What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

vetteman said:

Not really. They are non-interest bearing, and they do not meet the legal definition of a note in that they no longer say how they are to be redeemed and they are no longer a promise to pay in "lawful money" as required by law. See USC 12 Section 411:

Federal reserve notes, to be issued at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for the purpose of making advances to Federal reserve banks through the Federal reserve agents as hereinafter set forth and for no other purpose, are authorized. The said notes shall be obligations of the United States and shall be receivable by all national and member banks and Federal reserve banks and for all taxes, customs, and other public dues. They shall be redeemed in lawful money on demand at the Treasury Department of the United States, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, or at any Federal Reserve bank.

There's a reason for the term "lawful money," it's in the Constitution Article I Section 10, "make anything but gold or silver coin a tender in the payment of debts."

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Fact is a Federal Reserve Note is not lawful money as it is defined in the Constitution.

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Ulaven_Demorte said:

You've been banging that "broken window fallacy" parable of Bastiat's for quite some time now. Ignoring of course that it's focused only on microeconomics and trying to apply the rather limited application universally.

Even intentional destruction of real value may not result in a net loss. For example, destruction during wars has more often than not led to forced modernization and innovation of technologies resulting in an overall increase in productivity.

Also, Bastiat's parable relied on the implication that the little boy who broke the shopkeeps window had been hired to do so by the glazier in order to increase his business and that the new windows held no increase in value over the old.

In your effort to force the Broken Window parable to fit your narrative you have ignored the fact that there is no "little boy" hired to destroy our infrastructure, that it must be constantly maintained due to the wear and tear of use and natural erosion by natural forces.

Infrastructure repairs are essential and have been ignored for far too long. Our roads and bridges must be maintained and expanded to support the population, many of whom could not go to work and support the economy without the results of these "socialist" projects.

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richard_daily said:

Without working "socialist" highways, business falters. Without working "socialist" rail, business falters.

Additionally; right wingers try to state that WW2 jump started the economy after the great depression, NOT the new deal, so if that's the case, it's a perfect example of right wingers using the broken window theory themselves...

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koalabear said:

Someone should have noticed we already had the highway stimulus and all it did was buy expensive signs.

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ivantheterrible said:

sept. 7th 2010


http://finance.yahoo.com/

10% unemployment in the near future? don't sound so good. what about those who fell off the roles? underemployed? or now on welfare, if they have kids. or couch surfing while on food stamps and no unemployment or welfare except food stamps?

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Ham Murabi said:

Socialist rail systems like Burlington Northern?

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The scattershot nature of President Obama’s latest economic proposals is a sign that the administration is starting to panic — and panic it should: The GOP’s advantage in generic-ballot polling is approaching historic proportions. But the composition of the proposals also tells us something else: The administration knows it is losing its fight to let certain of the Bush tax cuts expire — even though it now has explicitly ruled out a compromise on extending them — and it is making one last push to buy leverage for its position by offering “targeted” tax cuts to the business community.

“Targeted” is one of this administration’s favorite words, second only to “inherited,” as in, “To address the severe crisis he inherited, President Obama pushed for a stimulus that was timely, targeted, and temporary.” But what we have learned from the stimulus is that Congress has exceptionally bad aim, and that temporary measures to boost the economy do little more than steal demand from the future. The Cash for Clunkers program boosted car sales for the two-month window of its existence, but it was followed by a steep drop a few months later: Average the two time periods together and you get no noticeable change in demand. The temporary Homebuyers Tax Credit had a similar effect on home sales, with transactions spiking the month before the credit expired and then plummeting in the months after.

Having spent the last 18 months binging on stimulus sugar and enduring the consequent crashes, Obama suggests we return to the cookie jar with a temporary credit that would allow businesses to take an immediate 100 percent deduction for new capital and equipment expenditures made between now and the end of 2011. (Under current law, businesses must spread the deduction out over seven years.) A permanent credit of this sort might make sense as an option for businesses, but a temporary credit is a bad idea. Just as Cash for Clunkers and the Homebuyers Tax Credit distorted demand for cars and homes without really stimulating it, a temporary deduction for capital expenditures would encourage firms that were already planning on building new plants or buying new equipment at some point to make those investments in 2011 rather than 2012, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to persuade them to invest in the absence of such plans.

Obama also proposes to expand and make permanent a tax credit for research-and-development expenditures. This would be an improvement over the status quo, under which this tax credit has been “temporary” for government accounting purposes but consistently reauthorized since its creation in 1981. By itself, the policy isn’t objectionable, but it’s being offered in exchange for a worse overall tax climate: The administration has almost certainly oversold the benefits of expanding the credit, which would be small compared to the costs of raising tax rates in a weak economy. Increasing tax rates on income, dividends, and capital gains, even if those hikes were confined to the top two brackets, would weaken incentives for some of the country’s most productive individuals and profitable small businesses to work, invest, hire, and grow. A slightly bigger write-off for R&D isn’t sufficient to cushion that blow, and business owners know it.

No list of proposals from this president would be complete without new spending, so the president has also asked for $50 billion to fund a new “infrastructure bank” that would make loans for transportation projects. It’s important to keep in mind that the government can’t pay for the transportation projects it already has. The Highway Trust Fund is insolvent, and the Democrats aren’t willing to raise the gas tax that funds it, even though they’ve tried every other way they can think of to make fossil fuels more expensive.

It isn’t clear where the administration would get the money to fund the government’s share in this new bank, though its spokesmen have suggested, as they have with regard to every other new spending request, that raising taxes on oil-and-gas companies and “closing loopholes” might cover part of the cost. Nor is it clear how the bank would attract private capital. Toll roads and other revenue-generating projects might be attractive to investors, but these kinds of projects aren’t exactly political winners. The worst-case scenario, which we can easily imagine, would involve giving private investors an incentive to bring their money to the table by insuring them against losses and letting them keep most of the profits while making taxpayers shoulder all of the risk. Haven’t we seen this movie before? Remind us: How did it end?

If this summer’s employment and housing numbers heralded the death of the latest Keynesian revival, then Obama’s latest raft of stimulus proposals indicates that he has reached the bargaining stage of grief. He is tacitly acknowledging that tax relief is the best medicine for an ailing economy, but he is trying to hold on to the idea that government still knows best where that relief should be “targeted,” and he’s asking for just $50 billion more in new spending in exchange. He still thinks we should let the Bush tax cuts expire, even as key senators in his party and his own former OMB director have abandoned that view. The sooner Obama gets over the denial stage, reaches the acceptance stage, and embraces a pro-growth tax policy, the sooner we’ll exit the depression stage and get on the road to recovery.

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Frisco_Slug_Esq said:

Editors
NRO

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cebalrai said:

Yeah but nobody is stupid enough to get their information from the NRO, right?

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Ham Murabi said:

Right. Everyone knows Cash for Clunkers kick-started the industry and new car sales have been through the roof since then.

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koalabear said:

Hillary......no,no,no..........

"Our rising debt levels (pose) a national security threat," she said.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...iplomatic-strategy-best-hope-dangerous-world/


HILLARY IN 2012>>>>>>>>>>>>HAHAHAHAHAHA

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mercury14 said:

Yoyu'd rather vote for Republican front-runner Sarah Palin? I'm sure she'd do just fine going toe-to-toe on the international stage with Dmitri Medvedev.

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koalabear said:

You just keep worrying about Palin, dingle-berry.

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mercury14 said:

Yoyu'd rather vote for Republican front-runner Sarah Palin? I'm sure she'd do just fine going toe-to-toe on the international stage with Dmitri Medvedev.

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mercury14 said:

Yoyu'd rather vote for Republican front-runner Sarah Palin? I'm sure she'd do just fine going toe-to-toe on the international stage with Dmitri Medvedev.

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koalabear said:

Bam said only one honest thing today in his speech at an Ohio CC, "taxes will go up substantially next year for everyone". Imagine that.

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koalabear said:

Bam said only one honest thing today in his speech at an Ohio CC, "taxes will go up substantially next year for everyone". Imagine that.

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Mortgage servicers are now expected to record the race of all their clients — including those expressly unwilling to provide one. In order, naturally, to stop discriminatory lending.

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is a creature of the Obama administration. It advertises itself as helping “financially struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure by modifying loans.” Sounds important. But its new guidebook reveals an intention to do more than just that. On page 28, the guidebook reminds lenders that HAMP “solicits data related to the race, ethnicity and sex of the borrower and co-borrower, referred to as Government Monitoring Data (GMD).”

All nonsense, you might say, but nothing new — many government programs, including the Census, collect racial data. But usually, respondents can opt out of classifying themselves. Under HAMP’s new guidelines, by contrast, lenders are required to ignore such conscientious objections. See section 4.1.2.1, on page 31: “If a borrower declines to provide GMD, the servicer should attempt to provide the information based on visual observation, information learned from the borrower or surname.” Presumably, “visual observation” means skin tone, a “surname” can suggest country of origin, and “information learned” accommodates almost anything that can fit a stereotype. Note also the word “declines,” as opposed to “neglects”: Those who check the box that says “I do not wish to furnish this information” will have it furnished for them.

...

This new guideline is a response to the Obama administration’s fears of discrimination against minorities in mortgages, fully displayed in Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez’s testimony before a House subcommittee four months ago. He called “fair-lending issues” a “top priority for the Civil Rights Division.” The new HAMP guidelines will ensure a complete racial taxonomy of mortgage clients. Everyone must be categorized so the Justice Department can prove discrimination beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Ham Murabi said:

And then the economy will really take off, right?

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