About a week and a half ago I pissed off both righty and lefty readers alike by daring to question popular economic orthodoxy. A worldwide credit crunch was threatening to take the broader economy down the crapper with it, yet the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee unanimously refused to cut interest rates, acknowledging “downside risks to growth,” but restating that their “predominant policy concern remains the risk that inflation will fail to moderate as expected.” To which I replied, “fuck inflation.”
The FOMC was impassive at the prospect of 2 million American families losing their homes, but once the credit crunch threatened to tank Wall Street they leaped into action, first flooding the markets with liquidity, and today slashing interest rates by half a percent.
Stocks soared Friday, propelling the Dow Jones industrials up more than 180 points, after the Federal Reserve, acknowledging that the stock market’s plunge posed a threat to the economy, slashed its discount rate by a half percentage point.
[…] The Fed cut the discount rate to 5.75 percent from 6.25 percent, declaring that “downside risks” to the economy have increased appreciably.
Again, I gloat — not so much because I predicted the necessity of a rate cut (I could’a been lucky,) but because my original post clearly doesn’t paint me out to be the moron so many of my critics obviously wish me to be. Sorry to disappoint.
We can argue the economics all we want (and I’m sure we will,) and I stand by my original assertion that a little inflation can actually be a good thing for the majority of Americans who owe money on mortgages, car loans, student loans, credit cards, etc. But my initial reaction was mostly prompted by the Fed’s decades-long inflation policy, which I described as “obsessively narrow at best, and intergenerational warfare at the worst.” Ten days after restating that its primary concern was inflation, the FOMC dramatically changes course. In that short time have the “downside risks” to the economy really “increased appreciably”…? Or did the volatility on Wall Street finally get the Feds to see beyond their inflationary blinders?
I don’t pretend to be an economist, and I freely admit that every single member of the FOMC has more relevant expertise in the tip of their little finger than I have in my entire body. But science morphs into ideology when we fail to question orthodoxy… and under those conditions even the experts can sometimes make mistakes.
TANGENTIAL ASIDE:
I’m back.
Goldie
Welcome back and Kudoes for your vision on this.
May I pee a bit on the campfire by suggesting that nothing in any of the responses so far addresses the issue you raised, what happens to 2 million homeowners?
Wanna bet how much of this newly minted dollars will end up addressing that issue as opposed to keeping the wealthy “whole?”
It seems to me that the take home message of the Depression has withered. Free market economies are NOT competitive unless there is a substantial safety net to keep ordinary folks able to participate in the economy.
Jew – As usual, you’re wrong. We don’t just have a safety “net”. We have a fucking safety “hammock” that far too many people lay in.
Contrary to your marxist dogma, free markets are the ONLY economic model that is sustainable for the long term and gives the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.
And Goldy… even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I’d rather pay back my debts with inflated dollars. Don’t know about you guys.
Cut benefits! Let the poor kids die! Tooth and claw!
Yeeeaaargh!@
Goldy,
Right, wrong, or indifferent on the econmyh your passage hits the nail on the head of 99% of the problems we face today: “science morphs into ideology when we fail to question orthodoxy…”
I think most people missed your point that some short-term, minor inflationary pressure is better than filing for bankruptcy and losing your home. Arugeably the largest investment most any American will ever make.
Of course, most MTR and his ilk always have to take the arguement to the extreme which is senseless in reasoned debate. Like they’re against gay marriage because men will marry goats.
@2
I disagree with SeattleJew on a number of topics, but compared to you, he’s Einstein. If you think we have too MANY government safety nets in this country, you’re truly bonkers. Seriously. That’s as silly as arguing that the earth is flat. Maybe sillier.
The only sustainable market is a “regulated, free market.” It’s been proven already. Just read a history book about how and why the labor movement came to pass in this country. You’ll get it.
I wouldn’t advise looking it up on wikipedia though, someone at Fox Opinion will alter it then report it as “news” to the faithful sheep.
Goldy,
Again, you’re wrong (in so many ways…I wish basic economics was required in high school).
Basically it comes down to this: if you paid too much for your house (ie, you bought in the last 3 years in Seattle) and can’t afford the payments, you’re screwed and nothing the Feds do at this late of a date will save your ass.
There is a reason they call it a bubble…it deflates.
All the Feds are doing now are buying time so the trash can be sorted and removed in the financial markets.
8
I disagree. I think that reducing interest rates encourages more of the same reckless lending that led us here.
That is separate from my preference for mild inflation. I’d rather see wages rise if I had to choose inflationary pressures.
Hedge funds who made stupid bets with mortgage debt derivatives should be allowed to fail.
Ditto to any outfit who made senseless loans to folks without the income to back it up.
The fed is propping up the stock market which is needed to park all the dollars they’ve been printing to pay for oil and the gadgets and other junk we import from Japan and China. Tax cut dollars need a place to be parked as well – rich Americans need an incentive to keep owning America.
The ponzi scheme needs to keep running or we’re all in a world of hurt.
The only thing bright spot is that what’s left of our manufacturing is doing a little better because of a debased dollar.
@8:
Most of what caused the sudden jump in defaults on mortgages is due to the fact that their interest rate (and thus monthly payment) was adjusted upward in response to the rise in overall rates.
So cutting rates is actually a rational response (apparently performed for the wrong reason) in order to reduce the number of defaults.
So while your basic statement (if you paid too much…and can’t afford the payments, you’re screwed) is true, it is also true that fewer people will be stuck with higher payments if interest rates are lower.
Lucky for the common man that hedge funds and private equity firms need loose credit too.
-OneMan
@8
The Fed really only cares about wage inflation too, they just don’t want to see it happen.
The reckless lending is gone, along with all the mortgage brokers who thrived on it and the investors who bought the paper. You can expect 10-20% down and documented income to be the norm no matter what the Fed does with the interest rates.
It will take time to get all the bad paper (sliced and diced loans sold off to investors) identified and repriced before the markets calm down. It doesn’t help that hedge funds borrowed against their iffy paper to get the high returns they’ve managed, so we’ll get a ripple effect.
@11
So cutting rates is actually a rational response (apparently performed for the wrong reason) in order to reduce the number of defaults.
Since interest rates were the lowest they’ve been for decades, why weren’t borrowers locking in those rates with a fixed, instead of those funky ARMs? It’s not like we didn’t know the Fed was gradually raising rates.
“You can expect 10-20% down and documented income to be the norm no matter what the Fed does with the interest rates.”
Who the fuck ever thought anything else was a good lending practice?
Uptown @8
Actually that’s an overly simplistic view of the situation. It’s not a matter of you can’t afford the payments as much as it is that you can’t afford the new payments after your loan comes off the teaser rate. With many mortgages pegged to the prime rate +, or to some short term bond rate post teaser, no action by the FOMC means that many people will have much larger monthly mortgage payments once the loan rolls. By lowering the rate, the FOMC has either directly or by proxy lowered the interest rate on newly variable loans, making them more affordable.
Were people unwise for taking loans that are widely variable from the teaser? Yes. Did the liquidity glut drive up housing prices by making mortgages extra cheap in the short term? Of course, which made it harder for people to enter the market, making low initial rate loans more attractive, or even necessary to enter and so on… The question is, how do we deal with so many mortgages going into default? And the problem is not small or a handful of people taking on silly mortgages. See: http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/1.....2007081411
In Stockton, CA where 1 in 27 households is in foreclosure, or in our own Tacoma where 1 in 125 is in foreclosure, and the estimates that the bulk of teaser rate loans have yet to roll to truly variable, the problem certainly appears to be immense and growing. The impact will be wide reaching starting with the housing market, but bleeding quickly into consumer durables, and so on..
Cramer was sincere when he went apoplectic on CNBC last week. Had we had tighter controls on lending practices, yes goverment controls, this situation would be far less likely to happen. Even Mr. Bernanke indicated such in his last testimony before congress. Housing prices wouldn’t have gone up so much, there would be more rationality in the mortgage market and all our portfolios would be resting easier.
That said however, tighter controls on lending practices would have been simply squeezing the liquidity balloon. Mad money would have been chasing something else that would now be crashing. Chances are though it would be less harmful to the overall US and global economies.
@12:
…and good riddance. The idiots who made those loans, the funds that bought the paper AND the dumbasses who got in over their heads by buying too much house for their income all deserve a collective bitch slap.
It’s the same sort of thinking that led to the Dot-Bomb.
-OneMan, on a “personal responsibility” tear today.
13
Irrational exuberance. I mean it. People are ever-so-prone to believe that a better deal is coming down the road, not a worse one. The same people who buy lottery tickets were the ones getting these interest-only loans, no-down-payment loans, no-documentation loans and the like.
15 rla
I agree. And yet we are asked to beleive by the supply-siders that when we reduce taxes on teh wealthy they will make all these rational, measrued investments in American capital.
Turns out what they do with their windfall is to leverage it to the hilt, then gamble with the pile and stick it to the tax payers when they lose. Good plan.
I can’t help it…
*SMACK!*
“Come on, inflation. Who’s your daddy?”
Geez, here we go again … you just don’t care if an old rabbit whose pension is reduced by inflation to a pittance starves to death, Goldy. Thank the Great Mother Rabbit Spirit there’s plenty of lush green grass in Green Lake Park! But what am I gonna do when winter comes and all the grass turns brown?
Maybe Redneck will get around to paying his gambling debt after inflation reduces the $100 he owes Goldy to 1 cent. By then, I’ll have cobwebs growing between my rabbit ears.
“I don’t pretend to be an economist, and I freely admit that every single member of the FOMC has more relevant expertise in the tip of their little finger than I have in my entire body.”
Betcha every single member of the FOMC owns more stock than you do, too.
Roger Rabbit Quiz
Which of the following factors do you believe motivated the FOMC to cut interest rates?
1) Revelant expertise
2) Their stock portfolios
14 “Who the fuck ever thought anything else was a good lending practice?”
Why, the people who run the bank where you and I put our money, Daddy Dear! How does that make you feel down in the pit of your stomach?
Oh, there’s more….the Los Angeles times is reporting something of a run on the banks going on today in southern California.
@2 “free markets are the ONLY economic model that is sustainable for the long term and gives the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.”
Yep, back when banks minted their own currency — before that pesky Federal Reserve came along and began interfering with interest rates and money supply — America was a land flowing with milk and honey:
Panic of 1819
Panic of 1837
Panic of 1857
Panic of 1869
Panic of 1873
Panic of 1893
Panic of 1907
Panic of 1819: Lasted 5 years
Panic of 1837: Lasted 6 years
Panic of 1857: Lasted 3 years
Panic of 1873: Lasted 23 years
Panic of 1907: 2-year depression
@7 Unregulated free markets destroy themselves. The objective of all competition is to eliminate competition, leading to monopoly. Money and property continue to concentrate in the hands of the most adept and ruthless acquirers, until a few individuals own nearly everything. Then stasis sets in and economic activity plummets.
@9 Inflation does not benefit wage earners, because wages do not rise enough to offset the inflation.
@11 The hedge funds and private equity firms will continue flipping companies until the whole financial edifice crashes and burns.
It used to be that to make a billion dollars a year a guy had to start an Apple or Hewlett-Packard or Microsoft or Google. Now, guys make a billion dollars a year by “securitizing” shaky mortgages and foisting them on banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and small investors. That’s progress?
@12 You think a rate cut and looser credit won’t bring back the shady mortgage originators and shaky loans?
26 RR
Ok, I may not have been a math major–oh, scratch that, that I was– so how does this work?
Panic of 1873: Lasted 23 years
Panic of 1893 *started three years before the Panic of 1973 ended?*
Did you mean the panic of 1896 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1896)? The Panic of 1890 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1890)?
*laughing*
Your point is certainly made.
I know how much you guys hate facts, but I’ll do it anyway.
DJIA opened the week at 13,313. It closed at 13,068. So it was down 245 for the week. Old media hype notwithstanding, that is hardly a “bloodbath”. The net change was -1.84%. And the week before it was actually up a few points.
The market is now where it was in mid april.
And over the past 5 years, it’s up about 49%.
For fools like Roger Rabbit and most moonbats here who don’t understand the difference between “gambling” and “investing”, maybe you’ll lose a few bucks. And you deserve to I guess as a price for being so fucking stoopid.
Geez, get a grip…
@15 The “housing boom” never would have happened if the loose lending practices allowed by the we-hate-regulation Bushies hadn’t encouraged speculators to buy homes for nothing down. Over a quarter of all the home sales during the “boom” were bought by flippers. These people had no cash or equity at risk, and if they can’t sell at a profit, guess what they walk away from the loans. Then the financial industry’s whiz kids figure out ingenious ways to stick innocent people for the losses by “securitizing” the bad debt and foisting it off on pension funds, insurance companies, etc. Grandma will eat dogfood and we will all pay higher insurance premiums thanks to these assholes.
Waytago wingnuts! You freaks are worse than useless.
@2 Mark the Red
No, I am not wrong. The US has not been a true free market since Alexander Hamilton. The money you use is published as a sort of counter if your activities by the Fed. Reserve, the roads andd airways any business uses are paid for with tax dollars, banks exist because a regulatory scheme gives you some assurance they will not blow your money, trade is regulated by the presence and absence of tariffs. Our companies compete less well than foreign companies because they, rather than society carry the burden of health care.
You want a true free market? Try living in an utterly corrut economy .. like Brazil. Or working for the Mafia.
Free markets work here because of the briliant ideas of social engineers like Hamilton himself, who realized that WE the poeple were a hell of a lot more competitive then each of us going her own way.
By the way, next time you spout of about Marx, try reading some.
Any time you have unregulated markets, you’re going to have a new generation of thieves hatching new ways to loot the economy.
@32 Why can’t financial panics and depressions overlap? In fact, they did … one of the least delightful aspects of Victorian-era laissez-faire free-market economy anarchy.
I’d say what you had was a really good chance to learn about the Federal Reserve and the Federal Open Market Committee’s actions. You’re more educated now, Goldy, than when you were all pissy about the Fed last week. The Fed is just doing its job, and now you know more about that job. Don’t gloat, because you don’t matter here.
@33 Roger Rabbit Econ 101: I own the same stocks I did before, and you owe the same unpaid debt you did before.
We need to figure out a way to impose post-judgment interest on Redneck’s debt so he can’t profit from the coming Inflation.
How does doing it by fiat sound?
Redneck, you now owe Goldy $100 plus 23% interest, compounded monthly, since inception. Sorry, dude, but you have lousy credit and don’t qualify for Goldy’s 9.9% rate.
34 – Rabbitshit…
I can fucking hear it now… if lending practices had stayed tight, you fucking moonbats wooda been howling about how unfair the housing market is, and HTF could life’s losers afford a place to live.
@33 .. Mark the Red
Yep, NOW change them dollars you value into any international unit .. barrels of oil, Euroes, whatever you choose. Take 40% off of the current market value and then tell me how well ti has done.
This ain’t Marxism little one, it is CLASSICAL economics. Capital and money ain’t the same thing. You can keep money in a mattress or paper your walls with it, That stuff is useless unless it is invested in productivity. “paper” gains in the US stockmarket are meaningless unless they equate to real buying power.
Hell man, you would be a lot better off investing with loonies than the Bush dollars. It sia lso instructive to see how well investment in CA flows back into their economy vs our “free market.”
BTW .. a huge part of tyhe “free market” today is invested in Chinese companies, 95% have majority control oy the Communist Party. Put that on red sweat clo0th and wrap it around your red neck.
Phillips curve.
Noam Chomsky does not believe that economics is a science. In science, you can perform experiments and replicate results.
You can’t do that in economics.
Jew – Ummm… are you off your meds?
Why the fuck would I convert to some shit like euros? What 40% are you talking about?
I agree about investing, but I don’t think you know what “point” you’re making.
When did CA become a country?
You’re on a roll… keep going…. very entertaining…
OK…by way of qualification, there’s been a run of sorts going on against Countrywide Bank, being as it looked for a while like it might really run out of money. Countrywide has a significant number of branches in and around El Lay…so there’s been a greater than normal number of Angelinos stopping by to pick up, oh maybe a half million or so in greenbacks to tide them over the weekend.
re 45: The rate of unemployment is not an accurate representation of anything. In the Bush economy, many people have given up on finding work, so even though they are unemployed, they do not ‘figure’ into the unemployment figure. Also, many professionals have been re-employed in the service sector, making a fraction of what they once earned.
So, the Phillips curve is suspect as an accurate measure.
Evewn the way productivity is measured in the U.S. is bogus. Companies downsize and move jobs overseas and then demand more time at less pay to American workers and, voila, we have an increase in”productivity”.
It’s all BS. Chomsky is right.
Hey Loocy -Are mortgages like checkers? Just wondering…
good idea to bring Chomsky into it. He’s got a great track record.
Do yerself a favor…. look up the term “econometrics”.
headless @ 46
I agree with you. Economics, the dismal science, is no science. While certain theoretical models provide for some predictability, economics has nowhere near the predictability factor of the natural sciences. The testability of economic propositions is trifling compared to what we see in the natural sciences. Those who would argue otherwise, like MTR, are just wishful thinkers, suffocating under the weight of the illusions they cannot escape.
24
I only read about one bank, the one Countrywide owns (or that owns Countrywide Mortgage, I forget which). Are there more??
Moonbat quiz:
Why is economics called “The Dismal Science”.
Leftist… I agree that economics is certainly more difficult to model than natural sciences, but to suggest that it’s a big fuzzy blur is wrong too.
52, 24
Never mind, I just saw #48
50 “Hey Loocy -Are mortgages like checkers?”
More like dominoes, it would seem.
That’s why we refer to those as the “soft sciences.”
It is too late.
Horse….barn.
Welcome to the wrong end of a highly leveraged housing market.
And BTW, when has any Republican economic theory worked?
So Goldy, when you agree with the Republicans, maybe you should listen to that little voice that says “not so fast”.
But, when some people find themselves in a hole, they find a way out. Some people keep digging.
Lose the shovel, Goldy.
…when has any Republican economic theory worked…
Uh…. every time? Do you remember the 1980s?
So tell me, can you name even one instance where democrat’s marxism has worked?
@53
Dude, you are so far out of your league in this discussion, I’m falling out of my chair reading this. You’re like a first grader screaming at all the adults in the room that the Easter Bunny is real.
Was the eighties when the PC revolution happened? Those eighties where the computer revolution added a whole new industry to the economy. Where Microsoft became worth $650 billion dollars?
Al Gore, step aside, The Republicans invented the computer.
And pay your bets, you fucking deadbeat.
re 50: Do yourself a favor and look in the Yellow Pages under, PSYCHOTHERAPISTS.
33
Gee Mark, the one-week measure sure was convenient, wasn’t it? And especially the 233 point rally today, which may just be a blip as far as you know. What happens to your “week” when you look at the difference between the closings yesterday and a week ago yesterday?
Better yet, what happens when you look at the closings from our recent all-time high peak until oh, say, yesterday’s close? After all, this market slide is fed by a martgage crisis that has been unraveling for months now. Let’s try it! It’ll be fun. Then you can get all econometrics on our asses, and everyone will win.
The Dow closed at 14,000.41 on July 20. It closed at 12,845.78 On August 16, 2007 (the most local low). That’s a loss of 8.25% in less than four weeks. It must be because I hate facts.
If we add in today, it has only dropped 6.6% in four weeks. See how cherry-picking dates can work for you! But I don’t have to tell you that, do I? You already did.
Question, Mark: Do you know of anyone who’s predicting that the stock market will begin a sustained rise right now?
Why is economics called “the dismal science?”
Nineteenth century economists and evangelical Christians made common cause in the fight against those who argued that blacks were inferior and thus deserved to be enslaved. It was this position that led Thomas Carlyle to brand economics the “dismal science.” He claimed that any science that began with the assumption that blacks were human, and thus entitled to make their own decisions about when to work, and for whom, could only be called dismal. On the other side were classical economists like John Stuart Mill, who believed that slavery was wrong and that all men deserved liberty.
The full phase “dismal science” first occurs in Carlyle’s 1849 tract entitled Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, in which he was arguing for the reintroduction of slavery as a means to regulate the labor market in the West Indies. Developing a deliberately paradoxical position, Carlyle argued that slavery was actually morally superior to the market forces of supply and demand promoted by economists, since, in his view, the freeing up of the labor market by the liberation of slaves had actually led to a moral and economic decline in the lives of the former slaves themselves. Carlyle’s view was attacked by John Stuart Mill and other liberal economists.
Quoted in part from
http://www.econlib.org/library.....smal3.html
Wingnut quiz:
Why do they call MTR “the dismal poster?”
Man, can I clear a room or what?
MTR @ 58:
Democrat economic polices worked quite well in the 90’s.
Remember?!?!?!
@ 64:
Because MTR is a retard.
But he’s more appropriately called “the dismal welsher.”
And, we ALL know why he’s called the welsher!!
Don’t we, MTR.
At least Puddybud had the BALLS to meet me in person to pay his debt. You’re such a fucking pussy you just keep hiding behind your keyboard.
Pussy.
Why do they call MTR “the dismal poster?”
Because he’s as dumb as a post. Doesn’t even know how to settle a lousy $100 bet.
Daddy Love @ 63:
Nice answer.
That reminded me, does anyone know why the term Pro Life was coined?
DL – Great story…nice wikipedia cut and paste… but all wrong.
Economics is called “The Dismal Science” because Malthus and other economists around his time predicted the end of the world because increases in world population would outstrip the world’s ability to provide for the people. You howling moonbats continue to do this in spite of centuries of data that thoroughly disproves it.
But free market economics has freed people from this dismal end. Because of free markets, the intellectual and productive power of people in search of bettering their lives has created the goods and services that provides for the people and makes The Producers of those things wealthy in the process.
It’s critical for you moonbats to understand this, and it’s at the core of why democrat policies are evil. By destroying free markets and the potential for a person to gain wealth, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
GBS – Those were Newt’s policies dumass. Remember the Contract with America?
Bubba never had an original thought in his life.
It’s been on a sustained rise since 1940 dumshit…
http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=^dji;range=my;indicator=volume+mfi;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined
70 MTR
You can read. It didn’t come from Wikipedia, and you’re wrong, not me.
72
MTR
I knew I could count on you to at least call me a “dumshit.”
But that’s just another way for you to cherry-pick dates. It’s like the recessions of 1953, 1957, 1960, 1969, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, and 2001 (source: http://www.nber.org/cycles.html) didn’t even happen!
What happened in 1940 doesn’t really have a lot of bearing here, but the slide caused by the collapsing debt house of cards does. Let’s talk next Friday and see if it’s going up or down. After all, it’s a week’s performance that’s important, right? I think that’s what you said.
MTR
How come you’re not econometricizing the 8.8% DJIA drop between 7/20 and 8/16? I’m disappointed.
58 Yeah, Mark…I remember the 1980’s. The first time in my entire life that there were not just grizzled winos but entire families standing by freeway offramps begging. Things got better in the second half of the decade, when Ronnie embarked on an orgy of “beat-the-rooskies” military spending.
That’s not a “free market”, son. That’s corporate socialism.
dumshit… because I don’t give a fuck. If you care about what happens in a one week period, you shouldn’t be in the market. Don’t kid yerself… you can’t do market timing… NOBODY can.
I’m not a short term gambler like you and the rest of the fucking losers here. I’m an investor. I have a well diversified portfolio that weathers this kind of thing.
So keep gambling and losing you fucking idiot… and then wonder what the fuck happenend…
MTR
Sticking your loose change into your piggy bank does not make you into an investor.
MTR: Don’t bring up your Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America crap again. That has been debunked on this blog so many times it’s crazy. Every point in the Contract on America was a Luntz researched talking-point and had nothing to do with the real Republican agenda for raping the American middle class.
You make him sound like Luther nailing his theses to the cathedral door. Newt’s a shallow political opportunist who couldn’t hold tenure in a decent university without his political notoriety.
@43 “34 – Rabbitshit…”
What, no “pellethead”? Are you getting vulgar on us, Redneck Loser? You’re starting to sound like a liberal. Pay your fucking gambling debt.
Newt dumped his wife on her death-bed for a younger model. What a CREEP!
“By their acts shall ye know them!” Jesus H. bloody motherfuckin’ Christ
@43 “HTF could life’s losers afford a place to live.”
Redneck, if this becomes a problem for you, try moving into Janet Slut’s trailer. If she won’t have you, I’ll be happy to show you how to dig holes.
@47 Hold dollars, Redneck, hold dollars! Whatever you do, don’t change your dollars into another currency. We don’t want you to prosper. Even a little bit of real money might be dangerous in your hands. Pay your fucking gambling debt, welsher.
@48 Bush has done it!!! Financial panics! Bank runs! Just like the good ‘ol days that conservatives revere.
History will record this moment as the apogee of the nostalgia movement.
@50 “look up the term “econometrics”. ”
Redneck, you ought to start with something simple, such as paying your $100 debt, before you begin fooling around with things you don’t understand.
@51 Oh, I think you can apply scientific method to economics, and while human behavior certainly lacks the replicability or predictability of mathematics or physics, you can make a “soft” science out of economics just as you can with sociology, anthropology, etc. Your methods and conclusions have to take into account the limitations of the subject matter, that’s all.
@47 Mark of the sweaty red neck
You are so charming.
Are you really NOT aware that the dollar has fallen by about 40% in Euroes since lilBush became prexy?
If you had simply converted every penny you had six years ago into Euroes you would now be a lot richer. You wanna know somethin else? For a lot of less than fully honest folks, that increase would never be taxed. If the money os not repatriated it can be used for collateral or purchases AT NO TAX!!! (Until the IRS finds away to tax your purchases or calculate your wealth).
As for CA being a country, what are you talking abut?
@51 (continued) Let’s take the science of anthropological economics, for example. You can make educated guesses about what a Republican will do if you invite him into your house and leave a $10 bill unattended on the kitchen table. You can, with fair accuracy, predict that the $10 bill will disappear 100% of the time, the kitchen table will vanish 75% of the time, and 35% of the time the Republican will rip the whole fucking house off its foundation and make off with that, too. If you performed the experiment 1,000 times, your results would be close to these numbers.
@57 Oh, their economic theories work, alright. Free money = unlimited demand.
@90 “Free money = unlimited demand.” Think American contractors in Iraq.
88 – You mean like George Soros? That kind of dishonest fucking creep?
@58 “can you name even one instance where democrat’s marxism has worked?”
Works pretty good for you guys, oink oink.
@59 “the Easter Bunny is real”
The Easter Bunny IS real! I know him personally.
Pretty good sized tropical storm roaring down on Hawaii, and another one headed for Texas … another Redneck talking point bites the dust.
@63 There has to be a reincarnation twist in here somewhere, because this Carlyle guy is still around today, using various pseudonyms.
@70 Yep, no question about it, economic theories can put more oil into the ground and create more agricultural land to feed more people!
Global warming may yet prove Malthus right.
@77 You expect us to believe a guy who can’t pay a $100 gambling debt has a portfolio?
@88 Shhhh … let Redneck keep squirreling his precious dollar bills in his mattress. Some day he may have 100 of them, then he can pay Goldy.
@92 Why do you have a problem with Soros behaving like a Republican businessman?
MTR:
You lying piece of shit dumbass mother fucker. Remember when Newt tucked his tail between his legs and finally piddled on the floor back in ’95?
Those were Bubba’s polices. Go back and look at the DJIA from 1/20/89 – 1/20/1993. It gained roughly 1,300 pts. From 1/20/93 – 1/20/1995 Clinton laid the foundation of his fiscal polices and after the battle in 1995 the DJIA took off like a rocket. Dumb ASS
The Clinton presidency witnessed the stock market rise over 350%.
The Bush presidency hmmmmm, let’s see, 1/20/2001 DJIA was at 10,578 and today it closed at 13,079. What’s that about 24% rise over nearly 7 years??
That’s about 3.4% gain per year. Bubba was 350% gain over 8 years or about 44% per year.
Yeahhhhhhh, who is it that never had an original thought? Oh, yeah, Bubba the Rhodes scholar and that bumbling idiot was the only president in the last century to pay down the national debt and handed Bush a 300 billion federal surplus.
Remember what Allen Greenspan cautioned the government against in the late ’90’s? Paying down the debt too fast could cause run away inflation.
Yeahhhh, that was our fiscal problem under Clinton, paying off the national debt too fast and having too much money.
Only an al Qeada dick suckin’, right wing, America hatin’, never joined the military butt fucking faggot like you would chastise Clinton’s fiscal policies and try to give the credit to Newt-ered.
Grow the fuck up ass hole.
@101 Roger
I was at 22 doors last night. Harvey the pooka came in and sat with us. He is one of the nicest people I know, though a bit fastidious.
I was surprised that the waitress did not recognize him. Harvey was as well, but you know his quiet dignity makes it difficult for folks to see when he is angry. Thge waitress was upset just becauser she could not see him, Shit lady, he is a pooka, I said but this 20 somethin old kid was obviously without any culture.
Then it dawned on me. how many people realize that this great historic figure now lives in Seattle?
How well do you know Harvey? He would be a great guest at DL some night!
BTW for those lacking in cultural literacy, use Google for Harvey and Pooka, well worth the time!
@103 I assume my good friend Harvey was there for the salad bar?
@102 Let’s rub Redneck’s face in some economic facts:
From Harding in 1921 to Bush in 2003:
— Democrats held White House for 40 years and Republicans for 42.5 years.
— Democrats created 75,820,000 net new jobs, Republicans 36,440,000.
— Democrats averaged 1,825,200 net new jobs per year, Republicans 856,400.
— Republicans had 9 presidents during the period and 6 presided over a depression or recession.
— The Dow average grew 52% more under Democrats.
— GDP grew 43% more under Democrats.
Now let’s look at Clinton vs. Reagan:
— Jobs grew 43% more under Clinton than Reagan.
— GDP grew 57% more under Clinton than Reagan.
— The Dow average grew 700% more under Clinton than Reagan.
— The NASDAQ grew 18 times as much under Clinton than Reagan.
— Federal spending grew 80% under Reagan compared to 43% under Clinton.
— The federal debt grew 187% under Reagan compared to 28% under Clinton.
— National income grew 100% more under Clinton than Reagan.
— Personal income grew 110% more under Clinton than Reagan.
SOURCES-Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.BLS.gov)
Economic Policy Institute (EPI.org)-Global & World Almanacs from 1980 to 2003 (annual issues)
77 MTR
” If you care about what happens in a one week period, you shouldn’t be in the market.”
Really? Because it was YOU, dumbfuck, who told us why the change in value over a week was the reason we should not be worried about the mortgage debt meltdown in which we currently find ourselves, and the reason for the stock maket losses. Are you curious as to what you said? I am.
Remember?
Really? Do you even fucking remember? Yeah, it was ME who said a week was significant. Sure, pal.
You think every statement you make makes you sound smart. I’m here to tell you that every statement ~I~ make makes you sound stupid.
As I sadi, let’s meet in a (totally NOT significant) week and look at what has happened. Think your outlook will reign?
92 MTR
George Soros/George Schmoros.
You think everything boils down into into a John Birch slogan, and that this both explains and justifies everything.
SJ said:
He’s right. Do you dispute this simple point? Even if Marxists have taken over your wonderful capitalist fantasy, he’s fucking right.
MTR
Honest to God, I want to talk to you like a person, but you make it impossible.
It’s war.
MTR is a hopeless psychopath. He should kill himself.
@104 OF course not! Harvey came, as he usually does, for the conversation. Actually ot tell you the truth I have never seen Harvey eat much of anything but few others have his semnse of humor.
He told me that he is not very happy with Blogs. Can’t imagine pookas wasting time that way when they could be, well you know what Pookas do when they get together . I did ask him what he thought of computer sex but Harvey seemed utterly unaware that computers could have sex.
I am not going to see Harvey this weekend, I don;t think, unless I get to Hempfest. Harvey usually goes, he thinks people are funny.
I f you see him please do invite him to DL. I would be really interested to see how these young liberals respond to a Pooka from their parent’s generation.