The long national nightmare of “an issue with our server” seems to be over. Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE: Speaking of nightmares, and continuing a brand new old tradition at ZC regarding “site problems” posts, here’s another image from Black & WTF that seems to pre-figure how the subconscious mind might interpret running a blog, or anyway how my subconscious mind might interpret running this blog:
Another Zombie Contentions Meet-Up In My Brain
Comments 13
CKM, This comment should go with your Jobs piece,but Server error was there again. (Please move this to its proper place later)
Why would any large financial institution invest directly in Standard Businesses when they can borrow at 0 % and reloan the money to whomever at a huge spread. Japan started it with the CARRY TRADE,and the Fed is continuing Japan’s destruction of our economy,(ZERO % interest is the most addictive/destructive entity on earth). Reagan had neither the fact of ZERO % lending,the Fact of the ever expanding US money Supply,nor the fact of our current Debt levels to slow down his remarkable job growth. If he were in charge today,what could he do,because as soon as excess capital is there(let’s say via tax cuts) that capital will be used to shore up the company’s balance sheet so they can borrow more to invest in Asia.
Please check out the article in today’s WSJ on the effects of ZERO % interest on us.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704007804574573774057713530.html
December 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Rex, I think it’d be easier for you to copy and paste your comment to the thread where you want it. For now, I’m trying to recall where else I recently read an explanation – could have been in that Balestra report, but I don’t think so – of how destructive 0% interest is, that is, presuming you have some interest in reviving the real US economy as opposed to inflating a new financial bubble with the outward appearance of recovery.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:07 am
PS – let me know if site problems persist for you. At the moment, everything seems to be running smoothly for me.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:08 am
CK MacLeod wrote:
For now, I’m trying to recall where else I recently read an explanation – could have been in that Balestra report, but I don’t think so – of how destructive 0% interest is, that is, presuming you have some interest in reviving the real US economy as opposed to inflating a new financial bubble with the outward appearance of recovery.
Also, 0 % interest is not feasible with asset backed currency, take that JEM,but JEM is not down for the Count,YET
December 4th, 2009 at 11:16 am
@ Rex Caruthers:
That really worked out well for them. They’ve had no economic growth for something like 20 years.
The government needs to get off the back of the economy and let the chips fall where they may. The bailouts have only prolonged the agony.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
That really worked out well for them. They’ve had no economic growth for something like 20 years.
Sully, that was the plan,no economic growth for the citizens/workers,like we are doing here,but plenty of Economic Rewards for their large organizations and their Government. It worked so well for the wealthy classes in Japan,it was exported to us,and we adopted their system with vigor. The deal was we’re the buyer,they’re the seller,but we buy with our dollars loaned to us by them at 0 % interest,we,BIG BANKS, reloan at 30% and thus bankrupt everybody,it worked pretty well.a few big winners and lots of small losers.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Sully, We’ve really been dropped into a economic Rabbit Hole in which,for the elites,a bad economy(No Jobs,low wages) is a great economy. In this Brave New World,War is Peace,and Unemployment is prosperity.
December 4th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Rex,
The problem I have with your thesis is that I, my two brothers and my sister all live at a level of real income at least twice or three times that of our parents. And we all have accumulated at least three or four times the real wealth our parents did. And we’re all in different lines of work. So the concept that the economy somehow stagnated thirty or forty years ago is very tough for me to buy.
The last few years have seen real wage stagnations; but even then we’ve had nearly full employment during those years. That paradox I attribute to too much immigration rather than to overseas outsourcing. IT salaries, for instance, were held in check during the 90′s by H1B visa imports. That I know, because I was often in the position of recommending that if management wanted to fill certain kinds of tech jobs at certain salary levels they were simply going to have to be open to folks with lesser english skills. The powers to be try to say the H1B program was set up so as not to push down (really hold down) wages; but that is simply not true. In practice employers got around the requirements for proving they couldn’t find American tech workers by holding the wages below market for American workers.
My main beef with what the government has been doing (besides allowing ridiculous levels of immigration, both legal and illegal) is that it has stretched out the destruction of old industries and that has slowed the growth of new industries.
December 4th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
So the concept that the economy somehow stagnated thirty or forty years ago is very tough for me to buy.
Our Currency STARTED to become problematic in 1971,but it takes a while for currency degradation to affect our Macroeconomics. And lots of people have done very well,like you point out. What has been developing quite rapidly the last few years is the size of our money supply,the size of the sovereign wealth finds,the amount of debt,the size of our population and many etcs. Quick question,when was the last time we had an IPO? That’s really scarce right now.
December 4th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Nevermind, I checked the IPOs,most were Chinese companies going public here,big surprise.
December 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
We had enough IPOs during the 90′s and we will again once stock valuations are better. Naturally there haven’t been IPOs during the period when the market was down. Small entrepreneurs aren’t going to go public unless they get significantly better valuation than they have staying private.
I’m not saying we don’t have problems. We will, in effect, default on our debt with inflation. But who will that hurt the most by that but the wealthy, most of whom have large holdings of bonds and other financial assets.
Their home is the main asset of most American families, and that’s an inflation protected asset (unless it’s in Detroit).
December 4th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
So, CK, as the only person who really likes to stay on topic, I thought I’d ask: which one am I (in your head)?
December 7th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
@ Barbara:
The bright shining light, of course.
December 7th, 2009 at 5:07 pm