The Coming Crash of the Government Debt Bubble (Revisited)
Yesterday, in my post about the latest jobs report, I said that “our massive looming government debt bubble” will “precipitate the biggest economic disaster of them all.” A commenter at RedState asked what I meant by a “government debt bubble.” I have talked about this before, but it is an important enough topic that it is worth revisiting.
In short, we’re in a bus speeding towards a cliff. We’re probably already past the point of no return. The bus is going over the side. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. About the only thing we can do is bail out of the bus before it goes over.
It’s going to be a hell of a crash. And the thing is, most of the occupants of the bus are acting like there is nothing wrong.
Let me introduce the topic by quoting myself from two days after election day, 2012:
First there was the stock market crash. In the 1990s, stocks kept going up and up and up. It seemed wonderful on one level. Everyone was watching their stock holdings grow and grow and grow. Everyone knew it couldn’t go on forever, but somehow it seemed like it might. So nobody seemed very worried.
And then there was a crash.
Then we had the real estate bubble. In the 2000s, property values kept going up and up and up. It seemed wonderful on one level. Everyone’s house value was skyrocketing. You could take out loans on the equity and do fun stuff. Everyone knew it couldn’t go on forever, but somehow it seemed like it might. So nobody seemed very worried.
And then there was a crash.
Now we have the government debt bubble. Government spending keeps going up and up and up. It seems horrific to us, because we are paying attention — but to most people, frankly, it seems wonderful. We’re getting all these government services and we don’t have to pay for them! It’s utterly unsustainable, and everyone knows it can’t go on forever, but somehow it seems like it might. So people don’t seem very worried. Certainly, they’re not worried enough to vote out of office someone who has exploded our national debt to unimaginable levels. [Note: I was referring to Obama, who had just been re-elected two days earlier.]
There is going to be a crash.
Now, there has been no major crash since 2012, and you could be forgiven for assuming that our economy is in decent shape, with the stock market booming and the jobs report looking pretty solid. And one could always reply to doom-sayers such as myself by saying: hey, the economy is cyclical. There probably will be a crash, but the fact that you predicted it doesn’t make you some kind of economic Nostradamus.
Fair enough. But here’s the thing about the popping of the stock market and real estate bubbles: 1) most people realized, deep down, that we were in a bubble at the time, if they thought about it for two seconds, and 2) while people may disagree as to why the bubbles inflated, there has been no question that the economic pain we felt afterwards resulted from the popping of those specific bubbles. In other words, the cause was clear enough even during each bubble that, after it popped, most people said: “We should have seen this coming. I mean, it was pretty obvious.”
And so it will be with the popping of the government debt bubble. We all know it’s happening. We all know this is unsustainable. Yes, there are leftist nincompoops like Matthew Yglesias who make cartoons about how we can painlessly inflate our way out of the predicament — but those people are idiots. The rest of us know this. We have to pay interest on what we borrow. That interest eats up a larger part of the budget each year. The only solution is massive taxation or inflation, either of which will ruin the economy.
And after the government debt bubble pops, people will say: “We should have seen that coming. I mean, it was pretty obvious.” You’ll hear some people say: “I didn’t realize it was going to get this bad.” But nobody — well, nobody except the Matt Yglesiases of the world — nobody sensible is going to say this came as a total shock.
But President Trump isn’t talking about what it would take to make a dent in the debt. That would take entitlement reform, frankly — and that’s the least popular topic on the planet. Indeed, preserving ObamaCare, our newest and shiniest entitlement, seems to be the top priority for our elected officials these days. Actually reforming entitlements is out. Get with the times, man!
Why talk about this today? After all, it’s not the fashionable topic of conversation. Palace intrigue at the White House, Russia investigations, transgender this that and the other, and whatever other stupid story of the day is occupying all the talking heads — that’s what brings in the clicks. I’m surprised you actually clicked on this post and read this far. It makes you among a distinct minority in this country.
And as long as only a distinct minority cares, we’re going to keep careening towards that cliff.
Once we leave solid ground, the flight through the air will be exciting and fun.
As long as you don’t think about what comes next.
[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]
“It was not accidental, it was a carefully contrived occurrence to bring about a condition of despair…so that they might emerge as rulers of us all.” Louis T. McFadden
Pinandpuller (f0fa20) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:26 pmthe cowardpig John McCain war hero Republicans just voted to do obamacare all up in it for eternity
they don’t give a damn about fiscal responsibility
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:41 pmThe debt bubble will pop. What cannot continue forever won’t.
A lot of people who support Trump were hoping he would cut through some of the crap that infests Washington and drain at last pat of th Swamp.
Angelo Codevilla did a pretty good job of describing the problem.
Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several “stimulus” bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind. Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government’s agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes, if only they were allowed to.
That continues to this day, as exemplified by the Repeal and Replace failure.
There are those who believe that a slow motion coup d’etat is underway.
I’m one of them. Mueller may be after Flynn and I can look upon that without concern if Flynn go himself into trouble with Turkey, Fitzgerald was after Bush and Cheney but satisfied the baying hounds with the scalp of Scooter Libby on a set up perjury trap. Libby was a victim of disputes on memories. I think he was innocent but a scalp has to be taken to justify the millions in salaries paid to DC lawyers.
The Deep State, or if you prefer The Administrative State, will not surrender its privileges easily.
I don;t think they can impeach Trump but there might be a violent end game if they are crazy enough.
Mike K (b3dd19) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:42 pmThis post is not about Trump. He’s hardly the first President to do nothing about this and he won’t be the last.
But the notion that he is cutting through the crap as regards the government debt bubble seems fanciful, to put it kindly.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:54 pmCan PDJT subject the special prosecutor’s officers to random drug tests?
Pinandpuller (f0fa20) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:55 pmIts almost like a the Federal Reserve was engineered to cause catastrophe.
Pinandpuller (f0fa20) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:58 pmthe debt’s an insoluble problem and failmerica is gonna default like a $2 thai tranny hooker
everyone knows this – especially President Trump
yup it sucks to be a failmerican but it’s not so bad if you’re a war hero what racked up some choice cage time in Vietnam you could trade in for a senate seat with a sweet pension and an exemption from all that obamacare crap what’s just for the losers
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 2:58 pmNor is this story about McCain. But it does give distractors the opportunity to troll about on this topic, Patterico.
Simon Jester (f5274f) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:02 pmIts a tricky issue look at how the flack that a modest reduction in the growth of Medicaid, scuttled the health care replacement largely on the part of murkowski and heller
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:02 pmPatterico, long term thinking is difficult. It’s much easier to call opponents names and exaggerate their positions. We have created a Bumpersticker Nation. This is the result, sadly.
Simon Jester (f5274f) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:07 pmConsider the trouble the stories have had or even budget conscious gaullists like Fallon.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:08 pmit does give distractors the opportunity to troll about on this topic, Patterico
no picklehead it gave me the opportunity to make two very salient points
point number one:
Republicans don’t give a crap about fiscal responsibility (this will be a key obstacle to surmount)
point number two:
failmerica is past the point of fiscal no return (yes yes we are in a bus) … but the question is then, what’s the best we can do in that context? Say what you want about President Trump, so far his answer makes a lot more sense than harvardtrash lickspittle barack obama’s take on it.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:13 pmIn Greece the popping of the debt bubble created a draconian so called austerity plan, which provoked a backlash in the form of syriza and the golden dawn.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:14 pmtories, well given the choice to take the fork in the road with brexit they refuse to give the euro dole.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:15 pmTrump is a bit different on this. He is the one who suggested we simply default and force creditors to take only partial payment of what they are owed. I guess he figured if he could go Chapter 11, so could the nation.
But I don’t think this bubble has the obviousness of past bubbles. Or at least there is an extra layer of psychological denial at work, Because to admit it is to admit the possibility that our money is worthless.
I mean, we could never become Zimbabwe!
kishnevi (1a529d) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:15 pm… and also President Trump’s answer makes a lot more sense than the war hero republican idea of doing obamacare all up in it so good
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:15 pmYou would think a businessman would understand the importance of this more than politicians. A good businessman would, but the good ones don’t think bankruptcy is the answer to every problem.
DRJ (15874d) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:15 pmMy very favorite off-the-radar domestic issue is the coming effort to nationalize state and civic debt. One, at least, of California, Illinois, New York, or Connecticut will declare insolvency is imminent and the cries will go forth to have the Federal government guarantee their pension obligations.
This will be the mother of all political battles. DJT would almost certainly side with the states.
If the elites somehow allow a state to go “bankrupt,” the cascade effect will be horrific. Hello, Weimar! It’s the only move (hyperinflation) left to the Fed.
I will take particular satisfaction watching the teachers, most of whom refused to accept basic economic principles in demanding unsustainable pensions and then standing essentially mute as said pensions were never properly funded, scream like stuck pigs when their pensions are voided. They overwhelmingly funded and voted the outrageously irresponsible pols who got us here, as well.
Ed from SFV (3400a5) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:17 pmThe reality is we could never pay off the total unfunded liabilities.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:18 pmthe good ones don’t think bankruptcy is the answer to every problem.
this post assumes that a bus crash is the inevitable result of the “facts on the ground” as the war heroes like to say
for all practical purposes that sounds very similar to “bankruptcy” to me
insolvency
it’s a walk on a slippery rock
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:20 pmSeriously this is cloward and piven writ large the first test was new York city, then the subprime bubble. So what is the answer Simon?
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:23 pmtrading in some borrowed chineser monies for some solid decent infrastructure what will last through the coming dark times
maybe that’s not a proposition a brokedick coward-state like failmerica should turn its nose up at
but nevermind what i think
what say the war heroes?
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:29 pmZapetero sunk much the budget into clean energy, for eight years that and residue
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:37 pmfrom subprime helped push Spain into crisis, that rajoy has been able to muddle through.
It seems they took the cloward express route
legalinsurrection.com/2017/08/german-election-could-a-banking-crisis-take-merkel-down
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:45 pmI was watching Let’s Make a Deal the other day.
The first prize showcase was a week in New Jersey.
The second prize showcase was two weeks.
Pinandpuller (f0fa20) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:51 pmspeaking of economicals – another very dear friend has escapered from california, and taking another taxpayer in tow with him
sold his LA homes and bought a ridiculously large house on a lake in the mid-west, with plenty left over
this guarantees my friend P is on his way out too eventually (after his job runs its course) – all of his nearest and dearest have done the exit stage right thing… and of everyone i know there he’s the one what most gets eaten alive and raped by that skanky slut of a city, so I’m very happy today
but that’s one of the few wildcards left
economic mobility, that is
and President Trump understands this too
he’s been talking about this while the chattering war hero classes have been pissing their depends about corrupt fbi turdboy robert mueller’s fancy new grand jury
even wapo propaganda slut Heather Long says he’s got a point about this
it’s an argument what’s a lot like that kooky climate change hoax debate
whether we should invest in savvy weather control technologies like banning plastic bags
or invest in adaptation and mitigation techniques
President Trump seems to be staking out a pragmatic course
whereas the war heroes wanna shove some slick and slimy obamacare all up in it to the everlasting glory of medicaid uber alles
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:52 pmThese pensions are making me thirsty.
Pinandpuller (f0fa20) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:54 pmhappyfeet
I thought Michelle O was the get movie’ queen. Now she has eight houses.
Pinandpuller (f0fa20) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:56 pmi hate her
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:00 pmIt dies not follow that a default would be necessarily weimar since deflation was the critucsl that led to Hitler not the 1923 bout with hyperinflation.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:06 pmi’m worried about ben
he’s never been apart from us this long
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:09 pmyes yes yes Mr. narciso
what a default would actually look like is…
well, the war heroes would have to descend from their asgardian redoubts and make plans akin to those of mere mortals
how can we do more with less they will ask, as if they had invented the question
and, just perhaps,
it will be so good
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:14 pmspeaking of bubbles – rabidly anti-semitic US Army general HR McMasters has spent the whole weekend so far in the basement with Eddie Munster beatin’ them North Korea war drums
here’s a thought
what if we just brought all our troops home from kimchi peninsula and just said see ya
wouldn’t wanna be ya
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:19 pmThe stock market bubble of the 90s was fed by the monetization of the internet. The “tech” bubble led all indexes higher. The problem with the “tech” bubble was that traditional stock valuation tools like “price to earnings” indexes were ignored in favor of meaningless numbers like “price to revenue” ratios that disregarded small details like “profits”. So you had companies with dubious
“profit” potential that nevertheless received millions in venture capital that allowed them to expand, followed by going public to allow the founders and financiers to cash out, with the broader public stuck holding rapidly declining stock shares when the business models proved not capable of scaling up profitably (remember the “day trading” era?).
For every internet venture that started out as a site allowing males college students to grade the physical attractiveness of college coeds on their campuses (Facebook), there were a thousand Pets.com and Webvan.com’s which crashed and burned when the bubble burst in March 2000 because investors decided that investing in companies that made profits was probably a good idea.
I mentioned in a post yesterday that the housing bubble which burst in 2008 was the result of artificial factors which made mortgage financing available to huge segments of the public who were not credit worthy, and it was only a matter of time before their unworthiness began to impact the market. Another poster pointed out in response to my comment that the events of the 2004-2008 time frame were really set in motion decades earlier as the federal government began to demand that federally insured mortgage lenders provide higher levels of mortgage financing to minority borrowers, even if those borrowers were not credit worthy under traditional lending requirements. You had the whole “red-lining” non-sense thrust upon the market by minority members of Congress who insisted there was a plot between bankers and regulators to keep minority borrowers out of the home ownership market, and keep them in the inner city neighborhoods. So lending requirements were pretty much eliminated, “ALT-A” and sub-prime loans hit the marketplace, “liar loans” and “no-doc” loans became common — all because the Gov’t provided lenders with a secondary market where they could unload those ticking-time bomb loans before they went “boom”. But a huge number were also “securitized” and sold in huge bond instruments to investors. A second industry sprung to life selling “insurance” on those instruments — gambling that they wouldn’t go bad (credit default swaps). AIG collected millions on premiums on the insurance it offered, without fully realizing that it was on the hook for billions if the housing market collapsed and the loans that made up the securities went bad — which they did.
But while these after-market activities with the loans exponentially expanded the risk of a collapsing housing market across pretty much the entirety of the financial services market, it all arose from a misguided government effort to expand home ownership to people who couldn’t afford to buy a house.
But, with all that said, I don’t know what the current “bubble” is or what is supposedly causing it. The government debt “bubble” has been growing for 40 years pretty much uninhibited, as the political “cost” for excessive government spending has simply disappeared.
I agree that its hard to see the math going on forever, but there are a couple of features of debt financing that aren’t widely understood.
Each year the government borrows money to fund a portion of its operations, part of those funds are used to payoff debt instruments that have come due and must be repaid. For example, a 30 year bond issued in 1987 comes due has to be repaid in 2017 from gov’t funds. So part of the money borrowed by the government in 2017 will go to payoff that bond holder — essentially new debt replacing old debt. But the nex debt instruments being sold today have much much lower interest rates than the debt instruments issued by the government at then current market rates in the 1980s. So, when a $10,000 bond issued in 1987 at a 9% interest rate, is replaced by a $10,000 bond in 2017 with a 3% interest rate, the cost to the government of borrowing that $10,000 is cut by 2/3.
Further, while it might seem troubling that China is a holder of greater and greater amounts of US securities, the fact is that China needs those securities to guarantee itself a stable flow of hard capital into China over the next 3-4 decades due to their rapidly aging population. The “One Child” policy that has been in force for a few decades has significantly reduced the pace of population growth in China, and at the same time accelerated the average age of Chinese nationals. As more and more Chinese become elderly — in proportion to Chinese of working age — the Chinese government is going to have more and more pressure placed upon it to care for its growing elderly population. There are reason countries all around the world — led by China — buy US securities — they all have the most faith in the stability and long-term viability of the US economy. They could buy government bonds from other countries, but for the most part they don’t. Holding US bonds doesn’t really give them any influence over US government policy. As a very saavy financial services industry friend of mine, who spent many years working in China, Japan, and Singapore for a major Wall Street brokerage said to me “What would China do if we withheld an interest payment on our bonds? It would cripple their economy. Our obligation to pay interest on the bonds they hold is really a huge point of leverage in our favor, not their’s. Its like they are a loan shark with only one client – what happens to the loan shark when that one client doesn’t pay off his bets? The loan shark goes out of business.”
Allowing Chinese nationals to buy ever increasing amounts of US real estate, or US based companies — that’s a different issue.
shipwreckedcrew (e37049) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:20 pmNow you ask how you end up with putin, well Larry summers pal schreiber sparked the
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:22 pmhyperinflation and contraction of the safety net.
Allowing Chinese nationals to buy ever increasing amounts of US real estate, or US based companies — that’s a different issue.
hello
the filthy chinesers are the idiots what are buying the houses of the refugees fleeing failifornia
you have someone else in mind you’d rather hold the bag?
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:22 pmThere is a point where soaking interest rates makescdebt so unsustainable to pay the debt that’s what happened when regional governors in Argentina, added to greenspans spike in 99_01. Toppled the menem regime and the radical party headed by the father of shakiras manager, delay rue declared default.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:33 pmThe shorthand for this;
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:35 pmhttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19263669
so i finished my bottle of fernet, mostly by doing a shot every day with a ginger ale back
i found i liked keeping the fernet in the fridge, not the freezer, and then letting it rest and breathe in the shot cordial for 15 minutes or so on the counter
room temp is too bitter-forward, but from the freezer you lose all nuance – you don’t wanna be that guy
the key thing is to float a slice of cucumber in the ginger ale back
and, of course, one must use proper stemware
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 4:41 pmpoor cucumber
mg (31009b) — 8/5/2017 @ 5:00 pmPaul Ryan has a new fence around his property to keep the intolerable gun and bible lovers out when his govt. crashes and burns.
mg (31009b) — 8/5/2017 @ 5:08 pmpaul ryan has his hands full just keeping his wife off the tinder
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 5:38 pmLook Paul Ryan and Mcdonnell have a job, but fundamental reform isn’t it, this why they fought challenverd like nehlen and begin.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 5:52 pmthey nasty
they bought and paid for
mcconnell is nasty in particular with his corrupt piggy wife
yeah let’s put an asian chick in charge of transportation
said no one ever
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:13 pmBut the notion that he is cutting through the crap as regards the government debt bubble seems fanciful, to put it kindly.
Patrick, I can see nothing will cut through your Trump Derangement. I was about to agree with you about the economy but I took my dog for a walk and you are back in your TDS bubble.
Mike K (b3dd19) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:27 pmWhen the baseline accounting system is dead the fixing can commence.
mg (31009b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:30 pmAre we past the Euro barrier: I wino Dr a budget that trimmed some discretionary spending was deemed top draconian.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:33 pmMike K,
Do you have an actual argument as to how Trump is helping address the debt? Or just your usual boring shtick? Do you realize how tiresome you have become? Do you care?
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:39 pmWhen you’re right, you’re right Patterico. Our salvation has been the greater weakness of the rest of the global economy. Congress and the FED should act before the global market catches up and forces us to.
crazy (11d38b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:42 pmYour website, Patterico. You pay for it. You make the rules.
Simon Jester (bcb31a) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:43 pmOr just your usual boring shtick?
omg that’s very saucy
this is Mr. Dr. Mike from the Chicago Boyz he’s very nice man (+ also doctor)
doctor hello (SAVES LIVES)
he stopped talking to me like ten(?) years ago though cause of i was impudent about war hero john mccain
and i respect that
some people have strong rigid and turgid feelings about john mccain
and that’s very legitimate cause after all he’s a war hero
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:46 pmSad. If that crowd doesn’t know this chapter and verse, that’s bad news.
Beldar (fa637a) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:47 pmYou didn’t answer the question, what is the solution, I pointed out to some examples of hi this collapse would manifest itself.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:51 pmBut we can’t e in discuss this carp because we pretend to take the cbo seriously and this vrishenko foolishness. We see in small examples say in Illinois the way you can’t hold the deluge back. Add to that the sjw cadres who are just as dangerous as the baader or the brigatte nonsense
“The stock market bubble of the 90s was fed by the monetization of the internet. The “tech” bubble led all indexes higher. The problem with the “tech” bubble was that traditional stock valuation tools like “price to earnings” indexes were ignored in favor of meaningless numbers like “price to revenue” ratios that disregarded small details like “profits”. So you had companies with dubious “profit” potential that nevertheless received millions in venture capital that allowed them to expand………..”
There was a great article in Forbes or Fortune etc. back during the tech bubble which compared the internet bubble to the early automobile industry, where the new tech/industry was a sure-fire winner (with the horse and buggy being the loser) but that there were WAY TOO MANY COMPANIES (making everything from headlamps to suspension springs to spark plugs) trying to secure a large enough share of the coming business to stay profitable.
IOW thousands of startups (meaning a huge ratio overall) hoping to be part of the new sector disappeared within a few years (and with them their capital).
The debt bubble is completely different and you did a nice job.
Look to Illinois to see what’s going to happen.
Every government (city, county, state etc.) every year should send every citizen a breakdown in spending showing the percentages for labor, pensions, materials etc and how those percentages compare over the years………oh who am I kidding, not enough people even care about anything except “where’s my entitlement?”.
harkin (a7e08c) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:54 pmillinois is a rather large example of how you can’t hold the deluge back thank you
you srsly want a bigger example?
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:54 pm“Do you realize how tiresome you have become? Do you care?”
Patrick, do you realize how tiresome your blog has become? Do you care ?
I stop by to see if your Trump derangement has finally ended.
I was about to agree with you about the debt bubble. A lot of the problem is the Administrative State. They don’t want any changes as they are doing fine and the real estate market in northern Virginia is great.
I included links, not about Trump but about the problem in DC and the possibility of fixing the pathological situation there.
In your TDS, you chose to see everything as about Trump. You would fit in really well at the DNC seminars but I know you used to be a smart guy,
Try to get over your Trump obsession and see that some of us are hoping that a shakeup in DC might wound the usual suspects in the Deep State.
I guess you can’t see that and I feel sorry for you.
I’m still glad your case against the mad bomber came out well for you but you really need to calm down.
There are allies you are rejecting.
Mike K (b3dd19) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:54 pmYou tom crabcake as being a serious commenters. When his follow-up removes all doubt
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:56 pmthey’re taxing red bull by the ounce now Mr. narciso
toni mack truck uglybutt preckwinkle is seriously taxing red bull by the effing ounce
these people is trashy
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:56 pmhttps://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/893553871712374784
What I’ve been fighting for.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/893553871712374784
A beer.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 8/5/2017 @ 6:59 pmThe government plays by a different set of rules.
If I write a check for more money than I have in my account, my bank will return the check, marking it “Insufficient Funds,” to the person or business to whom I wrote the check. But if the United States Treasury writes a check for more money than is in their account, they are their own banker and there is no one to bounce the check! It is always good, and the bank used by the person to whom the check was written gets the
cashelectrons in the proper account just as if the Treasury had sufficient funds all along.It is a variation on the way commercial banks create money through the lending process and reserve requirements, but a stronger one: commercial banks are always subject to the risk that a loan won’t be repaid. The federal government simply holds this to what they consider a reasonable minimum — think the three rounds of ‘quantitative easing’ the Fed used — to keep people from panicking, but, in fact, the federal government can’t go broke!
Someone above mentioned Greece and its debt crisis, but Greece’s case is in no way similar to our own. Greece’s debts were denominated in euros, a currency it does not control. Had Greece stuck with the drachma, and gotten its debts denominated in drachmas, then it could simply have
printed more drachmasdeclared that there were enough electrons in their accounts, and the lenders would get their payments, on time, in drachmas, and any devaluation in the drachma on the open market would be the lenders’ problems, not Greece’s.But the US? The dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and all of our debts are denominated in dollars. That was how the Fed could engage in quantitative easing, by declaring that they had sufficient electrons to pay for the debt they bought back, and the debt-holders accepted those electrons in payment.
Not one bit of that makes any sense, under the standard economic and financial rules we think we understand, but the United States government doesn’t play by those rules, and other people accept the payments we make, other people accept — mostly unknowingly — the different rules under which the government operates. This will continue to work as long as other people accept what the government does, and thus far, I’ve seen no evidence that they won’t.
The economist Dana (8cee75) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:17 pmlet’s do this again it’s saturday night hello (day of saturn yeah that’s right – roman god of lots of roman stuff you can’t even cause you so not even that roman)
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:19 pmIn your tiresome way, you seized on a single paragraph mentioning Trump in an entire post about the debt bubble. Then you droned on about a coup or some other paranoid bullshit that had nothing to do with my post. The obsessive is you. Everyone can see this.
You don’t like the blog, leave the blog. Hanging around insulting me is both rude and incredibly boring.
But you can’t stop and you can’t take a hint.
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:31 pmthis is not how you bridge the gap of misunderstanding i will have you know
Mr. Dr. Mike is Mr. Dr. Mike
you can’t just dismiss him with an fare-thee-well thou art rude and incredibly boring
he deserves better than that
(doctor hello) (SAVES LIVES)
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:35 pmMike K,
Tell you what. I don’t like who I become when you pull this stunt, so I will just announce here that, as long as you come on here for the sole purpose of insulting me any time I insult Trump, I will not be responding to you. I realize this means I may never speak to you again. I enjoyed the good times and I’ll try to remember those, and to remember you that way.
I appreciate the years you came here, and I enjoyed meeting you in person. Good luck to you.
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:38 pmOK Patrick. I guess your ego can’t handle other opinions. Even if they fundamentally agree with you.
Too bad.
Mike K (b3dd19) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:39 pmThis post was about the debt bubble, right?
*checks*
Yup. Sure enough.
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:41 pmAnyone here agree with me that the debt bubble is an important topic? I’d love to discuss it!
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:42 pmIt actually has been a decent and mostly on topic thread. I’ll try to focus on that now. Although I do have a few other things going on tonight.
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:43 pmi think i said already about how do we adapt and mitigate
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:43 pmThe economist Dana:
What about inflation?
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:45 pmWe 2 inflated the price of basic staples this was more true in north Africa and the middleceast hence the stab spring. A symptom of this policy.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:48 pmArab spring, much as the French revolution was due in part to food shortages from the little ice age.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:50 pmAs the other Dana points this isn’t real money its just electrons, brad thorn suggested in a recent tale that china might demand more collateral for their future exoebditures
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 7:57 pmThe solution to entitlements may lie within the problem. In particular, the Ezekiel Emanuel Solution incorporated in a strict one-tier single-payer healthcare system. Enforce a maximum life expectancy of 75. Big savings on VA benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security, pensions, and other services to unproductive old people. Not to mention the salaries and benefits of overage Congresspersons. Tremendous savings. Huge savings.
nk (dbc370) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:01 pmI agree about the debt bubble and wonder if anyone is interested in an attempt to depose the elected president of the US,
Does anyone think it might have an effect on solving the debt problem ?
Ok, I’ll go away.
Mike K (b3dd19) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:08 pmI would suggest not in a positive way:
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:17 pmhttp://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/impoundment
Thiwps was also the source of the alchemy that are the cbo
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:32 pmSo I originally started reading this blog many, many years ago because of a connection to some folks who knew the late Cathy Seipp. I have learned a lot from the folks who post here, like Patterico, Dana, and JVW. I used to really enjoy posts from DRJ and Stashiu. There were wonderful commenters as well, many of whom are no longer commenting here. I learned a lot from them, too.
I like the posts even now. I also like many of the commenters, who bring up different points of view (whether or not I agree with them) in interesting ways.
But since the election, I have seen things get really out of hand around here: over the top nonsense, fake macho nonsense, juvenile taunts and insults, and the like. Everyone needs to blow off steam, sure. But I would love to see comments like I used to enjoy here. Personally, I don’t care for the persistent trolling and juvenile nonsense. That’s my opinion, and it may or may not be widely held. But what to do?
Patterico clearly doesn’t want to tell anyone to pipe down. That’s a respectable point of view. But for me, it’s harder and harder to “hear” comments that are clear and well constructed above the noise of the nonsense. I doubt I am alone in this.
What I will say to the trolls is simple: Patterico provides a service, for free. I wish more folks would respect that. I don’t post much these days because the trolls irritate me (which is their goal, of course).
It all comes back to the cocktail party that Patterico is providing. The host is doing a good job. It’s up to the people drinking his beer and eating his chips to respect at least that.
So sure, call me names or puff your chests out. I’m not saying I have the answers, and I’m not asking anyone to agree with me. I just wish there was more respect for what Patterico has tried to build here.
Simon Jester (bcb31a) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:33 pmOur esteemed host asked me:
Back when our 44th President got his ridiculous stimulus plan passed, I, along with almost everyone else, predicted significant inflation, courtesy of a $1.4 trillion deficit and the pressures of increased borrowing.
Well, I was wrong, as were a whole bunch of other people: we didn’t get that inflation, and even now, the lovely Dr Yellen and her fellow travelers at the Fed are trying to achieve a ‘modest’ 2% inflation rate, and falling short even on that.
Rampant inflation is the common fate of those nations which have tried to print their way out of debt and other problems — think the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe as the most blatant examples — but the one factor that they all had in common was that their debts were not denominated in their own currencies. As long as we keep making our debt payments, and other people keep accepting our money as good, inflation doesn’t appear to be much of a threat. As I said, the government isn’t playing by the same rules as everybody else, and everybody else appears to be fine with that.
Think of it this way: we borrow a bunch of money from China, but China has been lending us dollars, not yuan, the very dollars we used buying manufactured goods from China. At one point, China suggested a ‘world currency,’ which would have really screwed us over, but there’s been no pressure for that, because many countries hold dollars as their reserve currency. Other countries like a low-inflation dollar, because it keeps their reserves higher.
And we aren’t the only ones with a government playing by different rules: the eurozone seems to be doing things the same way, though the multi-country currency has issues with the various member nations. The euro has fallen vis a vis the dollar since 2015.
The retired Dana (8cee75) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:33 pmAs it happens, I was just listening to a lecture by Robert Murphy on the efforts by the subjectivists after the marginal revolution to explain the value of money qua money. It took Mises to provide a satisfactory answer. (That’s the next lecture, but I have encountered the answer before, and I think even explained it once or twice in blog posts.)
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:34 pmGotta finish that series on Murphy’s book about Human Action. I got sidetracked in the middle of it and never got back on track.
Patterico (55f50b) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:35 pmOther countries are more than happy to accept dollars in exchange for their goods, which is how they build up dollars as reserve currencies. With all of those dollars in their economy, the Chinese have to find a way to spend them, and one of the ways to spend them is to lend them back to us; they then get paid back with even more dollars. They’re doing the same thing with the euro. The last thing that the Chinese want is high inflation in either the dollar or the euro, because that makes both their reserves held and the bonds being repaid worth less.
The foreign policy Dana (8cee75) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:40 pmOf course anchoring currency to actual precious metals is a limiting factor on govt debt, you can look at the menagerie that is Venezuela currently as an example. Heinlein saw America as capable of great this gas but this generation would shock him from his complacency, pournelle another engineer type in science fiction , is not as surprised.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:41 pmyes yes as the corrupt sleazy filthy FBI turdboys are doing coup on american democracy
we should look at the role of the precious metals
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:44 pmnarciso wrote:
But that’s just it: if other people accept electrons as real money, then they are real money!
What is a dollar? It’s just an elaborately printed piece of paper, but people have been willing to accept those pieces of paper as real money; real money is what people accept as real money.
Electrons are just the latest substitute: I haven’t been paid with actual cash since I was a kid delivering newspapers in the 1960s. Instead, I got a piece of paper called a check, which I could take to the bank and have it accepted as a contract for numbers in someone else’s account. Come the early 1990s, I stopped getting even those, but got just a stub, as my employers simply transferred numbers from their accounts into my checking account. Yet everybody involved accepted that as real money.
Even gold has no value other than what people say it has.
The realistic Dana (8cee75) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:48 pmOnce we leave solid ground, the flight through the air will be exciting and fun.
Depends– what color is your parachute?
Watching Reaganomics; voodoo economics; supply side economics crash and burn over and over again is as popular as the Fast And Furious franchise.
I’d just started a gig at BBDO/NY back in October, 1987 when Black Monday rolled through Manhattan wrecking Reaganomics the first time. Gazing out the wisely sealed windows of a 6th Avenue office building, it was amazing watching panic move in waves from street corner to street corner; ripple from floor to floor as worried paper chasers furiously dialed and clutched phones, murmuring muffled worries to brokers, friends and families as fortunes big and small were wiped out. They walked briskly up and down corridors, punched elevator buttons repeatedly in nerve-driven angst — or headed to Hurley’s to hoist a few and miss their trains back to Jersey or Connecticut.
But then, those with nothing to lose– or the brightest parachutes— had little to fear. And grinned with very sober smiles.
“What good is the moon? You can’t buy or sell it.” – Ivan Boesky, Wall St. trader convicted of insider trading, 1980’s
__________
Today’s Beldar the Bitter ‘Watergate, Watergate, Watergate’ Words of Wonder:
“I’m a law enforcement man.” – President Nixon talking character with John Ehrlichman, secret White House Oval Office tapes, April 14, 1973
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:54 pmnarciso wrote, as I was writing my last (wordy) comment:
What is a precious metal? It is a thing, some amount of an element, on which people are willing to place a value, but even that value is denominated in amounts of currency. If you are stuck in the middle of the Sahara with a bag of gold, it does you exactly as much good as being stuck in the Sahara with a fist full of dollars, if there is no one there who has water and food you can buy with that gold.
Money is a figment of people’s imagination that we commonly agree to share, and the value of precious metals still incorporates that part of people’s imagination.
The very realistic Dana (8cee75) — 8/5/2017 @ 8:54 pmMoney is a figment of people’s imagination that we commonly agree to share
it’s kinda like war hero democracy huh
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:00 pm@87. Once upon a time, salt was ‘currency of the realm.’ Now we sprinkle it over corn-on-the-cob.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:03 pmWhen the anti Trump Fed raises interest rates the budget crisis gets worse. They carried obama for 8 years but now they can sink Trump and the r’s.
jim (a9b7c7) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:04 pmTrying tie establish some ground rules gold was a store of value, imperfect as it was for a while till 1971, and that was an arbitrary determination
narciso (d1f714) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:05 pmDCSCA wrote:
Yet, for those who just sat it out, they were ‘whole’ again by early 1988.
Stocks are one of the best examples of the imaginary nature of money; a share of a stock is worth exactly what someone else is willing to pay for it, and that can fluctuate wildly.
Tesla recently eclipsed both Ford and General Motors in value, based on shares outstanding and share price, yet while both Ford and GM have shown profits, and paid dividends to shareholders, Tesla continues to lose money, and pays no dividends. By any rational perspective, Tesla’s stock is irrationally valued, but there appear to be a whole lot of people who see Tesla as the next amazon.com, hoping that they’re getting in early and their stock will reap huge increases in the years to come. Elon Musk has done a great job of selling himself, and that’s what Tesla shareholders have bought. At 356.91, TSLA was up $9.82 on Friday (2.83%), the day after it was announced that 63,000 people have cancelled orders for the Model 3.
That makes no sense at all to me, but it still happened.
The very realistic Dana (8cee75) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:06 pm@92. Yet, for those who just sat it out, they were ‘whole’ again by early 1988
Players on the bench w/nothing to lose to begin with and those with one of those big bright parachutes. Still one of the local reporters (ABC’s Bill Beutel, if memory serves) noted that roughly 10% of the office space in glistening towers of the Mahnattan skyline was empty thanks to the crash of ’87– something The Donald learned the hard way. Or maybe he thought is was just– ‘fake news.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:21 pm@92. That makes no sense at all to me, but it still happened.
And to think near turn of the century– the 20th century– there were more electric-powered vehicles in the street of New York than ever– [chiefly for deliveries] as they were less messy than horses and those sputtering gasoline gadgets.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:26 pmMy retirement fund is 50% scratch offs and 50% Marlboro Bucks.
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:29 pmElon Musk has done a great job of selling himself, and that’s what Tesla shareholders have bought.
He survives on government financing covering his azz. Witness Space X. He pitches getting people to the Red Planet by 2020 [or is it 2025 now] and has yet to even risk trying to launch anybody up, around and get them back down safely w/o the government [NASA] to take the heat and cover his butt if there’s ‘a bad day.’ More likely he’ll get to Mars, Pennsylvania in a Winnebago before Planet Mars aboard a Dragon-tipped Falcon.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:36 pmDCSCA
What was Reaganomics called when JFK did it, grandpa? And Harding?
I’ll hang up and listen to your answer.
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:37 pm@25. Long Beach Island or Cape May? Two weeks there is a gift from God, Pee-Pee. Grab it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:39 pmDCSCA
Tax cuts are bad, m’kay?
Please explain.
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:45 pm@97. You gotsa-lotsa hang-ups, Pee-Pee.
“Don’t be, An Ivan BO-esky…” – Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal ‘Comic Relief,’87’ HBO
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:47 pm@94 DCSCA
Edison even electrified an elephant. Zero emissions.
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:48 pm@99- Live, from the deck of the $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford, perhaps.
“You ahead, in a Ford; Way ahead, in a Ford…” – Louis Armstrong, Ford Motor radio/TV commercials, 1967
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:51 pmYou got more hang ups than Robin Williams, Michael Hutchence and David Carradine in a Motel 6.
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:55 pm@101- Edison even electrified an elephant. Zero emissions.
An elephant w/zero emissions makes for quite a shovelful, Pee-Pee. Buckin’ for a gig as WH communications director in the WH, eh.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 9:59 pmDCSCA
You saying we can’t ‘Ford it? Can’t say I disagree.
What spending should be cut other than military?
Were you a lot happier when any income over a million dollars was taxed at 90% (for instance) and people like Reagan would just take the rest of the year off?
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 10:04 pm@104 DCSCA
A guy older than the REA doesn’t know that story?
Topsy the elephant, electrified by Thomas Edison in 1903 at Coney Island.
I suppose you’ve never heard of Murderous Mary, executed by hanging in Erwin, TN in 1916?
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 10:16 pm@106
I should say the elephant was electrified by employees of “Edison”. It has been attributed to Thomas Edison during the intervening years. What he actually knew about it is unclear.
The Edison Film Company memorialized the occasion.
Here’s an understatement: “Electrocuting an Elephant does not seem to be as popular as other Edison films…”
Pinandpuller (767c73) — 8/5/2017 @ 10:48 pm@92- Yet, for those who just sat it out, they were ‘whole’ again by early 1988.
Not exactly- the Bush Recession was the second coffin nail.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 10:54 pm@78. It’s a blog.
Rest easy. The fever will break when everyone tires of winning; these six months have been the longest two years in decades.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/5/2017 @ 10:57 pm@wtf or DCSCA.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 8/5/2017 @ 11:27 pmThe mysteries of the Rochester Quadrajet are not easily revealed.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 8/5/2017 @ 11:47 pmhttp://www.c3vr.com/vrforums/help-quadrajet-problem_message443144.html
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 8/5/2017 @ 11:52 pmIf anybody cares it’s a lot easier to work on a fuel injected Mustang than a computer controlled carburetor.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ROCHESTER-QUADRAJET-E4MC-COMPUTER-CONTROLLED-CARBURETOR/350435988873?_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D41376%26meid%3Dc16addb95e2742c2af0d20161c543213%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D260199498058
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:17 amWell, now that the Social Security Trust Fund has started draining, and the payout on those bonds has to come from the General Fund, I think you are going to see a big uptick in the growth of Federal debt.
If the Feds try to inflate their way out of their debts, 30 to 40 states will have to declare insolvency as their cost-of-living adjusted pension obligations balloon and their retirement fund Federal Bond assets shrink.
Xmas (3a75bb) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:29 amIf we cut the growth of DOD spending are those legitimate cuts or cut-cuts? Will my son have to eat dog food?
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:44 amI’ll eat dog food before your son does.
Given that your son serves.
Steve57 (0b1dac) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:59 amI am becoming less convinced that the debt situation will end in crisis.
The fundamental problem with high debt for governments is that the government has to continue to pay interest. As the debt increases, the government’s demand for money will rise and therefore, interest rates should be expected to rise. This can (and has) ended in an inflationary spiral.
Patterico comes from the Austrian school, which specifically rejects the scientific method. That, to me, is a hard no-go. I decline to argue by feelings toward my intuitions as to how economics should work.
The current interest rate situation has been remarkably steady for years.
The question then becomes: What is Patterico’s specific prediction as to the debt crisis? If it’s “there will be recession in the next 20 years with inflation above 9%,” that’s not a crisis. If it’s “there will be a depression in the next six years with inflation above 15%,” that’s more interesting and more bettable.
I recognize that there’s not an obvious solution to the Social Security and Medicare expense-o-rama. I also think the long-term debt situation is worrisome, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that people are bad at dealing with until it’s way too late. But so far the doomsayers have been wrong – and the control of inflation has been effective.
Bettable predictions uber alles.
JRM (c80289) — 8/6/2017 @ 3:10 amSeriously keynesian alchemy, is now science, Wagner and smoller as well as list, the German dirigistes were counterpoint to Adam Smith, the foundation of the German welfare state, which disdained unalienable rights.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 4:52 amis is all silly anyway because all that was needed for the world to be put right was for donald trump to be elected and that is all he does not have to anything the world will pay for every one of our disappointments and discontents and mexico for the wall too because donald trump will make it pay and we don’t have to worry about anything except the nevertrumpers who have tds because those people just don’t get it and they are horrible rinos and lefties who hate america and want open borders and multiculturalism and white genocide and it is very frustrating and it’s making me angry that there should be people like that and even write about it in their blogs on the internet when i should be floating on a cloud of contentment and checking out Melania’s butt as she goes up the stairs on airforce one and i can’t even understand what their problem is why they just don’t see how the world became so different and so perfect on november 8 and maybe they should all move to syria because for sure they don’t belong in the america that donald trump is making great again
nk (dbc370) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:04 amInterestingly graham moore novel about the great westinghouse Edison feud is being turned into a film.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:21 amEdison became the prototypical mogul from network.
JRM wrote:
Which is exactly what conservatives, including me, said in 2009, when President Obama proposed the porkulus plan. It failed miserably, by its own metrics — remember: it was s’posed to hold unemployment to a maximum of 8% (8.5% by CBO’s guesstimate) — and didn’t do anything the supporters claimed it would do, but interest rates didn’t rise, either, and actually fell. The Fed ‘helped,’ of course, by lowering the rates it (nominally) controls, but the government’s demand for money should have caused commercial interest rates to rise, regardless of the Fed’s actions, by every economic theory around, and that didn’t happen. As much as we combitched about the national debt rise under the younger President Bush, it came close to doubling under President Obama, and interest rates still didn’t get pushed high.
Theory is great, but the actual results have to be taken into account, and the results have not matched what theory predicts.
The Dana enjoying a morning glass of Quik® (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:22 amJRM wrote:
Thing is, while inflation has been remarkably low, it certainly isn’t under control. The Fed has been striving for a 2% inflation rate, and hasn’t been able to get it that high. Some nations were getting close to deflation, and Japan actually experienced it.
The Dana writing about economics way too early in the morning! (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:30 amnarciso wrote:
The various stimulus plans — George Bush’s in 2001 and Barack Obama’s in 2009 — were supposed to help the economy, but never achieved the results projected for them. Why? Keynesian economics tells us that governments are supposed to use deficit spending to stimulate the economy during bad times, but balance their budgets and pay down their debts during good years. On paper, that all works out, and Nobel Prizes in economics are awarded for brilliant economic work on paper; Paul Krugman needs to return his.
But, even if we assume that Keynesian economics works, while we’ve tried the stimulus called for during bad times, continued deficit spending during good economic times has broken the chain. We have been, in effect, stimulating the economy during good times and bad, and have, in effect inoculated the economy to the purported effects of stimulus; stimulus is now part of normal economic life, and no longer produces the desired results when needed during recessions.
The Dana who ain't no Keynesian! (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:40 amI’ve recommended caldwells. Economic Bo of Hayes and Von misers and the milieu they were in conflict with.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:50 amDana,
I don’t believe the Fed’s Keynesian theory takes the ‘safety net becoming a hammock’ (h/t crazy) into account. Somehow they miss the impact of the amazing correlation between the increase in the amount of subsidies being paid and the decline in the workforce participation rate. It’s very hard to spark inflation when so many consumers are reducing expenditures in order to remain in the hammock. It may not be very comfy but it apparently beats working.
Rick Ballard (5f52bd) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:17 amAll your economic theories are like the USDA diet. Not enforceable. Not even in a prison or a military base. Because they are all contrary to human nature. Your word of the day is “greed”.
nk (dbc370) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:25 amMr Ballard:
The answer is simple to state, if difficult to do: I’d have to become Tsar and Autocrat of All the Americas to fix it. But welfare needs to be ended, completely ended, so that if you don’t work, you f(ornicating) starve. That solves the entitlements problem, and it solves the illegal immigration problem as well. If someone chooses starvation over working, I say: let him! I would shed exactly zero tears over him.
Am I an [insert slang term for the rectum here] for holding that position? Well, maybe I am, but I don’t really care if people think that about me.
The Dana whose welfare policy comes from 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:26 amThere’s another crash coming when we have the greatest Bull Market EVAH!!!
You just want Trump to fail.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:29 amThe Thessalonians St. Paul was writing to was a commune. And never mind the Soviet Union, even then, there was an exception for the commissars. The members of the commune who preached did not have to work.
nk (dbc370) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:34 am“What was Reaganomics called when JFK did it, grandpa? And Harding?”
Formerly discredited Voo Doo Econ. now ensconced in the Trump Budget hall of fame.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:37 amTyler Durden..
“Gold analyst Mike Maloney believes that traditional assets will plunge, and gold, silver and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin will outperform, as investors seek protection from the coming collapse of the global dollar system. Maloney explains his thinking in a new YouTube video “The Everything Bubble.”
Junk silver best. Small denominations make it it superior to gold .
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:42 amIt’s not if a crash will recur, but how soon.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:43 amMichigan j frog is boring,
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:44 amTrue but they were operating in the wider community of thessalonaika
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:45 amPlus that want the primary .message , it was to reassure them they had not missed the second coming.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:58 am“there has been no major crash since 2012”
Did you misspeak? A Google search found no crash. Did you mean Obama care as the culprit?
https://www.google.com/search?q=econ+crash+2012&oq=econ+crash+2012&aqs=chrome..69i57.9379j0j4&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 7:02 amI’ve told everybody I know. Some agree, some don’t, some make fun of me. And at almost 80 with a wonderful life behind me and no grandchildren I don’t much care.
Bang Gunley (5a4596) — 8/6/2017 @ 7:07 amIt was certainly a cosmopolitan there s that word again community.
narciso (41651c) — 8/6/2017 @ 7:30 am2 timothy is perhaps even more on point,
narciso (41651c) — 8/6/2017 @ 7:57 amPlamegate update: Clarice Feldman says Sibel Edmonds misunderstood
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2014/01/12/plamegate-update-clarice-feldman-says-sibel-edmonds-misunderstood/
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 9:02 am@116 Steve 57
I appreciate the sentiment and most parents would as well.
I was really making fun of those people from the Patsy Schroeder School of Economics. Not only can’t we cut government spending-we can’t cut the rate of growth from year to year. I believe mg referenced baseline budgeting earlier.
If The Depression begat The Greatest Generation then what have we generated? Turn in your participation trophies for the scrap metal drive.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 9:09 am@123 Dana
Reminds me a little of Mithridates VI of Pontus. He was paranoid about being poisoned so he constantly took micro doses of poison.
When his capture by Rome was imminent he tried to take his life by poison and failed.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 9:21 amAmerica is Amy Winehouse. Deficit spending is beer.
If we quit precipitously we can die immediately. If we don’t ever quit or cut back, eventually we will deteriorate and die.
We should take our advice from doctors, not Bon Scott and Keith Moon.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 9:32 amYes but he was also the poison king a,little like the company men that took lsd then administered to others.
narciso (41651c) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:05 amSpecial Counsel Tag Team, James Comey and Robert Mueller
http://canadafreepress.com/article/special-counsel-tag-team-james-comey-and-robert-mueller
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:20 ampinandpuller wrote:
And, of course, the Dread Pirate Roberts spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder.
The Dana with six fingers on his right hand. (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:29 amNow back in the 80s he would have been Bothaflake: http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/08/06/gop-sen-flake-ill-stand-trumps-immigration-legislation
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:48 amAlthough in the short run President Reagan’s policies pushed up the debt, the Reagan tax cuts and his administration’s more business friendly policies, along with changes made under the stewardship of Newt Gingrich and his “Contract with America” turned things around. This chart demonstrates that federal policies, especially fiscal policies, can shrink the debt in a rather dramatic fashion over time, as they did during the Clinton years. It should be noted that this is another example of how credit for economic conditions is often delayed: Bill Clinton and his policies did not materially affect the declining debt, though he could have, but didn’t, run it up as Obama did.
Of course, the real bright side to Reagan’s presidency is that he got the Ruskies to abandon the cold war, which made his deficit spending look more like an investment in our future, rather than anything else. When spending operates as an investment in the future, debt spending is a reasonable course of action (Who among us bought our homes without a mortgage? Not many, I’d guess.). In today’s world, very little government spending falls into the “investment” category, though most politicians disingenuously claim it.
To describe the current run up in the debt as a “bubble” unfairly begs the question. With the federal government’s ability to “print money”, there is absolutely no reason to think the bubble will burst in any dramatic form. Also, as the linked Wikipedia chart illustrates, we are still nowhere near the historic high for the national debt that occurred during WWII, but the Obama presidency and accommodating Republican Congress during the Obama years moved us far in that direction.
There’s no reason that this sitting President, or any subsequent President, could not engineer a turn around in the debt similar to the one that was initiated under Reagan and came to fruition under Clinton. All the President has to do is get the Congress to agree to a tax cut and other growth-inducing policies. Sadly, that’s a big if. The edifice of taxes, spending and regulation specifically targeted to benefit the biggest and most politically connected businesses has strong support among those in Congress – these elected officials were paid to erect these economic barriers in the first place. Just as we saw with Obamacare, sleazy Republicans in Congress are the real problem.
ThOR (c9324e) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:53 amFlake was actually a missionary in south Africa in that period, so I can understand a reluctance to endorse sanctions, except did he vote re grishenko. But we know him in south Florida for his position to all means against Castro regime.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:57 amL
For those of us who are old enough, we remember “starving the beast” as a popular conservative strategy to limit the size and reach of government. I’m actually far more concerned about the size and reach of the government than I am about any fallout from a large and growing national debt. With the run up in interest rates and the corresponding fall in bond values that everyone seems to be expecting – Alan Greenspan has been quite outspoken of late – I see beast starvation in our future. It’s a good thing.
ThOR (c9324e) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:01 amToday there’s a name new name for “the beast.” It’s now called “the deep state.”
ThOR (c9324e) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:04 amSince Bernie souchak referenced my friend who took on Watergate procurators Nazi war criminals and corrupt union bosses
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/08/a_consequential_president_in_the_time_of_pygmies.html
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:07 amRe the blame matter many of the mitinees got promotions and cushy gigs for their sabotage, back then they leaked to Mayer, Shane priest at all
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:10 amOdds are they would have found another excuse, but this was the squirrel
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:15 amhttps://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/05/rewind-mueller-probe-of-trump-only-exists-because-of-comeys-
illegal-leak-to-new-york-times/amp/
Narc
As you know Clarice Feldman has been denying the fact that Marc Grossman exposed Brewster Jennings and Valerie Plame as CIA in 2001.
Feldman is now been forced to acknowledge that Mueller was part of the scam. However she is still selling the false narrative that Armitage was the real leaker.
Your friend Clarice Feldman is a swamp creature, Narc
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:16 amRaising interest rates will do that. Hopefully Donald trump will understand. If he doesn’t he will be like Andrew Jackson.
Too many Republicans don’t understand we dare not let interest rates go up.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:17 amNarc
Feldman’s story is falling apart!
Clarice Feldman believes Dick Armitage is a liar, except….
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/11/18/clarice-feldman-believes-dick-armitage-is-a-liar-except/
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:19 amThere’s no reason that this sitting President, or any subsequent President, could not engineer a turn around in the debt similar to the one that was initiated under Reagan and came to fruition under Clinton.
Yes, but the sitting President seems to think that we should increase spending* while cutting taxes and hope that the tax cuts will encourage enough growth to match the spending increase.
*And mind you a large part of that spending would be “infrastructure”, which reminds me a lot of Obama’s stimulus. Except that GOP would be directing who gets the pork this time…
kishnevi (bb03e6) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:20 amArmitage is supposed to have been the person who leaked the fact that Valerie Plame was Joe wilson’s wife, or, to put it another way, that Joe Wilson was Valerie Plame’s husband. More orecisey, that she supposedly was responsible for the decision to send him to Niger.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:21 amAn unexplored element of the blame care wee the official that wrote the int memo, roar previously he had served in niamey as cm, so he well knew that yellowcake could leak from cogema stoes
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:21 amSammy
Do you really buy the nonsense that Plame was responsible for sending Joe to Niger?
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:25 amNarc
Ask your pal Feldman this
Why did John Ashcroft recuse himself?
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:28 amNo ernie I’m nit crediting last decades reality winner or Louise mensch, who would have most
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:28 amLikely been aware of analysts like blame, someone with jurduction over inr
158. kishnevi (bb03e6) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:20 am
While cutting immigration in half!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/us/politics/legal-immigration-jobs-economy.html
So doubling it would probably add 0.3% a year. The effect isn’t all that great, but it’s negative.
No, the GOP would decide where at most half of that went. Remember, bipartisanship.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:29 amFor the same stupid ashcrift did, qurstionns of honor, a supposed conflict because rove had run o e of his campaigns
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:31 amhttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/clandestine-isis-unit-training-britons-to-launch-attacks-on-uk-9hjm3b6gr?shareToken=778242c2f02ee9e90e16f1e8434aa128
Narc
Nonsense! Ashcroft did have a conflict. He was in Reggie Walton’s courtroom gaging Sibel Edmonds at that time.
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:34 amGetting back to the issue at hand I think the only somewhat hayekian regime ear Chile, and that was only till the 8w recession.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:37 am161. Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:25 am
Of course not, but too many people do.
That Plame was responsible for sending Joe to Niger was the lie the CIA spread arouns the government when Scooter Libby asked, at the instigation of New York Times reporter Judith Miller why Joe Wilson was sent?
You see the real reason he was sent was for the CIA to avoid double checking the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger, which Vice President Richard Cheney had asked the CIA to double check early in 2002. Instead of re-examing the documents, the CIA sent Joe Wilson to Niger to report baclk it would have been very hard to actually sell uranium to Iraq. (Later they used their false explanation to charge that leaking Valerie Plame’s job at the CIA and her relationship to Joe Wilson it had been ‘retaliation’ for Joe Wilson’s New York Times op-ed article which claimed he had debunked the claim, which he had not )
What people don’t understand is that the claim that Iraq had attempted but failed to buy uranium actually argued against the idea that Saddam Hussien was a danger, because it would mean that Saddam Hussein was back to Square One – he didn’t have any enriched uranium anymore.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:37 amThOR (c9324e) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:53 am
There was economic growth due to low interest rates. Clinton engineered a whole economic package in 1993 because he didn’t want Republicans to know the secret. He wanted them operating on false theories. Clinton underplayed economic growth. He underplayed it so much that he caused the Caifornia electricity crisis,
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:40 am@130 Ben Burn
Given that congress doesn’t like to cut spending in conjunction with tax cuts you may have a point.
Do you have anything other than third degree Ben Burns that would elevate the economic education of the class?
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:42 amSammy
Saddam had 550 tons of yellowcake 19 miles outside Baghdad.
Wilson was sent to Niger so that he could write the NYT op-ed. No NDA!
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:43 amTidal wave Googling crash of 2007..no comparison..
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:44 amhttps://www.google.com/search?q=crash+finincial+2007&oq=crash+finincial+2007&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.25823j0j4&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-
125.Rick Ballard (5f52bd) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:17 am
It’s not the subsidies – it;’s making people re-qualify, or risk losing it if they work.
In some cases (workman’s compensation, disability) the continuation is dependent not merely on low income but on not working – with health insurance tied into it as well. These things are supposedly objectively determined, but they’re not. Like with Caesarian section births, the rate keeps going up.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:44 amFitzgate: Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald guilty of “obstruction of justice” and lying to the court.
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/09/18/former-u-s-attorney-patrick-fitzgerald-guilty-of-obstruction-of-justice-and-lying-to-the-court/
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:45 am“Burns that would elevate the economic education of the class?”
Nothing that could touch your vast superiority.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:46 amThe Ga t that Franklin raines who went to run Fannie Mae, msjes the conclusions doubtful
was part of that
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:48 amEverybody did NOT know it could not go on forever.
Or rather they thought, prices might stop rising, but they could never drop, because people could not sell at a loss.
It wold just take longer and longer to sell a house, and the market would freeze for awhile, but that’s all.
It turned out that when some people could not pay their mortgages (and there were more and more of such people with time, mainly because of adjustable mortgages, and partly also because of fraud) home prices could indeed drop.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:48 amIt alway seems like it might, and in fact it does. I beleive we are well over the 1999 or 2000 high right now.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:52 amThey thought that, for technical reasons, housing prices could never drop and therefore the bubble could never pop.
They – and that includes Alan Greenspan – didn’t think about the possibility of a rise in foreclosures brought about by the combination of adjustable rate mortgages and a rise in interest rates.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:54 amBecause interest rates have been flat, although now they are up by about 1%. It will take more to bring about a crash.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:56 amI was a kid during The Carter Economy. I lived in a Boom Bust town in a Boom Bust state but we had two or three refineries so I didn’t experience gas lines. I can’t say I personally noticed a great difference in my lifestyle from 76-88 other than 501’s and Topsiders.
So for the contrarians who like to talk trash but never seem to back it up: Was The Reagan Recovery fake news? What factors aside from RR are responsible? Did Reganomics make it worse? Why?
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:56 amNarc
You have ignored the real reason Ashcroft recused himself.
Why?
Truthbetold (1ab5c1) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:58 am180. Pattericos quote from piece, not mine.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 11:59 amReagan sucked is not a convincing argument.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:00 pmGovernment spending doubled during Reagan’s tenure..pin.
Trying to simplify a complex hybrid of overlapping policies (clintoon)
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:05 pmMy answer to the question of whether there is a slow-rolling coup against Trump is coming in an hour.
I don’t think Mike K is going to like it.
I think all this talk of a coup is rank propaganda to preserve the strongman image.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:06 pmReadable now at RedState if you can’t wait.
Let’s save the big debate about it for the upcoming post, though, please, and not further derail this thread with it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:08 pmhttps://mises.org/blog/federal-spending-grew-more-under-bush-and-reagan-under-obama
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:09 pm@131 BB
The best metal portfolio is lead, copper and brass.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:11 pmPaper ownership? I hope you have backup.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:14 pm45 out of 48 Democratic Senators ahve signed a statement saying they will work with Republicans on taxes if:
1) It is revenue neutral or better, but not if it increases the deficit. (as determined by the CBO, it goes without saying or maybe they said it)
2) The republicans do not use the reconcilation process but rather a rocess that requires 60 votes.
3) Taxes are not cut for the top 1% of the population (but it is OK for corporations) I think taht means on average for the top 1%.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:14 pmLess coup, more Andreas Lubitz locking the pilot out of the cockpit and crashing the plane.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:16 pm148. ThOR (c9324e) — 8/6/2017 @ 10:53 am
Really? Reagan caused economic growth a decade later?
No, no, no,. What he has to do is make the right appointments to the federal Reserve Board.
But Bill Clinton did not want Republicans to realize that and used as lot kfof misdirection in 1993. He also wanted to underplay economic growth, n order to create tension and must-pass bills.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:20 pmSt Ronaldus Rocks is not a convincing argument.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:22 pm15. kishnevi (1a529d) — 8/5/2017 @ 3:15 pm
But then so is probably all the rest of the money in the world.
But as things stand now, central banks are not succeeding in raising the rate of inflation to 2% – and they are trying.
Of course what they think reduces inflation, causes it, and what they think causes inflation, reduces it, so it’s not working very well.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:25 pmXmas (3a75bb) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:29 am
If tey weren’t careful about the due dates.
What really causes state (and company) pensions to become insolent is a reduction in the workforce.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:28 pmI wonder how our Authoritarian regards raiding pensions that are over-funded?
Minimum annuities are all the working-class deserves?
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:32 pm“How much better can you eat?”
-Jake Gittes
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:33 pm“Let the PEOPLE eat chocolate cake”
DJT
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:34 pmSome view the debt as a percentage of GDP. Looking at a timeline over the years, it doesn’t look so dire in that light. But I do share your concern about it even if I don’t think we’re doomed, yet.
Anyway Patterico, you don’t want to view the debt in that way or maybe you’ve talked about that before and I’ve missed it?
Tillman (a95660) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:35 pm@164 Sammy
I don’t know of anyone who advocates halting legal immigration completely.
The other kind, yes.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:42 pmThe reason this thread circles back to Trump is because Congress is full of dunces.
They need a leader, they need someone to push them along, and that job is going to go to Trump if only because he has a bully pulpit (or Twitter).
No one in Congress has grown into the type of leadership needed, some one who can tell Jeff Flake, John McCain, Murkowski, Collins that they need to put their personal animus aside and vote for the good of the country rather than playing their stupid NeverTrump games.
McConnell should be pulling these self serving douches off of plum committees and send them all to visit Japan’s failed nuclear reactor on a “fact finding” mission.
steveg (e8c34d) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:47 pmHe did nothing.
Repealing what will become the largest entitlement was paramount. Obamacare will add to our debt because we’ll have to borrow the money to pay for it, and McCain screwed the pooch right there in front of everyone and then smiled because he got a little payback for Trump’s prisoner slur.
McCain has plenty of ways to screw with Trump, but the country comes in dead last when compared to a chance to NeverTrump and selfishly he said *bleep* you to the whole country by leading a revolt.
Ben Burn
I don’t know that I have claimed superiority around here.
A lot of the commentariat are older or more accomplished than I so I’m open to learn from almost anyone.
Evasion, for instance.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:54 pmIf answering you is evasive then your young years are a disservice to you.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:58 pm184.Reagan sucked is not a convincing argument.
That he both sucked and blew is.
Circle complete.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:58 pmTrump supporters truly have the ‘whine rehearsed to perfection. It’s the thing he excels at.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:01 pmBB
So do you like your taxes like you like your rappers?
High AF.
I didn’t fight my way back up the salmon ladder to see whether DCSCA addressed what cuts should be made. So to you-where should cuts be made?
We should cut military spending. We should cut entitlements. Everything should get a haircut.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:09 pmCongress has to fix the problem they created when they delegated monetary policy to the newly created Federal Reserve a century ago as the bipartisan progressive era of American politics began to prevent future financial panics and bank runs and then expanded the Fed’s authority to maximize employment, stabilize prices, moderate long-term interest rates, supervise and regulate banks, and provide depository services to US and foreign government official institutions – essentially tasking the Fed to manage money and credit while ensuring prosperity so Congress can write checks drawn against the full faith and credit of the US. By detaching monetary policy from fiscal policy Congress created a system that can only balance money and credit if both Congress and the Fed chart a common course and both restrain the natural impulse to act through spending rather than restraint.
We’ve arrived at a point where restraining spending and normalizing interest rates threatens the bond and equity markets as well as the political future of our leaders leading to lots of talk and little action. Honesty about the nature of the problem and the cost of various solutions is the only way to soften the impact of the mess the know-betters have created but there’s a deficit of that kind of courage in our leaders.
The inevitable crash doesn’t have to happen if only…
crazy (11d38b) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:10 pmWm F. Buckley 2000
Look for the narcissist. The most obvious target in today’s lineup is, of course, Donald Trump. When he looks at a glass, he is mesmerized by its reflection. If Donald Trump were shaped a little differently, he would compete for Miss America. But whatever the depths of self-enchantment, the demagogue has to say something. So what does Trump say? That he is a successful businessman and that that is what America needs in the Oval Office. There is some plausibility in this, though not much. The greatest deeds of American Presidents — midwifing the new republic; freeing the slaves; harnessing the energies and vision needed to win the Cold War — had little to do with a bottom line.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:11 pm@205
Paul Lynne everybody! Give him a hand!
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:12 pmBB
Contrast 175 & 185. You were being coy.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:16 pmSimon Jester
How do you know I don’t pay?
I’ll bet some of the unwashed and uncouth folks here do as well, but the truth is that you do not know.
Sometimes I am reminded of my little brother who would try to get dad to stop the car because I was giving him the finger.
The way I see this party is that there are two large bars. One is by the pool and only shows cage fights on the TV. This party is beers and smuggled in Jack Daniels. Upstairs bar has a piano. I don’t know what you guys drink or talk about, but when you come down to the cage fight fan party holding a brandy snifter, you seem to cheer against our favorite fighter. So you get booed.
I am grateful for the venue, for the pay per view. We disagree vehemently on Trump, but we probably agree somewhat that McCain sold out the country so he could score a cheap NeverTrump hit.
My last point is going to be this continued litany of who’s who of people that do not post here anymore.
steveg (e8c34d) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:22 pmMaybe it is the Pro Trump chatterers that turned them off. Maybe, but what if it was the opposite?
Is it possible that some folks left because they don’t want to fight with the host? NeverTrumpers do have a tendency to talk down to people they disagree with and possibly rather than burn a friend over politics, they just take a hiatus. You saw what just happened between MikeK and the host on this topic, it’s still too raw.
@188 BB
Interesting article. I think I can get behind all presidents suck. Some more than others.
But how much spending did Obama offload on future administrations and generations? Same for other presidents.
We are still saddled with The New Deal in many ways.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:25 pmWas Phil Gramm the last senator to consider a cut in spending?
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:26 pmI’m happy to discuss issues with anyone, steveg. If someone simply wants to come in and say “TDS TDS TDS” but won’t answer actual questions about the topic (like: “Let’s discuss what Trump is doing to reduce the debt”), they’re not worth talking to. Mike K is actively trolling me, and I have decided that our future conversations will be one-sided, because I don’t talk to trolls.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:30 pmI think Rush and Hannity are the only ones still on the St Ronaldus train.
I’m holding out for a hero.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:34 pmSome people have either left or posted less because they are put off by the more mindless of the pro-Trump chatterers. I know this because many have said so to me privately.
Some people have left or posted less because they can’t stand to read a site that criticizes Trump. I know this because they never stop telling me publicly.
And some have left or posted less because they’re just sick of politics. I think some of my favorite people fall in this category. It’s sad but it is what it is.
There is a giant rift on the right. This site did not create that rift, and it is not unique in seeing the effects of that rift. I’m not even sure whether Trump created it or just revealed it. There is no question in my mind that he has done incalculable damage to the fragile coalition that is/was the Republican party, and the party will suffer for years as a result.
The only thing I do know is that, to the extent that I have lost readers because of my honestly held views, forcefully and respectfully expressed (I am not respectful to Trump, mind you, because he doesn’t deserve respect — but I am respectful to those who support him in a non-mindless fashion), I don’t regret it and I won’t change. And I have seen new people come along even as old ones have left.
Being true to yourself is more important than clicks. Some don’t like it — but that’s their problem, not mine.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:37 pmIt’s interesting to me that many human weather vanes (take Peggy Noonan and Mike Cernovich as two examples) have started to turn on Trump. They are the canaries in the coal mine, I think. The path forward for the guy is not good, I suspect.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:39 pmBut there is a whole new thread for this stuff, here, and I am violating my own rule by opining in the wrong thread. Yes, I’m responding to someone else doing the same thing, but still. Please, let’s take it there.
Patterico (115b1f) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:40 pmPin: Sometimes people play dumb for strategic advantage. Being coy is a prerequisite for smoking out prevarication, but I’m not suggesting you are lying, more for being human. All perception is selective and no can say they are exempt. I’ve noticed your own glibness reaches a high arc when the bilge pump suddenly tells you it needs more power.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:41 pmPinandpuller, I would like to recognize the fact that I am appreciating your comments lately. Whether it is because you have a greater understanding of the positions of other commenters, or perhaps because I have a greater understanding of your positions, I do not know, but I like the persona you are affecting.
felipe (023cc9) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:49 pmThe supposition is conservative ideologues have an argument to make.
Thing is, they don’t much anymore– at least the one they’ve been pitching voters aren’t swinging at these days. They’ve been hurling it it since the early innings of ’64 through the 80’s and began to lose control into the 90s; their spin on the ball is played out. The electorate knows it and has retired’em– to their utter horror.
A relief will try tossing spinners with return to Reagan– which our Captain belts out of the park with a home run line: “Reagan was a long time ago.”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:52 pmI see things this way as well.
felipe (023cc9) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:53 pm@210. Lynde. Give him a heart pill.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:54 pmCaldwekl has an interesting monograph re Hayes pinochet and the constitution of liberty.
narciso (d1f714) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:58 pm@223. More likely they’re unhappy at discovering to their horror at being on the wrong-if-not-losing-side of history. Takes the ease– and fun– out of it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 2:21 pm“The supposition is conservative ideologues have an argument to make.”
Is that why they eschew discussions that could go south for their side. I didn’t want to be the one to say it.
Ben burn (d38849) — 8/6/2017 @ 2:39 pm@227. Depends on your POV; to some, the Alamo and Vietnam were wins.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 4:32 pmi think i’m a try to make my own limoncello
it takes forever unless maybe you do some sous vide magicks on it
but Mr. Trump wants us to stop importing things willy nilly and plus this would be fun for gifting
i want mine to have basil notes
that said, Mr. Cernovich is right how in fascist nevertrump america they wanna make you pay and pay hard if you voted for the president
speaking of which here’s the full text of that awesome google engineer’s stab at free thinking
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/6/2017 @ 4:49 pmMr g wrote:
In all of his previous positions, Mr Trump could use his most famous line, “You’re fired!” to anyone who wouldn’t toe the line. But President Trump can’t fire Representatives and Senators, and even if he could, he doesn’t get to name their replacements. Lisa Murkowski has her job guaranteed until January of 2023, and John McCain has his guaranteed until he just plain drops dead.
The politician Dana (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:46 pmIn all of his previous positions, Mr Trump could use his most famous line, “You’re fired!” to anyone who wouldn’t toe the line.
All the more amusing as somebody else wrote that line for him, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:51 pmOur esteemed host wrote:
And at least one of us had been here a lot less frequently because real life has a way of taking up time that was spent on the internet. I’ve spent the last month installing a new ceiling — shameless blog plug alert! — and I’ve spent less time posting here, or even on my own poor site, since I retired than I did while I was still working.
But I always know that if I want to debate and disagree with people, even the host, I can do so here and receive actual debate rather than just name-calling.
The Dana trying to run his farm (8cee75) — 8/6/2017 @ 5:55 pmshameless bad pug alert – willard just hoppered up on the kovfefe table and ate the entire cheeseball!
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:04 pmhappy farming to you
mg (31009b) — 8/6/2017 @ 6:06 pm@221 felipe
I think you hit on why I like this place: the personas.
I feel like I have enough skin in the game I ought to contribute something substantive once in a while. I suppose it depends on the topic.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 7:13 pmI’d like to suggest that intermittent fasting translates to politics.
Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 7:31 pm@232. A regular Max Yasgur- or be you a Monsanto man…
“Yes it’s good, livin’ on the farm…” – ‘The Farm’ Jefferson Airplane, 1969
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/6/2017 @ 8:51 pmVraiment sympa ce site web
voyance 2017 (0c55c4) — 8/7/2017 @ 5:51 amIt’s like that old joke about falling out of an airplane: it’s not the fall that kills you – it’s the sudden stop at the end.
J.P. (9e0433) — 8/7/2017 @ 6:41 am201 Pinandpuller (943389) — 8/6/2017 @ 12:42 pm
There have been people who talked about a “moratorium’ Cotton and Perdue proposed cutting it in half because it sounds like acompromise.
The reason for talking a complete halt is to discuss what the economic consequences would be.
That;s of course ttotally impractical., and the closer you get to itm, the mmore people die, and all those people who are for cutting illegal immigration in principle – all kinds of illegal immigration – are really against all immigration. Otherwise they show a touching a faith in Congress’s ability to do economic planning. They don’t seem to trust planning for everything else, or want all otehr laws, enforced, including bad laws.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/7/2017 @ 10:39 am208. crazy (11d38b) — 8/6/2017 @ 1:10 pm
Not just that. It woiuld cause a crash.
Therefore they should not “normalize” interest rates. That’s a totally crazy, and destructive, idea.
leading to lots of talk and little action. Honesty about the nature of the problem and the cost of various solutions is the only way to soften the impact of the mess the know-betters have created but there’s a deficit of that kind of courage in our leaders.
Interest rates do not get normalized any time soon.
Sammy Finkelman (02a146) — 8/7/2017 @ 10:42 amhttps://mishtalk.com/2017/08/07/tracking-junk-bond-bubbles/
TomK (1cda1b) — 8/7/2017 @ 1:41 pmInterest rates do not get normalized any time soon.
You’re right about that, Sammy. It’s unlikely to occur voluntarily thanks to the Fed’s decision to put the health of the “banking system” ahead of the health of the average American’s bank account coupled with unrestrained Congressional debt-financed spending ergo our host’s concern about the inevitability of the coming crash. The longer it takes the Fed and Congress to return to normalcy the closer we get to the day of reckoning everyone fears and no one wants. Statistical prosperity may be good for the elites but harmful to the rest of US.
crazy (11d38b) — 8/7/2017 @ 5:08 pmMr. drudge says the failmericans on the ground, they is frightened by the destructive potentialities of the solar eclipser
i can’t even believe you losers put a man on the moon
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/7/2017 @ 5:11 pmgot your dunkirk right here you pansy-asses
happyfeet (28a91b) — 8/7/2017 @ 5:12 pmThanks for sharing your valuable features and other relevant information.
Epson Helpline Number (cfcb2f) — 8/8/2017 @ 11:54 pm