FED's Policies & Helicopter Ben

heh... says the.... Keynesian? From what I can tell? TTYTT the only position you appear to hold is that of mooing cattle. IMO Joe's policies can be summed up as Progressive. As for me, mine would aline with Libertarian. There's no intellectual 'honesty'. An intellectual debate about which type of world one would like to leave their children: a State-regulated top down authoritarian shit-hole like the one the Progressives are marching us off to. Or a free-market voluntary-orientated small government one where law and a respect for property rights form the bases of society.

Joe took the Blue Pill. He lives in the Matrix now.

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One more time: It doesn't matter who the POTUS, and under "Progressive" Obama 93% of the productive gains went right into the pockets of the top 1%. Pick Republocrate Demolican it isn't going to matter.

 

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Quite the opposite in fact...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Denninger

"On January 20, 2009 Denninger published a blog post regarding the suggestion to mail tea-bags to the White House and Congress. The title of his post was "Tea Party February 1st?" It was written on the same day and in response to President Obama's inauguration, even though Denninger had voted for Obama. The blog-post took issue with the bank bailouts, the US national debt and "the fraud and abuse in our banking and financial system" which included the predatory lending practices at the center of the home mortgage foreclosure crisis."

 

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Ben Bernanke To Close Friends: I Won't Stay At The Fed For A Third Term

Listen to this little turd. "He" won't stay a third term. Mittens' already said he'd be given the boot if he's elected. If Obama's elected good ole' Benny Boy will be more than happy to remain at the Federal Reserve as Chairman Mao.

 

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I thought you were going to say...Chairman Mooooo.

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Perhaps, but the tea party to me is a bunch of hillbillies with no sound philosophy or economic understanding. They know in their gut, as most people (but Progressives) that the government is stealing from them - but they don't know how or what to do about it. This makes them, if anything, dangerous. With no sound understanding and no clear philosophical position, they're easily led this way and that by whichever demagogue pops up. Ron Paul is a Libertarian, if he can persuade them to move into that came, then at least they'd have a foundation to stand on - but then they wouldn't be 'tea partiers' they'd be Libertarians. I am not interested in a bunch of superstitious bible thumping hillbillies entering the Libertarian party TTYTT.

 

HA!!!

That's great

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Carcano,

With the exception of healthcare, Canada scores much higher as a free-market libertarian society when compared to the USA. Most governmental organizations were massively cut and Canada is down from around 20% to 11% GDP Federal expenditure. That's HALF of that the USA is. The debt is 30% GDP. Ours is over 100%.

I read that the richest Canadians get better healthcare relative to the poorest Canadians and that the disparage between rich and poor is even worse than in the USA. They say a dog has a quicker chance of seeing a doctor. Canadian national healthcare came in, the exact same year that the USA brought in Medicare. The same goes for pretty much all the other social programs. The USA brings in welfare, Canada brings in Lotto 10/42 in the same year. There's one last Ox that needs to be scarified on the alter of freedom

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The same year Canada fired a bunch of public servants (bringing the % to 11, unemployment went DOWN!).


Just some thoughts,
Michael

 

I'll be on Oahu surfing big sunset. You'll be using your face for toilet paper.

 

Which brings us to this ECONOMIC question regarding value.

I would like you (actually, anyone can do this and do so in anyway they like).


Value these four things: your computer, your lunch, your car and your house.

 

The FDIC insurance is per account. You and wife can have three different accounts in same bank and even back when 100K was limit (now 250K) with 4 banks that is 1.2 million FDIC insured dollars, not that any investor would find bank deposit the best thing to do with even a million dollars. So, I´m not impressed with this "there is a limit" point of yours.

Call most of those "collateralized loans" toxic trash, which the banks moved off their books ASAP, and now with their "quasi-fraud" well known,* greatly reduced from face value market value. Now Fed is helping Fanny & Freddy May get rid of them, but other investors, quite a few in Europe, were tricked by the AAA rating on the packages, and now are just stuck with 40% or more loses. Just because Fed calls them an "assets" does not mean the tax payers will not ultimately get stuck. Bloomberg link I gave estimates tax payers will eat "hundreds of million of dollars."

When Fed got stocks or other equity in banks and companies, that can be, and in some cases has been, an asset now worth more than Fed paid. You fail to note that never has the Fed make good any deposit in a failed banks - again that is done by FDIC. I don´t see your claim that Fed keep businesses alive - few but banks got any money, and banks did not lend funds to the real economy as Fed hope the would - mainly they just used funds they got at very low interest to buy Treasury bonds with about 2.5% interest average.

Yes but not for the "foreseeable future." In part because in addition to Fed buying bonds with thin air money, the rich of Europe have been buying too as don´t want to hold Euros. Both will stop (well before the "foreseeable future"). Rich Europeans can not print money so that source will soon dry up. Fed can continue for a few years more, but has already nearly tripled it balance sheet during this stimulus effort. At some point, investors will understand US bonds are poor investment with unlimited creation of thin air money and stop buying to become net sellers (as China already did two years ago).

Main effect of Fed holding interest rates near zero, has been to take ~350 billion dollars ANNUALLY out of the real economy as that is how much savers once got on their bank CDs etc. Thus, most of corporate profits, no longer come from buyers in the US but from foreign sales. Middle class is shrinking, and purchasing power of each is down 7.8% since 2007. It is so discouraging (to all without your rose colored glasses) that even though US is creating less than half the new jobs needed to keep up with growth of the potential labor force, unemployment fell from 8.1% to 7.8% as BLS does not count those who are too discourages to continue looking for a job as part of the labor force.

* Actually as is now the case with a billion dollar suit against Bank of America, and at least two different state supreme courts rulings that the "robo-signed" mortgage are unenforcable - total worthless. People who tell the collectors in court: "Show me you own the mortgage" win - don´t have to pay a dime more as often mortgage was so "sliced and diced" into differ tiny pieces put into many dozens of AAA rated trances that no owner can be found, even if the mortgage was not "robo-signed" defective! As more and more do go to court, this whole fraudulent house of cards will crash - Certainly not to be called an "asset."

 

I live somewhat close to a world famous surfing beach. To many tourists. Anyway, I LOVE Japan. I'll be happy to wipe my ass with my face all day long

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You didn't mention, what exactly IS your economic position (other than mooing in tune with the rest of the Progressives)? Yes, it's nice to say bad bad GOP and good good DEM, but that's just moo moo, moo moo moo moooo. You're a Progressive like Joe? Can't wait to bail out the richest Banking Families of New York because taxing their corporations lets you cater to a welfare poverty class progressive policies of 60-70s created? I'd almost say they did it on purpose, purposely creating an entire class of people trapped in poverty, I mean, those people do get to vote, remain relatively illiterate and make great demagoguery material for re-election. But, we all know Progressives don't think that far in the future. Like any of the other political vultures, they just feed on the misery of whomever happens to be dying in the desert.

 

I've had some moderately wealthy clients here in Canada, and they could tell hours of stories about waiting for surgery just as long as anyone else.

The problem is not the system, it's the salaries and shortage of staff.

We dont pay doctors and nurses enough, and its easy for them to slip across the border for more money in the States.

 

Ron Paul has stated..."there's very little philosophy in Washington".

He was talking about politicians...can you imagine how much LESS philosophy there is among the common people, regardless of party affiliation.

 

You don't think a free-market would solve this problem? There's certainly not a shortage of students who WANT to practice medicine (mainly for the money). I've trained tons of Canadian MDs who couldn't get accepted at a Canadian Medical School and so came out to AU (where I was fairly certain the training for the GMP was pretty poor and mainly a money pit for 'International' students - about $150K with NO cadaver (that cost another 20K).

I'm personally of the mind that a free-market would provide the best services. To me it's crazy there are 'The American Medical School of the Philippines' there to cater to all these Ss who can not find placement in the USA or Canada. They're just 'escaping' the un-free market that the AMA has a strangle hold on.

Just another example of the crooked state of State run affairs. Price goes through the roof, Quality goes through the floor.

 

Its the Canadian proximity to a free market that creates the problem...our best medical students end up in the States where they can make almost 50% more money.

I dont hear about staff shortages in most european countries, and yet salaries there are about the same.

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They certainly can make more money in the USA. Not because it's a free-market, but because it's a racket. The State and AMA tightly regulate all aspects of medical 'service'.

I hear Australians complain that too many Canadians are in the medical schools in AU (and then return and work either in CA or in the USA - where they can make money). Doesn't it seem ODD there's all this 'money' to be made and hardly any MDs there to make it? That's a sure sign the so-called 'free' market is anything but. Tons of Canadian students (not "good enough" to attend training in Canada get trained overseas everywhere from the Philippines to the Australia (much of it pretty sub-par and it's totally a racket to make money off international student tuition) and then *poof* suddenly they ARE 'good enough' and can practice medicine in Canada.

That's not a free-market it's a racket.
One of the reasons why the quality goes into the gutter as the price goes to the sky is rent seeking behaviour like this. In a true free market the quality would go up as the competition ramps up - which leads to driving lower prices until an equilibrium is reached.

That's certainly not what we see in the any of these countries - the USA least of all. If anything the USA is the worse of them as the fascism that passes itself off as a free-market allowed for (and was designed specifically to allow for) price gouging.

 

The racketeering aspect is no different in Canada, where we have our version of the AMA.

It functions as a labour monopoly...like all unions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association#Criticisms

http://www.amazon.com/Profession-Monopoly-Medicine-United-Britain/dp/0520027345

 

Nice links, thanks

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I think you missed the point. If the government did not support the banks with liquidity, the uninsured deposits would have been gone and small and large businesses and governments across the land would not have been able to make their payrolls and continue to provide goods and services. The FDIC insurance was a pittance. As previously pointed out, back in 2008 the FDIC insurance was 100k. Do you think the State of New York or IBM have payrolls of less than 100k or bank balances of less than 100k?

So wither you may not want to recognize the fact that only a small portion of the money on deposit with US banks in 2008 was insured by the FDIC, congress realized the fact and created a new kind of FDIC insurance, TAG Accounts (Transaction Account Guarantee).

“Two examples of this “the-sky-is-the-limit” insurance are so-called TAG accounts and CDAR accounts. TAG (Transaction Account Guarantee) accounts held about $1.5 trillion as of March 31, according to the FDIC’s latest quarterly banking profile. The accounts pay no interest, so their popularity is derived from their uncapped FDIC insurance which reassures companies who need to keep large amounts of cash at hand to finance inventories and payrolls that their deposits are safe even if something goes wrong at the bank.

The FDIC is funded by the banks it insures. When it closes a bank, it uses money it has already set aside to protect depositors and absorb any losses associated with the failure. TAG accounts were forged in the fire of the 2008 financial crisis by the FDIC, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve Board and unveiled in a joint press conference.

In 2010, The Dodd-Frank Act required all banks to join the program. Since then the FDIC extended the guarantee until Dec. 31, 2012, citing “lingering effects” of the financial crisis and the risk that letting the TAG program expire when the economy was weak could cause some community banks already under stress to lose deposits and risk failure.” - Reuters (2012)


http://blogs.reuters.com/macroscope...ent-fdic-often-insures-much-more-than-250000/

Additionally, there wasn’t enough money in the FDIC to pay off all of insured deposits in 2008. So the money to pay off the insured deposits would have come from the US government – that would have really screwed the deficit.

Wither you want to recognize reality is totally up to you. Wither you want to recognize the fact that bank bailout was necessary to protect bank depositors and restore the nation’s fiscal integrity and the economy is up to you. But your denial doesn’t make it any less real or any less true. The bank bailouts are expected, FANNIE MAY and FREDDIE MAC included to benefit the nation by 10 – 100 billion dollars. And that ignores the opportunity of cost of inaction – letting the economy crash. If you factor in the opportunity cost of inaction, letting the banks go belly up, that 10 to 100 billion profit on the bailout is infinitely preferable to the catastrophic losses that would have occurred had the federal government not bailed out the banks.

“Some quick math on the Treasury’s numbers (see the full report here) shows it expects the ultimate taxpayer gain on the bailout effort could come in anywhere from $10 billion to more than $100 billion if everything breaks right and the OMB is right about the Fannie/Freddie cost.” – Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevesc...p-is-turning-into-a-moneymaker-for-taxpayers/

The “toxic trash” otherwise known as Maiden Lane assets have been fully repaid with interest, per previous posts.

 

thought you hated corportism? guess not enough to not spend your money there


yes oh great prophet of the great religion of libertarianism japan has a function corportism economy. shit that would never fly in the free market we have let alone what you imagine in your free market utopia ( but interestingly enough not in an actual pure free market) is the norm in japan.