Man, o man have I also been harping on the type of spending, the damn "Stimulus" isn't true Keynesian by even the basic equation.
I agree and one would think this is where the budget deficit people and the deficit spending to stimulate an economy people could come together...
because they are not, nope, not at all getting the most bang for the buck.
We can take a host of DHS contracts for example, in the billions of spending with literally no results, nothing to show for them.
That's what's wrong, it's just glorified financial transfer and not in the national interest or true Keynes and massive waste, i.e. digging holes to fill them back up or maybe it's worse than that for someone is charging $1000/hr for one worker to do it (and paying that worker $7/hr to boot).
I'm almost positive he's on video tape touting Glass-Steagall when the bail outs happened. For someone so busy railing against TARP he such is doing whatever Wall Street/Financial sector wants.
I cannot remember who said that, but it's along the lines of disaster capitalism, i.e. create a crisis or when a crisis occurs...that's when to screw the people before they even know what hit them, or take some crisis and use to to advance your own agenda.
I think it was Milton Friedman but could be wrong.
There is a host of things, cost free, this government could do right now to generate job growth as well a domestic demand....and they will not.
One of them is to stop offshore outsourcing federal and state contracts.
Another to be frank is to put a freeze on at least all guest worker Visas and to curtail even all sorts of immigration (legal and illegal). Hate to say it but if the obvious here in that 1 of 6 Americans are out looking for a job...
well, obviously adding over 1 million in LPR plus ~ 300k plus in guest workers and an unknown number of illegals into the labor pool....
well, I didn't spell it out but it shows up in the population to labor force ratio graphs.
When I wrote that up, this agenda, during the primaries, a slew of posts and people claimed none of this was true....
here we are.
What I find amazing is who exactly is really running the country? Isn't it astounding to see the exact same "Bush agenda" under a Dem. administration, even taking into account the corpocrats, the DLC, it sure seems someone, somewhere is dictating policy.
Are they out of their friggin' minds, we just showed the S&P has been flat for a decade, so they want to add even more retirement funds, the big paydirt, SS into the gambling pool?
1) control over sovereign fiat currency; and
2) ability to issue debt in your own currency are big deals.
UK, correct me if I am wrong, is the only Euro country that can claim these distinctions. Others are Japan and Australia. I don't think there are too many others.
And these are a very big reasons why US is not like California plus fact California must have balance budget.
The entire world is not spending their way out of recession at same time. Australia pulled back - China has even pulled back.
There is NO promise to repay be in dollars of near equal worth - there is a certain amount of inflation risk even in U.S. government debt. What matters is that private/foreign savers get those coupon payments and principal repayments at end of term - U.S. Treasury does that and it fulfills its obligations.
BTW, how much of what Chinese Finance Ministers say is for Chinese domestic consumption/politics.
The Department of Labor and the Department of the Treasury (the "Agencies") are currently reviewing the rules under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the plan qualification rules under the Internal Revenue Code (Code) to determine whether, and, if so, how, the Agencies could or should enhance, by regulation or otherwise, the retirement security of participants in employer-sponsored retirement plans and in individual retirement arrangements (IRAs) by facilitating access to, and use of, lifetime income or other arrangements designed to provide a lifetime stream of income after retirement. The purpose of this request for information is to solicit views, suggestions and comments from plan participants, employers and other plan sponsors, plan service providers, and members of the financial community, as well as the general public, on this important issue.
Rebel, just because someone wants to use something as an excuse to move forward a political agenda, doesn't mean the excuse doesn't have merit. It only means they are opportunists.
Those exception you list encompass most of the countries on Earth. In fact very few nations don't fall into one or more of those categories.
Nevertheless, I want to address this statement:
To your overall point, there will be a "lender" to America the question in terms of bond market is at what price.
I must disagree. In fact, the quote from the Chinese finance minister disagrees as well. I've posted several essays which show that there simply isn't enough money in the entire world for everyone to spend their way out of recession at the same time.
We have a very powerful thing - tax system.
Which doesn't mean much when we are already spending about 40% more than we take in. America is in the same position as California, except that the federal government has a printing press.
There will not be a broken promise to repay.
There will be if you consider the promise to repay be in dollars of near equal worth.
1) Zimbabwe - is a much more dysfunctional government than ours - it is about context.
2) Argentina issued "foreign currency" bonds - ie. u.s. dollars which they defaulted on and they pegged their currency to US$. This is a HUGE difference.
3) Greece doesn't have sovereign fiat currency - it has the Euro - another big difference.
4) Most state and municipal governments are required to balance budgets - Federal government does not.
To your overall point, there will be a "lender" to America the question in terms of bond market is at what price. We have a very powerful thing - tax system. There will not be a broken promise to repay.
Governments get forced in default all the time. Argentina circa 2001 was a good example. Zimbabwe a year or so ago is another.
Within a year or two you will either see Greece join the club, or a massive bailout.
Then, of course, there is the what level of government. Cities and counties around the country are going into default, and soon states will join them (although there is no bankruptcy mechanism for states right now).
My overall point is that if people don't lend America money then we will default - either by the traditional way, or by the printing press. Either way it is breaking a promise of repayment.
For students or researchers: I have just added a Reference List to my economics blog with economic data series, history, bibliographies etc. for students & researchers. Currently 100+ meta sources, it will in the next days grow to over a thousand. Check it out and if you miss something, feel free to leave a comment.
Again, I have said this before and I know it's hard to overcome the way we have been taught but - federal government is not like a household or a business. So, when you say "live within your means". From a government perspective, this only matters if we are operating at full employment and full capacity which we are far from.
If we are operating at full employment - GDP would be much much higher and all these ratios to GDP would not look as bad. Revenues would be higher as well.
Which begs the question: where is the beef or where's the direct jobs program?
The administration has proven that some (weak ass) government stimulus/fiscal policy can help economy. Why not go full throttle and eliminate the output gap and unemployment? Private sector is not capable of doing it.
If there is anything that calls for a complete economic restructuring of this nation's economy, this is it.
I think we should tape their mouths shut next time any of these idiots mentions a tax cut.
Look at the revenues....we need demand, jobs, income, money!
Off to try to get better blood pressure medication, which is prompting me to write up a blog post on biased studies sponsored by big pharma on their own pills through bought and paid for universities!
There was a host of posts on Volcker's NYT's op-ed...
but I think one of the problems here is breaking down each issue by category. In other words, it's clear we need serious derivatives reform, but I think that needs to be separated out. It's complex enough, often mentioned on the sidelines and reforms are getting thrown under the bus. Volcker mentioned it briefly while his focus is on other topics (separating out Commercial from investment banking) and Yves Smith also states that one cannot simply create exchanges for all of these things because some are so specialized and rarely traded it won't work.
Short story long, if people need help on how to create graphs, extract graphs, data, charts from PDFs and post in their own blog piece and so on, I have a lot of info in the admin forum as well as the user guide but anyone can email me for help on how to do extract graphs, images, quotes, data and it's particularly nasty when the report is in PDF format.
Man, o man have I also been harping on the type of spending, the damn "Stimulus" isn't true Keynesian by even the basic equation.
I agree and one would think this is where the budget deficit people and the deficit spending to stimulate an economy people could come together...
because they are not, nope, not at all getting the most bang for the buck.
We can take a host of DHS contracts for example, in the billions of spending with literally no results, nothing to show for them.
That's what's wrong, it's just glorified financial transfer and not in the national interest or true Keynes and massive waste, i.e. digging holes to fill them back up or maybe it's worse than that for someone is charging $1000/hr for one worker to do it (and paying that worker $7/hr to boot).
I'm almost positive he's on video tape touting Glass-Steagall when the bail outs happened. For someone so busy railing against TARP he such is doing whatever Wall Street/Financial sector wants.
I cannot remember who said that, but it's along the lines of disaster capitalism, i.e. create a crisis or when a crisis occurs...that's when to screw the people before they even know what hit them, or take some crisis and use to to advance your own agenda.
I think it was Milton Friedman but could be wrong.
There is a host of things, cost free, this government could do right now to generate job growth as well a domestic demand....and they will not.
One of them is to stop offshore outsourcing federal and state contracts.
Another to be frank is to put a freeze on at least all guest worker Visas and to curtail even all sorts of immigration (legal and illegal). Hate to say it but if the obvious here in that 1 of 6 Americans are out looking for a job...
well, obviously adding over 1 million in LPR plus ~ 300k plus in guest workers and an unknown number of illegals into the labor pool....
well, I didn't spell it out but it shows up in the population to labor force ratio graphs.
When I wrote that up, this agenda, during the primaries, a slew of posts and people claimed none of this was true....
here we are.
What I find amazing is who exactly is really running the country? Isn't it astounding to see the exact same "Bush agenda" under a Dem. administration, even taking into account the corpocrats, the DLC, it sure seems someone, somewhere is dictating policy.
Are they out of their friggin' minds, we just showed the S&P has been flat for a decade, so they want to add even more retirement funds, the big paydirt, SS into the gambling pool?
1) control over sovereign fiat currency; and
2) ability to issue debt in your own currency are big deals.
UK, correct me if I am wrong, is the only Euro country that can claim these distinctions. Others are Japan and Australia. I don't think there are too many others.
And these are a very big reasons why US is not like California plus fact California must have balance budget.
The entire world is not spending their way out of recession at same time. Australia pulled back - China has even pulled back.
There is NO promise to repay be in dollars of near equal worth - there is a certain amount of inflation risk even in U.S. government debt. What matters is that private/foreign savers get those coupon payments and principal repayments at end of term - U.S. Treasury does that and it fulfills its obligations.
BTW, how much of what Chinese Finance Ministers say is for Chinese domestic consumption/politics.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
The Obama Administration is moving forward with this.
Rebel, just because someone wants to use something as an excuse to move forward a political agenda, doesn't mean the excuse doesn't have merit. It only means they are opportunists.
Those exception you list encompass most of the countries on Earth. In fact very few nations don't fall into one or more of those categories.
Nevertheless, I want to address this statement:
I must disagree. In fact, the quote from the Chinese finance minister disagrees as well. I've posted several essays which show that there simply isn't enough money in the entire world for everyone to spend their way out of recession at the same time.
Which doesn't mean much when we are already spending about 40% more than we take in. America is in the same position as California, except that the federal government has a printing press.
There will be if you consider the promise to repay be in dollars of near equal worth.
it comes to the deficit but there are many others who use cutting the deficit a ruse for destroying our meager social safety net:
GOP Rep: Let's Privatize Social Security and Cut Benefits
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
1) Zimbabwe - is a much more dysfunctional government than ours - it is about context.
2) Argentina issued "foreign currency" bonds - ie. u.s. dollars which they defaulted on and they pegged their currency to US$. This is a HUGE difference.
3) Greece doesn't have sovereign fiat currency - it has the Euro - another big difference.
4) Most state and municipal governments are required to balance budgets - Federal government does not.
To your overall point, there will be a "lender" to America the question in terms of bond market is at what price. We have a very powerful thing - tax system. There will not be a broken promise to repay.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Governments get forced in default all the time. Argentina circa 2001 was a good example. Zimbabwe a year or so ago is another.
Within a year or two you will either see Greece join the club, or a massive bailout.
Then, of course, there is the what level of government. Cities and counties around the country are going into default, and soon states will join them (although there is no bankruptcy mechanism for states right now).
My overall point is that if people don't lend America money then we will default - either by the traditional way, or by the printing press. Either way it is breaking a promise of repayment.
For students or researchers: I have just added a Reference List to my economics blog with economic data series, history, bibliographies etc. for students & researchers. Currently 100+ meta sources, it will in the next days grow to over a thousand. Check it out and if you miss something, feel free to leave a comment.
Two very big reasons:
1) Government cannot be forced into insolvency;
2) Fiat currency system
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Post-Keynesian economics
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Again, I have said this before and I know it's hard to overcome the way we have been taught but - federal government is not like a household or a business. So, when you say "live within your means". From a government perspective, this only matters if we are operating at full employment and full capacity which we are far from.
If we are operating at full employment - GDP would be much much higher and all these ratios to GDP would not look as bad. Revenues would be higher as well.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
As Prof Krugman points out: A Depressing Budget:
Which begs the question: where is the beef or where's the direct jobs program?
The administration has proven that some (weak ass) government stimulus/fiscal policy can help economy. Why not go full throttle and eliminate the output gap and unemployment? Private sector is not capable of doing it.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
If there is anything that calls for a complete economic restructuring of this nation's economy, this is it.
I think we should tape their mouths shut next time any of these idiots mentions a tax cut.
Look at the revenues....we need demand, jobs, income, money!
Off to try to get better blood pressure medication, which is prompting me to write up a blog post on biased studies sponsored by big pharma on their own pills through bought and paid for universities!
It includes that big bank levy called Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
There was a host of posts on Volcker's NYT's op-ed...
but I think one of the problems here is breaking down each issue by category. In other words, it's clear we need serious derivatives reform, but I think that needs to be separated out. It's complex enough, often mentioned on the sidelines and reforms are getting thrown under the bus. Volcker mentioned it briefly while his focus is on other topics (separating out Commercial from investment banking) and Yves Smith also states that one cannot simply create exchanges for all of these things because some are so specialized and rarely traded it won't work.
Short story long, if people need help on how to create graphs, extract graphs, data, charts from PDFs and post in their own blog piece and so on, I have a lot of info in the admin forum as well as the user guide but anyone can email me for help on how to do extract graphs, images, quotes, data and it's particularly nasty when the report is in PDF format.
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