but because I don't support child labour /sweat shops/ corporations ripping of people who can't control their situation. I always try by NZ grown and NZ made only, to support local businesses and economy.

[CHH]

I shop at Wal-mart because I don't care anymore. I can't get people to wake up so why punish myself?

I have asked activists all over this country to write emails and send faxes to Congress about what a dollar is and I get very few people to do it BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID TO ASK.

I convince people that Income tax is Satanic AND voluntary and they still file BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID.

When the house is burning and you know you cannot put out the flames maybe you should pour gas on the fire so you can start the clean up sooner.

I now encourage everyone that cannot refuse Social Secuirty, like I do, to take every check and payment they can. Take the loans and the grants (if you can live with yourself) and pour that gas on the fire, BABY!

I encourage people to declare bankruptcy if they have credit card debt because it hurts the bankers.

The fact is that WE WILL be invaded by the Chinese because Joseph Smith said so. We will be invaded by the world. We will barely survive if at all. If you live on the East Coast or near the Mississippi or on the West Coast YOU ARE JUST TOAST WAITING TO HAPPEN.

So if shopping at Wal-mart is going to help you get by and better prepare for the upcoming collapse. Why not? I mean the Chinese slave labor folks are not really hurt by it, Are they?

Embrace the end times! Shop at Wal-mart! Eat at McDonalds. Take the drugs your doctor gives you for restless leg syndrome, E.D., High Blood Pressure, etc. instead of going for a walk and eating good food. Get a SSN for your newborn. Send them to Government schools. Register them for the Draft. Get your REAL ID Driver's license. Vote on Dibold machines. Never complain. NEVER run for office. Believe the lie. Embrace it! Pay the voluntary income tax. Register as a Republican. Vote for the Republican candidate no matter who he is. Better yet support Hilary!

Stop all the garbage and embrace reality. Love it. Surrender to it.

elieve in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations. (Hel. 6: 38)

Eat, drink, and be merry; commit a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God. (2 Ne. 28: 8)

RIGHT?

A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought ‘Had I a sword of keener steel —
The blue blade that the king’s son bears - but this Blunt thing! ‘ - he snapped and flung it from his hand.
And lowering crept away and left the field.
“Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewd his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.”

In the United States of America we are all sons and daughters of the King of kings; princes and princesses all. Pick up what ever sword you may find and with a battle shout enter, once again, the eternal battle for liberty.

Or just shut up and shop at Wal-mart. What difference will it make? After all you are just one small person.

[ChelC]

What about Eminent Domain? What businesses take advantage of that?

[CHH]

What about Eminent Domain? What businesses take advantage of that?

Casino do. With the help of corrupt leaders.

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

I cannot wait until I am in a place that can support chickens again.. then I will not feel guilty over eggs.....

Good news though, I did find one little bakery thirft shop online.. If it is still there, then I will be thrilled.

[Jeremy]

I shop at Wal-mart because I don't care anymore...

I actually want to give recognition to the whole post CHH. The words you wrote and even the ones you didnt can be read with different attitudes in mind. When I read that, I read it iwith a sarcastic attitude and it was very powerful. Not because you are a great speaker, not because The Spirit testified anything to me...but because its TRUE! The sarcasm is TRUE! It doesnt matter when, or why we have become so weak. It doesnt matter why we just role over and take it. We talk a lot about it, but who does something. I mean, WHO REALLY FIGHTS FOR LIBERTY!?!? Ron Paul? Okay, great! You support Ron Paul...but what about LIBERTY!? We support the message Ron Paul shares, but we need to do more than support it, WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR IT! DEFEND RIGHTEOUSNESS! If it isnt around you then ESTABLISH IT!

Does that mean dont shop at walleys because everything is made in China? Does that mean only support your local shops? Does that mean vote for Ron Paul? Does it mean avoid vaccines, avoid public schools, avoid nationalized health care? NO! It means FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO NOT BE A SLAVE! It means vote AGAIN for agency. Vote for responsibility.

We can all do this individually...and then we can all fail...and maybe someone down the road will say 'Man, what they were trying to do was awesome. We should have a holiday in their honor.' Or, we call all form a group, form a society that says 'Man, what a life style Christ was teaching us. What a life style the constitution lays out for us. We should have each calender year be lived in their honor'...The message of liberty, sovereignty, freedom...I think it starts with what SwissMrs&Pitchfire said:

Self Sufficiency or dependency, that is the only real question, not the brand of dependency.

[ShawnC]

I shop at Wal-mart because I don't care anymore. I can't get people to wake up so why punish myself?

I have asked activists all over this country to write emails and send faxes to Congress about what a dollar is and I get very few people to do it BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID TO ASK.

I convince people that Income tax is Satanic AND voluntary and they still file BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID.

When the house is burning and you know you cannot put out the flames maybe you should pour gas on the fire so you can start the clean up sooner.

I now encourage everyone that cannot refuse Social Secuirty, like I do, to take every check and payment they can. Take the loans and the grants (if you can live with yourself) and pour that gas on the fire, BABY!

I encourage people to declare bankruptcy if they have credit card debt because it hurts the bankers.

The fact is that WE WILL be invaded by the Chinese because Joseph Smith said so. We will be invaded by the world. We will barely survive if at all. If you live on the East Coast or near the Mississippi or on the West Coast YOU ARE JUST TOAST WAITING TO HAPPEN.

So if shopping at Wal-mart is going to help you get by and better prepare for the upcoming collapse. Why not? I mean the Chinese slave labor folks are not really hurt by it, Are they?

Embrace the end times! Shop at Wal-mart! Eat at McDonalds. Take the drugs your doctor gives you for restless leg syndrome, E.D., High Blood Pressure, etc. instead of going for a walk and eating good food. Get a SSN for your newborn. Send them to Government schools. Register them for the Draft. Get your REAL ID Driver's license. Vote on Dibold machines. Never complain. NEVER run for office. Believe the lie. Embrace it! Pay the voluntary income tax. Register as a Republican. Vote for the Republican candidate no matter who he is. Better yet support Hilary!

Stop all the garbage and embrace reality. Love it. Surrender to it.

elieve in their works and partake of their spoils, and to join with them in their secret murders and combinations. (Hel. 6: 38)

Eat, drink, and be merry; commit a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God. (2 Ne. 28: 8)

RIGHT?

A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought ‘Had I a sword of keener steel —
The blue blade that the king’s son bears - but this Blunt thing! ‘ - he snapped and flung it from his hand.
And lowering crept away and left the field.
“Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewd his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day.”

In the United States of America we are all sons and daughters of the King of kings; princes and princesses all. Pick up what ever sword you may find and with a battle shout enter, once again, the eternal battle for liberty.

Or just shut up and shop at Wal-mart. What difference will it make? After all you are just one small person.

CHH,

I PM'ed you. Waiting for a response?

Shawn

[AussieOi]

I shop at Wal-mart because I don't care anymore...

I actually want to give recognition to the whole post CHH. The words you wrote and even the ones you didnt can be read with different attitudes in mind. When I read that, I read it iwith a sarcastic attitude and it was very powerful. Not because you are a great speaker, not because The Spirit testified anything to me...but because its TRUE! The sarcasm is TRUE! It doesnt matter when, or why we have become so weak. It doesnt matter why we just role over and take it. We talk a lot about it, but who does something. I mean, WHO REALLY FIGHTS FOR LIBERTY!?!? Ron Paul? Okay, great! You support Ron Paul...but what about LIBERTY!? We support the message Ron Paul shares, but we need to do more than support it, WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR IT! DEFEND RIGHTEOUSNESS! If it isnt around you then ESTABLISH IT!

Does that mean dont shop at walleys because everything is made in China? Does that mean only support your local shops? Does that mean vote for Ron Paul? Does it mean avoid vaccines, avoid public schools, avoid nationalized health care? NO! It means FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO NOT BE A SLAVE! It means vote AGAIN for agency. Vote for responsibility.

We can all do this individually...and then we can all fail...and maybe someone down the road will say 'Man, what they were trying to do was awesome. We should have a holiday in their honor.' Or, we call all form a group, form a society that says 'Man, what a life style Christ was teaching us. What a life style the constitution lays out for us. We should have each calender year be lived in their honor'...The message of liberty, sovereignty, freedom...I think it starts with what SwissMrs&Pitchfire said:

Self Sufficiency or dependency, that is the only real question, not the brand of dependency.

Maybe Mark and others who call me the enemy will think otherwise. That we are shorting your dollar and setting up Asian Bond funds inreadiness to divest out of the USA, to hesten the demise of the sick, evil, ill, vile, bloated, obese, cancerous country that has become the USA, can only hasten its fall, demise, and recovery.

You reap what you sew, you can't exploit the world and not expect blowback.

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

True...

Too bad there are those who were not part of that, that are going to feel it before those that did do....

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

We were all unwittingly part of it.

[Darren]

The problem in shopping at Wal-Mart is the danger we come into when we accept anything in exchange for our will. The world-wide false religion of government has gotten all of our minds converted to the false doctrine of finance. Finance has its root in the French “fin” meaning “end.” If you believe in finance then that is the false doctrine of trading your will for your eternal end, your slavery.

Our will is expressed with every choice we make, the words we express the music we sing, the actions of our bodies, the direction our hearts and minds takes us.

God says that we are to love him with all of our mind. In the temple we take a covenant of consecration. At the sacrament table we promise to always remember Him.

What percentage of your life are you engaged in always remembering Him, in consecrating your life, in focusing your mind? LDS doctrine states 100% is required. LDS culture says about 10% is all that is necessary right now, as we obviously cannot live the higher law and at the same time also enjoy Babylon and it’s government benefits. Talk about a sell out, your will traded with Satan’s Church for a bowl of pottage.

Do you wake up in the morning with the vigor of a “Type A” personality and do what He requires you to do?

Living around the Amish and Mennonites helps me to realize that the culture they are trying to hold onto helps them to live 100% for Christ.

Is there a culture you are trying to hold onto with a similar hope?

Your non-Greek/Roman ancestors had a culture as it has been passed down through our current culture, as it has not been polluted by Greek/Roman culture, that serves to focus your lives 100% on Christ.

I am trying to hold onto that culture, how about you?

Work Together by the Law.
Darren

[buffalo_girl]

In When Corporations Rule the World, by David C. Korten, pub. 1995, a study called "A Survey of Multinationals: Everybody's Favourite Monsters," The Economist, March 27, 1993 is quoted:

In Iowa the average Wal-Mart grosses $13 million a year and increases total area sales by $4 million, which means it takes $9 million worth of business from existing stores. Within three or four years of a Wal-Mart's arrival, retail sales within a 20-mile radius go down by 25 percent; 20 to 50 miles away, sales go down 10 percent.

A Massachusetts study says a typical Wal-Mart adds 140 jobs and destroys 230 higher-paying jobs...Despite public investments in restoring downtown business districts, vacancies increase. Rents drop, and the remaining enterprises pay lower wages and taxes. Competing chain stores in existing malls leave and are not replaced.

That's 15 years ago! I strongly suggest viewing the documentary Wal-Mart. ENRON is an interesting view, as well.

Here's another interesting quote from Korten's book:

The trend toward concentration in the retail sector is spreading rapidly to other countries, partly as a consequence of changes in trade rules that open domestic markets to the large retail chains.

On January 14, 1994, only two weeks after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, Wal-Mart announced its move into Canada, which began with the purchase of 120 Woolco discount department stores from Woolworth Canada.

Business Week call it "a full-scale invasion of the Canadian market." Investors rushed to sell holdings of Canada's major retail chains, which were believed to be ill-equipped to meet Wal-Mart's price competition.

Canadian retailing consultant John Winter predicted that by the late 1990's, "half of the Canadian retailers you see up here now may not be in business."

When Corporations Rule the World, 1995, p. 236.

Although unwittingly, the consumer appetite for what our bombastic friend Alex Jones refers to as "baubles", has served to dig the hole in which our economic sovereignty has been buried.

[Darren]

Ever been to the Church's Welfare Square? Just about every type of Goods are available. Mostly produced by the “good faith” of the LDS people. Granted this is small scale production for a limited population. But at the check out stands Bishop's orders are accepted and no money is accepted. Back in the days of Zion's Board of Trade, we got very close as a Church to living and working together based on the unit of value of Good Faith, by principles of honesty and of the energy of loving our brothers and sisters, void of money.

I believe in production and consumption, but in the Lords way.

What would be the perfect system?

The culture of Working Together by the Law.

Darren

[ShawnC]

The problem in shopping at Wal-Mart is the danger we come into when we accept anything in exchange for our will. The world-wide false religion of government has gotten all of our minds converted to the false doctrine of finance. Finance has its root in the French “fin” meaning “end.” If you believe in finance then that is the false doctrine of trading your will for your eternal end, your slavery.

Our will is expressed with every choice we make, the words we express the music we sing, the actions of our bodies, the direction our hearts and minds takes us.

God says that we are to love him with all of our mind. In the temple we take a covenant of consecration. At the sacrament table we promise to always remember Him.

What percentage of your life are you engaged in always remembering Him, in consecrating your life, in focusing your mind? LDS doctrine states 100% is required. LDS culture says about 10% is all that is necessary right now, as we obviously cannot live the higher law and at the same time also enjoy Babylon and it’s government benefits. Talk about a sell out, your will traded with Satan’s Church for a bowl of pottage.

Do you wake up in the morning with the vigor of a “Type A” personality and do what He requires you to do?

Living around the Amish and Mennonites helps me to realize that the culture they are trying to hold onto helps them to live 100% for Christ.

Is there a culture you are trying to hold onto with a similar hope?

Your non-Greek/Roman ancestors had a culture as it has been passed down through our current culture, as it has not been polluted by Greek/Roman culture, that serves to focus your lives 100% on Christ.

I am trying to hold onto that culture, how about you?

Work Together by the Law.
Darren

Dang Darren,

It sound like you need to get with Stephen and I and we'll all go bowling sometime. This is the very thought that has been on my mind for quite sometime now. Causes me to question myself and the purpose for this earth life and for the Gospel. What is the point other than to learn to serve God and to give all that we have toward that end? After all, it all was given us by him to begin with.

Shawn

[CHH]

I shop at Wal-mart because I don't care anymore...

I actually want to give recognition to the whole post CHH. The words you wrote and even the ones you didnt can be read with different attitudes in mind. When I read that, I read it iwith a sarcastic attitude and it was very powerful.

I shop at Wal-mart once and while because I really don't care about it much. But I avoid it most of the time and try to shop with the little mom and pop stores.

I don't file 1040s. I am the State Chairman of the IAP with 49,000 members. I don't have an SSN. I have a TV show where we expose the FRNs and the IRS. I run for office and often make State and/or National news. I am in magazines and newspapers quite often with my battles against the government. I don't have a State issued Driver's license. I get no licenses to work or business but if I did want to hunt or fish I would get an "Out of State" License because I honestly approve of Hunting and fishing licenses for many reasons but will not give them a SSN since I don't have one. I sue the government a lot. I look for reason to sue them. I often times set them up because I know they will violate my rights so I can sue them so others will not be abused. I just say no to government all the time. I encourage people to run for office and am in the middle of recruiting over 60 Candidates this year for Nevada for the IAP. I have run for office many times knowing I cannot win and in doing so build the Independent American Party of Nevada.

Because of this I can no longer coach youth sports. (No SSN no coaching)
I have no time for church callings. (politics is my calling)
I am often depressed because so few people care about whether or not they are slaves but only care about whether or not they can go on a vacation this year.
I cannot get any kind of insurance. (No SSN)
It is difficult to get construction jobs. (No SSN, no licenses)
I own no property.
I can not get a loan for any reason from a bank. (No SSN)
I have difficulty at church because the members want to be 1950 Republicans and love being Socialists.

I decided that I would not allow the government to enslave me and I have NEVER for one second ever looked back. Every need I have ever had has been taken care of and often by miracles. I love my life and the choice I have made.

I was saved by an angel in a triple rollover truck wreck. My eldest son's broken neck (confirmed by 6 tests including CT scan and X-rays) was healed by a blessing. My youngest son was brought back to life by a blessing after a bike wreck. Work falls, as it were, from the sky. I never seem to have what I want but always seem to have what I need. I am FORCED to walk the path of faith for I have no other real choice. God is so evident in my life that a young man that was an atheist and came to live with us after his parents abandoned him at the age of 16 said that he had to believe there was a God because the answer to our prayers were so obvious that he knew there had to be something answering them.

My life has been every hard and often times very scary. I have been arrested three times and spent a few days in jail but not many (less than a week total). My eldest son was also arrested and spent an evening in jail. I have had to face down Cops that threatened to kill me and face down IRS and Department of Justice Lawyers. I am currently recovering from being beaten up by the police. I have been informed that I may be killed at any time by the government by people that are in the government. I have had to face down judges and elected officials. I have been threatened with arrest so many times I cannot even being to guess at the numbers. I have won and lost in court many times but mostly I win. I live with the threat of arrest almost every day kind of like Joseph Smith did.

So when I have a moment of weakness and shop at Wal-mart I really don't care any more.

[CHH]

You reap what you sew, you can't exploit the world and not expect blowback.

I do not consider you any enemy Aussie. And I hope you guys DESTROY our economy because it is the only way to burn the house down to start a new. But when the USA goes down the world will go to war and I seriously doubt that Australia will be much more than toast.

[CHH]

Dang Darren,

It sound like you need to get with Stephen and I and we'll all go bowling sometime. This is the very thought that has been on my mind for quite sometime now. Causes me to question myself and the purpose for this earth life and for the Gospel. What is the point other than to learn to serve God and to give all that we have toward that end? After all, it all was given us by him to begin with.

Shawn

I am happy with my service to God because I serve the cause of liberty every day. I am not happy with Church because I feel uncomfortable around people that embrace slavery and Gadianton robber plans. I love the Gospel and study the Gospel about everyday but not every day. I do not like church at all.

I never question the purpose of this earth. It is a test to see if you are worthy of Godhood. If you are afraid to do what is right even if you may have to go to jail in doing what is right or even die, then will you be considered worthy of Godhood?

I honestly do not know if I will be found worthy of such tremendous responsibility because, frankly, if the average Stake Presidents and Bishops are what would be considered to be the very best Mormons, are worthy, when they do things like support Mitt Romney and Harry Reid, and the National Marriage Amendment, and pay income taxes and get Driver's licenses with chips in them and call that sustaining the law, I really do not want to go to that heaven.

So I hope that I am happy were I end up and I pray it is not in Hell. But if I go to Hell I will be happier there than with people that embrace voluntary slavery. And frankly, most Latter-day Mormons do just that.

[AussieOi]

True...

Too bad there are those who were not part of that, that are going to feel it before those that did do....

so true, yet again the innocent will suffer. although some who considerable themselves innocent aren't , they permitted this to happen. what a ness eh.

[AussieOi]

You reap what you sew, you can't exploit the world and not expect blowback.

I do not consider you any enemy Aussie. And I hope you guys DESTROY our economy because it is the only way to burn the house down to start a new. But when the USA goes down the world will go to war and I seriously doubt that Australia will be much more than toast.

I formerly could not see how this could happen, but the debt is now SO bad, the systemic risks SO high, the financial system so interlinked and vulnerable , that when the US does finally kick the bucket, it will either renig on its debt, or bring the global system with it. then Asia and other bond holders would invade the USA to enforce their claims.

the only solution is very ugly. bernanke and the fed banks keep making the outcome worse and worse. can it get worse? possibly. but the day will come, and it will get ugly.

we won't be spared I am sure, that's why I own resource shares, have little debt and speak mandarin. ne hao new masters. but only for a short time..

[CHH]

You reap what you sew, you can't exploit the world and not expect blowback.

I do not consider you any enemy Aussie. And I hope you guys DESTROY our economy because it is the only way to burn the house down to start a new. But when the USA goes down the world will go to war and I seriously doubt that Australia will be much more than toast.

I formerly could not see how this could happen, but the debt is now SO bad, the systemic risks SO high, the financial system so interlinked and vulnerable , that when the US does finally kick the bucket, it will either renig on its debt, or bring the global system with it. then Asia and other bond holders would invade the USA to enforce their claims.

the only solution is very ugly. bernanke and the fed banks keep making the outcome worse and worse. can it get worse? possibly. but the day will come, and it will get ugly.

we won't be spared I am sure, that's why I own resource shares, have little debt and speak mandarin. ne hao new masters. but only for a short time..

FRN dead as World’s currency!
Friday, January 25th 2008

From the International Herald

George Soros, the financier, said Wednesday at Davos that the U.S. downturn would end the status of the dollar as the world’s default currency. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)

U.S. in role of wounded giant at Davos

By Mark Landler

DAVOS, Switzerland: The United States has filled various roles at the World Economic Forum over the past decade: dot-com dynamo, benevolent superpower, feared aggressor, and now, wounded giant.

On the first day of this conference, a parade of bankers, economists, and political officials expressed deep fears about the faltering American economy, peppered with blunt criticism of its institutions, chiefly the Federal Reserve, which some accused of sowing the seeds of today’s crisis.

George Soros, the financier who made a fortune betting against the pound, went so far Wednesday as to say that the downturn would put an end to the long status of the dollar as the world’s default currency.

“The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom,” Soros said. “It’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency.”

Signs of a new economic order abounded in this Swiss ski resort: the minister of commerce and industry of India, Kamal Nath, noted that China had overtaken the United States as India’s largest trading partner - buttressing his view that India could largely sidestep an American recession.

The head of the National Bank of Kuwait, Ibrahim Dabdoub, said Americans who opposed sovereign wealth funds like the one run by his government needed to come to terms with the new reality.

Completing the role reversal, Nouriel Roubini, an American economist, said, “the United States looks like an emerging market,” with large budget deficits and a swooning currency. By contrast, he said, Brazil, an actual emerging market, had done a better job of overhauling its economy.

Roubini, whose frequent predictions of a downturn have made him something of a soothsayer in Davos, predicted the United States would suffer a recession lasting at least a year. He foresees a flood of defaults on car loans and corporate bonds, as well as a prolonged bear market.

“The debate is not whether we’re going to have a soft landing or a hard landing,” he said. “The question is only how hard the hard landing will be.”

Several economists said the Federal Reserve seemed to have lost control of events since the subprime crisis erupted last summer. Some criticized its steep cut in interest rates Tuesday as a knee-jerk reaction to calm the markets rather than a sound response to a deteriorating situation.

“Policy makers are reaching back into the same playbook that got us into this mess in the first place,” said Stephen Roach, an economist who recently became the chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

By signaling that it is ready to cushion the stock market from the ravages of the credit crisis, Roach argued, the Federal Reserve risks creating conditions for a new round of inflation in asset prices.

The Federal Reserve “made bad judgments,” said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. “It looked the other way when investment banks packaged bad loans in non-transparent ways.”

The rate cut this week, Stiglitz said, would be too little, too late, because monetary policy usually takes between six months and 18 months to be effective, and the United States is in distress now.

For all the talk here about looking at the big picture, the Davos conference is driven by short-term impulses. This week’s wild swings on the markets, as well as the Federal Reserve’s dramatic response, left people here spooked, perhaps exaggerating the bleakness of the mood.

Not everybody was grim. John Snow, the former Treasury Secretary and chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, said that if the United States slipped into recession, it would be “short and shallow.”

“That’s been the pattern of recessions in the U.S., and there’s a reason for it,” he said in an interview. “There is an inherent resilience in the U.S. economy. We’re already seeing an adjustment.”

Few Americans said the United States would resort to protectionist policies, even though it is an election year. Sovereign wealth funds, they noted, had taken multibillion-dollar stakes in Wall Street giants like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch with hardly a peep of protest in Washington.

“Open investment is a critical driver of the U.S. economy,” David McCormick, the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said. He added that it was legitimate to monitor sovereign wealth funds to make sure they were commercially, not politically, driven.

The debate over decoupling - the once-popular thesis that Europe and Asia will escape the effects of a recession in the United States because they are less reliant on it as a trading partner - was over before it started.

Virtually everyone here agreed that an American downturn would inevitably spill over to Europe and Asia. Roach of Morgan Stanley said China did not have a large enough domestic consumer economy to replace the loss of demand for its exports from U.S. consumers.

Chinese officials agreed. “The Chinese economy is entering quite a delicate stage,” said Yu Yongding, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “We are facing a very bad situation in the U.S.”

Only Nath of India said he was confident that his country would not feel a major impact from an American recession. India, he said, was far more driven than China by domestic demand.

At least one expert here professed to see a silver lining in the linkages between the world’s major economies.

C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the more dynamic economies of China and India would lift the United States out of its downturn, rather than the United States dragging them down. Companies like IBM, General Electric and Caterpillar already depend on these countries to generate a lot of their profits, he said.