The U.S. Economy: Stand by for more worse news

I'm not very confident in your answer if you think I'm a person like them, whoever they are. You're reply might have been OK without that, although still tilted too much toward the pollyanna.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I don't expect any technology to indefinitely extend our oil supplies. The one good thing about fracking is that availability is driven by price - more becomes available at $100 a barrel, still more at $120 a barrel, even more at $200 a barrel. This allows prices to rise until alternatives are cheaper, at which point they will take over. This allows a "soft landing" for our oil dependence; it helps ensure a more rational transition to other forms of energy rather than an economic collapse caused by not having any oil left (and having no alternatives ramped up and ready to go.)

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

How about $65 or $30 a barrel?
........ how quickly we forget we live in a world with finite (oil) energy that's potentially melting it's polar icecaps under a blanket of CO2 emissions:
Bloomberg: SUV Back in Vogue as Americans Rekindle Old Love Affair
The Economist: Fuelling problems (short memories is an understatement).

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

New Economy: ‘Black Friday’ Fades as Weekend Retail Sales Sink

• Downturn in sales blamed on cold weather [Feb 2014]
• Downturn in sales blamed on warm weather [Nov 2014]

The National Retail Federation (a traditionally cheery industry organization) just reported an absolutely abysmal number for sales during the four-day Thanksgiving holiday period. Sales crashed by a whopping 11% from $57.4 billion to $50.9 billion (confirming what everyone but the Fed knows by now: the US middle class is being obliterated) and the once prominent middle class (a key driver of 70% of US economic growth) is in the worst shape it has been since the Lehman collapse - all courtesy of 6 years of Fed's ruinous central planning [ZH].

** It should be noted the richest 1% whom were bailed out by the Central Planners at our Central Bank by the Central Government - THEY seem to risk these 'perilous' conditions and make it from warm/aircon car to warm/aircon mall/store and go shopping. Isn't it nice knowing it's your children's future prosperity they're spending today (plus interest)? Your children will miss out on owning a home or even raising a family - so that the richest 1% can buy shit sold at Tiffany's with Bonds sold on your child's future labor/prosperity. Instead of swinging from a rope, the richest 1% are living it up in their 3rd or 4th vacation houses [Tiffany Profit Up 50% on Higher Sales, Margins].

Enjoying the New Economy?
If so, that's good, it's here to stay - our Central Planners will make God Damn sure of you and your family (if you can even afford on) pay to maintain their Statuesque. More taxes, less Liberty. So, get used to it. This IS the recovery.

 

Except you are back to misrepresenting things again Michael. The National Retail Federation isn't a "traditionally cherry" organization. Two, Black Friday sales were down from last year. But that is because retailers are offering more deals prior to Black Friday...effectively moving the beginning of the holiday sales season forward by three weeks. Holiday sales are beginning earlier, so Black Friday is losing the status it once held as the beginning of the holiday sales period.

"Total spending for the four-day weekend that started on Thanksgiving is expected to reach $50.9 billion, down 11.3% from last year’s estimated $57.4 billion, according to NRF projections. On a call with reporters, NRF CEO Matt Shay said his organization was still confident retail sales would rise 4.1% for the holiday season as a whole, despite the decline in Black Friday weekend sales, saying earlier deals meant a lot of business happened before the long weekend. He also said that shoppers are still price conscious and could be holding out until later in the holiday season to see if they can snag more deals, meaning the pressure is still on retailers."

http://fortune.com/2014/11/30/black-friday-weekend-sales/

Sorry ruin your party yet again Michael. But the truth matters.

 

How about $65 barrel oil. West Texas Intermediate closed at $66 per barrel last week. Brent crude closed at $67 per barrel. Your no regulation libertarian agenda would worsen our pollution. So I find it odd to hear you complain about pollution.

 

(A) One thing about this new site I don't like/hate, is the use of $. It changes the font as well as italicizes the script.
(B) Oil is HYPER regulated by the State Joe. Everything from making sure it's priced in our Central Government's, Central Banks' FIAT currency (petro-dollars) to the Military Industrial Complex used to maintain that pricing scheme, to massive regulations and etc.... No one knows for sure if what a free society would or would not look like. Maybe we'd be dying in our own filth - OR, and much more likely, we'd be a much more conservative and rational society with limits placed on our use of limited energy like oil. There'd be less 'people' on earth for one (meaning less use) and without government interference there'd probably be a thriving alternative energy sector as we'd be MUCH richer as a people and be able to splurge on things like alternative energy and green energy. Instead all of our 'wealth' is being sucked into a black hole / government that only grows larger sucking in more resources - generational amounts.
Note: The US Government itself consumes more energy than ANY OTHER institutions. Its military squanders unknown millions of barrels a week on useless wars that benefit a small handful of war profiteers. Many of whom either work in, or closely with, the Government.

 

HAAAA!!! LOL.....
Ever hear of some of those asinine stories from the Progressive Socialists' wet-dream - The Soviet Union. You know: 'They pretend to pay us. We pretend to work'. Or how they'd drive a truck back and forth across some idiotic line because on paper they could record 10 truck loads of produce had passed through such and such inspection.

Check out the rational of our Central Planners (from: Reuters)

Yes, THAT'S right. Consumers are really upset the price of the things they buy, like food, electricity, gasoline, healthcare, tuition, electronics, homes - all this stuff, the prices of which aren't going up fast enough. THAT'S the reason why consumers aren't out buying and partying like it's Nineteen Eighty Four. Not enough inflation they were hoping for!!!

HAHAHAHAHAAAA....... too funny!

THIS is how insane your Central Planners are. Or, at least how STUPID they think their Tax Chattel are (and, to be fair, most are that stupid).

Yes, when an economy is humming along and people are doing a lot of trade with one another, demand can, for a time, outstrip supply. And yes, during that time, as people compete for limited stock - prices go up. This isn't necessarily a sign of a 'strong' economy. It could mean there was drought and produce was lost. BUT, yes, it may mean a lot of people have money in their pockets and want to buy a PS4 or Xbone so suppliers might hike up the price until limited supply catches up. (note: in the USSA, when price is going up, it generally means rent-seeking, regulatory capture and the State are rigging the unfree-markets).

The real reason why our Central Planners want price inflation has nothing at all to do with a 'strong' economy and has everything to do with the 70% increase in national debt that's occurred in the 7 years since Bush II and O-blah-ma started bailing out their backers in the various criminal banking 'institutions' who are robbing the middle class blind. Inflation is how the State plans on paying this down - while hoping to maintain the statuesque in terms of power and control over the Chattel Classes. Inflation is also the State's soft default on all those 13-month Gubermint pension schemes our Public "Servants" promised themselves at Tax Chattel expense. Little did they know - most of them are about to enter the Farm and see how they like life on the outside.


But..... it's not working this time.
Oh well, welcome to the New Economy - and Do Enjoy it, because, it's here to stay. Probably for the rest of most of your lives. Go down and pull the magic Left Right lever a few more times. See how that works out for you.

 

Well here is the problem, you cannot define in any meaningful way what "hyper regulation" is, just like you cannot explain in any meaningful terms what size government should be. Two, there is no price fixing, and all currencies are "fiat" currencies...even gold backed currencies of which there are none. And we do know what deregulation looks like, because we have seen it. Believe it or not, there was a time before we began regulating things. Things didn't work out so splendidly as you fantasize, and that is why we have regulation today. And history has proven, regulation works. We no longer have bank runs, depressions are nonexistent, recessions are fewer and shorter, periods of prosperity are more frequent and longer, an hyper inflation is a thing of the past. All of this has been explained and proven to you many times over the course of years.

 

Actually, you are misrepresenting things again Michael. Low inflation isn't a problem. It is a good thing, and it really drives home and justifies the need for the much maligned monetary easing policies the Fed has pursued since 2009. From an economic perspective, everything is looking good. The economy is growing faster than it has in decades. It is certainly one of the fastest growing developed economies in the world right now. After years of hearing you rant about the inevitability of Weimar Republic hyper inflation stemming from the Fed's monetary easing, it is odd to hear you complain about the lack of inflation. The bottom line here Michael is that you are wrong and you have been consistently wrong. A rational man might ask why?

 

Want to know how the Supreme Court defines porn? You know it when you see it.

The USSA is hyper-Regulated.

You can't take a shit without the State having regulated everything from your toilet's height to the paper you wipe your arse with. The only reason you don't see the hyper-Regulated box you live in, is because you're used to seeing your Central Regulators, your Central Planners and Central Rulers fist-fucking of society to the point where fisting is 'normal' to you.

Want to get married? Make sure you ask your "hyper-Regulators" who you can marry. That's normal in hyper-Regulated Amoorika. Where the Tax-Chattel know their place in their small little Tax Pen. Want to smoke a weed? Sorry, you better ask one of your hyper-Regulators for permission to do so Joe. You're not smart enough to figure that one out for yourself. You're too stupid. Like dumb Chattel. Therefor, you need a functionally-illiterate Government Certified hyper-Regulator to give you that permission. And if you do make the mistake of smoking a weed, as an adult, without having asked and been blessed by a hyper-Regulator for permission, they'll call up some other hyper-Regulators (ones with guns) and they're going to do some real Regulating to you - as in take you to go live in a Government regulated Rape-Cage. And if you resist the will of your hyper-Regulators? You'll be shot in the face. Or strangled to death. Or simply beaten down like the Chattel you are.

This is why you don't resist.
It's why you shut up and do what you're told.
And being hyper-Regulated tax chattel is as normal to you, as watching fisting is to a SM.

People know porn when they see. But, once they get used to seeing it. It's no longer porn to them. So, there's nothing I can say to you that will convince you, that you live as hyper-Regulated tax chattel. Because you accept your role as chattel. Not only that - you demand to BE regulated. You WANT to be regulated. You want someone to tell you what to do and how to do it. Well, you're in good company.

Best hope one of your hyper-Regulators doesn't decide they want something you got. Because, what's yours is yours - only until they want it. Then it's theirs. It's as simple as that.


You pulled the magic Left-Right level.
Now get back in your Pen - 2016 is still a couple years away. Then you can pull it again.

 

The Economist: Over-regulated America

- A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there.
- The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end is which.
- Bureaucratic shut down children's lemonade stands because the enterprising young moppets did not have trading licences.
- Want to cut hair? You need a licence.
- Want to fix a computer? You need a licence.
- Want to sell arranged flowers - get a licence.
- Want to sell alcohol - get a licence.
- Want to give a dog its yearly shots - get a licence.
- Want to get married? Get a licence.
... and etc...

You know 'for the Good of Society'. Get caught selling 0.50 cent cigarettes in Amoorika? Plan on getting strangled to death. Because, if there's one thing Americans like, it's being told what they can do, who they can do it with, and how they can do it.

Which is good, because that's exactly what we're getting.
In spades.

There's not one bit of our existence that isn't hyper-Regulated. From what you're allowed to read in a book, or see on TV or listen to on the radio to whom you can marry and what you can eat.
ALL of it.
Everything.
Which is exactly how Amooricans like it.

The solution is pretty simple. End the tax on laborers. This will reduce the Central Banks ability to sell debt on future generations of unborn Americans to the Chinese et.al. and without an ability to sell off the prosperity of the future - the State will shrink, first by eliminating unneeded 'Officials' and, eventually, the the inept - which will wipe out 99.9999% of those working in Government. Without the money to enforce all these inane regulations, Americans will be free to go about creating a prosperous society through trade again.

Of course, this isn't going to happen. Nope.
No, Amoorikans love being hyper-Regulated. It's what they are. Chattel. Chattel like living in Pens. So, instead, we'll just lose more civil liberties, more privacy and become poorer - and everyone will think being born poor and having little opportunity in life while being ruled over by Thugs is normal. Showing your papers will be normal - and, already is.

And that'll be that.
Do Enjoy the New Economy, it's here to stay. Oh, and try not to get shot by a Public "Servant" or misdiagnosed by a Public "Certified" doctor. Color inside the lines. Raise your hand when you want to speak or pee. Do as your betters tell you. Work. Consume. Die. That's your role.

 

Hey look: the Bank for International Settlements just released a report (HERE) sowing that the Derivatives market (you know, the thing that destroyed the world economy and is now nicely regulated by our Central Planners) is "only"..... outstanding OTC derivatives contracts fell by 3% to "only" to $691 trillion as of end-June 2014.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Yes, the New Economy is doing better than ever. Why, we haven't been this prosperous in over a couple decades - just ask Joe.

 

Actually, you don't know. What nearly brought down the world economy wasn't the derivative market. It was banks trading in derivative markets with depositor money which nearly destroyed the world economy. It wasn't derivative markets. Derivative trading has been around for centuries. It's part of that "free market" thingy you keep preaching about. And there are good reasons why derivative trading is important and integral to free markets. Derivatives are most often used to mitigate risk in the underlying security by transferring risk to the derivative purchaser.

It was the deregulation of the banking industry, the repeal of Glass-Steagall. You know deregulation, the other thing you preach about.

And yes, this is the best economy we have seen in more than a 15 years. That is a fact.

 

FROM Forbes: Why The Glass-Steagall Myth Persists

--
The growth of government intervention over the last century was built on the back of a handful of myths. A generation ago, the dominant myth was that free markets had caused the Great Depression, a falsehood ultimately debunked by economists like Milton Friedman. Today, the key myth is that financial deregulation caused the 2008 financial crisis.

What deregulation? There aren’t many possibilities. Despite what we hear, regulation of the financial industry substantiallyincreased over the last thirty years. Government spending on financial regulations, to take one measure, ballooned from 725 million in 1980 to $2.07 billion in 2007 (in 2000 dollars). Anyone looking to blame deregulation for the crisis faces slim pickings.

By far, the single most cited example of this financial “deregulation” is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB), which partially repealed the Glass-Steagall Act thirteen years ago today. Regulatory evangelists including Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and recent senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren, not to mention the Occupy Wall Street protesters, have named the overthrow of Glass-Steagall as public enemy number one.

Stiglitz, for instance, in a lengthy piece for Vanity Fair,could only muster two examples of the deregulation he thinks bears primary responsibility for the crisis: the repeal of Glass-Steagall and theSEC’s 2004 decision to raise banks’ debt-to-capital ratio from 12:1 to 30:1. The latter, of course was not deregulation, but re-regulation. For the regulatory evangelists, the repeal of Glass-Steagall is all they’ve got—and what they’ve got ain’t much.

Glass-Steagall was enacted in 1933 to create a firewall between commercial and investment banks: commercial banks could not underwrite or deal in securities, and investment banks could not accept deposits. The Act also restricted commercial banks from being affiliated with any company that underwrote or dealt in securities.

But by the 1990s, the affiliation provision was widely viewed as unnecessary and even harmful to financial institutions. In 1999, President Clinton signed GLB into law. Although it left the bulk of Glass-Steagall in place, it ended the affiliation restrictions, freeing up holding companies to own both commercial and investment banks.

There is zero evidence this change unleashed the financial crisis. If you tally the institutions that ran into severe problems in 2008-09, the list includes Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, none of which would have come under Glass-Steagall’s restrictions. Even President Obama has recently acknowledged that “there is not evidence that having Glass-Steagall in place would somehow change the dynamic.”

As for the FDIC-insured commercial banks that ran into trouble, the record is also clear: what got them into trouble were not activities restricted by Glass-Steagall. Their problems arose from investments in residential mortgages and residential mortgage-backed securities—investments they had always been free to engage in.

GLB didn’t cause the financial crisis—and, when push comes to shove, the regulatory evangelists must admit as much. Stiglitz, in the same Vanity Fair article, concedes that Glass-Steagall did nothing to “directly” cause the crisis. Warren, meanwhile, confessed to New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin that Glass-Steagall would probably not have stopped the financial crisis, but that she was pushing to reinstate it because, in Sorkin’s words, “it is an easy issue for the public to understand and ‘you can build public attention behind.’”

 

November 3, 2014
The Economist: Is the U.S. economy in a permanent slump? These economists fear it is

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

See the 'Actual' - that's the New Economy, expect to see this for the foreseeable future. The Japanese have had 20 bouts of QE - they're in recession. And, unlike the USSA, Japanese society is much easier to manage and has plenty of private social mechanisms (thanks to population homogeneity - somewhat similar to Scandinavian countries), that allow for huge cost savings. While any Japanese child can walk through any part of any city in Japan (thus they can spend much less on police - as an example) we have to live in a Police State because crack-head-progressive-welfare ghettos litter the cities of the USSA (the socialists built those for 'the Good of Society') and trigger happy Government Militants prowl their various territories in their shakedown of the American Tax Chattel - any who dares to step (even a tiny bit) out of line. One mile of the speed limit? You get a $200 fine. Complain a little? Bullet to the head.

Don't worry, printing money isn't going to magically turn functional crack-head illiterates, into literary composers. It isn't going to end the Police State - it's going to PAY FOR IT.... and is, as we speak. Yes, 100 years of Central Banking, Central Planning, Centralized Violence has bred multiple generations of Americans completely dependent on the State. This IS our 'progressive' society. Our sick economy is only a reflection of our sick society. So, pay your Progressive Income Tax and accept your role as helpless tax chattel.

My suggestion is you go down and lay claim to your Government vouchers - then put your infant/s into one of the Government certified day supervision centers. Let them raise your child from 3 weeks of age. Then your child can graduate from their Government run day supervision center into a Government run Government School - where they can learn to sit in neat little rows, raise their hands when they have to pee (always a good skill to learn in prison or the military) and learn to accept their Government licensed Government school psychologists diagnosis of ADHD. Pass the Government certification MCQ tests. Bulimic learning is very very important. Your children should learn to take their Government regulated anti-psychotics in daily doses while learning to accept their role as State dependent labor cog. Well, I should say 'service' cog. So they can work at a chain store somewhere that just barely pays enough to make rent to their slumlord.

And above all, they should keep praying to the State.
They should keep pulling the magic Left-Right lever.
They should listen to their betters - The hyper-Regulators.
AND do what their hyper-Regulators tell them to do.
Then go die as good little hyper-Regulated Citizens OF the State in another one of their State's phony wars. Your children can finally fulfill their destiny as cannon fodder. And when they do. Just know, their death will increase the GDP numbers - and, according to many a State Economist, that'll be good for Society.

Rinse and Repeat

Seven years of New Economy - hope you're getting used to it, it isn't going away.

 

Surprise, surprise, you are misrepresenting material again Michael.

 

If you have an argument, make it - to The Economist. Want to know why Democrats are having their arses handed to them? It's because no one can find reasonable employment in the hyper-Regulated unfree-markets. Only lowly paid shit jobs in retail and other chain stores. It's just dumb luck a golfer Democrip happens to be in office and not a golfer Rethuglican.

But don't worry, like any other cancerous parasite, the State will continue to expand until it kills its host. Thus, anyone who has something worth 'taxing', should be a bit concerned. Because there are thousands and thousands and thousands of little bureaucrats - who all spend all day long just looking for the right patsy/people to 'tax' - you know, "For the Good of Society".

Enjoy the New Economy - it's here to stay.

 

America the frugal: Mapping the current consumer economic sentiment
- 40% of the consumers said they are coping with the challenge of living paycheck to paycheck (up from 31% in 2012).
- Just 23% (2014) say they are optimistic about the economy, down from 27% at the beginning of the recession (2009).


..... yeah, with recoveries like these, who needs recessions. Good thing the Central Bankers bailed out their buddies. That worked wonderful. And, now that the oligarchy / American banking aristocracy is whole again - time to squeeze the assets out from under the non-productive once-middle class. Someone's got to pay on that fat $18 Trillion. And it isn't going to be the rich or the poor. Next stop: squeeze what's left of the middle class.

 

When you cite the Economist, I will respond to it. You cited an opinion piece from the LA Times, not the Economist, and there is no supporting documentation for the GDP forecasts. Further, the text you cited doesn't support your contentions. Yes, the recovery from the liquidity trap of 2007-2009, also know as The Great Recession has been slow for the following reasons:


- US Fiscal Policy: The US failed to provide enough stimulus and responsible fiscal policies have been hobbled by Republicans. Republicans have repeatedly attempted to run the nation into a debt default for political gain and shut down the government once.

- European Union has been unable to render effective fiscal and monetary policies (e.g. failure to recapitalize banking system and failure to provide monetary stimulus.

The reason Democrats lost election cycle is because Republicans spent a hell of a lot of money and this election the states up this election cycle were traditionally Republican states.