Recent comments

  • I'm really curious to see data basically before the establishment of the Federal Reserve system and after wards.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Good stuff, New Deal, I always love reading your posts. I have a question though, is there a correllary between increased government spending (like we saw with the New Deal on forward) and the time before when the government really didn't spend much unless it was a war (like the Civil War)? I am not sure you can get data from the 1860s, but we did have something of a "minimalist government" afterwards. See, I'm wondering if the "religion" being adhered to by the folks at the Fed is tainted because increased government spending (and thus increased demand for debt).

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I had to get out of DailyKos for at least a bit. There's some nimrod wandering through a diary (snarky one) about today's news re: the stress tests and it is clearly someone who either has ties to Wall Street or lives in fantasyland. Someone in that diary posted a link to Perry's blog so I followed it and then saw a link there to your diary---so I clicked on over here. I knew I'd get reality-based commentary. I will definitely check out your work mentioned in your comment----I still have a lot to learn and the idea of knowing which indicators to watch sounds like something that I'd definitely benefit from. Thanks, as always, for educating your readers and sharing your knowledge.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • First thing I said to Mr. 3G when the "great news" about WF came out was: "Uh, yup! They got billions from the Treasury and now they report a profit. Smart boyz in that bunch!"

    And about the FASB rule----I can't believe they backed off and let these charlatans go with "Mark to Fantasy" again! Wasn't that supposed to have been changed once before and they backed off on it (last year I thought I read that). I read/heard somewhere that it was Congressional pressure that forced the FASB to back down. IF that's true, our good little bought and paid for Congresscritters are once again doing the bidding of their "owners" (lobbyists).

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm glad to see you over here at EP.

    If you haven't read my "Economic Indicators during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression" series (very long and wonkish, and never crossposted at DK), I humbly bighly recommend it -- I think it gives a more realistic idea of what indicators to watch.

    I actually do think there are some "green shoots", but I suspect this recession will end with a "SPLAT!" at the bottom of the cliff, rather than a bungee jump.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
  • Yeah, they fail to note precisely where those profits come from....how hard is it to make a profit if one received $25 billion dollars from the Treasury?

    Also, they just relaxed mark-to-market which assuredly assisted.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I actually found a link from Prof. Perry's blog to your diary. That guy is unbelievably optimistic and someone (in a diary on DailyKos) just quoted from one of his diaries from back in February to try to use it to show that we're all in "Happy, Happy, Joy Land". Sheesh! I also heard a VERY rosy scenario about the economy this morning on CNN radio and caught part of Ed Schulz's radio show this AM in which he was utterly ecstatic that "Wells Fargo made a THREE BILLION DOLLAR PROFIT in the first quarter." ACK! These people sound like I probably did about six years ago (or more). Such naivete! Again, thanks for the dose of reality---It's a shame there's so much obfuscation going on from Geithner as well as the Fed.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • You can tell if you are logged in because the "my account" will appear on the right hand side and the letters you must type in to prove you are a human disappear. Over on the right hand side is a user guide to help with technical issues on the site.

    Happy blogging.

    Reply to: My Thoughts on Socialism in America   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Well, last round the AFL-CIO opposed both bills. Now they are about to sell out all Professional labor, endorse the F-4, or "instant" green cards and buy into this.

    The "Hispanic" community is looking at this to increase their numbers and instead of the U.S. moving towards true U.S. domestic diversity, equality, social mobility, we're endorsing almost a stratification of the workplace based on ethnicity and age and sex.

    i.e. going backwards and it's due to these special interest groups pushing agendas based purely on ethnicity.

    This is not my original idea of what Democrats stand for at all and I think we need a new party in this country.

    Right now we have this insanity or we have Corporate "tax cut" mania insanity from the GOP.

    I just hope all of the AFL-CIO rank and file defect when the AFL-CIO sells their members down the river on this one.

    Reply to: Here Comes the Corporate Cheap Labor Lobbies - Obama wants "Comprehensive" immigration reform   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • 1) The word NOT was omitted in my comment. The sentence should be:

    Socialism can be, and should be, goal-oriented. But what is goal-oriented is NOT necessarily socialism. That is all I wanted to say.

    2) Posted this correction yesterday, after subscribing, but it did not appear. I suspect I am not doing things properly.

    Ludwik

    Reply to: My Thoughts on Socialism in America   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Looks like we're going to have to go through this every two years. The Democrat leadership knows amnesty is a bad idea but some of them believe it's how they hold on to the Hispanic vote.

    I don't believe this gets them the Hispanic vote. I don't even think the Democrat leaders believe this gets them the Hispanic vote.

    It does however give the liberals (I'm a labor Democrat - not a liberal) the right to moral superioriority. That's all they want.

    We just have to keep our pencils sharpened and send our faxes from NumbersUSA. Thank you Roy Beck.  I don't know where we'd be without you.

     

    Mike

    Reply to: Here Comes the Corporate Cheap Labor Lobbies - Obama wants "Comprehensive" immigration reform   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Yup

    I am suspecting the Obamamaniacs are starting to crash from their Hope High right about now.

    One thing I got from the TARP COP report is this has been going on now for 6 months. They have already spent $4 trillion dollars and not slowing down.

    The fact so many of us, laypeople to experts are blogging on the same things makes no difference. So I agree with your conclusion this is all about saving the financial oligarchy.

    Reply to: Reshuffling the "House of Cards"   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I read that original piece where you analyzed the yield curves. This is really getting frightening. Let's see, I believe Ben Bernanke missed the entire subprime implosion, the derivatives shadow economy and is claiming printing money, increasing the money supply at unprecedented levels isn't a problem....and now this.

    What it reminds me of is derivatives themselves. CDOs, many of them are built from CDS data, which in turn is only a decade old.

    I'm reading the Black Swan at the moment and while it's a huge "rant", he goes into this fictional bad math and one has to wonder if the Federal Reserve has a case of it also.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • missed same store sales expectations.

    Link

    Reply to: Retail spending continues to rise   15 years 7 months ago
  • If you want to control the people, you manipulate what they read and hear.

    The people hear the simple message that the economy is getting healthy and they are expected to open their wallets. The people are expected to again inflate the balloon. The problem is the balloon will not inflate this time and the Feds are worried about it.

    So what we will be shown are statistics from the chart people showing the economy is on its way back. Their reasoning will be, "see the head and shoulders on the chart, it shows the economy is getting healthy." The fundamental people will say but there are still large unemployment figures, manufacturing is gone for good and people can't even get that Walmart job. The greeters job that was always the salesman's joke, if all of it fails I can at least be a greeter at Walmart.

    So who has the control of the media? Who is the one that, for publication, puts out such figures as:

    1. Core CPI and not main CPI number
    2. U3 unemployment figures and not U6 figures
    3. Bank asset testing is postponed to keep the markets from "over" reacting.

    We live in a time that taxes are now redefined. No new taxes means they become fees or they become sin taxes. We are manipulated to look at that shiny object over there while they manipulate your financial affairs.

    It benefits government and those well connected to get the
    people to think the bubble is again inflated. To those in charge, it doesn't matter to them that we have hardly any have viable capital producing companies remaining in the USA. They only want the people to perceive that we have a healthy economy.

    When will people wake up and realize that they are constantly manipulated by what is given to the media.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • recovery their last sentence says it all:

    Nevertheless, in the end, we must remind ourselves that the evidence of the yield curve’s predictive power is statistical and that, however accurate past signals have been, it is impossible to guarantee future results.

    Thanks again.

    Reply to: New Deal Democrat vs. New York Fed on Economic Recovery and the Yield Curve   15 years 7 months ago
  • Principle´s of complex systems are axiomatic truths,laws of the universe, structural foundaton is self evident truth
    and part of a coherent theory of truth or theory of all theories.

    Reply to: Invisible hand blamed for financial crash   15 years 7 months ago
  • my question was of a rhetorical nature. But yes, you are right, it would get transferred. The reason I asked, was I'm hearing (on Bloomberg televions) UAW pensions may be getting slashed as much as a third. Now if they're willing to do that to pensions, what about when say an insurance company takes TARP like they're begging to do? Don't be surprised. I hope it doesn't happen, I'll be pissed as I've been paying for years and it would suck if my family gets a fraction of what I was guaranteed. BTW, for those interested about what happens, an FAQ put up in light of the AIG collapse in North Carolina a while backed answered it.

    Will I still have insurance coverage?

    Insurance guaranty associations have been established in every state and are designed to protect policy-holders if their insurance company becomes insolvent. If a company becomes insolvent, the insurance guaranty association ensures continuation of coverage either by taking on the policy directly or by transferring the policies to a financially stable insurer.

    What about any claims?

    Most life and health guaranty associations provide coverage at limits of at least $300,000 for life insurance death benefits, $100,000 for life insurance cash surrender values, $100,000 for annuity withdrawal or payment values, and $100,000 for health insurance benefits.

    Most property/casualty guaranty associations provide coverage on a per-claim basis for personal injury and property damages up to $300,000 and provide full benefit coverage for workers’ compensation claims.

    Since 1988, the life and health insurance guaranty system has participated in approximately 100 multi-state insurer insolvencies, guaranteeing more than $21 billion in coverage benefits and assessed their member insurers more than $6 billion to protect more than 2.2 million insured consumers.

    Since the early 1970s, the property/casualty insurance guaranty system has provided protection to policy-holders in more than 450 cases of insurer insolvencies, paying a total of approximately $21 billion in claims and expenses.

    Where does that money come from to cover claims?

    If an insurance company goes bankrupt, any amount of coverage that cannot be attained from the company’s liquidation is borne by other insurers in the state according to the amount in premiums those insurers earn from that state.

     

    Reply to: Now Insurance Companies Can Get U.S. Taxpayer TARP Money too   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm assuming they could transfer the policies to some other firm since they should be solid, but I honestly don't know.

    Reply to: Now Insurance Companies Can Get U.S. Taxpayer TARP Money too   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • but given how screwy things are these days, are the policies themselves safeguarded if one of these firms goes belly up?

    Reply to: Now Insurance Companies Can Get U.S. Taxpayer TARP Money too   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:

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