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IT DIDN'T START HERE
NY Post ^ | April 9, 2009 | Alan Reynolds

Posted on 04/09/2009 2:47:05 AM PDT by Scanian

AT the recent meeting of G-20 nations in Lon don, officials from many nations agreed on one thing -- that the United States is to blame for the world recession. President Obama agreed, speaking in Strasbourg of "the reckless speculation of bankers that has now fueled a global economic downturn."

One problem with this blame-game is that last year's recession was much deeper in many European and Asian countries than it was in the United States.

By the fourth quarter of 2008, as the nearby table shows, real US gross domestic product was just 0.8 percent smaller than it had been a year earlier. The contraction was twice as deep in Germany and Britain and much worse in Japan and Sweden.

In February, US industrial production was 11.8 percent lower than a year before -- while Singapore was down by 22.4 percent, Sweden by 22.9 percent and Japan by 38.4 percent.

What was the mechanism by which US problems were supposedly spread to other countries? It wasn't international trade. The dollar value of US imports didn't start to fall until August 2008, and imports of consumer goods didn't fall until September -- many months after Japan and Europe fell into recession.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: europe; g20summit; globaleconomy; japan; obama; recession
THE GLOBAL DOWNTURN BEGAN LONG BEFORE US FINANCIAL MESS
1 posted on 04/09/2009 2:47:06 AM PDT by Scanian
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To: Scanian

Facts don’t matter. Lies, obfuscation, posturing for rabid liberal ideologies, and false campaigns do.


2 posted on 04/09/2009 2:51:32 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Gaffer

You mean I can stop blaming the recession on Bawney Fwank and Chris Dudd?


3 posted on 04/09/2009 2:59:24 AM PDT by Berosus (No more Kennedys, no more Clintons, no more Bushes, no more political dynasties. Deal?)
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To: Scanian
Oil probably was the straw that broke the camel's back.

But what is killing us is debt. Debt from easy money for far too long.

4 posted on 04/09/2009 3:02:09 AM PDT by DB
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To: Berosus

just the opposite.....


5 posted on 04/09/2009 3:02:24 AM PDT by Doogle (USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: DB

Get more debt, Geithner is making loans more available

Øbama is not economically literate, but he knows it all


6 posted on 04/09/2009 3:05:40 AM PDT by Son House (Make A Bad Situation Worse, Raise Taxes, Increase Government Spending, Thanks Mr. Øbama)
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To: Scanian; ebiskit; TenthAmendmentChampion; Obadiah; Mind-numbed Robot; A.Hun; johnny7; ...
In 1983, economist James Hamilton of the University of California at San Diego showed that "all but one of the US recessions since World War Two have been preceded, typically with a lag of around three-fourths of a year, by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum." The years 1946 to 2007 saw 10 dramatic spikes in the price of oil -- each of which was soon followed by recession.
The answer to that is obvious. Blame the US Republicans for recessions - and make sure that Republicans can't enable domestic oil companies to produce enough domestic energy to prevent them.

Bookmark.


7 posted on 04/09/2009 3:12:57 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The conceit of journalistic objectivity is profoundly subversive of democratic principle.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

BTTT


8 posted on 04/09/2009 3:49:25 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: Scanian
Drill Here, Drill Now!

How to stop the recession and secure the American future.

All of those crude oil profits were invested into many of those failed or failing financial companies. Follow the money folks and you will see the telltale droppings of an economic battle, which leads to our great leader bowing in submission to the winners.

9 posted on 04/09/2009 4:02:25 AM PDT by EBH (The world is a balance between good & evil, your next choice will tip the scale.)
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To: Scanian

How much of that TARP money went to foreign banks right off the bat?


10 posted on 04/09/2009 5:15:12 AM PDT by wolfcreek (There is no 2 party system only arrogant Pols and their handlers)
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To: Scanian

Almost. Don’t try to graph cause and effect arrows here. The banking industry was a mess waiting to happen.

Yes crude oil spiking was a factor, goosed by Goldman at the behest of suck reckless pension greed such as CALPERS, oil futures allowed non-oil entities to speculate and voila, a friggin disaster.

But that’s not the full story. The Euro-zone started to falter before the crude spike. It was the moron Greenspan who hiked interest rates 17 times without stop after keeping them inordinately too low for too long.

Once the world settled into easy credit, Greenspan turned off the spigot too fast. Sectors pleaded with him to stop or at least slow down and let industry catch up. He ignored them. Why?

Because the shadow carry trade was competing with the Fed or counteracting their efforts. So Greenspan/Bernanke used the financial tactical nuke of deleveraging policy. That caused the derivatives markets to freeze up.

Then the SEC with the blessing of the Fed decided to regulate hedge funds by having them disclose their short positions. Similar to the carry trade entities, hedge funds were competing with the Fed by grabbing obscene amounts of leverage from offshore. So the SEC came down on them and voila....massive redemptions and a stock market crash.

And where were the Euros in all of this? The BIS was in lock step with the Fed and vice versa. The only difference was that as Bernanke came in and cut rates all over, the Euro CB kept their rates up until the economies collapsed there. And LIBOR was killing homeowners with LIBOR indexed ARMs in the USA.

How can one describe culpability here?

One can’t because it was one giant financial cluster f*ck.


11 posted on 04/09/2009 8:06:58 AM PDT by Hostage
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To: Scanian

BTTT!


12 posted on 04/09/2009 12:50:57 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion; Scanian; Hostage

Thanks for the ping; post of the article; post. Interesting analysis, Hostage. BTTT.


13 posted on 04/09/2009 3:19:59 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: Berosus

You see? Your opinions were formed on the truth and facts! Entirely inappropriate here. Why? Because you’re a sane, rational education person (i.e., able to sift through bullshit and sort out the truth from the chaff). Like I said, perception and dissemination are key here. Liberals (liars) and the MSM control that, especially so now that they are in power. So, in the end, whether Barney gets shown to be a nincompoop wierdo by a single educated conservative or not only serves to reinforce the convictions of conservatives - those ALREADY predisposed to sift through bullshit and come up with truth. The uneducated, moronic masses will never see that nor care because they can’t understand a conservative and ideological ass whuppin’ when they see one. Their only concern, in the ‘urban’ vernacular is “gettin’ paid.”


14 posted on 04/09/2009 4:30:06 PM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Hostage

Greenspan should have been put out to pasture years ago. It’s hard to grasp why this old fool is held in such high esteem in both financial and government circles.


15 posted on 04/10/2009 1:41:51 AM PDT by Scanian (i)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

*PING*


16 posted on 04/11/2009 1:46:07 PM PDT by T Lady (The MSM: Pravda West)
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