. Black Diamond: I am impressed, you instincts on monetary policy are so precise that you think we should decrease the adjustment increment from 1/4 to 1/5 of a point. Why aren't you working at the fed? **** May 16, 2008 SouthAmerica: You arrived at the wrong conclusion from my posting. I think the Fed Funds rate should be at least above the current official inflation rate of 4 percent. .
I know, I am just giving you a hard time. It adjusts in 1/4 point increments and you said you thought it should go up by 1/5 of a point.
I could not agree more. The fed is virtually paying lending institutinos to borrow money during a hyperfinflationary time. It is an extremely inefficient way of pumping money.
. May 16, 2008 SouthAmerica: Reply to black diamond I just realized that I made a mistake - it was supposed to read "Bernanke was supposed to increase the Fed Funds rate by 1/2 point. (half a point instead of 1/5) I did not catch my own mistake. Anyway with the official inflation rate in the US running at an annual rate of 4 percent then the Fed Funds rate should be right now above 4 percent. Ben Bernanke has been overdoing his Fed Funds rate cuts to please Wall Street at the expense of the future of the US economy. Thanks for bringing my mistake to my attention. .
These numbers are pure BS. Let alone you are using government stats for unemployment, that's just silly. Most of Brazil lives below the poverty line and it's over 40% that live below the poverty line in USA.
I respect Brazil and Brazilians. Having said that, they are a natural resource dependent, exporting nation - and if metal prices (especially copper) go south, they are going to have major problems. Their economy simply isn't diversified enough to withstand commodity weakness, and the overwhelming majority of their (inefficient, mind you) economic growth over the last several years has been almost exclusively the domain of mining related prosperity. Look for a sharper contraction in Brazil's GDP and currency than most of the emerging markets when (not if) commodities soften. Also, the chasm between the haves and have-nots in Brazil is truly makes me sad. If you've ever been to their favelas (slums), let alone viewed photos of them, it is a human travesty that a government with such an injection of wealth could allow people to live in such abject, mind-stunningly poverty. Their middle class is relatively still small. Their poor are massive. And their rich are few and far between - not exactly an efficient stratification of wealth. Hopefully Brazil will soon get the leaders their people deserve - leaders who will take the wealth generated by their commodities, and reinvest it into education and infrastructure.
Well, its nice that your opinion trumps government statistics. After all, why should carefully-gathered numbers costing many millions of dollars via hundreds of thousands of hours of work and research by statisticians and others, and garnered from a huge variety of methods and sources be used... ...when HydroBlunt knows better??? By the way, we did land on the moon, it was not made of green cheese and the earth is not flat.
. TraderZones: Well, its nice that your opinion trumps government statistics. After all, why should carefully-gathered numbers costing many millions of dollars via hundreds of thousands of hours of work and research by statisticians and others, and garnered from a huge variety of methods and sources be used... ****** May 21, 2008 SouthAmerica: Reply to TraderZones How good are all these government statistics? Never mind that most of the information is not worth the paper they used to print it â the reality is that most of the information is not worth to use it even as toilet paper. .
hey southamerica: i've read your post for a while and i have to say the following: its really annoying to hear from you post after post that US economy sucks and compare to brazilian economy, mostly because you say you live in US (NJ i think you said). Why you live there anyway? Besides this, to make a strong point, if you claim that US is headed to big trouble (while i think too) you should compare to different economies around the globe, not only brazilian one. Doing this the reader notices your bias and everything you say loses credibility. To add something about this i have to say that I also think that US will have huge problems with the clowns they have running the country and their economy. But Brazil, even with recent improvements, have huge issues that who knows if in 100 years would be solved, for instance: favelas and people living with a few bucks without any hope rather than become a futbol crack (soccer for N.A folks) or a well paid model (in case of girls). Huge drug cartels dominating little villages with the consent from local governments. (now you can claim that is a problem in many places, but its pretty hard on brazil). If you accept this huge issues on brazil, then you can start talking about how lame other countries are (like the US for instance). Finally, i have to say for the record: Im not an US person and never lived there, rather than a vacaciont trip. Im not a brazilian person and never lived there and never lived there, rather than a vacaciont trip