Posted on 04/24/2013 7:28:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Anybody can look like an economic genius in the short term if they can monetize their debt to infinity and beyond. It is the equivalent of a poor family living the life of a millionaire because they keep cashing checks that they write to themselves. What is so hard about that?
All the crony capitalist types are lapping this up as it is guaranteed profits and socialized losses. History will not be kind to these morons when it finally collapses like all ponzi scheme bubbles driven by greed and stupidity.
exports decreased 2.8% in 4th quarter 2012. How’s that free trade working out for you? The global free market has been a global disaster.
We have too many teachers and too few good teachers.
Generations of Americans were educated in classes of 35-40 students. Now we have 12-18 students per class and Johnny can’t read, do math or sign his own name legibly.
Come July the BLS will ‘refigure’ GDP adding in ‘Intangibles’.(May 2009 plan http://www.athenaalliance.org/pdf/PolicyonIntangibles-Torino.pdf)
This, according to economists (you know which kind) will add $1T to $3T to GDP. We could be looking at 4% GDP this year!!
Steve Colbert had this nonsense on his show. Most young voters get their information from him. God help us.
Smoot Hawley reduced US exports by 50 percent.
I used to enjoy some of the slideshows on BI. Until the last election when Blodget became an uber cheerleader for Obama.
It was so bad that I eventually unsubscribed from the feed and haven’t been back since.
F him.
It pisses me off to no end to see them try this bullshit. They are actually going to try to make the old numbers disappear down the rabbit hole.
Yes, yes, Mr. Bludgeon, let’s spend a lot more money...let’s become like Greece....we can spend ourselves into prosperity. Everybody knows the Great Depression ended two years after Roosevelt was elected. What?.....what did you say?....it didn’t? It lasted five years longer than it should have...thanks in large part to WWII? Oh well, never mind.
Yeah Paul. You bitch slapped those little yet-to-be-born bastards!! Pwned!!
About Henry Blodget, the writer of this piece.
“In early 2000, days before the dot-com bubble burst, Blodget personally invested $700,000 in tech stocks, only to lose most of it in the years that followed.”
“In 2002, then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which allegedly conflicted with what was publicly published. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He agreed to a permanent ban from the securities industry and paid a $2 million fine plus a $2 million disgorgement.”
Honestly, if that’s the price we have to pay to get out of bed with the communists, I’m for it. It’s a different world today than it was in 1930 and I’m not talking about tariffs on all global imports, I’m talking strictly about Chinese imports. I’m tired of all this panda hugging BS that slowly but surely destroys our economy while building theirs up. We are getting screwed by China all in the name of free trade and in name only.
The import/Export trade only accounted for 3% of GDP in 1930’s. We made our own things then. Smoot-Hawley had no impact on the Great Depression, either worsening or alleviating it.
This article falls into the category of ideological wishful thinking. It is tantamount to losing a war and then shouting, “We won, we won!”
Some key economic points are omitted from this nonsense article. For example, those Euro countries that have been “forced” or that adopted “austerity” are being floated by Germany and northern Euro citizens. Despite that, the severity of circumstances in Greece, for example, is real but not a consequence of a little austerity. It is due to a tremendous inability to afford the lifestyle they achieved by overspending. Ultimately, the money has to come from somewhere.
But, perhaps I am wrong and the author of the article is correct. Perhaps the author of this article has stumbled on the realization that austerity is the wrong fix to debt-burdened nations’ problems. Perhaps there was no problem with, for example, Greece’s pre-austerity spending and the entire economic situation in Greece is a fiction. Therefore, the Greeks should simply go back to work, spend freely, and prosper. There is no reason for any concern by anyone including others in the EU. The debt load on Greece is no problem, it is just our imagination. So long as Greece continues on the path they were on, they will be just fine. Germans don’t need to send a dime to Greece, the Greeks will simply ramp up spending to the level desired by Greek citizens and all will be back to happy normal. Of course, if that is true, then there is no need to raise taxes to pay for gov’t spending. Since austerity is bad and govt spending is good, simply spend spend spend. You won’t need more taxes because that would be a form of austerity for the citizens. In fact, lower taxes. If austerity is bad, then taxation is bad, too. Spend spend spend.
I notice that Japan has had a rather rough time economically since 1989. Negative interest rates and a spectacular debt-to-GDP ratio. Now there is a monetary effort underway in Japan. That seems unnecessary considering what the author of this article suggests. Just spend spend spend to an even higher debt-to-GDP ratio. So long as you don’t introduce austerity, everything will be fine at least till sometime in the far far away future. Let the kids worry about such bother. Spend spend spend.
The main reason to cut government spending is to achieve the vital goal of increasing saving which helps to inaugurate and accelerate capital formation and capital accumulation, which leads to economic progress and rising standard of living for the average worker. And the main way to cut spending is to reduce deficit spending financed by confiscatory taxes.
Such a policy would be consistent with reductions both in taxes falling on saving and productive expenditure and in taxes falling on consumption, and at the same time with a balanced government budget and, indeed, with government budget surpluses. Above all, it would be consistent with preserving and enlarging the freedom of the individual to spend his own income an wealth.
we need to make our own things again imo. That’s the only way out of this mess. If we don’t we’re finished because the world isn’t going to let us get back up once we’re down.
Henry Blodget - LOL
“In 2002, then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which allegedly conflicted with what was publicly published. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He agreed to a permanent ban from the securities industry and paid a $2 million fine plus a $2 million disgorgement.”
"Austerians" is Krugman's funny-ha-ha way to refer to the Austrians. He's never bothered to study Austrian theory so just makes ignorant comments about them. Of course, the Austrians would recommend austerity -- but real austerity where the government is reduced in size. Not the fake austerity where it only increases a tiny bit more slowly.
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