Back to Boom and Bust?

[Jaskalas]

Would you say the US economy 1933-1969 (or perhaps to 1981) fits your description of not having positive growth - or that it did, making your comment irrelevant?

My description of gutting an economy stems from where you want to take us in the future. You using America as an example is quite strange as our capitalist history is very the argument for keeping it. The sort of argument I was making.

 

[Darwin333]

Sorry, but this whole thing wouldn't have happened without leverage. The two biggest things that helped with that were the commodities modernization act and Paulson lobbying Bush to allow far higher leverage.

I agree 100% but it wouldn't have been possible with Glass-Steagal

 

[dmcowen674]

Sorry...too busy trying to figure out how to get myself aboard the 100 Year Starship to think about this right now....

Thank god

I always knew you wanted out of this country

off the planet is even better :thumbsup:

 

[LegendKiller]

I agree 100% but it wouldn't have been possible with Glass-Steagal

Sure it would have. Countrywide wasn't a bank for the most part.

 

[halik]

Yeah, arguing economics with folks like you and LegendKiller is like arguing foreign policy with someone who works in the military industrial complex. I'm not going to change your minds. You have 60 billion reasons why I'm wrong.

Canada's financial sector is much smaller than our own, and much better regulated. And before someone concludes that's an endorsement of financial regulations, let me elaborate. It is, in the sense that if government allows these institutions to run wild with easy credit, then yes, by all means regulate them. But even then, you're dealing with the symptoms rather than the actual disease. And when they fail, damn, let them fail. Bailing out LTCM was a huge mistake, and Bernanke, Mr. "Deflation will never happen on my watch" didn't help either.

I've got 2 degrees in Economics, speaking from both academics and professional experience. Again, what is your background?

Are you arguing for government regulating credit (ie FED, Canada's central bank etc.) or against it a la Austrian economics?
Easy credit will happen regardless of intervention, either due the "reflexivity" of the debt markets to borrow Soros's term or the behavioral aspect of people's expectations.

Did FED do the right thing 1931 and forward? They practiced exactly what you're preaching after the gold outflow in London. Same thing for all the little panics before the FED was established, things were left to work themselves out and I don't see anyone thinking that was a better way of handling things.

 

[bamacre]

I've got 2 degrees in Economics, speaking from both academics and professional experience. Again, what is your background?

Not in economics. Like I said, arguing with you and LK about economics is like arguing foreign policy with someone who works in the MIC. I'm not going to change your mind, and I don't intend to.

Are you arguing for government regulating credit (ie FED, Canada's central bank etc.) or against it a la Austrian economics?
Easy credit will happen regardless of intervention, either due the "reflexivity" of the debt markets to borrow Soros's term or the behavioral aspect of people's expectations.

Did FED do the right thing 1931 and forward? They practiced exactly what you're preaching after the gold outflow in London. Same thing for all the little panics before the FED was established, things were left to work themselves out and I don't see anyone thinking that was a better way of handling things.

Actually yes, and no. The Fed didn't act, no, but gov't did. What I oppose is not what the Fed did or didn't do after the crash, but what happened before. You know, those Roaring 20's, after the money supply was increased by 60% (according to wiki). Boom, then bust. What happened to the money supply from, let's say, 2000 to 2007?