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Audit the Fed Under Attack
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CPI for November 2009
- 14560 reads
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
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Audit the Fed Under Attack
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I read Mish often as well. Regardless I am referring to the politicians and those who follow them. Last time I checked while I think Hayek, and from the statistics it looks pretty bad, is some serious fiction but regardless economics and those arguments are assuredly not the same as these various inane politicians and idiots with signs and demands I am referring to.
Anonymous Drive-by asks "why the 'money' people on Wall Street continue to accept and propagate the myth that Republicans are good stewards of American wealth and standard of living"?
Reason #1. Those people couldn't care less about America, they are internationalists. Their loyalty is to their incomes, after taxes. There is no 'Wall Street' in the old sense, there is only global capital. The U.S. to them is nothing but another Enron, about to go under. Corporate media hates the term 'global capital' and it sounds somehow 'leftist' to use it ... but it is what it is.
Reason #2. These are generally the worst kind of sales people. Lying is how they make a living. They don't mean what they say, and they don't say what they mean. Especially in public. They don't even have the concept.
Reason #3. Because progressive Democrats in Congress -- helped out by a few populist Republicans -- actually might do it, profiteers within the system of global capital (for example, dealers on the NYSE) fear that someday a Democrat-controlled Congress, if unrestrained by a powerful RNC-backed propaganda system, might actually reform the Internal Revenue Code and take away their tax evasion (avoidance) systems. Realists such as most here at EP probably are thinking, "Ah, if only those fears were well-grounded!"
Wow.
Any time challenged this wholesale flood about how smart you are dumb and uneducated the person who disagrees with you is.
Very disappointing.
Me, my name is Glenn Atias. I link to my blog with each post, but I don't really maintain that blog very much. I am 48 years old. I have a BS and MS in mathematical statistics from the Rochester Institute of Technology. I minored in economics which mostly is just a basic overview of macro and micro, but I haven't read any formal textbooks since back in college. These days I mostly read Mish Shedlock, Karl Denninger and sometimes Peter Schiff and EP. I am a registered Independent.
I disagree with a lot of your views. But now you won't have to tirade any more about my supposed 4th grade education. Peace.
Paul Craig Roberts for President!
Does not negate the pure economic insanity of the Tea party or their target on anything that is for the U.S. middle class, retirees, social safety nets and getting cheaper health care.
Sorry, one bad monkey does not make a 500 lb Gorilla. The 500 lb Gorilla is this glorified front group of economically disabled, moral majority, simply wrapped in a new bow.
Unfortunately there is a huge swath of people in the U.S. who can't get past 4th grade math and have brains of concrete who love these insane, empty, hollow, pieces of rhetoric coming from these groups.
They are so easily manipulated by the corporate puppet masters it's disgusting.
Grow up and contemplate cracking an undergraduate economics text.
All this insane agenda and people have done is make a very good case that America sucks at mathematics. I'm sorry but considering the corporate control and corruption of the U.S. political system, the last thing we need is a bunch of inane nimrods, very short on education and knowledge, long on vitriol.
Somehow it's the Tea Party that wants to destroy Social Security, the Republicans who want to destroy social security, and yet the #1 entity decimating those on fixed incomes is the Federal Reserve.
Every time someone on a fixed income goes shopping, he/she gets poked right in the eye by Ben Bernanke.
To bail out banks and keep bankers wallets fat and inflated, that little criminal is stealing right out of the pockets of poor folks on fixed incomes.
The Tea Party they hate with venomous vitriol, but a cabal of private bankers that has swindled the US public into thinking they're some kind of government agency looking out for them, as they shred the poor to pieces to prop up the rich, that they're A-OK with. Gotta love it.
We have traders, finance people on the site but generally this site isn't focus on particular markets for investment purposes.
I suggest if you're thinking of changing something now, tomorrow, you're way too late in the game.
I have $10k in a 401K. Should I invest it in American equities right now or overseas?
Please explain your answer.
"All of the ramps up in the public debt were initiated by Republican presidents, especially Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The periodic retreats into fiscal rectitude were initiated by Democratic presidents, especially Bill Clinton" and you might add, yes, the malaise-tained Jimmy Carter who allowed interst rates to rise to squeeze stag-flation out of the US economy and sacrificed his presidency to do so.
It is good to see the above in print, finally! For the life of me, I cannot fathom why the "money" people on Wall Street continue to accept and propagate the myth that Republicans are good steards of American wealth and standard of living.
"You can always rely on the American People to do the right thing....... once they have axhausted all the other possibilities"
The questtion now is when will the American people finally come to their senses and actually do the right thing in this case, and when they do, will it be too late anyway?
There are few "Very Serious Persons" now advocating the right approach, other than Pual Krugman, Robert Reich, Joe Stiglitz and a few others. And in fact, most VSPs are advocating economic policies that even a first year student of macro economics would tell you was complete bullshit. The one bright spark in this morass of magical thinking is that The Economist, hardly a left-wing paper, is itself finally saying that these "supply-side", "trickle-down" policies are f***ing nonsense, and that, we truly are, as Paul Krugman has been saying since 2008, in a liquidity trap.
It is obvious to me, and seemingly to most CEOs, who are sitting on upwards of $2 TRILLION, that our problem is lack of aggregate demand, because of the over-indebtedness and lack of purchasing power of ordinary American working people. This problem really started with the policies of St. Ronnie, but took off like a bandit with Georgie boy.
But Americans continue to vote for the Koch brothers front groups like the Tea Party. And I am not sure whether they are just blindly or willingly ignorant, or even which is worse.
The exceptional shine has been tarnished since insider trading has been discovered at Berkshire Hathaway. Probably still an okay investment, but no institution can be trusted and certainly no individual. Not since A.P. Giannini.
It's all flash and dance.
The coming collapse can be avoided but not with the current cast of characters. Makes you wonder - where do they think they'll be living? They think that they'll carry on with impunity. Big mistake.
Here's the paragraph from the summary release that you may be referring to:
"Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade." S&P United States of America
That's accurate, in part. At the same time the Republicans resist, the White House and Democrats in Congress, particularly the Sente, resist initiating any strong national debate on this issue When Obama traded extended unemployment benefits for retaining the Bush tax cuts, the battle was lost. He didn't even try. Thus, when this deficit reduction-debt ceiling issue arose, there was no time to fully educate the public.
The other factor left out by the credit rating summary and report is this - what are all the potential areas of cost cutting available? A rational debate would present this to the pubic and allow the people to express their opinion. At the very least, there was a strong argument to raise the debt ceiling and then proceed to an immedite period of debate on cost cutting priorities. Again, the opposition to Republicn budget delusions failed to rise to the occasion.
Regardless of what S&P says, their record disqualifies them from speaking in authoritative terms.
Geithner just announced he will stay as Treasury secretary until 2013. Unbelievable for it was the assistant to the Treasury that had any guts to confront S&P on the $2 trillion error.
Geithner rolls over so we can expect more of the same. More amazing is Goolsbee. Seems the left likes him and even though he is leaving the White House, and is so likable..
he is a pure economic fiction imbecile, especially on trade and I know many a person tried to get him to read a trade agreement. Classic Chicago school statistical blinders.
Sorry, great personality, but economics? Hmmm, should have stuck with stand up comedy.
We could have retired the national debt given the progress Clinton had made. Good grief! That's the fact that needs to be discussed, reiterated. We cannot proceed without knowing the truth of how we got to where we are. This sets the record straight.
The Tea Party, their patrons who pull the strings, and the rabid Republicans are the proximate cause of the most recent deficit delusions. However, those who go along with them, like Obama, without ever mentioning key facts as outlined in your essay are to blame, in large part. How do we ever get out of this without knowing the truth. That the truth is not told by those who know it is telling.
Obama is a novelty in the history of the presidency since FDR, call it the modern era. He was elected as a moderate liberal, the anti-Bush, with full cooperation from his campaign. Then he immediately shifted to Republican policies. He is the first of the modern presidents to completely betray his party and implied principles. This creates a problem since those most active in politics are aware of this, a deliberate deceiver occupies the White House. Nixon, both Bushes, Clinton, Carter, all of them behaved within a range of their self-stated positions. Obama left a trail crumbs that can be referenced for his current behavior. But the substance of his campaign was more progressive than not. He not only pulled a bait and switch on policy, he paved the way for the election of one of the Republican lunes. What a legacy. His sociopathic behavior approaches that of George W Bush.
That was clear they are blaming the GOP. We quoted sections of the S&P press release and I think amplified that, in this post.
But the GOP seems to be better at headline grabbing and being the first to attack in the never ending, empty rhetoric media spin.
Which is another reason S&P downgraded the U.S.
Just like solutions. They drown out any real solutions, sane policy. For example, you never heard mentioned a VAT or a transaction tax on flash trading.
To ignore Bush and the original disasters like you point out is another case in point.
The rhetoric battles are inane and ignore facts and history.
Interestingly, the man with significant responsibility for the US rating reduction cites specifically the problem as "entitlement". War and military budgets is not a problem for him. Another, example of the objectivity of the agency that gave 'sub-prime' mortgage holders a AAA rating.
Also, this week Italy's version of our Justice Dept. confiscated S&P's documents related to how they came to their conclusions about ratings.
Note, for anyone how believes these agencies are objective scientific institutions keep in mind that Warren Buffett's company is largest investor in Moody's and he reportedly made a bundle of money this week.
This is Theater of the Absurd and the masses of people are Waiting for Godot.
If you actually read the report, most of the blame goes to the Republicans for not raising revenue. So why doesn't the media mention that?
With some $1.2 Trillion being spent this year alone on wars, defense and the national security state apparatus, with unjustifiable tax breaks for the wealthiest, and egregious tax loopholes for corporations, it seems that there's quite a bit of money that no one in DC wants to talk about, let alone touch. Instead of cuts in health and welfare, instead of sacrificing the commonweal to the idols of militarism, wealth and the corporatocracy, perhaps, just perhaps, our government might balance their books on the backs of those who benefit the most from government policies, instead of the working poor and what's left of the middle class. Nah
Paul Krugman is correct – “It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery.” (NY Times, 8/5/11) This so-called Great Recession is a long term economic downturn that has all the signs of an economic collapse that will outdo the Great Depression. And nothing is going to change that. University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff has a great DVD lecture called "Capitalism Hits the Fan" that succinctly explains the economic forces at work during the past 3 decades that have led to this sorry state of affairs. Anyone who accepts the ‘official’ narrative that this economic situation is temporary and we’re on the road to ‘recovery’ needs to view this and Chris Martensen's DVD called "Crash Course".
Economists who have a grasp of history know that we are driving off the cliff with no brakes, and that the trillions the Fed handed out to national and international banks and investment houses was just a stop-gap measure. Corporate profits are up, unemployment and homelessness are up and wages have been stagnant for the past 30 years. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The governmental attacks on labor and the social safety net is not going to end because there is no incentive for the ruling plutocratic corporatocracy to end it. ‘It’ is living high on the hog while government domestic spending will continue to be slashed. The only real winner is the war mongering military industrial complex.
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