Bernake on 60 minutes says the Congressman and the public

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by stock777, Mar 15, 2009.

  1. nravo

    nravo

    I. I am not Jewish.
    2. The CIA has admitted the Iranian intelligence influence and what happened. Lots of Washington Post, National Journal stories, not to mention books, written on the subject. Judy Miller was one of the dupes, the Iranians used, via CIA courses, Scooter Libby, etc. Seriously. You need to brush up on your history a little.
     
    #11     Mar 16, 2009
  2. so did Bernanke say anything new or was it just the same old stuff he's been saying?
     
    #12     Mar 16, 2009
  3. nravo

    nravo

    Same old stuff; he is on a PR offensive, talking up the economy. Sixty Minutes let him get all his talking points in unquestioned; the whole time I kept thinking where is John Stewart.

    CNBC will lead with Bernanke tomorrow and AIG (and ignore the Cramer fiasco), both stories will get flogged in an unquestioned manner, of course.

    Remember WIN buttons?
     
    #13     Mar 16, 2009
  4. nravo

    nravo

    You're giving too much credit to the W.H, the Pentagon, DPB, OSP, et cetera. These folks ain't as smart as you think, and I think history bears that out. Anyone can dupe them. They are stupid Americans.
     
    #14     Mar 16, 2009
  5. TGregg

    TGregg

    From a closed thread:

     
    #15     Mar 16, 2009
  6. bellman

    bellman

    The only voice more wrong than Bernanke is Jon Stewart. But I agree, at least he is trying!

    There has got to be a more efficient way to control the money supply. It's rediculous. Saying that this living in "high times" is over does absolutely no good.

     
    #16     Mar 16, 2009
  7. lrm21

    lrm21

    I think the traitor, is the person who takes my money without my input. Who steals it via inflation and steals it via taxation.

    I didn't elect Ben Bernake, and last I checked no where in the constitution, does it say that the government guarantees that private banks will not fail.

    I think if more people operated under the assumption that there was a possibility that their financial institution would go bankrupt we would be much more careful with our money.

    As it stands who cares, right because your needs will be filled by my hard work in which case, you better hope we breed lots to keep an endless supply of labor.
     
    #17     Mar 16, 2009
  8. > can someone explain to me why deflation right now is a bad thing?

    Basically, inflation is bad... but deflation is deadly. Simplifying things a bit, when deflation is rampant, the best investment you can make is to sell everything you own, then hide your money in a safe. The problem is, money hidden in a safe is money that's not moving around and fueling the economy. Stir in wholesale deleveraging, where every dollar hidden in a safe ultimately translates into tens or hundreds of dollars removed from the larger economy, and it's not hard to see why sustained deflation causes an economy to implode and self-destruct.

    Deflation is deadly in other ways, too. If consumers get used to prices endlessly falling, they'll start to defer big purchases with the expectation that they'll be cheaper next month. Stores cut way back on products, because it's too dangerous to keep items in stock. Items that are genuinely good end up failing commercially because products that suck cost 10% as much. Think about the frustration you feel when you go to McDonalds ready to buy a Big Mac meal, then discover that double cheeseburgers are on sale for 29c. You really want a Big Mac, but you can't bring yourself to pay $2.99 for one because you don't want one THAT badly. When that phenomenon spreads to the economy as a whole, it poisons the entire retail ecosystem and ensures that the only products that survive are those leading the race to be the worst and cheapest.

    What about industries where falling prices ARE the norm (computers, cell phones, etc)? Think about it... prices per unit of power have plummeted, but overall total system prices have either fallen slightly, or INCREASED. In 1999, I paid $200 for my first cell phone. It made voice calls. In 2008, I paid $299 for my current cell phone... it has a faster CPU, more ram, and more persistent storage than the laptop I bought 4 years ago. In 2004, I spent around $700 buying a motherboard, Athlon64/X2-4800, 2 gigs of RAM, and a 250mb hard drive. Last month, I spent around $800 buying a new motherboard, a core2quad Q9400, 8 gigs of ram, a 250gb 10krpm Velociraptor, and a 1.5TB 7200rpm hard drive. Way more value, but each PC ultimately represents a more expensive total purchase.
     
    #18     Mar 16, 2009