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

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

As it is, the struggle of the Fed to ignite substantial growth in the money supply has enormous implications for American politics. It was "no accident" that the golden age of Fed money production -- 1960, say, to "peak money" in 2009 -- was an era that encompassed the long build-up of welfare state entitlement programs. Unless the Fed soon recaptures its money boosting dexterity, its days as the great financial wizard of our welfare state may be over. Without a Fed able to create the appearance of more economic success than is actually occurring, more Americans will question government largesse at their expense. And an anemic money supply will provide no further disguise of government financial voracity.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_federal_reserve_aging_magi.html

The Fed has been a true and faithful ally to politicians during their happy decades of growing the welfare state. If the old Fed magic has gone for good, politicians will repeatedly find it necessary to impose additional taxes merely to maintain, let alone expand, the massive structure of entitlements. Unpopular, crushing, and overt taxation will be required, absent the old Fed wizardry, to address the fiscal horror of deficits premised on the survival of Social Security, Medicare and all the other programs.

No serious proposals for dismantling the most fiscally threatening welfare state entitlements have been so much as hinted at. All proposals aim at salvaging them. Conservative politicians argue for low tax rates for the reason that they will "bring in more (tax) revenue," i.e., will feed the welfare state. The American people themselves have not turned against entitlements. Far and wide, the cry is for the macroeconomists' version of "recovery" - understood by all to mean the resumption of the business-as-usual growth of the welfare state on the back of a private economy expected to slave forever in subordination to ever-growing statist schemes.

President Obama, easily the most profligate president in our history, amusingly called into being a prestigious commission to propose a plan for "fiscal responsibility and reform." The implicit mandate of that commission was to provide the political establishment with a menu of various modest adjustments to preserve welfare state entitlements with as little disruption as possible. But we hear of no "Plan B" to address the contradiction in terms that we may actually face: a welfare state bereft of an effective central bank.

 

[mercury14]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_federal_reserve_aging_magi.html

Nice C&P of partisan propaganda. Quality information there.


Meanwhile the stock market is making me a shitload of money.

 

[trysail]

There are certain graphs that can identify periods where fear or greed predominates. Once such graph would be a time series of the "spreads" ( i.e., the difference between interest rates ) between U.S. Treasury and corporate debt. The difference between the yield of a traditional 10-year Treasury note and a 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Security is a measure of the market's fear ( or lack thereof ) of future inflation.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?&chart_type=line&graph_id=34019&category_id=0&recession_bars=On&width=800&height=480&bgcolor=%23B3CDE7&graph_bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&txtcolor=%23000000&ts=8&preserve_ratio=false&fo=ve&id=DGS10,DFII10,DFII10_DGS10&transformation=lin,lin,lin_lin&scale=Left,Left,Left&range=Custom,Custom,Custom&cosd=2003-01-02,2003-01-02,2003-01-02&coed=2010-12-20,2010-12-20,2010-12-20&line_color=%23FF0000,%23006600,%2300ccff&link_values=,,&mark_type=NONE,NONE,MARK_SQUARE&mw=4,4,6&line_style=Solid,Solid,Dotted&lw=1,1,1&vintage_date=2010-12-22,2010-12-22,2010-12-22_2010-12-22&revision_date=2010-12-22,2010-12-22,2010-12-22_2010-12-22&mma=0,0,0&nd=,,_&ost=,,&oet=,,&fml=a,a,b-a&fq=Daily,Daily,Daily&fam=avg,avg,avg&fgst=lin,lin,lin

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?&chart_type=line&graph_id=31469&category_id=0&recession_bars=On&width=800&height=480&bgcolor=%23B3CDE7&graph_bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&txtcolor=%23000000&ts=8&preserve_ratio=false&fo=ve&id=AMBSL&transformation=lin&scale=Left&range=Max&cosd=1918-01-01&coed=2010-11-01&line_color=%230000FF&link_values=&mark_type=NONE&mw=4&line_style=Solid&lw=1&vintage_date=2010-12-22&revision_date=2010-12-22&mma=0&nd=&ost=&oet=&fml=a&fq=Monthly&fam=avg&fgst=lin

​

 

[mercury14]

[Large pointless graph]

The economy is recovering. People are making money. We're miles away from where we were 18 months ago. Hooray!























Oh wait, you're still hoping for doom and gloom. You make predictions of bad shit happening, and then when you're proven wrong you don't apologize or point out that you were wrong, you just shift to a new position... pretending you have no track record.

 

[trysail]

[Large pointless graph]

The economy is recovering. People are making money. We're miles away from where we were 18 months ago. Hooray!

Oh wait, you're still hoping for doom and gloom. You make predictions of bad shit happening, and then when you're proven wrong you don't apologize or point out that you were wrong, you just shift to a new position... pretending you have no track record.

Son, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know. I've been doing this for a long, long time ( as a professional ). I was taught by and worked with people you only read about.

	Account		S&P 500		Account		Index of       +/-	
	Return		Total Return	Index		S&P 500		S&P 500	
	%		%		( 1983=100 )	Index		% Return	
										
1983	(18.8)		22.5 		81.3		122.5		(41.3)	
										
1984	68.9 		6.3 		137.2		130.2		62.6 	
										
1985	38.3 		32.2 		189.8		172.1		6.1 	
										
1986	38.1 		18.5 		262.0		203.8		19.6 	
										
1987	5.6 		5.2 		276.7		214.5		0.4 	
										
1988	30.9 		16.8 		362.3		250.6		14.1 	
										
1989	48.1 		31.5 		536.5		329.5		16.6 	
										
1990	(7.7)		(3.2)		495.0		319.0		(4.6)	
										
1991	49.6 		30.5 		740.4		416.5		19.0 	
										
1992	36.0 		7.6 		1,007.2		448.2		28.4 	
										
1993	13.0 		10.1 		1,137.8		493.4		2.9 	
										
1994	4.0 		1.3 		1,183.3		499.9		2.7 	
										
1995	13.7 		37.6 		1,344.9		687.7		(23.9)	
										
1996	25.1 		23.0 		1,682.7		845.6		2.2 	
										
1997	19.5 		33.4 		2,010.6		1,127.7		(13.9)	
										
1998	(13.3)		28.6 		1,743.7		1,450.0		(41.8)	
										
1999	11.0 		21.0 		1,935.2		1,755.1		(10.1)	
										
2000	19.2 		(9.1)		2,307.0		1,595.3		28.3 	
										
2001	14.9 		(11.9)		2,651.5		1,405.7		26.8 	
										
2002	(4.0)		(22.1)		2,546.7		1,095.1		18.1 	
										
2003	27.2 		28.7 		3,240.6		1,409.2		(1.4)	
										
2004	16.7 		10.9 		3,780.8		1,562.5		5.8 	
										
2005	8.5 		4.9 		4,102.8		1,639.3		3.6 	
										
2006	18.2 		15.8 		4,850.0		1,898.2		2.4 	
										
2007	7.0 		5.5 		5,189.9		2,002.4		1.5 	
										
2008	(24.2)		(37.0)		3,931.5		1,261.6		12.8 	
										
2009	12.3 		26.5 		4,416.4		1,595.4		(14.1)	
										
2010	21.2 		15.1 		5,351.2		1,834.9		6.1

 

[hogjack]

We're miles away from where we were 18 months ago.

The US is also miles closer to where Greece and Ireland have recently tread and other nations are perilously close to skidding.

The economy is still a house of cards until many difficult decisions are made. Don't bet on it.

 

[richard_daily]

Son, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know. I've been doing this for a long, long time ( as a professional ). I was taught by and worked with people you only read about.

You should ask for your money back... the training didn't stick very well.

Quite possibly because of all that stuff you're bragging about having forgotten.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

...........numb nuts.

How's the closet working out for you?

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

Hearing you giggling, opening the door, and finding you jacking off with tweezers in hand, while hiding from mom, is getting to be quite a bore.

Then you should stop dreaming...

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

PM Richard Daily, he'll be glad to exchange photos with you. Make sure you have your glasses on.

ishmale, cade, and busybody have all admitted to looking at my ampics thread... it's ok vetteman, you don't have to hide the fact that you have as well.

 

[trysail]

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?&chart_type=line&graph_id=30394&category_id=0&recession_bars=On&width=1000&height=600&bgcolor=%23B3CDE7&graph_bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&txtcolor=%23000000&ts=8&preserve_ratio=false&fo=ve&id=DGS10&transformation=lin&scale=Left&range=Max&cosd=1962-01-02&coed=2011-01-03&line_color=%230000FF&link_values=&mark_type=NONE&mw=4&line_style=Solid&lw=2&vintage_date=2011-01-05&revision_date=2011-01-05&mma=0&nd=&ost=&oet=&fml=a&fq=Monthly&fam=avg&fgst=lin

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?&chart_type=line&graph_id=30392&category_id=0&recession_bars=Off&width=1000&height=600&bgcolor=%23B3CDE7&graph_bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&txtcolor=%23000000&ts=8&preserve_ratio=false&fo=ve&id=DEXSZUS,DEXCAUS,DEXUSEU&transformation=lin,lin,lin&scale=Left,Left,Left&range=Max,Max,Max&cosd=1971-01-04,1971-01-04,1999-01-04&coed=2010-12-30,2010-12-30,2010-12-30&line_color=%230000FF,%23FF0000,%23006600&link_values=,,&mark_type=NONE,NONE,NONE&mw=4,4,4&line_style=Solid,Solid,Solid&lw=1,1,1&vintage_date=2011-01-05,2011-01-05,2011-01-05&revision_date=2011-01-05,2011-01-05,2011-01-05&mma=0,0,0&nd=,,&ost=,,&oet=,,&fml=a,a,1%2Fa&fq=Daily,Daily,Daily&fam=avg,avg,avg&fgst=lin,lin,lin

​

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The economy is recovering. People are making money. We're miles away from where we were 18 months ago. Hooray!

Oh wait, you're still hoping for doom and gloom. You make predictions of bad shit happening, and then when you're proven wrong you don't apologize or point out that you were wrong, you just shift to a new position... pretending you have no track record.

The year 2011 begins with the government-driven mantra that a recovery is under way. "The Recovery Summer" was accompanied by similar fanfare, only to become the subject of late-night TV jokes. The 2011 recovery meme will be as valid and fleeting as that of its predecessor.

Why the optimism? The government has not changed course. Its previous "solutions" have been ineffective and have exacerbated problems. Just as you cannot cure a hangover by drinking more, you cannot cure a debt problem with more debt. Both forms of temporary relief risk irreparable long-term damage.

A year ago, I predicted that there would be no recovery and that the seriousness of our economic plight would become apparent: "The year 2010 is likely to be the pivotal year where pundits stop referring to the recession and begin openly talking about a Depression."

No recovery occurred, despite claims by the NBER that the recession ended in June 2010. Nor will 2011 see any recovery.

In my opinion, we are in the beginning stages of an unavoidable Great Depression. Recognition is not widespread because of the concerted attempt by government and its media allies to minimize problems. The recovery propaganda machine is incessant, powerful, and committed. Nevertheless, understanding is growing that something bigger, more destructive, and longer-lasting than the typical recession is upon us.

The unsustainable debt piled up over the last thirty years continues to grow exponentially. Deficits are so large that they force the Fed to utilize Quantitative Easing. Last year, the Federal Reserve had these options:

The Fed continues its QE beyond its planned cessation in March 2010.
The Fed raises interest rates to levels that would attract the capital necessary to fund government operations via conventional credit markets.
No Fed action is taken. This would cause the government to default on some of its obligations.
It was easily predicted that the Fed would continue QE and that QE would not work:

Of the three alternatives, what is best economically is worst politically. This natural conflict between good economics and good politics is not unusual. Economically, the country would be harmed least by implementing alternative 2. From a political standpoint, alternatives 2 and 3 are probably unacceptable. Thus, it is likely that alternative 1 will be used. Again! It is precisely the continual overuse of this alternative that led to the current, sad state.

The best that we can hope for is continued malaise. That probably means the following:
Employment does not recover.
Stocks, probably overpriced already, might or might not do well as the Fed continues to pump liquidity.
Commodities, or "hard assets," will likely do well as a play on worldwide fiat currency depreciation.
Housing prices will continue down, perhaps as much as an additional 15%-20%.
Bonds will do poorly once it becomes apparent that the government's only tool is to inflate.
QE will continue for the entire year and probably beyond.
QE, at this point, has nothing to do with saving the economy. It is necessary to enable the government to continue paying its bills. It likely will be necessary beyond 2011.

The result of past and present government policies is that we are left with no good ending. For 2011, the best outcome is continued economic malaise. The worst outcome is the "crack-up boom" of which Ludwig von Mises warned:

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

I have speculated that this ultimate ending becomes a hyperinflationary depression:

... we likely end up with the worst of all worlds. In a hyperinflation, money will cease to be a medium of exchange. Markets will cease to work, except on a barter basis. The middle class will be wiped out. Their savings will become worthless along with the dollar.

This ending is not predicted for 2011, although it could begin tomorrow. Recent and continuing policies by government move us closer to Mises' outcome -- a devastation of the economy. When this ending comes, it will be typhoon-like, appearing suddenly and rapidly destroying everything.

Monty Pelerin
The American Thinker

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

Monty Pelerin
The American Thinker

Do you actually think for a moment that anyone reads your C&P spam?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Shut up.





You honestly think we're in a recovery. So does Ish. Mull that one over 'cause you KNOW he's ALWAYS wrong...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

PS - It's clear that you guys don't read anything other than your own subset of writers and thinkers, witness ya'lls reaction to the shooting of this weekend, like your replies here, long on ranting, short on facts...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

David Brooks, in a recent New York Times column, highlighted Obamacare’s most serious flaw: PPACA incentivizes companies to drop health coverage for their employees. Employers who drop coverage have to pay a fine, but the fine is cheaper than offering health insurance, and even the employees can be better off — they buy their insurance on state-based “exchanges,” where they can take advantage of the law’s new subsidies. (Americans making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for subsidized coverage on the exchanges.) AT&T has calculated that it would save $1.8 billion a year by dumping its workers into the government’s lap.

Companies are keeping quiet about their plans for now, but make no mistake: If Obamacare remains the law of the land, nearly every corporation in America will do what AT&T has contemplated. So will cash-strapped state governments.

Last March, the CBO projected that 26 million people will take advantage of Obamacare’s exchange subsidies in 2019, at a cost of $109 billion that year. But that number is based on the assumption that of the 162 million people who have employer-sponsored insurance today, only 4 million — 2.5 percent — will switch.

In other words, the projection of $109 billion is absurdly low; it underestimates Obamacare’s cost by trillions of dollars.

In a recent Politico column, former budget officials Douglas Holtz-Eakin and James Capretta calculated what would happen if the CBO’s estimates were somewhat off. By their math, if the households below 250 percent of the federal poverty line ($55,125 for a family of four) that now have employer-sponsored health insurance were to migrate to Obamacare’s exchanges, spending on those exchanges would more than triple, resulting in trillions of dollars in additional liabilities.

It gets worse. Holtz-Eakin and Capretta’s assumptions are actually quite restrained. What happens if even more people take advantage of subsidies? What happens if Medicaid spending grows at faster rates than Obamacare anticipates? We could be talking about much, much more than $200 billion a year in additional spending.

There was a time, not so long ago, when annual federal deficits of $200 billion would be described with alarm. For Obamacare, they’re just a rounding error.

— Avik Roy is an equity research analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. in New York City. He blogs on health-care issues at The Apothecary.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/256807

 

[trysail]

Coming soon..., to a store near you!

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/chart?h=152&w=240&range=1y&type=gp_line&cfg=BQuote.xml&ticks=SPGSAG%3AINDhttp://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/chart?h=152&w=240&range=1y&type=gp_line&cfg=BQuote.xml&ticks=FAOFOODI%3AIND
​

SPGSAG:IND S&P GSCI Agric Indx Spot
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=SPGSAG:IND

FAOFOODI:IND FAO Food Price Index
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=FAOFOODI:IND

FAO Food Price Index are constant trade weighted average of 55 agricultural commodity prices quoted internationally, obtained from secondary sources. Laspeyres Price 2002-2004=100

__________________


http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aeDp9DjABJQM


Corn, Soybean, Wheat Prices Surge as U.S. Cuts Supply Outlook
By Jeff Wilson and Whitney McFerron

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Corn and soybeans jumped to the highest prices since July 2008 and wheat surged after the government cut its forecasts of U.S. inventories, signaling tighter food supplies as demand increases and adverse weather reduces harvests.

Production of corn in the U.S., the world’s largest grain exporter, dropped 4.9 percent last year and will leave supply before the 2011 harvest at the lowest in 15 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. The USDA also cut its estimate of the soybean crop by 1.4 percent and said domestic wheat inventories will be 16 percent less than a year earlier.

Corn, used mostly as livestock feed, has surged more than 60 percent in the past year, while soybeans and wheat advanced 45 percent. Wholesale world food prices tracked by the United Nations surged 25 percent last year to a record, fueled partly by rallies in grains and oilseeds. Exports of U.S. crops are headed to the highest ever, boosting farm income and profit for agriculture companies including Cargill Inc. and Deere & Co.

“There’s no room for error anymore” on farms around the world, said Dan Basse, the president of AgResouce Co., a commodity consultant in Chicago. “With any weather issues, we’re going to make new all-time highs in corn and soybeans, and to a lesser degree, wheat futures.”

Drought ruined wheat fields in Russia last year and too much rain diminished supplies of the grain from Canada. Adverse weather led to a drop in 2010 corn production in the U.S. and a smaller harvest of soybeans than expected, government data show.

Planting Pressure
“The pressure is acute, in terms of planting fence row to fence row, and really getting the message out to farmers that they need to be planting up their front yards,” Basse said today during a conference call with reporters and analysts.

Rising prices will increase global demand for fertilizer from Mosaic Co. and seeds from Monsanto Co. Reduced supplies of corn will increase expenses for meat companies and squeeze profit margins for makers of ethanol including Valero Energy Corp.

Corn futures for March delivery rose 23.5 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $6.305 a bushel at 10:14 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. The price advanced as much as the exchange limit of 30 cents to $6.37, the highest since July 2008.

Soybean futures for March delivery soared 60 cents, or 4.4 percent, to $14.17 a bushel in Chicago, after rising by the exchange limit of 70 cents to $14.27, a 29-month high.

Wheat futures for March delivery jumped 19 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $7.785 a bushel, after earlier gaining 4.1 percent.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Nice C&P of partisan propaganda. Quality information there.


Meanwhile the stock market is making me a shitload of money.

I wonder what the FED has to do about flooding the markets with easy money?

Do you?

Ever?

Keeping it short and sweet for our short-attention span friends:

For the last two years, the Obama administration has worked on two energy assumptions: (1) The global economic downturn in late 2008 that caused oil prices to crash would give strapped American consumers a sudden gift of cheaper gas without much government action. (2) Solar and wind power and “millions of new green jobs” would usher in our alternative-energy future.

But harsh realities have intervened. While the Obama administration was making it far harder to develop oil and gas on government-owned western lands, and hampering offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, the world economy was recovering — and with the recovery, energy demands were increasing. As oil now approaches $100 a barrel, gas is already over $3 a gallon and headed still higher. It may have been two years since the beleaguered motoring public embraced the chant “Drill, baby, drill,” but when voters begin paying nearly $4 a gallon in 2011, they will want far more oil production and far fewer pie-in-the-sky green speeches.

Victor Davis Hanson
NRO
__________________
"How about just tracking down every single person who said drill baby drill and putting them all in prison. Why don’t we do that?"
Alan Grayson

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

What's the unemployment rate? Ask those folks how the economy is.

With the new proposed defense cuts, the U.S. Army will lose almost 50,000 troops in four years, the Marine Corps another 20,000 — along with radical curtailments in the number of armored vehicles, front-line jet fighters, and new ships. But will there be commensurate reductions in American commitments overseas?

VDH

Where are the stupid and desperate going to go to get jobs?

 

[unregistered]