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

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

In the end Congress never gets the credit or blame for anything.

 

[koalabear]

Obama election-year jobs agenda stalls in Congress


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36383229/ns/politics/

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Not to burst your bubble...

William T. Alpert

The stock market is rising because extraordinarily high corporate profits are just around the corner. The late Michal Kalecki, an obscure Polish economist, formulated the explanation in the early 1930s, summarized in his Selected Essays on the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy, 1933 to 1970 (Cambridge University Press, 1971). Kalecki's views were echoed much more vociferously by the late disciple of Joseph Schumpeter, Hyman P. Minsky, and a pioneer in modern business cycle theory who expounded the national income identity that corporate after-tax profits are equal to private investment plus the government deficit plus the trade surplus plus consumption from profit income less savings from wage income (the latter two terms are relatively minor today). (See Minsky's The Business Cycle and Public Policy, 1929 - 1980, Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States (GPO, 1980.)

This equation applies only during the short term -- which is what the textbook debate about Keynesian and the New Classical Economics is all about. But since no one except Keynes himself, Joan Robinson, Kalecki, and Minsky really understood Keynes (all with different understandings), and since none of these economists believed, as do modern interpreters of Keynes, that he (or Kalecki) was drawing an exact timeline for the long and short term -- we still must ask, How long is the short term?

In spite of protestations to the contrary, no one knows the timing lags associated with any of these policies. But suppose that the short term is twelve months, more or less. Since H1N1 flu is not likely to kill all of us off in the next year, Keynes's "in the long run, we're all dead" comment does not apply. This means, as pointed out by Kalecki and Minsky, that corporate profits are defined as equal to investment plus the deficit less the trade surplus (and the other likely minor items). In the next twelve months, profits will be huge! The market, which has a quarter-to-quarter time horizon (and at least we will all agree that this time period is short term), recognizes this, and also the fact that the government deficit (not to mention state government deficits) are immediately discounted into projected profits, which will increase the price of equities in the short term. Perhaps the deficits don't really matter (but of course, they do) because of their deleterious effects on growth over the long run. Unless by some providential intervention the government's financial bets pay off and the economy soon is truly in recovery, this market is provided courtesy of debt like none other in history! A true economic recovery is highly unlikely any time soon, given the global nature of the meltdown and the porcine composition of the "stimulus package"!

When the markets come face-to-face with the inevitable end of huge deficits, the bubble -- the Obama bubble -- will burst, and the markets will crash again. This, of course, is a decision for political economy and is the topic for another essay.

While we do not know the exact magnitudes of these statistics at this moment, we do know that gross investment historically is about $2 billion per year and the trade surplus is currently minus $26 billion per annum, and the federal deficit is projected to be on the order of $1.6 trillion this year, with deficits well over $1 trillion last year and next. This will put corporate profits at something on the order of $1.5 trillion. Corporate profits have averaged $1.2 trillion during the last five years, according to the Treasury Department. Thus, even if real corporate profits (independent of the deficit) were zero or negative this year (an unlikely prospect, given the unprecedented expansionary monetary policy during the possibly ended recent recession) profits would be recorded as historically high.

This implies that accounting profits for the economy as a whole are projected to be on the order of $300 billion per year higher than they have been during the boom. Does anyone hear a "pop?"

 

[unregistered]

 

[cebalrai]

FFS stop with the C&P of other people's thoughts. Nobody reads that shit.

Common forum etiquette is based on the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) principal. You make yourself even more irrelevant than you already are with this kind of stupidity.

William T. Alpert

The stock market is rising because extraordinarily high corporate profits are just around the corner. The late Michal Kalecki, an obscure Polish economist, formulated the explanation in the early 1930s, summarized in his Selected Essays on the Dynamics of the Capitalist Economy, 1933 to 1970 (Cambridge University Press, 1971). Kalecki's views were echoed much more vociferously by the late disciple of Joseph Schumpeter, Hyman P. Minsky, and a pioneer in modern business cycle theory who expounded the national income identity that corporate after-tax profits are equal to private investment plus the government deficit plus the trade surplus plus consumption from profit income less savings from wage income (the latter two terms are relatively minor today). (See Minsky's The Business Cycle and Public Policy, 1929 - 1980, Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States (GPO, 1980.)

This equation applies only during the short term -- which is what the textbook debate about Keynesian and the New Classical Economics is all about. But since no one except Keynes himself, Joan Robinson, Kalecki, and Minsky really understood Keynes (all with different understandings), and since none of these economists believed, as do modern interpreters of Keynes, that he (or Kalecki) was drawing an exact timeline for the long and short term -- we still must ask, How long is the short term?

In spite of protestations to the contrary, no one knows the timing lags associated with any of these policies. But suppose that the short term is twelve months, more or less. Since H1N1 flu is not likely to kill all of us off in the next year, Keynes's "in the long run, we're all dead" comment does not apply. This means, as pointed out by Kalecki and Minsky, that corporate profits are defined as equal to investment plus the deficit less the trade surplus (and the other likely minor items). In the next twelve months, profits will be huge! The market, which has a quarter-to-quarter time horizon (and at least we will all agree that this time period is short term), recognizes this, and also the fact that the government deficit (not to mention state government deficits) are immediately discounted into projected profits, which will increase the price of equities in the short term. Perhaps the deficits don't really matter (but of course, they do) because of their deleterious effects on growth over the long run. Unless by some providential intervention the government's financial bets pay off and the economy soon is truly in recovery, this market is provided courtesy of debt like none other in history! A true economic recovery is highly unlikely any time soon, given the global nature of the meltdown and the porcine composition of the "stimulus package"!

When the markets come face-to-face with the inevitable end of huge deficits, the bubble -- the Obama bubble -- will burst, and the markets will crash again. This, of course, is a decision for political economy and is the topic for another essay.

While we do not know the exact magnitudes of these statistics at this moment, we do know that gross investment historically is about $2 billion per year and the trade surplus is currently minus $26 billion per annum, and the federal deficit is projected to be on the order of $1.6 trillion this year, with deficits well over $1 trillion last year and next. This will put corporate profits at something on the order of $1.5 trillion. Corporate profits have averaged $1.2 trillion during the last five years, according to the Treasury Department. Thus, even if real corporate profits (independent of the deficit) were zero or negative this year (an unlikely prospect, given the unprecedented expansionary monetary policy during the possibly ended recent recession) profits would be recorded as historically high.

This implies that accounting profits for the economy as a whole are projected to be on the order of $300 billion per year higher than they have been during the boom. Does anyone hear a "pop?"

 

[cebalrai]

Uh oh, the deficit dropped 8% in ithe first half of FY 2010 compared to one year ago.

So much for your theories of Obama balooning the deficit!

What else you got?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100413/us_nm/us_usa_economy_deficit

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Uh oh, the deficit dropped 8% in ithe first half of FY 2010 compared to one year ago.

So much for your theories of Obama balooning the deficit!

What else you got?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100413/us_nm/us_usa_economy_deficit

That's because Congress put all the heavy lifting on the future...

Almost ALL of that is a reflection of the future money dropped into the present economy.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

FFS stop with the C&P of other people's thoughts. Nobody reads that shit.

Common forum etiquette is based on the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) principal. You make yourself even more irrelevant than you already are with this kind of stupidity.

Redneck translation: I won't read anything that might alter my opinion already formed by ideology...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The market is up but the volume is way down.

Yeah, a lot of people, like myself, have put our money elsewhere not trusting a market built on debt...

 

[firespin]

Uh oh, the deficit dropped 8% in ithe first half of FY 2010 compared to one year ago.

So much for your theories of Obama balooning the deficit!

What else you got?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100413/us_nm/us_usa_economy_deficit

So it's only the second highest on record, and more than any two years of Bush's budget under a Republican congress.

That's your claim to fiscal responsibility?

Saying we're somewhat less irresponsible than we were the previous year is hardly compelling.

 

[cebalrai]

Redneck translation: I won't read anything that might alter my opinion already formed by ideology...

Either that or nobody wants to waste their lives reading a 37,000 word partisan blog on a porn board.

 

[unregistered]

 

[cebalrai]

So it's only the second highest on record, and more than any two years of Bush's budget under a Republican congress.

That's your claim to fiscal responsibility?

Saying we're somewhat less irresponsible than we were the previous year is hardly compelling.

Simply put, it's evidence that the deficit is headed in the right direction and that we just got some better-than-expected news.

 

[cebalrai]

Yeah, a lot of people, like myself, have put our money elsewhere not trusting a market built on debt...

Dumbshit, you want your money in this market. Sell high. Sell on top of the bubble. Then when there's a correction you buy back in.

Movement in the market makes money, not continuous upward momentum.

 

[firespin]

Simply put, it's evidence that the deficit is headed in the right direction and that we just got some better-than-expected news.

What news is that? That the deficit is coming in where it was forecast back last May?

You are really poorly informed, yet you post anyway, giving liberals a bad name.

 

[unregistered]

 

[cebalrai]

This proves that Democrats can fuck up a wet dream with deadly efficiency.

Yes, because we all know that right wing opinion pieces "prove" things.

 

[RobDownSouth]

This proves that Democrats can fuck up a wet dream with deadly efficiency.


Healthcare overhaul won't stop premium increases

Classic case of Vetteman moving the goalposts.

Show us, Hitler, where the recently enacted health care reform legislation was ever supposed to prevent premium increases?

Hint: You can't.

 

[Luk]

How did the market finish yesterday?

Monday, April 12, 2010
Dow Jones Close 4/12/10 - Stock Market Closing Prices
Stock Market Closing Prices - 4/12/10

Dow Jones Industrial Average ( DJIA ) Close - 11006.19 Up 8.84
Nasdaq Stock Market Close - 2457.87 Up 3.82
S&P 500 Close - 1196.48 Up 2.11

 

[RobDownSouth]

How did the market finish yesterday?

Somebody needs to bump Kraken Kraft's "Dow 6000" thread.

 

[unregistered]

 

[cebalrai]

Barack Obama, either the worlds biggest liar, or the worlds dumbest mountebank:

http://www.breitbart.tv/20-promises...s-now-await-lower-premiums-promised-by-obama/

Even the Huff says Obama promised to lower health care premiums:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/17/obamas-health-care-plan-p_n_502096.html

Politifact has weighed in on his bullshit as well:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...says-under-democratic-health-plan-family-ins/

Nobody cares agout Breitbart and Huffington.

And Politifact said Obama's claim was actually true in a lot of ways. That link doesn't support your narrative very well at all.

(Vette may have me on iggy so if anyone wants him to hear this it will have to come form you)

 

[IrezumiKiss]

So it's only the second highest on record, and more than any two years of Bush's budget under a Republican congress.

That's your claim to fiscal responsibility?

Saying we're somewhat less irresponsible than we were the previous year is hardly compelling.

Oh, but it matters so much when every little tick downward on any graph, chart or stat concerning Obama, Democrats, Liberals, blah blah blah, makes the Republican/conservative collective consciousness get a hard on faster than downing a jar full of Viagra.

Measurements and ultimate bean-counting works both ways. Remember that next time you throw up another graph just to prematurely yell out SEE!!! SEE!!! SEE!!! IT'S NOT WORRRRKIIIIING!!! TOLDJA SO!!!