Rumor has it Gabfly is living in his basement and, on occasion, sneaks up to the computer in the wee hours of the morning for his daily "ET fix".
You're not seeing the forest for the trees here. We are FAR beyond ROI considerations at this point. In the past, ROI should have been something that was considered. It wasn't. But now, it's irrelevant. We can no longer afford ANY spending. Nothing. Zippo. It's over.
Could you expand with some evidence? Is your explanation the reason for VXX at 39? No spending is a scary scenario.
Let me just say for the record that Paul Krugman and Keynesian Economics are of no use to the United States of America. Spending 20 Trillion Dollars on infrastructure is a stupid idea because of modern construction equipment technology - if the first stimulus cost between $185K (White House) and $278K (CBO) per job created - why would we want to throw good money after bad ? That dolt Krugman and the inapplicable and woefully outdated by technology Keynesian dogma aside, Ricter is correct in that the article actually makes a great deal of sense (assuming you actually took the time to read the article before commenting): And I quote: "This requires (1) that we survive the 2012 election cycle (boy, that's going to be a blast) and (2) that the winners recognize that our current federal income tax rules and rates, Social Security benefit formula, and Medicare provisions are historical and political accidents rather than holy writ handed down to Moses by the Lord on Mount Sinai." Every bit of it is absolutely true.
Thx Vix is at 39 due to worries about European debt, and the U.S. downgrade, do you actually think that it is possible to spend your way out of a credit mess?
It is not a credit mess, 10 year notes hit a record low yield yesterday. It is a spending mess, a consumer spending mess.
So you think that to get out of a credit mess we should spend more? Do you think we would not have been downgraded 2 weeks ago if we had spent more money? If that is the solution, maybe Europe should just open up the flood gates, and start spending as much money as they possibly can. That is bound to get rid of their credit crisis, and get the vix down to 10 again. Our bond yields are artificially low right now because the rest of the world still sees us as the safest country on earth to invest, spend a bunch more money, and get us downgraded a few more times, and see how quickly that changes. Some times it is hard for me to tell whether you are serious when you say something like this, and imply that we dont have a serious problem with our spending and our deficits/debt. You dont seem to get it, 30 years of keynesian economics is coming to the forefront right now, and we are in a heap of shit, none of the governments even have anymore money to spend.
Break things into smaller pieces. Inspect the pieces. See what doesn't look right. Keynes from a politicians view: Money comes out of the private sector. I tell the taxpayers it will boost the economy so they will go along with my plan. It goes through my hands, I can enrichen my buddies no end. I'm not in office when it has to be paid back. Socialism from a lazy person's view: I get other people's money? Wow, go for it, never stop. Socialism from a politician's view: I get to spend other people's money and it buys me more votes? Wow, go for it, never stop... Socialism from a businessman's view: They want to take my money, use it to buy votes and eventually they take my business over? Jeez, I better loot the system while I can.