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

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opinion pieces that are only prose don't hold much weight, but many offer links and cite references that support their argument, so i'll definitely prefer to read those.

Political opinion pieces that source their comments are almost always cherry picking data though. I'm talking about right and left wing ones. They simply ignore data contrary to their opinion and select data that supports it. Therefore blogs are worth little. And facts linked through blogs need to be investigated and vetted because they're not going to tell the whole story.


ugh, you're not gonna make me rifle through threads, are you? i'm actually trying to write a story here.
but you've been around these boards long enough to acknowledge that you've seen cbo linked and quoted a helluvalot, yeah? let's agree to that and leave it there.


No I've never seen anyone quoting it religiously. Or even a hell of a lot. I see right wingers posting WND, Pajamas, and Breitbart spam. But CBO spam? Where is that?
 
The stimulus ship sets sail
The pressure is building on central banks worldwide to do the one thing they think works: print money.
 
The median family's net worth dropped 38.8 percent during the three-year period, the Fed said in its latest report on changes in U.S. Family Finances, derived from a survey of consumer finances. Fed economists told reporters that this was the biggest drop in net worth since the survey started in 1989.

The median net worth, which is the value of assets minus debt, plunged to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007. Net worth in 2010 was at levels last seen in 1992.

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...ge-downturn-caused-to-families-net-worth?lite
 
The median family's net worth dropped 38.8 percent during the three-year period, the Fed said in its latest report on changes in U.S. Family Finances, derived from a survey of consumer finances. Fed economists told reporters that this was the biggest drop in net worth since the survey started in 1989.

The median net worth, which is the value of assets minus debt, plunged to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007. Net worth in 2010 was at levels last seen in 1992.

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...ge-downturn-caused-to-families-net-worth?lite

So lets vote for Obama again, makes perfect sense....
 
The median family's net worth dropped 38.8 percent during the three-year period, the Fed said in its latest report on changes in U.S. Family Finances, derived from a survey of consumer finances. Fed economists told reporters that this was the biggest drop in net worth since the survey started in 1989.

The median net worth, which is the value of assets minus debt, plunged to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007. Net worth in 2010 was at levels last seen in 1992.

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...ge-downturn-caused-to-families-net-worth?lite

Who needs wealth when you got uncle sam:D
 
Lordy Lordy! Net worth dropping during the recession! Color me all shades of surprised!:eek:

You obviously didn't attend the Vettebigot's little class on the stock market last week.

Professor Vettebigot told us that a "stock" was technically a "loan" to a company, with a guaranteed price equal to the purchase price. Furthermore, a stock could and should only rise in value, and guaranteed a rate of return to investors.

You can learn a lot of interesting stuff on Lit!
 
The Austerity Agenda
By Paul Krugman, NY Times

The money quote:
So the austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs. And this is, of course, exactly the same thing that has been happening in America.

LINK

Probably the best editorial that Lit Wingnuts will refuse to read all year.
 
Bankers

Curiously, although the banking sector itself appears to be the natural starting place for inquiring about the effects of rational expectations on ABCT, the supporters of rational expectations rarely address the question of why bankers would loan the money in the first place. If bankers would simply rationally expect that easy credit results in widespread malinvestments that punish the bankers through the associated losses, then the business cycle would not occur. Why do the rational expectations of bankers fail to prevent them from loaning easy credit in the first place?

In his excellent book What Has Government Done to Our Money?, Murray Rothbard provides a lucid account of how government interventions in the banking sector have developed.[3] As explained by Rothbard, the government over time removed the natural checks on inflation within the banking sector, eliminating the free-market regulations that would otherwise restrain easy credit. Among the many governmental interventions into the banking sector important in relation to rational expectations, the government allowed banks to ignore their contractual obligations via "bank holidays," created a central bank as a lender of last resort that manages inflation, and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) to insure deposits at banks.[4] All of these interventions reduced the risks of easy credit, enabling for bankers to provide it without fear of its consequences.

By instituting bank holidays since the War of 1812, the federal government trained bankers to expect rationally the existence of future bank holidays, convincing them that expanding credit would be a safe venture protected by the government. Whereas the strict enforcement of contractual obligations would have resulted in the bankruptcies of banks that had significantly expanded credit and would have taught bankers to be cautious when expanding credit, the instituting of bank holidays ingrained the opposite rational expectation, leading to greater credit expansions as time passed. Bank holidays convinced bankers to expand credit more recklessly, knowing full well that the government would institute bank holidays when needed.

Further expanding the impetus for easy credit, the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 constructed a federal agency designed to manage inflation through the banking system while acting as a lender of last resort. Prior to the Federal Reserve, banks with tighter credit checked banks with easier credit by redeeming the notes of the easy-credit banks, necessarily restraining the volume of loans that banks could make in excess of the amount of liquid cash they had. By institutionalizing a banking cartel, the Federal Reserve ended this free-market regulation, transforming banks into cooperating inflationary agents. Additionally, by acting as a lender of last resort, the Federal Reserve provided banks direct access to money in case of emergencies, continuing to remove concerns bankers had of a lack of liquidity. Primarily for these two reasons, the formation of the Fed continued to mold the rational expectations of bankers so that they would not concern themselves with the bust phase of the business cycle.

With the creation of the FDIC, the federal government removed one of the final free-market checks on the banking sector, eliminating most of the remaining inhibitions of bankers. Prior to the FDIC, bankers needed to maintain sufficiently large reserves so as to maintain the confidence of depositors. If a bank ever lost their confidence, then it would suffer from a bank run, leading to the bankruptcy of the bank. Bank runs acted as a powerful check on the credit expansion of banks. Following the formation of the FDIC, depositors were ensured that any banking problems would not affect them. Banks no longer had to fear bank runs, enabling them to expand credit further without this fear.

As Rothbard explained, these measures taught bankers that the government would protect them from problems associated with easy credit. Due to special governmental privileges and through bailouts from the Fed, bankers learned to expect rationally that they would receive the benefits of easy credit while being protected from the costs.

Since the publication of Rothbard's book, the governmental interventions have only expanded. In particular, the federal government has deemed entities "too big to fail" and shown a willingness to bail them out. For example, the federal government bailed out Amtrak and New York City in the 1970s, savings-and-loans institutions in the '80s, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in the '90s, and most recently American International Group (AIG), the large automobile companies, and the largest banks that made poor and reckless investment decisions. As long as a company is large enough, employs enough people, relates significantly to the financial system, or in some way qualifies as "too big to fail," the federal government has clearly signaled that it will bail it out in hard times. The largest banks now know that their profits can be privatized and their losses can be socialized, removing the checks associated with risk and creating perverse incentives among bankers.
http://mises.org/daily/6068/When-Anticipation-Makes-Things-Worse
 
Krugman has already been answered.

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/302438
Also go to Mises.org and search on Diocletian.
http://mises.org/daily/6076/Of-Krugman-and-Diocletian
You might want to check in with merc on the abilities of Krugman...

I read Vic Hanson's piece (although you're too chickenshit to read mine, you fucking nancy-boy coward).

This was Hanson revisionism at it's best:
In the case of the United States, “austerity” does not mean significant cuts in food stamps, reductions in unemployment eligibility, or a raised retirement age, but simply not adding new entitlements to those that recently were vastly expanded.

I literally laughed out loud at that brazen lie. Only a "true believer" would swallow that happy horseshit.
 
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