Evidence please. See my tippy top secret post to our main Fed conspiracy guy, "DRAINO". At post 136 , here. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ack-remind-me-why.304761/page-14#post-4368104 It has all the "secret" (according to 'Draino') information you will need to confirm your assertion (Or Not, ).
I should just ignore your question as you've ignored mine. But the fact is you and I have had this discussion before, and I've shown you where those numbers proved we socialized losses. I'll go look for it in the search mechanism and repost it here. Let the record show once I do, however, that I answer your questions, and you avoid answering mine. Edit: Here is the thread, Piezoe. In this thread (it's only 3 pages) you admit to not having looked at the GM tally in quite a while, and didn't realize the government took a loss on the position while claiming it had not, earlier. It would appear you have memory issues and forgot that you and I had this conversation, and had forgotten the government actually lost money.
I'm not disputing this. And I remember the conversation well. But at the time we had that conversation, as you know, the Tarp accounting was no where near final. You were quite right about the GM bailout -- the net cost, but dead wrong about the advisability of it! And I admitted that you were right the minute I found out I was wrong. Since the TARP accounting is not yet complete it is not possible quite yet to say how it is going to end up but it looks quite favorable for the American tax payer at this point. It looks to me that the worst case scenario would be about a <5% loss net on 0.43 trillion, even after all program costs. I consider that a very favorable result, considering the jobs saved, and the many banks that were able to keep their doors open because of TARP. You are a numbers guy. I posted the latest TARP account report as of 10/2016. I would trust your appraisal of the net balance. My opinion is that not only social costs should be considered but social gains, and the cost benefit ratio is the metric you should be looking at. You can assume that had the government done nothing and let all these institutions fail there would have been lower net costs. If you are one of those proposing that, then I would say your being blind to social cost and know shockingly little about the history of economic calamities and their macro economics from the 20th century onward. You would be substituting your judgement for the majority of current economists, something I could not accept as reasonable with out exceedingly strong arguments. I am not inclined to discuss, I refuse to actually, any of this with jem, 'Draino', because he has convinced himself that everything having to do with government is a vast conspiracy. He apparently never looks at any factual data from either the FED or Treasury, presumably because he has already decided it is all a sham and they are lying about everything. He seems to think that all these transactions are being kept secret from the public. A dialog with him is a hopeless exercise in futility. He is just going to come back with absurd accusations, none of which are factual.
you have turned into a weasel with no integrity. You denied the FED made money out of thin air. I then proved it. You argued the FED disclosed all its tranactions and I proved to you the FED crated trillions during tarp and did not disclose it. They did not disclose until they were sued years later. You have no basis to even believe the FED discloses all the money it creates. You are living a leftist lie. You may be able to point to some disclosures of some money creation... but you can't say its all of it. The fact I proved they created trillions without disclosing it... is cements that you are wrong. The FED does not even report M3 anymore. What the hell is wrong with a lefty when I prove everything I stated was true and you pull a Hillary.
It doesn't matter what jobs were saved or that the loss could be "relatively minor". The federal government should not be in the business of picking winners, or subsidizing losers. That is NOT a Libertarian position. Let's be honest, you wouldn't accept the argument even if it was exceedingly strong. This is because for all your self-proclaimed libertarian beliefs, you believe in big, active government, expansionist monetary policy, big spending (fiscally) and the like. You're an academic, Piezoe. You always have been. You're an incredibly well-read, woefully experienced elitist who doesn't understand that the past 30-40 year economic expansion (the golden era you lived) will come with a price to those you leave the country to because of the one thing you believe is good above all but in reality is poisonous to those who inherit it: DEBT. Your discussions with Jem are irrelevant and have nothing to do with me. Ignore him or don't, that's your choice.
cop out after cop out. just have the integrity you used to exhibit. I think trump has some of you lefties unhinged right now. You should calm down he is probably bringing a goldman guy into his cabinet... that is a strong signal your precious fed will still run things. I guess those threats of higher interest rates... worked. name one thing I neither read nor understood in a thread I was participating in.
I do believe the debate between Hayek and Keynes was settled long ago in favor of Keynes, if that's on your mind. Libertarians don't dwell so much on the size of government as on its quality. It seems to be the anarcho-capitalists, who call themselves libertarians, that emphasize the importance of small government above, it seems, other considerations. I believe debt must be considered, and of course the way to pay down debt is to have a robust economy. If you put debt as your first consideration, you'll put people out of work, and that, by the "multiplier effect," will put more people out of work. That sort of thing won't help with debt at all. That conversation was settled by 1932. The next four years are going to be very interesting to a student of economics such as myself. This is the first time perhaps --we still don't know because anything out of Trumps mouth is subject to rapid change -- that the country will embark on a program of Keynesian-like, super stimulus, i.e., lower tax rates focused on the upper bracket which is a supply-side stimulus, plus demand side stimulus spending -- at a time when we are not that far from full employment. The kinds of programs Trump is talking about are things one normally does in a recession, but we are not in recession! Keynes, in the General Theory, had something to say about what Trump says he is planning to do. Keynes pointed out that to avoid excessive inflation, tax cuts and deficit spending should be done during recession when their is an excess of productive capacity in the economy, otherwise, if you do this kind of thing when near full capacity, you will largely feed inflation, the result of heating up demand when your economy is already near full capacity.* An overheated economy is the stuff of bubbles. Will the next one be called the Trump Bubble? I'm going to be watching very closely the economic figures for the next four years. My guess is that cooler heads will prevail and Trumps announced plans will be toned down. If not i expect continued large deficits and greater inflation. Another result I would anticipate, if Trump carries through with his tax proposals, is for the rate of growth in wealth disparity to accelerate. This disparity will always be with us as long as the return on capital is greater than GDP. But the rate of growth in disparity is sensitive to tax structure. The Reagan years caused a great acceleration in growth rate of the disparity due to collapsing the upper tax brackets and drastic rate reduction. I expect a similar acceleration from the planed Trump cuts as they, like the Reagan cuts, are very much in the nature supply-side stimulus. This is bad, in the very long run, for social cohesion, but as Keynes observed, in the long run we are all dead. If these announced Trump initiatives come to pass, than right now, this minute, is a good time to borrow, and those with debt should string out payment as long as possible. Certainly Mr. Trump stands to gain as much as any of us from heightened inflation. Maybe Yellen and company will hike sooner rather than later in an attempt to head off the anticipated "Trump effect"; maybe this month. They are very much data driven and very conservative. I rather think they won't act until they get a signal from the data. _________________________ *Any student of economics will recognize hat some of Keynes thinking must be modified in light of the much greater extent we are now part of a global economy then the England of 1930 was; although England then was as great a trading nation as any other, and much more so than most.
I was going through your text and formulating a response until I got to the point where you state that we "aren't far from full employment". This says everything about your level of competence as a "student of economics". The fact that you can consider this economy close to "full employment" astounds me. I read your comments and realize just how lost mainstream economics has gotten.
Trump has no plan. And for you to imply he does is just another dirty trick from your tired old democrat playbook. We've tried low taxes and we've tried low rates. Now the only thing that can save us is borrowing now out of fear of rising rates so we can spend it on something, anything, and lowering taxes so we don't have to pay for the spending. It's the best of both worlds. Lower taxes and more spending. Oh no my friend, we are way beyond plans. As far as we are concerned, a plan is just something for democrats to falsely find fault with. No more plans, no more lies. So put that in your Keynesian pipe. Our problem solved. Yours is just beginning. No plan, then you'll have to find something else to lie about. Make it a new one, make it a great one, that's what we are doing.