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

[4est_4est_Gump]

It never goes away; it is as old as man.

All political systems are cyclic...

It's simply an Oligarchy.

There are oligarchies of the best families, of the best minds from the best universities, of the revolutionaries who kick out the rotting structure of the old order; it's just another name for the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the whole, the State.

It's just another facade, a variation on a theme, a way to say, well, by definition, we're not that, we're smarter, evolved, that;s an old-fashioned name, and on and on, which is why on the right, there are about two, maybe three labels in use, conservative, Republican, Libertarian, but over on the Left we have an infinite, ever evolving set of labels indicating supreme nuisance of thought and superiority but all leading to the same eventual state; serfdom by another name.

There is always an enemy to the existing order. I get that.

I have seen not one of Arthur Miller's plays.

No accounting for taste.

 

[richard_daily]

Truth is Garb, the little bulls can't live a fulfilling Lit experience without us bigger bulls. They just can't admit the dependency.

Says the guy who claims that his mission at lit is to "toss liberals".

Go get a semblance of a life.

 

[patrick1]

It never goes away; it is as old as man.

All political systems are cyclic...

It's simply an Oligarchy.

There are oligarchies of the best families, of the best minds from the best universities, of the revolutionaries who kick out the rotting structure of the old order; it's just another name for the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the whole, the State.

It's just another facade, a variation on a theme, a way to say, well, by definition, we're not that, we're smarter, evolved, that;s an old-fashioned name, and on and on, which is why on the right, there are about two, maybe three labels in use, conservative, Republican, Libertarian, but over on the Left we have an infinite, ever evolving set of labels indicating supreme nuisance of thought and superiority but all leading to the same eventual state; serfdom by another name.

There is always an enemy to the existing order. I get that.

I have seen not one of Arthur Miller's plays.

No accounting for taste.

There: we agree on something

I too believe the world is ruled by oligarchies.

Patrick

 

[koalabear]

A financial D-Day
A coordinated intervention by the world's central banks to pump money and liquidity into the system suggests things in Europe are worse than we thought.

Things are much worse than I thought. For me, that's the real takeaway from this financial D-Day, this worldwide coordination from wealthier countries to help major banks in Europe that were clearly about to go under.



Remember, there were two risks to the situation: credit to the banks and credit to the countries. Apparently the credit had all but dried up for SocGen, for BNP Paribas and maybe even for Deutsche Bank (DB +9.28%). Now that credit will be freed up.



That's a save for these banks. It helps the U.S. banks that were just hit with the huge Standard & Poor's downgrade Tuesday night.

http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=5f6df05a-3985-4582-aff6-d7616ddda1e1&_nwpt=1

http://data.moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/chrtsrv.dll?symbol=%24US%3AINDU&width=298&height=160&c1=3&ce=0&cf=0&d2=0&d3=0&d4=1&d5=0&e8=1&legend=0&banner=5&af=2&palette=2

 

[unregistered]

 

[busybody..]

the economy IS getting better, much better

if THAT saves Carter Obama II

I will start BLOWING SHIT UP

 

[richard_daily]

the economy IS getting better, much better

if THAT saves Carter Obama II

I will start BLOWING SHIT UP

You're a liar... you won't do anything. You're lazy and a coward... also, you look funny.

 

[patrick1]

Remember, there were two risks to the situation: credit to the banks and credit to the countries. Apparently the credit had all but dried up for SocGen, for BNP Paribas and maybe even for Deutsche Bank (DB +9.28%). Now that credit will be freed up.


http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=5f6df05a-3985-4582-aff6-d7616ddda1e1&_nwpt=1

http://data.moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/chrtsrv.dll?symbol=%24US%3AINDU&width=298&height=160&c1=3&ce=0&cf=0&d2=0&d3=0&d4=1&d5=0&e8=1&legend=0&banner=5&af=2&palette=2

Every subsidy to a poor person is also a subsidy to the company they buy stuff from. I totally agree with you: subsidy is always a double-edged sword. Are we bailing out Greece, or the French and German banks who thought they were a hot investment?

And it is a bizarre but interesting thing. Banks start to disbelieve in each other. They start to worry that everyone is as crooked as they themselves are. Then we're all in the soup

Patrick

 

[unregistered]

 

[eyer]

U.S. Nears Milestone: Net Fuel Exporter

BY LIAM PLEVEN AND RUSSELL GOLD

U.S. exports of gasoline, diesel and other oil-based fuels are soaring, putting the nation on track to be a net exporter of petroleum products in 2011 for the first time in 62 years.

A combination of booming demand from emerging markets and faltering domestic activity means the U.S. is exporting more fuel than it imports, upending the historical norm.

According to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday, the U.S. sent abroad 753.4 million barrels of everything from gasoline to jet fuel in the first nine months of this year, while it imported 689.4 million barrels.

Continued @

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203441704577068670488306242.html

 

[patrick1]

This has the dangerous look of some journalism that's completely untrue. Well, I shouldn't exaggerate, it puts a particular slant on something to make the world look one way, when actually it's another. The USA is a net importer of petroleum-based fuel. Oh well.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/11/30/america_is_still_a_giant_oil_importer.html

Patrick

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There: we agree on something

I too believe the world is ruled by oligarchies.

Patrick

Potentially. That is why a central government needs to be severely limited in scope.

The local oligarchy being, of course, then the lesser of two evils the one known to you and the one that knows you...



... like our examples of "successful" European Socialisms, the tiny and the homogenous relying on another for defense.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

DOW up 393.

People who believe that money grows on trees are always happy when the tree produces new bushels to flood the market with, but generally it's a short lived euphoria if the underlying problem remains.

Let's see if any of this additional stimulus for big banks will address the fundamental problem of whether or not the countries in question can actually assume their financial responsibilities. Let's see what this does for Euro bond yields.

They're going to take us down when they go down, so let's get on board and go down with them...



What's not to love about THAT plan?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Oh HAPPY DAY!

Oh, JOYFUL day!

Of, thee day of days as we cross that 12K threshold and see nothing but a wave of economic up indicators!

Oh Beautiful day! Now, for our Psalm of the day...


OH! Bama hey bama, bama, bama, ho!
Bama hey bama OH! Bama!

Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd?
Nothing can be done to stop the shouting!
If every tongue were stilled the noise would still continue,
The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing!

OH! Bama hey bama, bama, bama, ho!
Bama hey bama OH! Bama!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

As long as the racist rocks don't sing.


They are under a gag order.


Off for some stimulus . . . .

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

This has the dangerous look of some journalism that's completely untrue. Well, I shouldn't exaggerate, it puts a particular slant on something to make the world look one way, when actually it's another. The USA is a net importer of petroleum-based fuel. Oh well.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/11/30/america_is_still_a_giant_oil_importer.html

Patrick

The United States may be becoming a net exporter of petroleum products thanks to increased domestic capacity and surging foreign demand, but we're still a huge importer of foreign energy.

Slate is part of the Obamanation.

But the administration is playing a cute game. When energy becomes an issue, they make symbolic gestures of opening up drilling and creating union jobs to please his base with the right hand knowing full well that the Left hand is going to rise up and give them reason to stop each individual project as it nears fruition over environmental causes to please his base...

Then when neither is totally satisfied with the seen outcomes, he uses their ability to compartmentalize conflicting notions and focuses their angst on the Republicans who want drilling and hate unions because they want dirty air and cheap labor in the name of greed.

It's a very cute play, probably not as good as that Arthur Miller chap, but right up their with CATS...

A_J's corollary #3, “The New Age Liberal maintains contradictory positions comfortably compartmentalized. (This is because the New Age Liberal is a creature that believes in consensus as a short-cut to an examination of the facts and a reasoned judgment about said facts. Corollary #2.)”

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

As long as the racist rocks don't sing.


They are under a gag order.


Off for some stimulus . . . .

Remember to get Two Fistfuls of Dollars for Sistah Sarah...



But, there's no inflation.

 

[patrick1]

Slate is part of the Obamanation.

[snip]

It's a very cute play, probably not as good as that Arthur Miller chap, but right up their with CATS...

A_J's corollary #3, “The New Age Liberal maintains contradictory positions comfortably compartmentalized. (This is because the New Age Liberal is a creature that believes in consensus as a short-cut to an examination of the facts and a reasoned judgment about said facts. Corollary #2.)”

I believe in evidence whether it's in Slate or the Rev Moon's publications. I am a left-libertarian, and a and old British empiricist

Go to the evidence and see what you think. To be honest you sound like you gave me your rhetoric here.

Patrick

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I believe in evidence whether it's in Slate or the Rev Moon's publications. I am a left-libertarian, and a and old British empiricist

Go to the evidence and see what you think. To be honest you sound like you gave me your rhetoric here.

Patrick

I read the whole article and bolded the significant word.

We MAY become a net exporter. There are those here on Lit who have been arguing that we could become that since 2000 but we have been hit with all sorts of fallacies and opposition including Peak Oil, "drilling won't solve our problem for at least a decade," and it's too dangerous for the environment. That is why what I posit is just not right-wing "rhetoric" but a very real reality. The Democrat Party receives the bulk of the environmental election contribution and lobbying efforts and they pay off for it is very appealing to be the Crusaders who save Mother Earth...

Makes one hell of a reelection commercial.



It's why we are still dependent.

We lost that "discussion."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Is the Fed Pursuing Our Interest or Banks’ Interests?
By Kevin D. Williamson, NRO
Posted on December 01, 2011 4:00 AM

The Fed signals that it intends to hitch our national wagon to Europe just as Europe is going over the edge, and the Dow jumps 4 percent. Maybe I’m missing something.

All that Bernanke & Co. did yesterday was to lower the dollar-financing cost for banks in Europe, where inter-bank lending is locking up — for good reason. But Europe’s problem is not its banks and their access to dollars. Europe’s banks are in trouble because European government bonds are in trouble, and European government bonds are in trouble because European governments are in trouble. European governments are in trouble because they spend too much money. The Fed can’t change that, and hasn’t tried.

The question is: What is the Fed thinking? Is it looking out for the United States, or is it looking out for the banks?

...

But here is what is beyond debate: Europe has not solved its fiscal problems. Europe shows no sign of being on the verge of solving its fiscal problems. Europe shows no sign that it wants to solve its fiscal problems. If Ben Bernanke is having “in for a penny, in for a pound” thoughts, he needs to think again: We do not have the resources to bail out Europe, and nobody has the resources to bail out the United States.

Congress should make it clear — today — that the Fed’s mandate does not extend to bailing out Europe’s banks and Europe’s governments. This is especially true after the secrecy and unaccountability with which it conducted the $7.7 trillion shadow bailout on top of TARP.

Market indicators suggest that investors are expecting interest rates to go lower and money to remain easy — even the ChiComs loosened up a little bit yesterday. And why had Beijing been so tight up until now? Inflation. In a poor country such as China, a little inflation can cause civil unrest. But rich countries aren’t any different, just richer. Years of low interest rates and loose money haven’t solved our fundamental economic problems, but they have created the potential for seriously disruptive inflation, and you’ll notice that gold prices and oil futures have been going up, too. That isn’t a sign of confidence in the dollar or the euro.

One of the big problems at MF Global (as at Lehman Bros.) was off-balance-sheet accounting, using various bookkeeping shenanigans to hide the fact that liabilities were dwarfing assets. The United States government does that both in the obvious sense — pretending that future entitlement liabilities don’t really exist — but in a more subtle sense, too: Wealth isn’t abstract numbers. Wealth is real stuff: food, oil, steel, houses, people performing useful services, etc. You can flood the world’s financial systems with liquidity and create the impression of economic activity, but that does not create one automobile, pair of shoes, or bag of coconuts. You can finesse the economic metrics, but that doesn’t make you any richer.

Government spending in the United States (at the federal, state, and local level) is about 40 percent of GDP, and we’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. We’re spending the money now, with promises of future benefits that amount to (literally) more than all the money in the world, and promising to pay off today’s spending out of future taxes, as though the future is not going to want to spend the money on itself. That is not a program for stability. Not in Europe. Not here.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Basically, Bernanke & Co. cut the interest rate it charges for dollar swap lines to the ECB and four other major central banks (Canada, England, Japan, and Switzerland). With interbank funding pressures in Europe rising substantially of late, the Fed’s action was timely. It doesn’t really create new dollars, but it lowers the borrowing cost of dollars taken by the ECB and other central banks. Technically, the Fed has lowered the dollar swaps spread from 1 percent above the OIS — the overnight index swap, which is comparable to the fed funds rate — to only 50 basis points.

So this is good. And stocks responded by rallying big time.

(Oh, by the way, while the Fed was lowering its dollar-swap interest rate, China eased monetary policy for the first time in several years by reducing bank reserve requirements by 50 basis points. This may be the first of several Chinese easing moves, and it certainly added to the stock surge.)

But a dollar shortage is not Europe’s problem. As of the weekend of November 23, foreign central banks had tapped the Fed for only $2.4 billion of dollar loans. This is very small. In December 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, foreign central banks borrowed $580 billion.

The European problem is a ballooning welfare entitlement state that is bankrupting most of Europe’s governments. And high European tax rates are strangling economic growth. And the debt that private investors won’t buy is held by a banking system that is increasingly vulnerable. And Germany, the strongman of Europe, doesn’t want to pay to bail out the southern countries or anyone else — including, it would seem, France.

In short, nothing has been solved in Europe. The Europeans are not yet helping themselves. Why should the ECB write a trillion-dollar check to near-bankrupt governments? And how can the IMF borrow $800 billion from the ECB to give the same troubled governments even more money? And remember, the U.S. owns nearly 20 percent of the IMF. Is Congress really going to sign off on this massive ballooning of its mission and balance sheet?

Meanwhile, the role of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) rescue fund has yet to be clarified. And individual countries have yet to guarantee the liabilities of their own commercial banks in order to fence them off from disaster. The bank recapitalization plan still hasn’t gotten off the ground. And then there’s the latest from Germany, where Chancellor Merkel wants a new fiscal union through bilateral treaties, where troubled countries would essentially report to the EU in Brussels (read Germany) and submit to sanctions and various enforcements so that they live within their means. This too seems fanciful right now.

..

A final thought about the 500-point Dow Jones rally: The U.S. economy is both stronger than we think and highly profitable. Despite all the tax, regulatory, and spending threats coming out of Washington, the resilient American economy is at least growing by 2.5 or even 3 percent right now. New data show stronger consumer sentiment and somewhat better pending home sales. The Chicago manufacturing report is heftier. And the ADP jobs report came in over 200,000 — way above consensus — suggesting a better nonfarm payroll report this Friday.

So, with the help of easier Fed dollar liquidity to avoid European Armageddon, a hint of easing in China, and a profitable U.S. economy, stocks are back in favor.

At least today.

Larry Kudlow, NRO

 

[phrodeau]

Is the Fed Pursuing Our Interest or Banks’ Interests?
By Kevin D. Williamson, NRO
Posted on December 01, 2011 4:00 AM

People in Europe will see the headline, think the author's an idiot for using a singular verb for a collective noun, and ignore it.

 

[JohnnySavage]

People in Europe will see the headline, think the author's an idiot for using a singular verb for a collective noun, and ignore it.

Or perhaps they will realize it's the plural possessive form of "Bank".

 

[koalabear]

Stocks waver on US economic data
Jobless claims increase while readings on manufacturing activity and construction spending improve. China's manufacturing activity declines for the first time in 3 years. Gold and oil rise.


http://data.moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/chrtsrv.dll?symbol=%24US%3AINDU&width=298&height=160&c1=3&ce=0&cf=0&d2=0&d3=0&d4=1&d5=0&e8=1&legend=0&banner=5&af=2&palette=2

 

[busybody..]

Can it KolaBear


Economy is getting MUCH better