They did inflate the currency. The definition of inflation has nothing to do with the value of the currency. It has to do with the quantity of currency. The actions they've taken have increased the money supply. That's what I meant by the dollar is being irrationally overvalued. The markets haven't priced in their actions yet.

We do agree on the houses however. Oddly enough, that particular form of recapitalizing the banks was referred to as "moral hazard." So if a homeowner can't make good on his liabilities, bailing him out is "moral hazard." If a bank can't make good on its liabilities on the other hand...

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^bmacs27:
The fed can do little to remedy any of these problems, other than maybe inflating the currency so quickly that suddenly that salary everyone is used to making is palatable to employers. The fact is, they've already done that, it's just that the dollar is still irrationally overvalued (against, for instance, the yuan).
I think I'd characterize that as they tried to inflate the currency, but it didn't work.
Totally agree about buying up the houses though. Back during the TARP debate, that seemed like the most moral way to go about stabilizing the banks -- help out the homeowners, and thereby stabilize the banks.

>> ^bmacs27:

The fed can do little to remedy any of these problems, other than maybe inflating the currency so quickly that suddenly that salary everyone is used to making is palatable to employers. The fact is, they've already done that, it's just that the dollar is still irrationally overvalued (against, for instance, the yuan).

I think I'd characterize that as they tried to inflate the currency, but it didn't work.

Totally agree about buying up the houses though. Back during the TARP debate, that seemed like the most moral way to go about stabilizing the banks -- help out the homeowners, and thereby stabilize the banks.

What the fed can do to create jobs is extremely limited. The problem with the labor markets at present are the labor markets, not the fed. 1) Very few job openings are getting applicants with the requisite skills to do the job. 2) Those that have the skills demand more money than the prospective employers find worth paying to fill the position. 3) Abundant upside-down mortgages have significantly decreased the mobility of the labor force.

The fed can do little to remedy any of these problems, other than maybe inflating the currency so quickly that suddenly that salary everyone is used to making is palatable to employers. The fact is, they've already done that, it's just that the dollar is still irrationally overvalued (against, for instance, the yuan).

What I wish they had done is straight up bought the houses, rather than the MBSs. Doing so would have liberated debt laden workers so that they could go start a new life, while reducing the interest profits made by the banks. Instead they chose a strategy of recapitalizing the banks, leaving people to pay exorbitant interest rates on debt they no longer have the assets to cover. I realize it probably would have required a bit more work on the logistics end, and the fed ain't exactly a property management firm, but it would have put the money in the hands of those that needed to spend it the quickest.

>> ^RedSky:
@NordlichReiter
The dollar is only really down to levels it was pre-financial crisis. Taking your reference point at the height of the global financial crisis is unfair because everyone was buying up US treasury bonds and over inflating the currency.
The fact that countries are considering moving away from the US dollar as the reserve currency, the currency they trade in, and which they keep as foreign reserves is a good thing in the long term. This has kept the US dollar overvalued for decades, and has contributed significantly to the unsustainable consumption and housing binge, and was obvious a major catalyst for the global financial crisis. A rebalancing would put the onus further on factors of GDP such as investment as a contributor to economic growth.
To say that the economy is in recovery is not disingenuous. They're simply using leading indicators such as stock price or inventory levels, which are generally good predictors of economic recovery and in this case a pending fall in unemployment. The scale of that is anyone's guess though, as is how much of the economy was spurned by returning business confidence in the private sector rather that purely government stimulus and specific programs such as first home buyer's grants and cash for clunkers.


Cash for clunkers was the biggest waste. The other parts of your arguments I cannot find fault with.

Taking assets that can be modified, recycled reused, and even melted down for metals and destroying them and leaving them in a dump yard is a waste. Why would you destroy something that has re-usable parts and resources?

Differential gears, transmission parts, bearings, four wheel drive parts, pinions, springs, headers, skid plates, hubs, disks, and shoes. Instead they put sodium silicate into the engines. All because the government doesn't want the cars traded in being re-sold back into the market.

I would argue that having a hulking dump of cars, like I see on the side of the Highway is worse than seeing a repaired 78 Volkswagen van that runs on diesel, or electricity.

@NordlichReiter

The dollar is only really down to levels it was pre-financial crisis. Taking your reference point at the height of the global financial crisis is unfair because everyone was buying up US treasury bonds and over inflating the currency.

The fact that countries are considering moving away from the US dollar as the reserve currency, the currency they trade in, and which they keep as foreign reserves is a good thing in the long term. This has kept the US dollar overvalued for decades, and has contributed significantly to the unsustainable consumption and housing binge, and was obvious a major catalyst for the global financial crisis. A rebalancing would put the onus further on factors of GDP such as investment as a contributor to economic growth.

To say that the economy is in recovery is not disingenuous. They're simply using leading indicators such as stock price or inventory levels, which are generally good predictors of economic recovery and in this case a pending fall in unemployment. The scale of that is anyone's guess though, as is how much of the economy was spurned by returning business confidence in the private sector rather that purely government stimulus and specific programs such as first home buyer's grants and cash for clunkers.

It will be good for America if the dollar takes a hit. A gradual progression from the dollar to a basket of currencies (which will contain the dollar) would help our exports, and spur industry within our borders. Honestly, the biggest impediment to employment in our country is the overvaluation of our currency. China needs to let their currency float, and the dollar will accordingly diminish.

I don't devalue art at all i think people overvalue individual peaces of art, just because something is popular dose not make it "better art" , and as i sead all his works are not deleted so we haven't lost the art he has made. MJs art was like porn just enjoyable the messages not particularly deep or thought provoking not that thats a bad thing but its not like he poineard the message of his songs ect. he put together some nice tunes and did some good dancing that resonated with a majority of people. Yes he was a significant musicon and had a huge influence on pop music but i don't see that as a reason to be sad over him not existing Anny more.

everything is about proportionality peoples reactions are not proportional and that is a serous problem.

tell me specifically what people who don't know MJ personally have lost ? most his recent music was average not bad but most MJ experts would agree its not evan close to his older music,

i guess we lose watching retards scream and chase after him whenever he walks around and maby he would have produced a couple more really good songs and done maby 1 or 2 tours who knows , but its not a huge lose to any one other than his close family.

This whole midea hyp over his death is just a way to make mony from fame its totally separate to his art achievements and message, media is about making mony and well MJ and famous people that are talented + random are easy to make money out of.

as i say lets just play his music enjoy it and not be retards let his family and people who know him get on with stuff do what they have to do to get over there personal loss,

I'm relay into computer games and some people have really pushed games as an art form forwards dosent mean im going to get all emotional when they die ill just be like oh that's a shame that they wont do any more or that they wont continue to push the art in a direction some people might have liked. in the end things will progress and other artisits will come along and do things that's equally as enjoyable but in different ways.

say Steven Hawkins dies and i would argue he is and has been far more important to society than MJ then i would not be particualy sad , it be the same fealing of oh that's a shame that he will no longer be advancing humanity in his way , but i would also know that there are thousands of scientists that are doing other work that is just as relivent but not as easy to pin on a singular person.

>> ^Eklek:

Old people shouldn't be ashamed of their looks, these days there's a relative overvaluation of adolescence..each age has its specific merits..

True, I just think that of all the people who have interviewed her over the years, that every single one of them honored her wishes because you basically can't find a picture of her other than from her pinup years...I just thought that was neat that her wishes were honored.

^rougy, thanks for sifting this!:)
http://www.videosift.com/video/Betty-Page-Died-Today-2008-12-12

>> ^rougy:
I thought it was cool how her only request, in every interview, was that nobody took her picture. And basically nobody did.
I found one pic on the net of her with Hugh Hef, but I know what she means.
Don't we all want to be remembered for our best?
She was an icon just as great as Marilyn, or Chaplin, or Fields.
Her image will live on for many years.
I salute her.


Old people shouldn't be ashamed of their looks, these days there's a relative overvaluation of adolescence..each age has its specific merits..

>> ^bareboards:
My comment about the stock market and the dollar requiring "belief" may be shorthand, but it is still rock solid true.


There was a significant element of belief back in the day, but banks, brokerage agencies and investment houses don't give a crap what McCain or Obama are saying anymore than they give a crap what Bush is saying. Its a credit crunch; large businesses can't get credit to afford to keep operating because they have massive debt. Wheres the debt from? The burst of a bubble, where optimism greatly overvalued assets in the mortgage-backed-assets game (turns out American's don't have the money to pay their mortgage, and therefor those backed assets are worthless).

Anyhow, point is that banks, etc., are withholding credit because its not reasonable to throw away money on, for instance, a failing investment giant with hundreds of billions of debt. Saying the fundamentals of an economy where three of the five giants in investing just failed is ludicrous, and arguing that Obama is not be helpful by refusing to delude people about the severity of the situation is silly. Things will be no more or less liquid unless the government stops the bleeding by grabbing these worthless mortgages, and releases them slowly, instead of just watching the runs of banks dumping them for next to nothing, scratching together liquidity through terrible deals. Regulation and valuation is 'fundamentally' flawed; McCain is wrong; Obama is simply stating this.

>> ^Farhad2000:

(2) start taxing speculative market operations, especially those involving overseas transactions;

I agree with this one, as right now speculative market transactions are done at seemingly no risk.

Well, it's always like this at the end of a bull market. And the bull market/bear market cycle is a creation of the central banks. It's a cycle of low interest rates, overvaluation and malinvestment followed by the inevitable price corrections and high interest rates.

There's already a way of making institutions accountable: let them go bankrupt. The market is self regulating, and bailing speculators out is stealing from tax payers.

Taxing speculative operations would only further aggravate the crisis, because in times of uncertainty it's the speculators who move the economy.

To the readers of this page - just my thoughts about 9/11:

- If anybody in government help set 9/11 up, it was not merely to pass legislation - that'd be quite a stupid reason indeed - it'd be too opaque, and so they could argue that by just taking the legislation away, over time. I don't think it's that simple.

- When I look back at 9/11, I remember the financial state of this country. Before 9/11, many economists were saying that the USD was overvalued, and that we should be heading into at least a recession, possibly a depression, just because of how overvalued our money was, alone, in comparison to, for instance, China, which has a much larger labor force. Granted, our economists say that the Yuan is undervalued, but they know that that is because the value of it is set by the Chinese government.

- In my opinion, if 9/11 was not just caused by terrorists, as the official story says, then it was caused to help distract people from the plunge of the stock market right after it, even though it had been going down prior. People who wanted to get out at that time, maybe in favor of entering the Chinese Stock Market or somesuch got out of it and Americans bought the stocks, thinking that the plunge was just an effect of 9/11.

- I think...heck, I know that people in various parts of the government are not much smarter than you or I...but they apply their minds to different scopes of problems. For instance, instead of having a depression that might kill millions of people in the U.S., and eventually around the world, kill 2000 people the way they did on 9/11, in favor of a "stable" market. It convinces the population that central banking and, inherently, civilization, work, even though they really aren't working(just due to principles of Chaos Theory, etc.). They also can sleep at night thinking of themselves as having "solved" a problem, and stopped millions of deaths.

In all actuality though, they didn't solve the problem. They postponed it. Since our currency is no longer backed by a commodity, anything that would shake our faith in our currency will shake the value of the USD, and the stock market in general. Our currency is highly overvalued, especially for the labor force that we actually have. We're either going to have something else like 9/11 happen, to mask that loss of value(so that we don't really notice it as the stock market/value of the USD dropping), or we're going to enter a pretty bad recession/depression.

That means that, as the value of stocks, and of the USD plunge, the price of commodities will go up proportionately.

These are just my own thoughts on it, but I think there was more at play, especially if the government helped in any other way - if it was anything BUT the official story, which it looks like is the case(that the official story doesn't hold water), then it would have to be deeper than JUST policy.