Why is the only solution proposed by the left soaking the rich.

No need, we can look at the history of the fed funds rate.

http://www.moneycafe.com/library/fedfundsrate.htm

How do you define "recession"?

Because the rate of consumption affects the rate of production.

How do you expect we will get deflation?

 

Daft.. do you know in earlier posts.. this idiot was denying that any new tapping of wells were happening in N.A.. I pointed out the Frak shale, marcellus and Bakken oil exploration.. she denied they existed... this is the mentality your dealing with.

 

Would that be an actual economic theory based on prices and increased efficiency or would that be based on exponential growth which ignores all of that. Because they've been drilling there since 2000 which estimated 270 million barrels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_formation#Oil_production_estimates

They reported to have drilled 7.4 million barrels in 2006. If we follow your exponential growth theory they have only used 30 percent of the oil drill there.

l

Pretty much because we keep finding more and more oil to use

Yep. We are a more freer nation than the rest of the world and the most technological advance. We should be using most of the oil.

Yep, and after that year we will discover that there is more oil due to the amount of Recoverable reserves.

Your point? That's were the increased efficiency comes in. Technically we don't have the resources to drill farther than our deepest mine. As technology improves we have been proving drilling and mining exploration.

Yep. America had about that much in the Gulf Coast in the 1880.

So was America in 1950. Yet we are still drilling oil out of the Gulf 50 years later.

Proven reserves doesn't measure the future supply. America was estimated to only have 40 million barrels but they've been letting other countries drill out of the same oil reserve for a century.

We have enough oil to last generations. In 2000 there was 999 Billion Barrels of oil now we have 1.4 trillion.

They were wrong. The same reserves they warned about being tapped out are still being drilled in America to this very day.

I dunno what you mean about being wrong in 2008, what big new discoveries have been made since then?

I'll await the day when experts will finally be right about something. So far, they are very inconsistent when it comes to economic, science and geological matters.

 

I said they've been there for decades before the ban. Now go be ignorant somewhere else.

 

Hm, those numbers don't look good.

Decline in economic activity.

Only to an extent. Spending is merely the yardstick we use to measure production. Even stuff that no one really wants will be consumed if prices fall fare enough. It's production that adds value to whatever you spend your money on.

Fed would contract the money supply.

 

What 'form of government'?

This is the way your beloved capitalism works in practice. Your unrequited love is in fact a whore.

Agreed, though I wouldnt say there is any socialism in Europe or Canada. Reforms were won, but capitalism is taking them back.

correct

 

Why do you need me to define a term for you to define a word you used? You don't know the meaning of your own term?

Economic activity is best measured by GDP.

Good point. I understand you can get an 8-track for pretty cheap. But the real problem comes when housing prices fall even farther than they already are.

Doesn't seem likely the Fed will contract it that much.

 

You asked me what I defined Recession as. It was pretty simple.

Only because it's based on consumption and consumption is perceived as a good thing. Consumption = Good. Lack of Consumption = Bad.

Why would that be a problem?

Because they are fixated on the idea that falling prices is bad. Do you buy whatever you want at the prices they are already set or do you wait until prices fall to get the stuff you want?

 

Conveniently omitting 2006 and 2007, when the economy was doing pretty good.

Low interest rates didn't cause the current recession, and you'd have a hard time convincing anyone (especially an economist) that they did.

Absolutely right, and an excellent point. But there are a lot of real things in the real economy that need doing, so it shouldn't be a big problem. Our infrastructure is in sad shape. There are roads and bridges all over the country that need repair. And new roads and bridges that need building. All of that will help the economy. Europe, Japan, and China all have high-speed rail and we don't. Building HSR would help the economy. In the 30's, the TVA built dams and powerplants to electrify the south. We could do the same today with wind, solar, and nuclear to wean us off fossil fuel. That would help the economy. There is no lack of useful things that need to be done in the real economy that require real spending on real things.

Why is it apples and oranges? Because you don't like the result, so you pretend it doesn't count? Try again.

Not true at all. The government needs roads too. In fact, Eisenhower got the interstate system approved in the 1950's by claiming that the Army needed big highways to move troops in time of war.

Inflation has been low for years. Deflation would be much, much worse.

Ending the wars would be a step in the right direction for a number of reasons. Economically, money spent in the civilian sector creates more jobs than the same amount spent in the military sector. Also, money spent overseas doesn't help our GDP at all, unless you're spending it on American imports.

Government spending is what got us OUT of the Great Depression. It had nothing to do with the cause. The cause of the Great Depression was lack of regulation in the financial markets. That was the reason for the Glass-Steagal act of 1936. Glass-Steagal was repealed in 1999, mostly because of Republican lobbying. After that, banks began previously forbidden practices, like instrumentizing packages of mortgages. Result: the Great Recession of 2008.

On that we totally agree.

 

OK. What is it, for the third time. Why are you being so coy? Simple question.

GDP is based upon production.

People can't sell their homes.

Falling prices lead to falling wages are generally bad. They make fixed obligations like mortgages relatively more expensive, and the value of collateral worth less than the loan obligation.

 

OK I got it now. the libro/Democrat plan is to bomb and shell millions of square miles of territory into rubble and kill another 48 million people in order to SAVE the economy. Good plan.........................................................

 

At the expense of getting worse again, or are you omitting 2008, 2009, 2010 and the present?

There are actually a lot of economist who would agree.

How will that help the economy? There are more serious and overall structures which are the problem. There has to be a real restructure of the economy. Infrastructure only helps in the long run when you've finished the project and it increases the productivity of the nation. In the meantime, you're broke. You need more factories before you think about making your roads prettier.

Well good for them. They all had the good sense to construct it when they didn't have problems with their economy. We don't have that luxury.

Dams and power plants were a viable source of power which did help out economy. Wind and Solar are too expensive. They're too expensive to make and their too expensive to manage. It makes no sense to waste labor on things which can be made more efficiency abroad.

Yeah, because comparing 1930's GDP/deficit with 2010's GDP/deficit makes a whole lot of sense.

Come up with something better.

And who did that quantified the need for the private sector?

Prices falling would be worse? Do you wait for prices to fall to get what you want or do you just buy whatever you want regardless of how much it cost?

Now you're just backtracking. "Government spending is part of GDP" Your words. Pick a talking point and stick to it.

Where are all the jobs which were spent on the private sector? There aren't any. I created more jobs than the President did last month and all it took was one job.

It had everything to do with the cause.

The Great Depression was caused by the federal reserve. In 1924, the Fed started to expand credit in the US in order to help the bank of England recover. The idea was to inflated the dollar and deflate the pound. Kinda similar to how the current crisis started with the Fed, wouldn't you say?

Glass-Stegal had no impact on the cause of the current crisis. That talking point is only drummed up by people who don't want to accept the fact that Government intervention had an ENORMOUS influence on the 2008 crash. Do you know what other institutions FDR created during the 1930's: Fannie Mae. It was created in 1933 for the sole purpose of preventing the exact same crisis which happened in 1929 and it had a signification role in the economic crash of 2008. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the CRA, the FED, HUD. EVERYONE. To ignore this is the pretext of knowledge.

And yet you want to repeat past mistakes. There is a word for that. I'm sure you know what it is.

 

And the Republican plan is to be deliberately obtuse, it seems.

 

I have no idea what you are talking about to be honest.

Yes but it does not measure the overall well being of the economy.

Prices just need to be equilibrate and adjusted to a natural level. The value of your home isn't really all that relevant unless you are planning on selling your home.

Wages won't really fall if they are already at a set level, but that would be a problem still.

 

Try this plan:

http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sit...files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf

Republicans and Independents would have no problem endorsing this plan that the commission APPOINTED by odrama himself came up with. But odrama found their solutions to be ideologically disgusting and ignored HIS commission's plan.
In other words he wasted even more time and money and unilaterally decided against a plan by people much wiser than himself.

Cain's 999 plan also has much more merit than any of the idiotic nonsense that your incompetent incumbent has conjured up.

Odrama dreamed up Stimulus 1. It failed. So he dreams up Stimulus 1/2. How stupid can one person be?

 

My bad. I thought you had written "define" economic activity as opposed to a "decline."

Why do you say economic activity is declining?

Only if you say that the amount of production doesn't measure the overall well being.

Your proposition if I understand it, is that declining prices is a good thing because when they get low enough, people will buy. But it doesn't matter how low a house price gets if the owner has a mortgage and can't pay it, he can't sell.

Nor will prices.

 

Employment is stagnant, trade is getting worse and industrial production is slower in some areas that others.

Production for the sake of production is just as bad as consumption for the sake of consumption. You can have half the country digging up ditches and the other half filling them back up again. The entire country will be employed but you won't have anything to show for it.

Why do people still have mortgages that they can't pay off?

Wages won't decrease because of minimum wage which is just another form of a price control. How will prices remain the same unless there is a price control?

 

Name three. Citations, please.

To build a road you need concrete, gravel, steel, asphalt, and machinery. Anyone who makes concrete, gravel, steel, asphalt and machinery will benefit, and will hire. Not to mention the contractors themselves. How can building a road not help the economy?

Solar is competitive now, and getting cheaper all the time:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/...us-cost-reductions-make-solar-pv-competitive/

Wind is competitive with other sources too:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5354

Sure it does. It's apples to apples, because GDP is a good gross measure of the country's entire economy.

You seem to be arguing that the interstate system is bad for the economy, because it costs (government) money to maintain. Odd, even for a conservative.

Deflation is much, much worse than inflation, because it dries up demand. There's no incentive to buy something now when the price will be cheaper if you wait. You may think the present economy is bad, but you can thank your lucky stars that it's not so bad that we've got deflation (as we had for a time under Hoover).

Not at all. Government spending is part of GDP, if it's domestic spending rather than foreign spending. Mostly that's the case so there's no need to be picky. Even in the case of war spending, it's still mostly domestic, but not all. And as you yourself pointed out, not all government spending is created equal. Some types are more stimulative than others. The point I'm making is that we could get more bang for our government buck by ending the wars and using the spending domestically.

Apparently you haven't been paying attention:



It looks to me like the stimulus worked. Which is why we need another one.

How do you figure? Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover were running surpluses, not deficits, throughout the 1920's. If fiscal policy triggered the Great Depression, surpluses should be avoided like the plague.

... and now you're saying the Great Depression was caused by monetary policy instead of fiscal policy. Please make up your mind.

Laughable. The only thing "government intervention" did in 2008 was make things less bad than they otherwise would have been. In fact, it was the lack of government intervention in the collapse of Bear-Stearns (vs. the previous government step-in to arrange the sale of Lehman to prevent its bankruptcy) that was the direct cause of the crash.

Fannie and Freddie were doing fine for decades, until the repeal of Glass-Steagal allowed bundling of mortgages as securities.

 

New unemployment claims came down to 391,000 last week. The first week below 400,000 in 18 weeks. They also fell below 400,000 at the beginning of this year and went back up after a few weeks.
391,000 X 52 weeks = 20,332,000 new unemployment claims projected on that number. Figure a running average and you jump up another million. No way to call that GOOD news, unless one is insanely desperate.

GDP growth revised upward from 1.0% ANNUAL rate to 1.3% ANNUAL rate. Still anemic. Not quarterly rate, ANNUAL RATE of a mere 1.3%. Pitiful after blowing $4.5 trillion for nothing.

And NO ONE is projecting a bright recovery.

But we're still wasting a TRILLION + per year in wasted deficit idiocy.

 

The position of the left has been for more budget cuts than the right has proposed. this was part of Obama's big package at the time of the debt ceiling debate. It was rejected by the republicans because they were more interested in protecting the Bush tax cuts for the rich than cutting spending. The Dems don't say that taxing the rich will solve the problem, what they say is , you need both, deep spending cuts along with increased taxes on the rich equates to a balanced approach. You need to take a trip down to the senior citizen center in your area. Look at these old people in there getting a cheap meal at lunch time. LOOK AT THE WAY THEY ARE DRESSED. If you think they are living high on the hog, Well ,maybe they should have there pay cut. No, I say the rich can afford to pay a little more. I think you need to sit down and think a little about your position instead of listening to these right wing wacos on the radio and tv.

 

If those resources are better spent elsewhere.

A measure of what about the economy?

Unless it's still more valuable for you to have the thing now than X years in the future. Deflation halts over investment and overexposure to risk by raising opportunity costs.

 

Provide a link to just one specific cut the lying, politicking incompetent odrama has proposed. Not some general generic bullsh!t which he excels at, but one specific proposal. " I would cut_______program $_______!"

He says we must reform Medicare and Social Security so that it is available for people in the future. No specific as to how or how much. Just his usual general bullsh!t. THEN he cuts Payroll taxes. NOT income taxes, Payroll Taxes. The FUNDING for Medicare and Social Security is Payroll Taxes. So his FIX for Medicare and Social Security is to steal their FUNDING so he can buy votes fron the terminally gullible today.

While you're providing a link to one specific cut proposal from odrama, explain how stealing their funding fixes M/SS in the future.

 

Gerald Celente, Peter Schiff and Hamish Mclennan

As for citations, no need. They're all in this documentary.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ECi6WJpbzE"]Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis - YouTube[/ame]

It'll create work. It's not going to create jobs. They'll only create jobs if they need the extra help. Once they don't, some people are out of a job again? There is the sustainability in that?

Besides what exactly is wrong with the roads? Do we not already have roads? How will this benefit the nation in the long run? The only net gain is that the roads will be pretty enough for our homeless to sleep on.

It's so cheap and yet it's so expensive for even our subsidize industries to actually make a profit.

Solyndra Syndrome anyone?

Sure it does. It's apples to apples, because GDP is a good gross measure of the country's entire economy.

Railroads had to have been destroyed in order for the highways to be produced in the first place. Where was the net benefit? The money used to maintain it came from inflated tax rates and toll booths.

Nonsense. Demand is not something you can just create. High prices (inflate) dries up demand. People wait until prices are lower (deflate) to buy. When consumers are not spending, the best way get demand is to allow prices to fall at more affordable levels. The best amount of economic productivity in the nation happened before 1913 when the Fed started getting involved with the money supply. Economic activity happens best with lower prices, not higher prices.

This is proof of what? I looks to me like you don't really know what you are looking at. The unemployment peaked the last 3 months of the Bush administration and the first 3 months of the Obama administration. Unemployment started growing, it peaked and then it went down. The stimulus had no impact on lowering unemployment numbers. You'll never lose jobs at the same rate every month. That is a statistical impossibility. Total Non Farm unemployment didn't decrease until 2010 and unemployment still went as high as 10.2 percent thanks to stimulus, TARP, Jobs Bill 2009 and Jobs Bill 2010. The money on the stimulus wasn't even scheduled to be spent right away.

You are referring to the crash. I am referring to the Great Depression which happened AFTER the crash. I said it made it worse.

My mind is made up. Your timeline is completely missed up. The crash was caused by the FED. The FED has part in the Depression, but majority of the fault was FDR and Hoover.

2008? Who is talking about 2008? I'm talking about 2001 throughout 2006. Also can be attributed as far back as the 1970s. Your timeline is completely off track

Hardly. All the Government oversight allowed them and encouraged them to distribute all those risky loans. And when the bottom fell out on those loans the Fed just backed the failures and distributed more money for the loans. Money printed out of thin air!

 

Logical fallacy called begging the question:

It's not the ONLY solution.

It's not "the left." Obama is a center right president, and even most Republicans favor more taxing the wealthy.

And going from 36% to 39% isn't "soaking." The real soaking came from a Republican conservative named Eisenhower, who favored a top tax rate of 90%.

 

chase everyone into gov bonds and remove liquidity from the markets.
Great idea