US's economy has fully recovered?

And I explained to you many times that the "Fed has a tiger by its QEtail" and can not reduce the huge expansion of its balance sheet without destroying the US economy. The Fed now admits I, not you, was correct:

Sorry to once again reference this "right wing conspirator source."

 

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It IS reducing its expansion and it has not destroyed the US economy.

==========================
Fed Cuts Monthly Asset Purchases To $55 Billion Maintaining Taper Pace
3/19/2014

In her first Federal Open Market Committee meeting as head of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen made good on her promise of continuity, again cutting back the central bank’s asset purchases.

On Wednesday, the FOMC announced a third $10 billion reduction to quantitative easing, reducing its monthly bond purchases to $55 billion and keeping with Fed watchers’ tapering exceptions. The Fed will cut monthly mortgage bond purchases to $25 billion from $30 billion. Treasury purchases will drop to $30 billion a month from $35 billion.
==================

 

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Actually, you went further than that. You said the Fed couldn't end "QE Infinity" and you used that as rationale for your doom and gloom October 2014 thesis. And in fact it is now and has been ending QE Infinity by reducing its bond purchases as I told you it could and would do. The Fed's position on this, nor mine, has not changed. Circumstances have not changed. So I fail to see the "revelation" you are seeing. The Fed doesn't support your rather unorthodox opinions, nor does the Bloomberg article you referenced.

Bloomberg is not one of the specious sources you frequently use to back up your conspiratorial notions. I never said it was...so that is another one of your straw man arguments.

 

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No, that was not my rational. When I first made my prediction of run on the dollar the QEs were more than 4 years into the future. There were many things, still true, leading me to make my prediction, but the two main ones were GWB's tax relief for the very rich (That concentrates wealth as "it takes money to make money" and shrink the middle calls buying which is at least 2/3 of the economy) AND (2) the demographics, I knew 7 years ago that >10,000 baby boomers, would stop paying taxes, at their highest, "end of career" rate, and begin to do "negative saving" both EACH AND EVERY DAY by end of 2008 and for more than a decade and many would become a drain on the US Treasry as at about that same time, with the ranks of Social Security collectors rapidly swelling the SS tax / fee would cease to cover SS's pay outs.
I admit I did not foresee that most new Jobs now would be part time or low pay Big Mac jobs with less than typical prior jobs SS tax being collected, which is making the SS pay out >> SS tax revenue == big deficit surge more rapidly so SS is needing to ask Treasury sooner and for more of the Trust Fund bonds to be redeemed every month now.

On you other point, yes the Fed is "tapering" at least in its direct purchasing of US Treasury bonds (paper promise), but I suspect it knows it can not acutually do, that so slipped Belgium funds to MORE than offset the "official tapper." No, I can not prove that the Fed is laundrying buying thru Belgium, but that buying has been at an impossible rate. I.e. so large in 62 days (by Treasury's own data) that every man, woman and child (more than 11 million of them) would need to have given the Belgium government 158 dollars each and ever day for each of the 62 days of that two month period of "Belgium's" intensive buying.

I am 100% they did not do that. Belgium got the funds from some source that had strong reason to want the buying of US Treasury paper to actually increase to 127 billion per month instead of only 85 (or a tapered lower sum). Who, if not the Fed, thinks US economy is too weak to do without full (or even greater) than 85 billion buying with thin-air money? It may be many years before that question is truthfully answered, until then, I will continue to believe the Fed did not, and could not, do a true "tapper" especially with 1Q14 showing a GDP drop of 1%. If I am correct, the Fed has pulled off by far the largest "money laundering" job in the history of the world!

 

The lower class definitely & probably the lower middle class has not recovered & the lower class probably never will.

 

If your assessment is true, one should ask why? There is certainly greater income and wealth inequality in this country and it is getting worse, not better. But that is a different discussion. The economy has recovered. We have been out of recession for 5 years now. Productivity is up, but wages remain relatively flat. And the reason for that is fiscal policy courtesy of your Republican controlled House of Representatives. It doesn't have to be this way, it hasn't always been this way (e.g. post WWII USA). But to make that change, we need to change the way we elect our representatives and we need to ensure that once in office they have only one interest, the welfare of those who elected them. We need to take the special interest money out of our election processes. Cantor just lost his seat in Congress. Now he will step into a lucrative lobbyist job, making more money than he has ever made, payback for all his years of loyalty to special interests.

 

Well it is more than just Georgie Junior’s tax policies which has helped and continues to help concentrate wealth In the hands of a few. The income and wealth inequality problem is deeply rooted in the corruption of our political system and the misinformation spread on the internet and the special interest media every day. The days of informed voters vanished with the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan administration.

The US certainly faces fiscal challenges, but of all the advanced economies, the US is best positioned to deal with its fiscal challenges. And its fiscal challenges are the direct result of its political problems (e.g. Republican threats and attempts to cause an intentional default).

And as for your “run on the dollar” predictions for October of this year, you had better start preparing your excuses.

Except, like your other conspiracies, you have no credible evidence to support those claims and beliefs. There is no reason to believe the Fed gave Belgium any money. If it did it would certainly show up in the many audits which are conducted on the Fed every year…not to mention the Fed has no reason to give Belgium money. Your conspiracy doesn’t even make sense. And contrary to your prior assertions of QE Infinity, the Federal Reserve is ending QE. It announced this week it would reduce bond purchases by another 10 billion per month.

Investors are buying US Treasuries not because they think US Treasuries are weak – just the opposite. They are buying US Treasuries because they are viewed as the place to be in times of crisis, like gold. But unlike gold, they pay interest. When Putin begins to show his stupidity and arrogance, money flees places like Russia for stability in the US. That is history… that is fact; that is why the US Dollar is the world reserve currency.

You know, you and I have had this conversation many times before. All currency in the world is “thin air currency”. We left barter behind more than a century ago. This boils down to the fact that among other things, you don’t understand inflation. Years ago this site was dominated by folks predicting the end and Weimar Republic/Zimbabwe style inflation was just around the corner. They got burned when gold went form over $1.9k per ounce to $1.2K per ounce.

 

It is a little early for that, and I'm not certain they will be needed. I am, I admit, now within my 7 month + or - date error margin from Halloween 2014.
This quote by edit next day is step toward my prediction:

Prediction giving both event, with definition already offered, and date for it to occur ~ seven years later is, I admit risky* to say the least, but I'll wait until at least half my timing margin of error is used up, before starting to explain why I did not happen, yet.

* Some might say foolish, but another of my long term predictions seems to be coming true now. I was very opposed to most of GWB's actions, especially his encore of his father's Iraq war. At least his father had the good sense to halt the US troops far from Baghdad and not kill Saddam.**

I said when Saddam was killed, that the US would regret it. And before GWB's troops marched on Baghdad, I predicted, in posts, that the main winner would be Iran, as southern part of Iraq would be come Iran's not quite legally annexed but de-facto Northern State, that the Kurds would finally get their Kurdistan causing considerable trouble for Turkey. The Turkish Kurds want to have Kurdistan's boundary expanded into Turkey. (I now think that part of the prediction is wrong as Kurdish oil must go thru Turkey and or Syria, not a very stable place for the foreseeable future.) Prediction also included US as the biggest loser in, blood, treasure and decreased control of the Mid East. I left it open as to what would happen in NW Iraq, but Iraq reduced to that is not economically viable - no oil there.

** Saddam was US's man, just like Ben Laudin once was***, and much more enlighten that US's Saudi Royal friends. Women could drive, go out without close male relative escort, wear western clothes, but if very pretty and in a short skirt, they ran the risk that one of Saddam's sons making them disappear after raping them several times. Saddam used the oil money to build set of nice palaces and to stock the free food distribution centers and sell gasoline for about $0.20 per liter. US helped Saddam in the Iraq/Iran war. Donald Rumsfeld was photographed shaking his hand after the agreement that gave Saddam near real time satellite photos of Iranian troop locations. Saddam's first effective gas attack took place only three days after that hand shake, according to the NY Times.

*** We gave him many dozens of shoulder fired "stinger missiles" that allow him to drive the Russian back over the "Friendship" bridge they built as they could no longer use helicopters in that mountainous terrain, where even tanks were useless, to move troops.

 

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Except none of that is true. And the data is taking a quarterly number and inflating it 4 fold. The record of reference for this data is The National Bureau of Economic Research - something that has been repeatedly pointed out to you. But you continue to use specious sources, probably because that is all you can find.

And the NBER data is not consistent with your reference.

 

Forbes: U.S. GDP Dropped 2.9% In The First Quarter 2014, Down Sharply From Second Estimate

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Apple, Murphy USA, Tiffany & Co. Top Store Productivity Rankings

Welcome to Socialism. The upper end of the market via Tiffany's & Co are doing well (Apparently the top 0.1% have the balls to take on the "bad weather" as it didn't keep them from spending - you know, because a gruff (shrinking) middle class father of two (if he's lucky) in a pickup truck 4 x 4 was scared shitless of the snow while some snob who's daddy was bailed out by the Federal Reserve by your children's future labor, somehow managed to nag her driver to plow through to Tiffany's & Co. Oh, I see Murphy's USA did well. So you can still turn a quick buck on the backs of the poor who spend most of their money buying fuel (not counted in the CPI), donuts and soda (also not counted in the CPI).

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Thank the f*cking GODS we didn't let the banks go into bankruptcy. Why.... what would a poor whittle Amoorikkkan do if his ruling Oligarchy collapsed? I mean, hey, we fought a Revolutionary War ending 1000 years of Aristocratic rule well enough, a Civil War and two World Wars that culminated in our nukes a couple cities full of women and children - but hey, could we manage through life while letting our Oligarchy and the Banks that own us file for bankruptcy and transition to a freer society? F*ck no. That's not what Amoorikkans want. Thanks to Obediance Training Amoorikkkan just want to be told what to do - "Regulated" one could say. Yup, lots and lots of regulation so we can play our part as Tax Chattel.

LOL....

Welcome to the New Economy - do enjoy.

 

Well rich people are constrained by weather too. Most of Tiffany's revenue comes from overseas. Most of its stores are overseas and only a small number were affected by the winter weather in the US.

Yeah Q1GDP was down in the US. But no one is concerned about it because all the other economic metric indicate it was due to the adverse weather in the US. Economic data does not exist in a vacuum.

Yeah the rich are getting richer. But that has always been the case. And your libertarian solution, giving all the keys to the kingdom to the Koch brothers isn't going to amelorate that problem.

 

Don't fib Joe. The Libertarian solution was to allow the CRIMINAL banks and the CRIMINAL bankers (see: Jon the Con Corzine) who made the bad loans (that destroyed our economy) to file for and be processed through bankruptcy courts. You remember, following that little thing called LAW?! So that right now, in 2014, perhaps there wouldn't be a GoldmanSux or a BJ Morgan. Or maybe there would be? We really don't know. But what we do know is that the richest 0.01% would have had to *GAAAASP* sell off a few of their New York Mansions.

Boo Hoo....


Thanks to 5 generations of Government Schooling, your typical obese Amoorikkkan is too pathetic, too scared and too ignorant to do anything other than what they're told to do. Thus bringing an end to our little experiment called a free society. Yup. Right back to the trend line where those in power buy and sell the labor of their Peon's / modern day Tax Chattel - who, if they don't want a bullet to the head, will keep their fat arses in line and do what their "Regulators" tell them to do.

Humans despise freedom - Amoorikkkans most of all.

Now, waddle your arse down to the magic voting booth and pull the magic lever to the Left or to the Right. Then waddle right back into your Tax Pen like the dumb Tax Chattel you love being. And, if you don't like that arrangement, then your Betters in the Top 0.1% and your State "Regulators" will send a nice man in a blue monkey suite with a shinny little State emblem on his shirt to drag you away to a rape cage. Because, if you refuse your "Patriotic" duty as a "Citizen" / Property of the State, and decide to escalate - then you get shot in the head. You know, for the "Good of Society" because "You use the roads".

Granny and Grampy thank you for the good time's they enjoyed in the 70s - time to pay suckers.

 

Would it? Your libertarian solution does nothing to prevent those “criminal banks” from doing what they did. In your libertarian ideological nirvana, those “criminal banks” would not be regulated. So there would be nothing criminal to try them for…damn minor details again! In your ideal libertarian world, the bankers would be making all the rules - no government regulation, no government interference, remember?

The solution to America’s real ills lies in the voting box. At some point we Americans have to take responsibility for our government. While it is certainly not perfect, it has gotten better over the centuries, it is a work in process. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them into perpetuity as you and those like you advocate.

And I, unlike you have nothing to fib about...a minor detail again.

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A) This crises was caused by the Federal Reserve - Alan Greenspan was the final straw that broke the camels back, but to be precise, it started with the introduction of a Central Bank to the USA. So, in a "Libertarian" world, there'd never BE a Federal Reserve and thus we'd never have had this crises.
B) If this were a "Libertarian" world, the IRS also wouldn't exist - thus, the 'sale's tax' on Labor-hours would also not exist. Labor's wouldn't be taxes on their labor. Thus it'd not be possible to sell 30 years Bonds on the labor of unborn children - which is f*cking disgusting.
C) So, without a Federal Reserve or IRS the USA Government wouldn't be able to sell Bonds and would NOT be able to monetize our phony Wars and maintain the military industrial complex as it does. There'd never have been a Korean War (lost) or a Vietnam War (lost) or Afghan and Iraq War/s (losing). The $100 TRILLION dollars WASTED on the cold war would have instead been spent on technology, medicine, education - all the things normal non-sociopathic people want.
D) There'd never have been a War on Drugs.
E) There'd never have been a Welfare Slums.

See, in a Libertarian world violence isn't used as a means to an end.

In a Statist's World, this world, children who are sexually molested, often then go on to become drug-addicts, are abused further by the State. Because that's what the State is - violence. Does the State deal with these broken people with love and understanding? Hell no. Love is antithesis to the State. It's like garlic to a vampire. Thus, these broken children in adult drug abused bodies are dragged off the streets and put into rape-cages that the State runs - for profit. You know, so they can continue to have sexual violence perpetrated against them in their State run rape-cages. Amerikkka's now the only State in the world where more men are raped than women.

Society is SICK. It's so sick now, the Amoorikkkan Dream isn't to own a home and live a decent life as part of society. Nope. It's to be a parasitic Slum-Lord. Yes, Amoorikkkan's dream of going into the poorest neighborhoods, buying up the houses on the cheap, and renting them out to the poor - who live in welfare in welfare slums. You know, because they "care about the poor".

What a joke America has become.
No amount of Government spending / Violence is going to turn the functional illiterate superstitious Amooorikkkan people into a decent, rational, human-beings.


In a Libertarian world Government would be LIMITED - as it was intended to be. Everything in the US Constitution is to protect us FROM the Government. Not from the 'rich' - but from the State. See, in a FREE society, you can ONLY get rich by offering a good or service people want to buy or utilize. Not to mention, just imagine not having wasted that $100 TRILLION on nothing! In a free society, we'd be ten times more prosperous - simply without the yoke of violence/The State around our necks. We would have developed free-market solutions to education, environment, insurance and banking. We wouldn't have the welfare ghettos. We'd have had free-market medicine - and the prices would dramatically drop with competition. Everything would be more affordable and of higher quality - that's what freedom brings. The State OTOH brings violence, war, famine, desolateness.

You know what doesn't happen in a free-market? People don't "graduate" functionally illiterate. Why? Because no one buy such shit 'education' IF they had to pay out of pocket. People aren't put in prison for smoking a weed as an adult in a free society. Gays are able to marry, because it's no god damn business of the State what people do - as adults. Children are are not forced to pay for their immoral grandparents education AND healthcare AND pension (which is just sickening).

Our society is sick.

Freedom, personal liberty, self-ownership - that's not what Amooorikkkans want.
Nope.
They want to be debt-slaves to the banking oligarchy.

We were supposed to have self-ownership.
Not any longer.

Functionally illiterate Amoorikkkans like having a 540 idiots in "Government" deciding what the other 300,000,000 can do. You know, because the functional illiterate Amoorikkkan waddled down to the magic 'voting' box and picked them - so they must know better than we.

Amoorikkkans like living as State-branded/Citizen-Tax-Chattel in a hyper-regulated Tax Pen. Violence is our language. Amoorikkkan's grew up with it. 85%+ use it against their own children. Thus, we'll continue to murder women and children in other counties, as this is the language of society and of the ever growing State. We'll continue to be less prosperous, more regulated and the State will grow like the cancer it is until it finally kills it's host. And that's the way it's going to be. Because that's what Amooorikkkans like. Violence.

This IS the New Economy, so, if you're doing well in it and pulling in at least 6 figures, then good - enjoy the hyper-regulated markets as a rent-seeker. Yes, life is pretty good.

But, if not - well, you can wash dishes and wipe grampy's arse: whom also owns your rental slum-box, so you get to pay grampy rent - which he'll return to you for wiping his arse, in effect, your destiny in life is to pay to wipe grampy arse - do enjoy. This is the life your State has brought to you. Good, keep pulling the magic lever, soon you'll get promoted to cannon fodder. You know "for the Good of Society" and hey: "You use the roads". Just ask one of your "Regulators" if you feel confused - I'm sure they'll explain it well enough to you in simple words.

Allowing functionally illiterate morons to steal other people's productive labor is NOT any where near: has 'gotten better over the centuries'.

It's gotten WORSE over the centuries - and this trend will continue.

 

Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh explained on CNBC this morning that "on the fairness point - if you have access to credit, if you've got a big balance sheet, the Fed has made you richer," "I would say [Fed policy] has been in some sense Reverse Robin Hood." The bottom: "this is a way to make the well to do more well to do because that's all the Federal Reserve can do."


Hey Hey!
Look here, here is one of your "Regulators" telling you the way things are (now that he's left High Office). Aren't we so so sooooo lucky to have Central Planners like him? Centrally Planning our economy for them. They play the part of "Regulator" and protector of our Oligarchic Leaders' power and money and our role is that of Tax Chattel, you know, because "We use the roads". LOL Ha!!!!

Sometimes we're also given a minor role as cannon-fodder-Tool. Just ask Tricky Dicky...... as Cheney Predicts a “massive attack on the homeland” is inevitable.

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA....... Oh Good Gods, that's some funny shit.

How nice, this is exactly what noted Keynesian sociopath, Paul Krugman, actually advocated in his peace on how space aliens attack earth thereby requiring a massive defense buildup by the United States that would stimulate the economy. You know, because murdering women and children is good for the economy. So that, when you're not selling bonds on your own young, you go and kill the children of other people. It "Stimulates" the economy. Which is good for the economy. Just ask any complete nutter Psychopath. Like, Paul Krugman.

Geee, after nearly a decade (the first of many to come) of the "Great Recovery" it seems our Central Planners may be thinking of just that. The State only does one thing, it grows and grows and grows until, like any other parasitical cancer it finally kills it's host.
There's plenny-o-fat on the bone yet.
Decades worth.

All the State needs to do now is conjure up another nice juicy big fat phony war, reduce more of our civil freedoms, remove the last vestiges of privacy (both, to the cheers of Amoorikkka) and burn off a few tens of millions Amoorikkkans in the "Great Battle for Peace" against the "Alien Extremists". I wonder, seeing as in the State is more than willing to violate the Law, ad hoc steal from multiple generations to bail the richest banking oligarchs and go to war over made-up evidence of 'WMD' (and totally get away with it, all of it, and never to be held to account - because Amoorikkkan's are too fat and lazy to be bothered waddling over to change the TV channel let alone hold their Political Master's to account) then, just WHAT could the State be capable of doing? They're more than happy to irradiate women and children in Iraq - so I suppose, maybe anything.


Just keep 'voting' - keep pulling the magic Left-Right lever.
Then let's see what our Political SOCIOPATHS do.

What you do NOT want to do is follow the US Constitution, eliminate the Central Bank and LIMIT government - no, don't do that. Anything but that.

 

The "Great Recession"

..... ended years ago..... for the top 0.1%. For the bottom 99.9%, it's going into it's 9th year. Thank you Central Bank Keynesian Central Planners, you've succeeded in doing what even the English Monarchy failed to do - destroy the US economy TWICE. Just as your ilk did to our country when you caused the Great Depression, and your German cousins did to Germany leading them into WWII, and then in Russia, in China and even Japan.

Note: To the 20% of Government School Graduates who are functionally illiterate: you're being, oh, that's right - never mind.

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There is no question the action taken by the Fed to keep the out of a deep and severe depression made the owners of capital wealthier. But Fed failure to do those actions would have resulted in a great depression which would have cost the jobs and livelihoods of millions of Americans and people worldwide and it would have stayed that way for a very long time. Again, you are chasing your tail while the robbers rob you blind.

I don’t know who is worse, you or Cheney. You both are so wrong about so many things.

Actually that is not what he said, and Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning and well respected and well educated economist. Krugman used the example of WWII government spending and how it pulled the nation into prosperity. Krugman was doing something radical by your standards; he was using evidence and honesty to support his argument. It was government spending, not government killing that benefits the economy in times of recession or depression. Krugman didn’t advocate war, or killing. He advocated government spending during times of recession or depression. He advocated the government has a roll as the buyer of last resort , and none of that is radical or even controversial in serious academic circles.

Except we don’t have center planners…damn minor detail again. The state grows because the population grows. The state serves the needs of its constituents and it is the needs and wants of its constituents which dictate its size.

That is just good old fear mongering demagoguery. NO one other than Cheney and his fellow Republicans are advocating more warfare.

We need to do more than just vote. I guess you haven’t been paying attention. We need well informed voters. We need rational voters. And we need an election system that works for the middle classes and not the special interest rent seeking plutocrats you care so much for.

LOL, this is yet another in a long series of straw man arguments from you and your conservative buddies – probably because you don’t have a sellable argument if you constrain yourself to the facts and honesty. Add to that, you have been challenged several times over the course of years to define in a meaningful way, what is “limited government” and you have repeatedly been unable to do it.

 

LOL, you and those like you don't like real data and real facts which every one else use, so you have to invent your own set of "facts" (e.g. Shadow Stats). How about doing something radical and use real data and real facts and a little honesty?

 

Just because X is stated to be true by a government does not make it true.
This is most clearly seen in war time: "The first causality of war, is always truth."

The current CPI, GDP methodology is the one the US government used a little more than two decades ago. The US's GDP is nearly meaningless index. For example: If I sell my dog to James for two million dollars and he sells me his two cats for one million each, we make a 4 million increase in the calculated GDP.

I have long contended that GDP should not include ballgame & movie tickets, hair cuts, etc. that have no value a year later. I.e. a "durable GDP," DGDP, would be much more meaning full.
By a DGDP index, Chinese economy is at least twice that of the US, now.