Krug is exaggerating a bit to push his agenda yet again. That said a new fiscal package financed by the fed quite likely to be in the cards over the next 12 months, but if congress turns down a fed proposal to spend and tax cut without having to pay for it then I will proclaim myself Santa Claus for one week
The timing must be right. It's all about getting re elected. They don't care about you or me. They care about getting re elected. As the election nears the economy will improve.
This is a ludicrous statement. "Meaningless stock market"? "0 underlying economic value? So, according to you all companies on the various exchanges have no value?
maybe you should try reading sometime instead of believing the state propaganda. I guess the world needs zombies too. Yes because prior to this Keynesian statist bullshit. The united states was just a collection of random tribes with no economic system using excrement as a medium of exchange. God Forbid if we return to the pure anarchy that existed prior to 1930. WTF?? Seriously, are you a registered voter? Why is unemployment going to go to 20% BLS (35% real) because the fucking economy is a joke. Its an illusion and the wizard is being unmasked. In the last 12 months every anachronistic socialist proxy company has been bailed out instead of allowed to fail. let capital flow to the productive. Allow debt to de-levarage. Name one thing that has been done to entice a person to start a small business. 70% of new jobs. Are we going to see lower cost of capital for small business? Lower regulations? Lower taxes? And this isnt just Obamas fault, he is just the icing the cake. Meritocracy is dead, Klepto-Corporotracy is what we have now. Enjoy the matrix.
Your heart is in the right place-yes Krugman and his internationalist ilk are distinctly anti-American and anti free market. However you're making a few assumptive errors in your posts-errors in thinking that I too frequently make. For starters, the Dollar: I wouldn't categorize the greenback as cheap. Except against the Yen it's pretty much at "average" prices. EVERY NATION is trying to weaken their currency. Think outside the box. The India's and Iran's of the world ARE NOT saying, "America's balance of payments suck, we don't trust dollars." Instead the rest of the world is saying, "how can we export our way out of our own recession if the Dollar continues to be competitively valued. Perhaps we can use threats to convince U.S. policy makers to support their currency " To wit: Other than the Dollar what has become the worlds true flight to quality currency? The low yielding, backed by 2.7x more debt to GDP than the dollar, no natural resources, Japanese Yen. If the dollar is mere garbage based on your set of fundamentals than the Yen should be bona fide rat shit using the same criteria. Also as far as the destruction of asset wealth: keep in mind that those dollars banks lent creating a housing "bubble" didn't go up in smoke. They were paid to sellers. For every buyer who owns a condo priced in the stratosphere with bank money there is a seller who pocketed the money. Even in even out. It's only the mark to market of real estate on the decline acting as an asset wealth destroyer. U.S. home prices are still at levels above 2003-so the "bubble" part of the rise has filled in but the base line is intact. (maybe not forever but for now at least.) As long as Asia remains the Factory For The West, i.e. unencumbered by protectionism, they will support the dollar and support Treasury securities. My best guess is many of these currency and debt markets are going to trade essentially sideways for years without challenging last years highs nor taking out the early year lows.
It seems to me this guarantees future inflation. The money has been created and is in the economy. The banks can (may or may not) write off the debt but the money paid out remains.
I agree, bro. It's hard for me to think there's 1931 type deflation coming when the world is still littered with beneficiaries from the Age of Liquidity. IMHO, yes there's a big deflationary winding down in global economies-which is why assets and even commodities and exchange rates are stuck in a range-but big picture there's certainly enough money out thee to cause corners in essentials.
The problem is that people spent $50 mill worth of inputs to build something worth $25 mill, repeated ad infinitum around the country - that's a huge net destruction of wealth. The problem with bubbles is misallocation of resources and encouragement of wealth-destroying economic activity, not zero sum transactions.
Textbook true but not necessarily true to this discussion. Most of the slide in real estate values has been plummeting land prices while the cost of construction and materials have stayed well above earlier in the decade lows. And yes those land transactions are zero sum. I met a younger guy here on ET who turned 10k into 2mil by flipping in Florida. The money is safely in his pocket. So it matters little to him if the buyers stuck Wachovia or whoever on the hook for that 2mil. Said 2mil is now his.
Facing 1937 or a variant like that (aka sliding off into a 3rd world country unemployment) is inevitable in the USA, stimulus or no stimulus. Prepare or perish! You all know I am telling the truth