You seem to me to be rambling. Japan to Greece, Public debt to personal credit card debt. Sorry I can't respond to your arguments as I don't know what they are other than you seem to think austerity is better than stimulus in a recession..(You're in good company. Hayek initially thought as you -- later he modified his views somewhat.) You also seem to think that the course the Fed embarked on during the recent "Great Recession" will have an unhappy ending. I am not too impressed by those who think they can predict the future. I prefer to look at what has already happened and see if that is telling me something. If you want to understand my point of view better, may I suggest you read Krugman, DeLong , Stiglitz, Piketty, Skidelsky, Soros and Keynes. Also, I can highly recommend to you John Quiggin's book, "Zombie Economics", as both informative and highly entertaining.
Krugman, Stiglitz, Keynes are blind. Not idiots, neither was Karl Marx. You are one of the biggest joker if you honestly suggest those guys know what real life is about. Check this out and it will tell you everything you need to know: I hardly have seen a more amusing conversation where a nobel laureate made himself look so stupid as Stiglitz. By the way he is paid by Spain to say what he said. (Just to keep the record straight). Soros is arguing out of pure self interest. That guy still cannot get his mouth full enough despite one of his legs already being in the grave. You should learn to differentiate between opinions by those with true altruistic interests and others that self-servingly try to persuade others. Piketty never said that spending leads to a way out of an economic recession that was caused by overspending. Please stop citing people that you actually have no idea about what they really say. And stop hijacking others' thoughts, pretending they lend their opinion to support your point when in all actuality they never even shared their opinion regarding our debate. You still cannot even explain why domestic debt does not at all lead to potential problems in the future, something you claimed holds true. Just so your intellect (or lack thereof) won't deceive you, let me categorize issues, talked about, so you can get back on track: * Issue on countries that put in massive spending programs with little to no effect in the past: Japan, Greece * Issue on debt: Public debt, personal credit card debt (and of course is there a direct link between the two or how do you think does any government repay its debt over time if ever? Yes you guessed right. It taxes its citizens and corporates. You think that has no effect on an individual's finances?) * Yes I am in good company because austerity is not my idea it is an idea that history has taught us works. When you overspend then you either are let go bankrupt and are flushed out of the system so the system is fair to all others instead of letting you game the system. Or you are forced to strip yourself off all benefits you enjoy at the moment, lower your expenses, and get your house in order until you can prove that you have what it takes to become a member of society again that not only can consume the benefits but can also shoulder the responsibilities. I have no clue why that is hard for you to comprehend. The biggest problem is that we did not let all those go bankrupt that deserved to have gone bankrupt. Flush out the system and let the strongest survive. That would have been the hard, but fair, prudent and above all , the LONG-TERM most rewarding solution. Btw, regarding your comment "Yellen is perfectly capable of managing the money supply going forward. She will be just as skilled in shrinking the balance sheet as Bernanke was in expanding it. She is a very good choice as Fed Chair. Do not be afraid, the U.S. economy is in good hands as far as the Fed and Treasury go. Danger lurks in the Congress however. Sadly the Fed can do little about that." I can only share a big fat LOOOOL with TsingTao about your utter nonsense. Are you paid by the Fed or the Koch brothers or on whose payroll are you. The troll reward goes completely uncontested to you. I am done discussing this with you because you have so far refused to back up ANY of your crazy claims even after multiple polite requests.
Man this is so depressing... Each and every time on this website, regardless of which thread, people get in the way with their inflated egos so that they put up claims which they cannot or refuse to back up and through that destroy the ever slightest intelligent discussion with their garbage.
Abenomics Delivers A Gut-Punch: Japan Imports 60% Of Its Calories, Imported Food Prices Soaring by Contributor • December 30, 2014 Mia Tahara-Stubbs special to CNBC Yen weakness may be driving up the cost of food imported into Japan, but analysts say even pinched pocketbooks won’t stop the country’s consumers from getting 60 percent of their meals overseas. “[Imports] probably will stay more or less stable in the long term unless Japanese agriculture can become more competitive,” said Yasuhiro Enomoto, senior analyst at Marubeni Research Institute. In the short-term, however, he expects consumers will buy more domestic-produced food to protect their wallets. The yen OSEJPY=) has lost around 40 percent of its value against the dollar over the past two years, shedding around 18 percent between April and September. Japanese farmers provide just 39 percent of the 2,224 calories consumed by an average adult every day, government data shows. Combined with April’s 3 percent consumption tax hike — also imposed on groceries — food costs shot up by around 5 percent on-year in both the second and third quarters. Are price increases just beginning? But even if the yen doesn’t get any weaker, Japan’s grocery bills may keep getting bigger. “Many food companies have been able to hold back from passing on the cost of the weaker yen to consumers,” said Akio Shibata, director of the Natural Resource Research Institute. That’s because of which foods get imported. While Japan produces enough of its main calorie source — rice — and around 80 percent of the vegetables to meet domestic demand, it imports much of its meat, seafood and grains, Shibata noted. According to the latest consumer price data, food prices in November rose by 2.9 percent on-year. A 10.3 percent on-month drop in the price of fresh vegetables was not enough to compensate for a 13 percent rise in pork prices – Japan imports around half of its pork. Still, corn and wheat prices scraped around four year lows over the summer, helping to limit Japanese diners’ pain. That’s not likely to last. Indeed, Nissin Foods (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 2897.T-JP) will hike the price of its iconic cup noodle by nearly 6 percent from January. Almost all cup noodle ingredients are imported. “It’s not just the weaker yen,” said Masayoshi Kanaya, a Nissin Foods spokesperson, citing a shortage of truck drivers as also pushing up distribution costs. Inefficient domestic farms Some price drivers are long-term problems, including a fragmented agriculture industry protected by punishingly high tariffs on imports. Prices are 56% above the world average, according to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data. The tariffs, imposed even on staples, can be painful: 778 percent on rice, 360 percent on butter, 328 percent on sugar and 252 percent on wheat, according to a paper published by Yutaka Harada, a professor at Waseda University and senior fellow of the Tokyo Foundation. Domestic producers depend on this protection to stay in business, Haruda notes. It’s a problem compounded by the country’s tiny, largely family-run farms. Japan’s average farm size is just over two hectares, according to government figures, compared with the global average of 30 hectares in 2000, the latest numbers available from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Small farms aren’t as efficient, making Japanese products less competitive against imports, said MarubeniResearch Institute’s Enomoto. Very little domestically produced food is priced comparably with other countries, such as the U.S., Australia and China, which are major exporters to Japan, he noted, adding only eggs, poultry and rice are around the same price points. “Japan needs to move away from the small farm model to larger, more business-oriented, organized farms focused on profitability,” he said. More efficient farms may be coming, if only through attrition. The average age of Japan’s 2.05 million farmers is 66.1 years, and most don’t have heirs, said Hikaru Oishi, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). The government is encouraging aging farmers to pass the reins to a younger generation who can combine operations under a broader tent. To be sure, Japan’s grocery shoppers may see both more imports and plumper pocketbooks if the trans-Pacific free-trade talks result in a deal. Talks between Japan and the U.S. are deadlocked over access to Japan’s agricultural market. Shibata reckons a deal will be reached in two to three years and will trigger a flood of cheaper basics, from pork and beef to soybeans. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/taste-imports-drives-japans-grocery-224335286.html
I realize now I erred badly in recommending that you read Krugman, Stiglitz, Keynes, Piketty and Soros, for which I apologize. This book would be much easier for you to follow: Naked-Economics-Undressing-Science-Revised, by Charles Wheelan, an "economist" you will cotton to, as they say down south. Cleverly, after the 2008 crash, Charles made a few revisions. You will like the way Wheelan "thinks". Enjoy. (The forward is by Malkiel, a real economist.) Amazon ref: http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economi...evised/dp/0393337642/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top see, I took the time to look it up for you. Arn't I nice?
Thank you. I agree in the main with this analysis. However it is bad timing for a corporate tax cut. I agree with Koo, the Nomura, economist in this regard. A corporate tax cut now undermines to some extent the tax incentives put in place to get corporations to invest.
I expect higher standards of intellect. Anonymous or not, someone who is an adult, capable of following a simple line of thoughts, the willingness to put up a claim should be expected to be able and prepared to back up his claim. There are too many idiots on this site who are retards in the sense that their goal is to stir up discontent rather than arriving at a higher level of learning after a debate is concluded (whether mutually agreed on or not). They waste everyone's time rather than actually wanting to explore and figure out the truth. That I find depressing because it degrades a human being to an animal like state.
you are just flaming, with no honest intent to participate in an intelligent debate. You have refused to explain or back up a single of your claims. You may read a lot but apparently you understand very little of what you read, at the very least you seem to have major difficulties to break concepts down into small pieces that enable you to understand how basic economics work. I wish you good luck hoping that your government's debt laden will not harm you and your childrens' future ;-)