Not being an economist I know very little on how things work. Thats why I took Soros at his word. Being a billionaire he must know something....right?
Not being an economist I know very little on how things work. Thats why I took Soros at his word. Being a billionaire he must know something....right?
he knows how to manipulate currency and be a dirt ball. no one should respect george soros.
bamacre
Lifer
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Do you need me to post your original statement for you?
Learn how to read a chart.
Hate to break it to you, but employment, profits and GDP says it really is. But you know you're fighting a losing battle with me when it comes to you getting specific numbers.
Tell that to the unemployed and underemployed. You sound exactly like a Bush Republican of yesterday. Regardless the spikes in activity are unsustainable, whatever boom is being created will eventually lead to another bust.
Uhh, yes. Sorry but your orwellian view of economics is just that. People like lower prices. Gradually falling prices and gradually increasing incomes are signs of a healthy economy. Think about what you're saying.
Wrong. Wealth has been concentrating toward the top, middle class and lower class have been spending more and more of their incomes on food, energy, education, housing, and other necessities. This is common knowledge.
There is always a lag time. We're already seeing the beginning. And in case you haven't noticed, the faucet hasn't even been turned off yet. Interest rates are still 0%.
A hedge against what? What inflation? You just shot yourself in the foot you fucking momo. :biggrin:
bamacre
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2004
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Everyone seems to get it, except for "First."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42542125#42542125
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=DXY:IND
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George Soros gives an audio interview during the Bretton Woods conference. Soros agrees with Greenspan on his "Genie out of the bottle" analogy but says we cannot allow it to go unregulated no matter how hard it is to implement. Some text here:
George Soros: What if the world isn't worth saving?
George Soros: What if the world isn't worth saving?
Doesn't mean he is right all of the time. Do additional research before you fall whole-hearted for any idea.
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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Well, since you're consistently short on specifics, go right ahead.
Come on, stop pretending, it's getting sad now. We all know you're full of shit and just posted a chart that quite literally shows oil prices skyrocketing in direct concert with ME turmoil. Explain otherwise if you can.
Pretty much anyone can say this at any time in the last 200+ years. Again, try being more specific with your garbage.
Booms always lead to busts. Try harder to explain your bunk.
Show me a period in history where prices have fallen consistently during booms. Again, think about what you're saying and try to understand the difference between nominal and real changes in prices. What's sad is that you should understand being an inflation fear monger, yet you don't.
Read what you wrote: "The middle class has been shrinking for decades". Again, factually false. The middle class has been growing for decades in both number (population) as well as their wages, just not as fast as the wealthy. There is no evidence middle class increased costs in food, energy, housing or education mean the MC have shrunk as you claimed, this is just more dramatic bunk. Also, fact is food and energy prices since 1980 have not skyrocketed, this is a recent (less than 10 years) trend. Adjusted for inflation it's not significantly worse than, say, the mid 60's. Adjusted for inflation housing has stayed roughly the same since 1890 (http://visualizingeconomics.com/2011/03/23/real-vs-nominal-housing-prices-united-states1890-2010/). Education has definitely gone up, so at least you got that one right, lol.
So the increases in food and energy prices over the past couple months is because speculators and investors are only now responding, 2+ years later, to QE, TARP et al? You’re serious, aren’t you? Man up with some evidence for that because it’s laughable without any data or surveys. Again my naïve libertarian friend, no one reacts, buys or sells things the way you think they do in these markets. You also don’t quite have a good understanding of what interest rates do. Rates being at 0% means the Fed has a boatload of room to combat inflation by raising rates. I’m sorry this has eluded you.
Huh? I just said there has been inflation. I’m not sure you understand that the inflation I’m talking about is minor and that investors aren’t demonstrably stupid so they won’t take a chance by not buying into gold as a hedge. Common sense for those of us that are well grounded in reality.
Anyway, you get low marks for the evidence wimp-outs.
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bamacre
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2004
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Here ya go...
Feel free to follow the entire discussion by hitting the back button and reading a bit. Your memory of and attention to what you have typed seems to be slipping, along with your credibility.
I suppose I do need to explain because you obviously have problems reading a simple chart. Oil prices began increasing well before the turmoil in the ME and African began. In fact, much of the uprising in these regions is due to increasing prices, Egypt being a prime example.
You seem to be the only person in this thread who needs help understanding this, but that's ok, we're all here to help you.
But our unemployment rate hasn't been this high for all of those 200+ years, and certainly not at a time 30+ months into a period of extremely low short term interest rates.
Well, economists don't call it "bunk," they often refer to this as the "business cycle," but I will attempt to explain this to you, again. Yes, swings in an economy are quite natural, but these massive swings certainly are not. And while we had a massive boom under Bush, all the little Republicans danced around singing how great the economy was, and now you're doing the exact same thing, telling us the economy is "booming" while the rest of us with an iota of common sense, and a general understanding of business cycles, are just waiting for another massive bust, knowing full what what is presented to us is completely unsustainable.
Sorry but proven by your posts here, you're the very last participant in this thread that should be accusing another of not having an understanding of general economic terms. Charts, too for that matter. To answer your question, unfortunately, the examples are few. As I understand, the last time we have achieved this feat of having increasing incomes while prices declined was a period during the late 1800's where we adhered to a strict gold standard. However, if you are implying that achieving this feat to be impossible under our modern economic and monetary systems, then to my knowledge, you'd be correct. In fact, currently incomes are not keeping up with increasing prices.
You're correct, perhaps I was unclear. The middle class is not shrinking in number, just in standard of living via increasing costs of necessities. This is extremely well documented by Elizabeth Warren...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
Yes, you see there is a lagging period between the increasing money supply and the resulting price increases.
Also, what you are asking for is quite easy to find. All you have to do is look at the value of the dollar...
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-hits-lowest-level-since-2009-2011-04-14?dist=countdown
You see, simply put, when the value of the dollar decreases, the price of goods increase.
If the value of the dollar was relatively flat, at the same time prices of goods such as oil increased, you might have some kind of solid argument. However, this is not the case.
Well, that's the problem isn't? I'm going to assume you now have a good understanding of what is going on between the falling dollar the the resulting higher prices of goods. You see, Bernanke is now witnessing an event that he did not foresee occurring. This potential situation was inquired about during a Q&A period with Bernanke. A certain Congressman (I can't recall who this was, damn it) asked Bernanke what his plan would be if price inflation began to occur at less than favorable levels before the economy recovered. Bernanke replied that he did not foresee this situation being possible. Yet, here we are, prices are heading up, yet employment remains at unreasonable levels. I wish Bernanke saw the economy through your eyes, him seeing a "booming economy" may make him want to increase interest rates, at least to something above zero. Yet, he really cannot do this, IMHO, because what booming economy we may have will certainly not be sustainable under higher interest rates, unemployment is still high and housing prices are still falling. Not to mention, those fine folks we have in DC are working so darn hard to fix their budgets, and an increase in short term interest rates would certainly increase the interest payments on our debt, all or most of which is in short term notes.
OK, kiddo. :hmm:
Wait a minute, are you really making the argument that ALL commodities go on a tear upwards right about the same time we start monetizing the debt and its just a coincidence? You are basing this off the words and actions of the same guy who said their was no housing bubble right before it blew up?
Edit: And "roaring US comeback"??? Are you serious?
Most people don't understand the significance of what you just stated. Everyone says, and it is true, that Bernanke can easily control inflation if it gets out of hand by raising rates. The problem is he is "locked in" to his ZIRP policy because of the above. If he raises rates the Feds budget instantly sees a huge increase due to increased cost of servicing our debt which would more than erase the "largest decrease in spending" or whatever they are claiming the bullshit cuts were. At the same time he puts the death nail into housing as people can afford less house for the same monthly note (and that IS what people base their purchasing on, actual price is usually rather irrelevant).
KGB
Diamond Member
- May 11, 2000
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Which is relevant to your claim how? Oh, it's not.
Wrong.
LOL, yeah the economy is really booming. :whiste:
Prices should fall in a healthy economy. That's what makes an economy good, people who want to work, work, incomes gradually increase, and prices gradually decrease, standard of living increases. Of course you probably don't understand what a good economy means, we haven't had one in ages. Every "good" economy we've had recently was unsustainable. All we have are big booms which only lead to big busts. A middle class that has been shrinking for decades is not the result of a healthy economy.
It's common sense. The central banks of the world print money in mad fashion and prices go up. Again, oil is not alone at all when it comes to higher prices. The entire commodity market has been in a bull run for 11+ years, and the recent monetary inflation is pumping prices up yet again. You keep looking only at oil, you need to look at the bigger picture.
As opposed to your own prediction which was drawn out to the year 2030? If I'm still hanging around here in the year 2030, yapping with momo's like you, someone shoot me.
Can I shoot you sooner???
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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I feel bad for you that you don't want to admit to parroting fringe out-of-control inflation theories for years. Apparently quoting your quotes of nuttery does no good.
The chart shows oil prices rising significantly starting in the last month of 2010, mere weeks before the media picked up on ME revolution in full-swing in mid-January. I'm not sure what universe you're in that makes you think that "much" of the Egyptian revolution was fueled in large part by food prices. More fringe theories with very little basis in reality, but just enough basis not to be called tinfoil. You're a clever little libertarian aren't you.
Please point out precisely where on the chart it's clear that increasing oil prices were outside of historical norms and could be attributed to Fed-induced inflation and not the far more likely event of turmoil throughout the ME. Try not wimping out on this request too.
Our unemployment rate has been higher than this at least half a dozen times in the last 200 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2009.gif, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1800-1890.gif. I'm sorry you're confused. You did get one thing right; interest rates haven't been this low for this long ever, of course we've only kept records going back to 54. Overall, considering the unemployment rate has been dropping consistently for 2 years now there's certainly no evidence that it's not working.
Well for one, as a layman with no experience or education you know full well that what you know of the business cycle is almost entirely based on what you've read on Wikipedia and Rothbard, so let's not pretend you can talk particularly intelligently or indepth about a topic out of your depth. Two, when using terms like unsustainable you actually have to have some sort of reason to believe booms are unsustainable. Saying the boom was unsustainable in housing in the last decade was nothing special, everyone saw the price curve was way out of wack with historical trends. The housing bust surprised few people, it was the type of bust that surprised people (predicted by neither Schiff nor Paul), that companies left to unregulated derivatives markets would put the system at risk because it was done collectively by all the major banking institutions and not just 1 or 2.
lmao. Link? Btw, the same late 19th century period that saw the 1873 and 1893 banking panics, 2 of the 3 worst in history? Not saying they're related, just funny you'd think that a gold standard would somehow magically bring down real prices during booms, but fiat can't somehow.
Link your claims at the very least, it's not particularly hard. Youtube videos of Warren, who does great work, doesn't count if you can't point out where. For example:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...e_Index#Perceived_overestimation_of_inflation
There are two pretty clear trends here; wages/compensation (pg. 7) increasing year-over-year (not enough, totally agreed there), and I see that any small miscalculation in CPI compounded over several years results in a large miscalculation of real wages (wiki link, possible 0.8%-1.6% overestimation). The middle class hasn't been thriving as much as it should have for 30+ years so we're apparently now agreed on this point. It has been held back much more than it should have been in favor of the wealthy, and it was something very preventable. Of course, that has nothing to do with what I suspect you'd attribute it to, which is perhaps the Fed inflating away the dollar or some other such fringe theory.
You are correleating two things without having any basis for making a casual argument. Linking me exchange rate changes is cute, but it's gimmicky and doesn't at all show that investors are reacting to QE, TARP, et al now. They priced this in something like 18-24 months ago.
Only if all else is equal is this true. You say "value of the dollar" as if you have a way of measuring it. Because AFAIK, you don't even accept CPI or core CPI, so how can you possibly know what U.S. consumer purchasing power is?
You're confusing U.S. dollar exchange rates with British and Euro currencies with U.S. inflation. They aren't the same thing. There are many, many things that affect U.S. inflation and an decrease of 5% or 10% in U.S. dollar purchasing power versus, say, the Euro can often have little to no bearing on U.S. consumer purchasing power. I do await your alternative theory, though, lol.
Yeah, again, Bernanke doesn't see inflation getting out of control (core CPI or more accurately PCE) because he has a solid understanding of economics through his intimate knowledge of just how mild the impact of the Fed's liquidity injections will end up being, over time, because he understands the magnitudes involved quite well. He knows QE1/2 can't possibly substantially contribute to unacceptable levels of inflation (4%+ minimum) for years to come because world money supply and base is just far more massive day-by-day. When inflation does end up being mild in hindsight a year or two from now, I'll be here again and you'll be here again like we have been the last 2-3 years with you claiming it's coming and me telling you to take a break and stick to, well, whatever it is you do for a living.
Also, your unemployment point isn't particularly hard to explain; based on the trend of the last few months and the unmistakable trend of the last 2 years, the recent 5 month pace of employment gains we've seen leads us to a rate of 7.5% by December 2011, depending on how many people want back in the workforce (which may be a lot depending on how many people finish/drop out of school). That's my current prediction, below 8% easily before the end of the year and closer to 7.5% hopefully by January 2012 barring another European debt crisis or something similar that temporarily slows it up. 7.5% is much more in-line with historical norms, with anything under 7% the most ideal and under 6% being boom/peak full employment nearing a bust. Looking at this trend, it's not particularly hard to see why just last week it was reported that the Fed is going to wait until the end of this year to raise rates; http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-mon...icial-fed-could-hike-rates-by-the-end-of-2011. Thats when unemployment will likely be back in line with what they want before increasing rates again, something the Fed has done repeatedly when unemployment finally dips below a certain threshold (8% from what I gather). This gives them between now and the end of the year to wait out inflation, which hopefully stays mild, and then all the tools they need to thwart inflation with higher interest rates, which despite what you believe, doesn't have the massive impact you think it does (though Fed interest rates certainly have substantial impact).
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bamacre
Lifer
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Yup. And those who don't get it, like First, wonder why commodity prices continue upward and dollar is falling.
bamacre
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2004
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LOL, don't feel bad for me, I'm fine.
The chart shows oil prices rising significantly starting in the last month of 2010, mere weeks before the media picked up on ME revolution in full-swing in mid-January. I'm not sure what universe you're in that makes you think that "much" of the Egyptian revolution was fueled in large part by food prices. More fringe theories with very little basis in reality, but just enough basis not to be called tinfoil. You're a clever little libertarian aren't you.
Uh no. The movement up started in Oct 2010. The Egyptians were bitching about higher prices, among other things. WTF do you think QE is doing? Let me give you a hint, the Egyptian Pound is backed by the dollar. Looking at your posts in this thread, everyone else looks "clever."
There you go again with this "wimping out" thing. Does anyone here get it? I don't. Like I said, oil prices began rising in Oct 2010. And if you can wrap you little head around the posts above regarding inflation and expectations of inflation, maybe you'll figure it out. If not, maybe go to your teacher and see if he/she can assist you.
Perhaps you missed the news lately...
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13375184
I think someone should read your own posts in this thread to you, and explain how you're economically retarded, not to mention, out of touch with reality.
Let me know when the economy is doing great and prices are falling. I won't hold my breath.
You know, I tried to find the link earlier today to what I was referring to, and couldn't before work found it's way to my desk. I'll see if I can find it another time. Not really relevant to your initial claim though that the economy has been "great" for the past 3 or 4 decades, or whatever you claimed. Great for a few people sure, but not for most folks, as you now understand I see.
Hey, if I could link you up some common sense, we wouldn't be here.
All you have to look at are the dollar index, the value of the dollar compared to other currencies, dropping like a ton a bricks, and prices heading upward. And I don't just mean that worthless, barbaric, yellow metal either. Nor the white one, which made me a nice chunk of change.
LOL. Bernanke has proven to be either a liar or an idiot. One of those two, I'm not sure yet.
Hah, well you gut some nuts making that kind of prediction. Good luck, I hope you're correct. I doubt it, but let's see.
KGB
Diamond Member
- May 11, 2000
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KGB
Diamond Member
- May 11, 2000
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The chart shows oil prices rising significantly starting in the last month of 2010, mere weeks before the media picked up on ME revolution in full-swing in mid-January. I'm not sure what universe you're in that makes you think that "much" of the Egyptian revolution was fueled in large part by food prices. More fringe theories with very little basis in reality, but just enough basis not to be called tinfoil. You're a clever little libertarian aren't you.
What is the median income in Egypt? What kind of inflation did they have shortly before the revolution? With those numbers at hand, do you think that more or less people in Egypt where hungry? What do hungry people tend to do?
Please point out why every other commodity is on a tear upwards because of ME turmoil. Try not wimping out on this request too. It ain't just oil bud.
So your argument is that we are monetizing the debt and simultaneously the dollar has gotten weaker and commodities have shot the moon but they are completely unrelated? An argument can surely be made that other factors are also at play but no correlation exists at all? Really?
Because we are US consumers and we have to buy shit and we notice what that shit costs?
Umm, you do know that we import a fuckload of stuff in this country right? How in the holy name of fuck can a dollar that buys less stuff from countries we import stuff from NOT lead to higher prices for US consumers?
Boy do I love when people say that because I get to post this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpD64GUoXw&feature=related
Straight off the FRB website, there mission statement:
"conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates "
Straight out of websters dictionary: Definition of STABLE
1a : firmly established : fixed, steadfast <stable opinions>
b : not changing or fluctuating : unvarying <in stable condition>
c : permanent, enduring <stable civilizations>
What part of 4%, or even 2%, y/o/y inflation is "stable"? Stable would be no inflation and no deflation.
[/quote]
How is the US debt currently structured? When the Feds raise their rates do you think the US governments cost of borrowing money will go up or down? If it goes up will that impact the US governments budget at all? If so, how much?
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