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

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No parse. Fact. Words have meaning...to some of us.

AJ, like his spiritual skyfather Mitt, chooses to be unencumbered by such trivial concepts such as "facts" and "context".

Life is much simpler that way.
 
He probably needs to wipe the entire fed committee clean then and replace them with his ideologues. From what we're hearing the committee was pretty united about taking rather drastic action.

Of course they're also united in wishing congress acted as well. But the GOP House has been sitting on Obama's jobs bill for a year because it includes too much spending. Nevermind that it's mostly infrastructure spending that we have to do anyway. The GOP wont let America front-load this spending to create jobs, not right before an election where Obama will get credit for them. Or 1-2 years before an election.

Party before country, always.

Why? Did TARP, QE1 or QE2 work? No. Therefore they are making a 'political' decision to do something, anything to save their reputations. If this does not work, replacing them with people who are not dedicated Monetarists might actually be a good idea. The Fed is trying to reduce the unemployment, but they cannot go on a hiring binge, so they use cheap money to buy debt to give the illusion of health to lending institutions, which is fine, maybe even a good tactic if you have a pent-up demand of borrowers, which we have not.

The GOP won the last election. Get over it. The Senate and Administration should listen to the fucking people instead of the ideological dialog running around in their heads.

They had TWO years of no debate on how to fix the economy.

They tried their plan.

IT WORKED!

(The private sector is doing just fine.)
 
PS merc, when you raise the price of oil and the consumer has to spend more on gas and food, then you aren't going to get the kind of consumer demand that makes people thing that now is the time to gamble and expand, that's why QE3 will do more harm than good.

Even the rise in your 401K is an illusion since the dollars are worth less, you're treading water, but you feel good about it, until you go to the store or make your next contribution to your plan and discover you are getting less stock for the buck...
 
Why? Did TARP, QE1 or QE2 work? No. Therefore they are making a 'political' decision to do something, anything to save their reputations. If this does not work, replacing them with people who are not dedicated Monetarists might actually be a good idea. The Fed is trying to reduce the unemployment, but they cannot go on a hiring binge, so they use cheap money to buy debt to give the illusion of health to lending institutions, which is fine, maybe even a good tactic if you have a pent-up demand of borrowers, which we have not.

The GOP won the last election. Get over it. The Senate and Administration should listen to the fucking people instead of the ideological dialog running around in their heads.

They had TWO years of no debate on how to fix the economy.

They tried their plan.

IT WORKED!

(The private sector is doing just fine.)


Yeah the GOP won and should be in charge. Let's just ignore the fact that they aren't in the Oval office or the Senate. Little things like that shouldn't matter!

TARP, QE1/2 were effective but insufficient.

Doing what you would have wanted would have led us into the shitter much further. Of course you WANT America to fail when Obama is in power, don't ya?
 
PS merc, when you raise the price of oil and the consumer has to spend more on gas and food, then you aren't going to get the kind of consumer demand that makes people thing that now is the time to gamble and expand, that's why QE3 will do more harm than good.

Even the rise in your 401K is an illusion since the dollars are worth less, you're treading water, but you feel good about it, until you go to the store or make your next contribution to your plan and discover you are getting less stock for the buck...

My portfolio growth exceeds the rate of inflation (including whatever "alternate" measure you prefer) many times over. Sorry bro.

My GM stock alone (play money) is up almost 30%. What's the rate of inflation right now?
 
You're not richer.

It has the same purchasing power as it did in 2009.

You just think you're richer. My portfolio, including gold, are gangbusters too...

But I understand the nature of the illusion that you are celebrating for partisan gain and the self-deceit that you picked the right party to manage our economy...

If we're all so much richer, then the Middle Class would not be shrinking, the ranks of the poor would not be growing, the labor participation rate would not be falling, wages would be rising because of competition, we would not be setting records for food stamp use and disability applications, and college graduates would not be moving back in with mom and dad.

It's not "real." But they keep doing it because shallow thinkers feel the satisfaction of fixing the Broken Window and then that's the end of their thought process...
 
Dances With Falsehoods is soooo smart, he can be simultaneously invested 100% in both gold AND the stock market.
 
Q: Did you have the same feeling of exuberance back when we hit this level under George Bush?



Think about that for a while. I have to go teach now...
 
You're not richer.

It has the same purchasing power as it did in 2009.

You just think you're richer. My portfolio, including gold, are gangbusters too...

But I understand the nature of the illusion that you are celebrating for partisan gain and the self-deceit that you picked the right party to manage our economy...

If we're all so much richer, then the Middle Class would not be shrinking, the ranks of the poor would not be growing, the labor participation rate would not be falling, wages would be rising because of competition, we would not be setting records for food stamp use and disability applications, and college graduates would not be moving back in with mom and dad.

It's not "real." But they keep doing it because shallow thinkers feel the satisfaction of fixing the Broken Window and then that's the end of their thought process...


My wife and I are several times richer than we were in 2009. Back then we were worth 200k-300k or so. A couple months ago we paid cash for a half-million dollar house.

Tell me how that's not an increase in wealth.
 
But Murray Rothbard was much more than a student of money, banking, and business-cycle theory. He was deeply educated in history and political philosophy (among other disciplines) as well as economics, and he developed a body of literature that Hans-Hermann Hoppe calls "Austrian social theory." Austrian social theory is an indispensable tool for understanding the nature of the state and all of its activities, a subject that occupied Murray Rothbard's mind for his entire adult life. That is why I am offering an eight-week online course called The State: The Rothbardian Analysis under the auspices of the Mises Academy, beginning on Monday, September 17.
http://mises.org/daily/6196/The-Rothbardian-Analysis-of-the-State

Here will be the answers to your question, What Would Rothbard Do?
 
merc, when you post claims like that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, even Throb, suspects that you are lying...

I don't think he's lying.

Why are you lying about what I think?

Merc has a lot more credibility than you ever will, Mr. Simultaneously-100-percent-invested-in-Gold-and-Stocks.
 
Obamanomics Has Failed Dismally
Larry Kudlow, NRO
September 14, 2012

About thirty years ago, Paul Volcker launched a monumental monetary effort to bring down inflation. As Fed chairman, he sold bonds, removed cash from the economy, and cared not one wit about rising interest rates. And it worked. Gold plunged, King Dollar soared, and the drop-off in bank reserves and money extinguished high inflation — and actually launched a multi-decade period of very low inflation.

This week, current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke embarked on an absolute reversal of Volcker’s policy. He is launching a monumental effort to buy bonds and inject new money into the economy in order to reignite economic growth and job creation. It’s like history is repeating itself, but in reverse. Gold is soaring, the dollar is falling. Something’s wrong with this picture.

Bernanke’s QE3 is an unlimited Fed effort to buy mortgage bonds with new cash. The plan — which starts immediately — envisions $40 billion of bond purchases and money-creation per month, coming to $480 billion over the next year. And there are no limits to these purchases. These operations are open-ended. This could last for years — maybe in perpetuity — until job creation shoots way up and unemployment comes way down.

Nothing like this has ever been used by our nation’s central bank. The Fed’s balance sheet, which has ballooned from around $800 billion to $2.5 trillion under Bernanke, will go to $3 trillion, or $4 trillion, or who knows how high.

But here’s the rub: More money doesn’t necessarily mean more growth. More Fed money won’t increase after-tax rewards for risk, entrepreneurship, business hiring, and hard work. Keeping more of what you earn after-tax is the true spark of economic growth. Not the Fed.

In the supply-side model, the combination of lower marginal tax rates, lighter regulation, and a downsized government in relation to the economy is the growth-igniter. Money, on the other hand, determines the value of the dollar exchange rate and subsequently the overall inflation rate. A falling dollar (1970s) generates higher inflation, a rising dollar (1980s and beyond) generates lower inflation.

This is the supply-side model as advanced by Nobelist Robert Mundell and his colleague Arthur Laffer. In summary, easier taxes and tighter money are the optimal growth solution. But what we have now are higher taxes and easier money. A bad combination.

The Fed has created all this money in the last couple of years. But it hasn’t worked: $1.6 trillion of excess bank reserves are still sitting idle at the Fed. No use. No risk. Virtually no loans. And the Fed is enabling massive deficit spending by the White House and Treasury.

Now, one key political point is that Bernanke’s desperate money-pumping plan to rescue the economy is a very blunt admission that Obamanomics has completely failed. The president is asking voters to give him more time, which is a very weak argument. But his Fed chairman is essentially saying we are running out of time and have to embark on this massive monetary action. Mitt Romney should use the Bernanke argument, but not the Fed solution.

Some argue that Bernanke so desperately wants a victorious Obama to reappoint him, that he’s printing money and driving up stock prices on the eve of the election. I prefer not to believe this cynical interpretation. As an old ex-Fed staffer, I would argue that it’s not a political agency. Although I have to admit, on the eve of the election, the question is going to be asked.

More to the point, the Achilles’ heel of the Bernanke plan is the collapse of King Dollar, the result of printing so many new ones for so long. That, in turn, will drive up commodity prices, especially energy and food, and will do great damage to the middle class, which is already suffering from income declines and rising living standards.

This is what happened in 2011, when QE2 did more harm than good to the economy. Middle-class savers and retirees will also get their heads handed to them because of rock-bottom interest rates. And bank lenders may withhold credit since the difference between short and longer rates is so narrow there’s no incentive to make loans.

So at the end of the day, Obama’s economic program of tax, spend, and regulate has been a dismal failure. And now his Fed chairman is acting dramatically to bail him out. Guess what? It won’t work.
 
Why would I suspect that? I'm wealthier now than i was a few years ago.

The great majority of people are better off now than they were four years ago. I think AJ is just one of those poor souls left behind.
 
Are you wealthier? or do you feel wealthier?


The dollar does not go as far as it used to and the more the Fed pumps, the more this will be true.

On paper, I too, am wealthier. At the grocery store, however, I am decidedly not.
 
merc, when you post claims like that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, even Throb, suspects that you are lying...

It took us about 1.5 years to stash a half million dollars, maybe less. Housing, utilities, living expenses all paid for by the military plus a living stipend from my contractor and a low tax burden. We spent the past several years putting almost 100% of our paychecks onto the market just as it crashed then doubled in value. We went heavy into small cap and value funds, most of which tripled in value. While you were busy selling out your 401(k) we were buying like crazy.
 
I sold my 401K?
lol
Fucking liar...

Don't you remember, chief? You bragged about timin' the market and getting out at the top (Dow 8999), and getting into gold "just in time", and then when the stock market had a huge run-up, you got into your time machine and went back in time and DIDN'T cash out your 401k, instead investing yourself 100% in BOTH the stock market AND in gold so you got 200% return on your money.

A bit confusing, I admit, but then most of your crazy investment stories seem to run that way.
 
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