Recent comments

  • I notice you are adding a number of comments and this one above I personally appreciate...

    (reminds me of a Monty Python film, Can we have your liver!)

    May I suggest creating an account and logging in.

    The CAPTCHA goes away, your comments no longer go into moderation and you get your own account to track your comments and see who has replied to more easily manage discussions on the site.

    Welcome to EP again....

    Reply to: Unemployment during the "Great Recession": a Continuing Structural Change in the Economy   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • They can indeed receive Pell Grants. The previous source was incorrect.

    Reply to: Corruption in Higher Education   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • These "regional adjustments" smack of the "creative destruction" Dr. Geeenspan used to prattle about, before it hit the American economy right between the eyes.

    The dislocations may be temporary, but that says nothing about the outcome, or how many of us will be around to see it.

    Reply to: Unemployment during the "Great Recession": a Continuing Structural Change in the Economy   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • If this is really true, won't it become obvious on the Fed balance sheet when their holdings are posted? But will it be deemed newsworthy?

    Reply to: Trouble with our foreign creditors   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • My defintion of "working" is it increases my portfolio value. Do you really want feudalism? Or life under Uncle Joe and his KGB, or Kim Jong-Il? My original point is that the "institutions" have screwed investors so badly that you have to protect your assets -- that means you are in during a rally (even a fake one) and out during a decline. I don't view hedge-funds that are Fed-protected as "capitalism." It is state-sanctioned banditry -- they view you as a serf, and themselves as Masters of the Universe. In God we trust, all others cash.

    Reply to: The Ultimate Stock Market Sucker's Rally   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's really amazing that it requires the participation in the labor force to drop to see a lowing in the unemployment rate.

    It actually requires hundreds of thousands of people to get swept under the rug and discounted.

    We are now in a situation where a "drop" in unemployment was actually driven by despair, and the news media is having an absolute green-shoot-gasm over it.

    Reply to: The unemployment data was still bad   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • that I wonder if we forget that fundamentally this is a demand side problem (maybe Wall St just doesn't want to hear it, as that would mean hiring people and paying real wages.) That was the very first thing Geithner said in his first testimony to Congress -- and so far all we've gotten out of them is a stimulus bill too heavily skewed to tax cuts. The President talks up the stimulus but doesn't lay the political groundwork for the necessity of structural change in economic policy. The Republicans will sacrifice their first-born to get the President to fail, and the swing vote Blue Dogs are walking around with ever bigger and flashier For Sale signs (maybe we should call them Red Lights instead). Once health care is done we have an even bigger fight on our hands.

    Reply to: Pleading with Obama for a Manufacturing and Industrial Incentive Policy   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • We seem to do debt I mean financial innovation better than anything else (or anyone else). Change that and all sorts of things become possible. While we're at it, change what we mean by economic performance.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • with another %78 billion in auctions should be interesting. And yes, I too was mystified at how demand for the 7 was far greater than that of the 5 the day before. For the record, I am short treasuries.

    Reply to: Trouble with our foreign creditors   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • The voters, Americans, they know that whole "protectionist" crap is just that. That phrase, well, I don't know who they think they are affecting because it sure isn't your typical voter.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • But you know that the minute someone talks about the need for stronger U.S. manufacturing sector they are labeled a 'protectionist'.

    RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
  • Seriously. I also believe the MSM is absurd, including many blogs. The issues are specific yet the coverage is always vague. It's not "no health care reform vs. reform " or "that's socialism" it's in the details and this is what people are upset over. It's not "taxes" it's what kind of taxes....the list goes on and on.

    Well, the fact is America wants massive support for a production economy, you can hear about this from the left to the far right....

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Politicians are worried about the next election cycle in two years. Wall Street and MNC are incentivized by short term profits and gains.

    But the problem for us is that this system is not sustainable. Unfortunately, we will be ones hurt the most.

    RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
  • This is the thing I do not get. I mean if they paid attention, manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, fostering innovation have the potential to make some people absurdly rich. It's not like you're sitting here asking to increase the welfare rolls or something...

    it's a matter of smart national economic strategy and one would think some of these "special interests" would get that without a strong U.S. middle class, you don't have much of an economy anyway...so...why not?

    Why would they not want to make a buttload of profits long term?

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's still a rally. I do not like to watch the tape, but it is working.


    With 11% of the country on food stamps and people unable to bury the dead, I'd rather have feudalism or communism than this definition of capitalism "working".
    -------------------------------------
    Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

    Reply to: The Ultimate Stock Market Sucker's Rally   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • The necessary changes for a new economic growth model require courageous leadership which we just don't have. Maybe when unemployment stays at 9% for five years or more than they will wake up or maybe if there was rioting in the streets.

    RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
  • It's still a rally. I do not like to watch the tape, but it is working. Yes, the structure is rotten and Goldman Sachs is able to front-run, but it's not my orders they care about. Back when I was an investor, the green turned to red overnight and sucked the value out ever so quickly, but trading can work if you stay with the trend. What does this say about American capitalism? You can't trust those who run out "insitutions" -- they have deep conflicts of interest, but so what? It says the system does not give a crap about my trading account and my IRA, and that is why I don't mind being with the "dumb money" as long as it is working. Let GS exaggerate the volatility and kill the goose. Long term? Mr. Siegel can write about the long term till he's blue in the face, he can't extend my life expectancy and I want to do well in the short run. A rally is a rally is a rally, sucker or not.

    Reply to: The Ultimate Stock Market Sucker's Rally   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • we see over and over 70% of the economy is consumer spending...

    ok, well, how about that's really out of balance and can we have policy to grow a production economy then?

    It's like somehow, the idea that 70% of the economy is consumer spending is ok and we should just continue that...

    I don't get why we cannot get these policy makers to focus in on expansion of a production economy.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit & Charge Offs   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Though I'll repost my one request here, since I've lost the link for the "site additions" request:
    Voluntary, publicly readable field of study and degree attained fields attached to users in the database would go a long way towards judging dislike vs pure bunkola.
    -------------------------------------
    Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

    Reply to: How the EP Promotion/Demotion Rating System Works   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • This is a good overview post, over at Economix on what other economists view today's report to mean.

    I note this comment (which is repeated)

    the fall was attributable to a fall in the participation rate from 65.7% to 65.5%, which resulted in the labor force falling by 422k (the household measure of jobs fell by 155K). If the participation rate had stayed unchanged from June, the unemployment rate would have hit a new cycle high of 9.7% instead.

    Which affirms manfrommiddletown's observations.

    The post is a nice selection of commentary since we know the MSM loves to spin the headlines.

    Reply to: The unemployment data was still bad   15 years 3 months ago
    EPer:

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