North America’s Building Trades Unions is endorsing President Biden for 2024, and the union is out with a new ad slamming former President Trump for giving them lip service but doing absolutely nothing he promised the union when he met with them in 2017. Didn’t protect their jobs, didn’t protect their pensions, didn’t level out trade deficits, never invested in infrastructure….it was all empty promises he never intended and was incapable of following through on, just like every promise he’s ever made.
Conversely, Biden saved their pensions, invested in infrastructure, and as a result not only saved their jobs but created hundreds of thousands more…and did not lie to them about his plans to get their votes!
Trump has said he intends to abuse the power of the office to exact revenge against the well over half of America that doesn’t support him, and become a dictator on day 1 (no dictator has ever willingly abdicated their position, Trump wouldn’t be the first).
This you guy…this yoar pick! 😂
Again, no one showed up to his trial after he again begged his supporters to protest for him…only 6 people today in the empty space in front of the courthouse set aside for protestors exactly where he claims they aren’t allowed to be.

And another way Orange pedophile bad....selling appointments, like Dejoy at USPS. It's been clear from the get go that he's there because he donated millions to Trump through fundraising events and maximum donations. What wasn't clear until now is he violated campaign finance laws by pushing employees to attend his fundraisers and donate t he maximum, which he reimbursed by giving t hem bonuses. Clearly illegal campaign finance violations, and more reason why Trump intentionally keeping the elections commission understaffed his entire tenure so badly they cannot perform their function of prosecuting people like Dejoy.

THIS IS BLATANT SUBVERSION OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO HIDE HIS NEVERENDING VIOLATIONS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS AND ELECTION LAWS DONE WITHOUT QUESTION TO ENRICH TRUMP PERSONALLY.
Talk about selling America out, Trump's never done anything but.

When the next president fills the positions and returns teeth to the fec, everyone with a finger in the Trump administration going to prison.

Trump tried to sell out to China, but they want nothing to do with his flailing, inconsistent, bat shit crazy administration that can't be trusted to keep agreements and the talks fell apart. Now we have a bigger trade deficit plus billions in tariffs and China not buying American anymore. Trump simply doesn't understand international trade one bit.

Oh, let's not forget yesterday when he threatened any police department that isn't rabidly pro Trump and giving him public endorsements, "the ones who didn’t, I think we have to look at them — where do they come from." Trump only likes cops that fawn over him first, it's not about liking cops or the law, it's about liking anyone who will say they like him....If they won't, they need to be investigated.

Orange infant, biggest business failure in America two years running by HIS accounting, daughter diddling Don : bad.
Alert Joe : good AND competent.

@RedSky

The need to be kept afloat by European funds is pretty high on the list of things Syriza is keen to do away with. Varoufakis was clear on this pretty early on, at least 2009 as far as I know. They treated it as a problem of liquidity instead of a problem of insolvency, and therefore any funds funnelled into Greece were basically disappearing down a black hole. They are bleeding cash left, right and center, and the continuous flow of credit from Europe doesn't help a bit in its current form.

As of now, they can't pay shit. Any additional credit has to be used to pay back interest on previous credit. Their meagre primary surplus is less than their interest payments. With that in mind, some of the ideas floating around sound rather intriguing, especially given the horrendous failure all the previous agreements have produced. These ideas include: cap interest payment (1.5% of primary surplus), use the rest for investment or humanitarian relief; no payments on debt below 3% growth, 50% of agreed upon payments at 3-6% growth, full payments at 6+% growth.

Yet even those ideas are purely theoretical, because there is no growth in Greece. The celebrated growth in Q3 2014 of 0.7% might very well be a fluke, as Bill Mitchell described here (prices falling faster than incomes). For Greece to be able to have any meaningful growth, they'd require not just a complete reconstruction of its institutions (structural reforms), but also massive investment.

And there's where it breaks down again, since you rightfully pointed out that the Germans in particular won't spend a dime on Greece, especially not with investment in Germany in equally dire shape (shortfall of about a trillion € since 2000).


Which brings me to another point: Germany vs France.

Productivity in both countries was en par in 1999, and productivity in France in 2014 was only slightly below German numbers. "Living within your means" is a very popular phrase in the current discussion, which basically means living in accordance with your productivity.

Subsequently, there should be a similar development of unit labour costs within a monetary union, with growth targets set by the central bank. In our case, that would be just below 2%. Like I've previously said, Greece lived beyond its means in this regard, and significantly so.

But what about France and Germany? The black line marks the target, blue is France, red is Germany. That's beggar-thy-neighbour. That's gaining competetiveness at the cost of your fellow Euro pals. That's suppressing domestic demand in order to push exports.

German reforms killed its domestic market (retail sales stagnant since early '90s) and created an aggregate trade surplus to the tune of 2 trillion Euros. That's 2 trillion Euros of deficit in other countries. And we're looking at an additional 200-210 billion Euros this year. If running trade deficits is bad, so is running trade surpluses.

Ironically, there's even been legislation in Germany since 1967, instructing the government to balance its books in matters of trade (and other areas). They've been in violation of it for 15 years.

With this in mind, everytime a German politician calls for the other countries to run trade surpluses just like Germany, I get furious. Some of them, on the European level, even have the audacity to say that everyone should run trade surpluses, and all it takes to get there is massive wage cuts. That's open lunacy and a failure of basic math. No surplus without deficits, no savings without debt.

And while we're at it, it's not the savings rate in Germany that bothers me. It's the moral superiority that is being ascribed to running surpluses in every way imaginable. Every part of society is expected to have a positive savings rate, because debt is bad. Well, if everyone's saving and nobody's accruing the corresponding debt, you get the current situation where there is no investment whatsoever, a gargantuan shortfall in demand given the national productivity, and a cool 200 billion Euros of debt a year that foreign actors have to rake up so that Germany can have its massive growth of 0.5-1.5% annually.

Finding borrowers for all that cash is getting more difficult by the day. The ECB's QE is basically one big search for new borrowers, since everyone either doesn't want to borrow or cannot borrow anymore.

If Germany wanted to help the Eurozone, they'd start by increasing their ULC vis-á-vis the rest of the countries. Competitiveness should be regulated through the foreign exchange rate, not this parasitic race to the bottom within the zone. Ten years of 4% increase in wages, annually. That ought to be a start.

Additionally, allow the ECB to fund the European Investment Bank directly, instead of this black hole of QE.

Or go one step further and seriously consider Varoufakis' ideas, including the old Keynesian concept of a global surplus recycling mechanism.

But all that is pure fantasy. I don't think a majority of Germans would support either of these measures, not with the overwhelming fear of inflation this society has. Add the continuous demonisation of debt and you get a guarantee that very few countries might be compatible to be in a longtime monetary union with Germany.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^bobknight33:
Germany is the most financially secure country and that's because of their thrift.
So this would be the same Germany that has the world's oldest universal health care system, a top tax rate of 45%, some of the most liberal laws in europe for homosexuals and has a socialist party as one of the two main parties?
Sounds like a republican heaven!

Right, it couldn't be their policies... It's because they clip so many coupons!


That would be awesome if there was coupons for international trade that we're losing in the couch and such. President holds a news conference "Everyone in America look around your immediate areas for this coupon, or we're gonna have a trade deficit this month."

Yes, it does impact our economy. I'm not trying to play down the seriousness of the issue. However our economy wasn't in good shape before the spill, and even if everything were cleaned up by tomorrow our economy would still be shaky, and we'd still have tons of people unemployed.

I also think that we should withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, but right now we're still there, and as long as our troops are still there then both wars are major issues facing the President - the Commander-In-Chief.

I also don't like our involvement with Israel, but if Israel escalates their aggression towards their neighbors, it would be naive to think that we wouldn't get involved. Israel bombed Iraq when they thought Iraq might be developing nuclear weapons. It's easily conceivable that they might do the same to Iran, and don't think the U.S. or other countries wouldn't get sucked into that.

As far as other important domestic issues are concerned, both sides of the aisle agree that immigration policy needs reform. We still have major trade deficits, and our national deficit is also ballooning. Millions of Americans are living in poverty, many of them homeless. Our public education system desperately needs fixing, though there are major disagreements about how to do it. College costs continue to spiral, making higher education less accessible to lower and middle class Americans. An undereducated nation could be a big problem down the road, couldn't it?

As I said, there are a host of major issues on the President's desk, both foreign and domestic. I can't see how he can focus like a laser beam on just one major issue without letting others slip through the cracks.

I want the Gulf cleaned up just as bad as anyone else. But I don't want the President to jump through all these hoops just for the sake of appearances. And I don't want a single issue to become the sole issue. We've seen it happen before with the healthcare issue dominating the political landscape to the virtual exclusion of almost all other issues. I don't want that to happen again.>> ^bmacs27:

>> ^kronosposeidon:
our economy is still shaky and 9.5% of our labor force is still out of work
You don't think that this oil spill is an immediate risk for a significant proportion of our economy?
Maybe it's time we let the world deal with the world.
He's the president of the US, not the president of the Middle East.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
At the cost of weakening their own currency, only a matter of time before that doesn't work anymore, cause we sure in hell ain't paying any of that debt back. We can hardly pay interest.

Exactly, those bonds are worthless, and we're running out of suckers to buy them, fast.

>> ^yaroslavvb:
I wouldn't lend money as a restaraunt owner, which shows how different the decision-making process is made at the country level.

To me it just shows you had trouble understanding my analogy. Yes, you would lend money as a restaurant owner, even to your own customers, if you thought that they will pay you back. Ever heard of a tab?

There is no absurdity in lending money to your customers, it's only absurd to keep doing it once you realize they can't pay you back. Then you're faced with a tough decision: Whether to lose your customer and all that money they owe you or keep wasting more money hoping you'll see any of it again. Eventually, their spending becomes just an expense, because they're spending your money.

On a country level it actually makes sense for China to keep buying US bonds despite the trade deficit because it drives up employment inside the country.

Employment is good because it leads to production. China produces enough to finance our debt, but that is in no way desirable to them, consuming is not a big favor the US is doing the world. Anyone can be a consumer, hell, hand me 1 million dollars and I'll consume it real fast for you. What you want is for consumers to PAY you, something the US hasn't done for a while now.

I wouldn't lend money as a restaraunt owner, which shows how different the decision-making process is made at the country level. On a country level it actually makes sense for China to keep buying US bonds despite the trade deficit because it drives up employment inside the country.

Sorry NetRunner, but Schiff is a brilliant libertarian and Keynesian economics is junk science. Krugman's belief that deficit spending is a solution, that we can administer new shots of heroine in perpetuity to avoid withdrawals, is the same as Madoff saying his scheme would never end at its height. It only lasts for as long as you can find new and larger investments. The Fed cannot control long-term interest rates, they can only price fix in the short term in exchange for higher long-term rates. His forecast of perma deflation is pure crap, that would require the Federal Reserve to raise rates higher than Volcker did in a far more dire situation than we were in then. No longer is the majority of our debt financed long-term or domestically. It's majority owned by foreigners in T-bills. There is no exit strategy for the money being pumped in today. This is going to turn into a currency crisis when the debt is monetized and productive foreigners refuse to keep throwing good money after bad into our bond market. "Free Lunch" guys like Krugman who put the cart before the horse, consumption before production, just don't get it in the endgame.

Mish's criticisms are even more laughable. Schiff is a long-term investor, not a trader like Mish. The dollar headfake in the last year where people ran toward the blast initially is not a sustainable trend and totally meaningless. When you know the Titanic is going to sink, you don't stick around because you think you can get one last dance in, and that seems to be what Mish thinks people should do. Decoupling is going to happen whether Mish likes it or not. Our treasury secretary is getting laughed at by Asian students when he tries to reassure them of dollar integrity.

(1) From the creditor's perspective, there's no point in loaning money to someone to consume your production. You don't devalue your currency to export for the sake of exporting, you export for imports or keep your currency strong so that you can consume your own production. Otherwise, you're exchanging products for stashes of paper IOUs that we show no intention of replacing with real products. When the Asian countries figure out how easy it would be to consume their own products, our economy is toast. The only problem for someone like a China is how to head for the exit without causing a stampede. The minute such a large holder of dollars starts spending them, their value relative to goods will diminish substantially. Avoiding a hit now is going to be impossible, but they know that continuing to accumulate dollars is simply creating a larger future hit.
(2) From our perspective, politicians will always do what is expedient in the short-term. Telling the truth and saying you have to cut spending and entitlements by massive amounts for the sake of future generations isn't politically profitable. Not just because of all the people expecting things like unlimited health care regardless of our productive capacity to finance it, but because such a high percentage of our voting population now have overpaid government positions that they don't want to lose. Someone like a Ron Paul tells the truth at the expense of having an chance of winning. Winning requires that you be a candyman.

Savings is underconsumption and required for loans to exist. Ideally, people borrow that finite capital to increase productive capacity, to turn a shovel into a bulldozer and pay the loan off with more production. That is the kind of borrowing that benefits the creditor, the debtor, and society. It's not supposed to be a tool for consumption and winning elections, and that's where this country derailed from the sustainable and healthy growth it had in the 19th century. Whatever "success" we had from things like Medicare and Social Security came at an equal or greater long term cost. It's generational theft in its purest form, borrow to consume in the present to leave each successive generation with a higher and higher interest burden that will have to be paid for with higher taxes or currency devaluation. I say this because it is the fundamental oversight of people like Steve Forbes and Art Laffer who try to cast off trade deficits as "meaningless because it's something we've always had" in debating the resiliency of the bond market without distinguishing how we spent our loans then vs now.

Defaulting on our debt through inflation is a certainty. If you listen to Financial Sense or Schiff's weekly radio show, you'll learn how obvious that conclusion is very quickly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGdj3Gx4A8w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgMclXX5msc

>> ^StukaFox:
"He came in with a recession" -- WHAT?!?!?!


Clinton's entire term was a dot-com stock market bubble whose inevitable and proportionate bust began to occur in 2000 when Bush took office. Greenspan was very loose with money as Fed chairman under both Clinton and Bush, and Bernanke is even worse. Not wanting the painful withdrawal to happen under his watch, Bush did what was politically expedient and shot up the veins with record deficit spending and artificially low lending rates. Greenspan price fixed interest rates down to a record low 1% rate in the middle of a recession and held them there for a year. That transformed the speculative misallocations from stocks to real estate, got consumers borrowing and spending instead of saving to produce, and the day of reckoning was effectively postponed and enlarged until Obama's term. Obama is essentially choosing the same reinflationary path, and it's really only a matter of time before our creditors become net sellers of our bonds and turn the game into a hyperinflationary nightmare.

It also helped that Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall, which allowed much higher leverage and the securitization of mortgages. Ideally, we'd just get rid of the spiker and stop trying to regulate the drunken behavior, but Republicrats don't seem to think in those terms, they're quite party-whipped. I talk to Democrats who think Clinton decreased the national debt, social security is a success, Vietnam was a Republican war, banks don't create money, the dollar is still backed by gold, trade deficits are good. It's quite sad, just two socialist parties who spend all day trying to figure out who's more to blame while libertarians sit back and watch the country go to hell.

I don't really like giving my views on these topics -- everyone is so biased by ideologies that it's almost impossible to sift through attacks and just bullshit.

Over the past six months I've spent many late nights trying to figure out what is happening to the US, and how it's going to affect my life in Australia. Our government seems to be following suit (create money, bail out failing industries, announce huge budget deficits).

Isn't it time to ask the question - is it worth 'stimulating' an economy that seems to be fundamentally flawed?

We, in western countries, have lived in probably the most leveraged state in history. Not just banks, the entire society. We used this leverage to purchase and consume goods made abroad, and to fund a service sector economy that is crashing now.

Now all this money that can't be paid back has to be written off. It can't be paid back. The leverage that existed because of this capital is gone.

Paulson and Bernanke pulled off a deft maneuver with the original TARP package.

There would have been a complete collapse of the American economy if they didn't act. The elephant in the room is simple though - what actually is the American economy?

It's a consumer and service sector based economy. Very little real goods are actually produced. The US has run a trade deficit since 1975.

There isn't a viable economy to stimulate. Even the automotive industry, considered the pinnacle of American manufacturing, burns cash at rates that render it unable to compete in a global market.

I've only read 200 pages of the act so far, and it seems like (excluding the TARP packages) it is the biggest transference of wealth from taxpayers to whomever the government decides in all time. It's a quick fix that will keep the government in power thanks in part to keeping a lot of people employed... by the government. A new social contract will emerge as written by Rahm Emanuel in his book "The Plan".

The whole saga has shown the world -- or at least myself, just what I suspected about America all along. The 'values' that they proudly proselytize to the world don't mean a god damn thing when a real test shows up.

Sadly, the next two years will probably sound the death knell for capitalism in my life time.

Cliffs:

a) America's economy is fake and nothing can 'save' it, it needs to be reinvented
b) America is bankrupt and will eventually default on it's debt to the rest of the world
c) Primarily, the manipulation of the Fractional Reserve Banking system caused the problem

Thoughts?

PS. I apologize if this is a little all over the place, I'm writing it between meetings at work.

I FEEL LIKE YELLING HERE, APOLOGIES TO ALL WITH SENSITIVE EARDRUMS.

If the free market is such a great dynamo of the economy over fiscal expenditure and government explain to me why we had a Wall street bailout?

BECAUSE GOVERNMENT FORCED BANKS TO GIVE HOUSES TO POOR PEOPLE WHO COULDN'T AFFORD THEM IN THE NAME OF "FAIRNESS". TAXOCRATS BUY THE ALLEGIANCE OF "THE POOR" WITH TAX DOLLARS. BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A VICTIM?

ME AGAINST ALL BAILOUTS. STILL AM. FAILED CONSERVATIVE LIKE BUSH STILL NOT EQUAL SOCIALIST IDEOLOGUE WHO NOW SEEK TRILLION DOLLARS ON A TARGET GIFT CARD. IT'S SCUM POLITICIANS' WET DREAM, ALL MONEY/NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

What are you going to say now? The banking industry is not deregulated enough? The fed wasn't lax enough? The SEC shouldn't exist so more money could be rolled and rolled over in toxic packages? socialism? credit controls were not lax enough? What about regressive credit card debt? diminishing middle class? housing market bubble? run away government spending? defense spending? loss of capital infrastructure? lack of progressive tax structures? loosening of tax codes to corporate entities? run away trade deficit? increased federal debt? billions per month in Iraq that don't go to troops? spending on the drug war? spending on abstinence programs that don't work?

IT CALLED SPENDING MORE THAN YOU MAKE. YOU/ME DO IT AND GO BROKE OR TO JAIL. GOVERNMENT DO IT AND GET AWAY WITH IT...THAT WHY BIG GOVERNMENT SUCKS.

ME AGAINST 90% OF FEDERAL GOVT. TOO BIG, TOO POWERFUL. ALL UNCONSTITUTIONAL NONSENSE MUST GO.

Don't blame the previous 8 years of economic fumbling on a incoming president. At least he is trying to formulate a plan to avert disaster, unfortunately the free market doesn't care about the welfare of the economy as a whole, there is no invisible hand to pick up the American economy, notice the large manufacturing sector that has moved almost all production overseas.

FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY OF TAXOCRATS GOES ALL WAY BACK TO CARTER; BEFORE HIM, FAILED WELFARE SOCIETIES OF FDR AND LBJ. KENNEDY LAST LIBERAL TO DEMAND LOW TAXES FOR PROSPERITY.

They don't care about the American economy, they care about their own profits that is free market economics, fiscal spending and government stimulus is needed now to create a net injection into the economy.

HYPERINFLATION IS WHAT OBAMA WILL BRING.

The market plunged because Obama didn't promise any kind of net government bailout and you are here crying about socialism and new deals.

What do you think that says.

IT SAYS THERE NOTHING SO BAD ON OWN GOVERNMENT CAN'T MAKE WORSE. IF OBAMA WANT QUICK RECOVERY, HE SLASH TAXES FURTHER AND PROMISE NOT INTERFERE. HE INTEND GROW THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT VIA GAMMA RADIATION.

POLITICIANS = INSECURE CLOWNS WITH TERRIBLE EGOS. THEY WANT BE HEROES BY PRETENDING TO STOP CRISES THEY CREATED IN 1ST PLACE! THEY 'TAKE ACTION' EVEN WHEN ACTION MAKE WORSE.

HULK SMASH.

imstellar28 and qm,

If the free market is such a great dynamo of the economy over fiscal expenditure and government explain to me why we had a Wall street bailout?

What are you going to say now? The banking industry is not deregulated enough? The fed wasn't lax enough? The SEC shouldn't exist so more money could be rolled and rolled over in toxic packages? socialism? credit controls were not lax enough? What about regressive credit card debt? diminishing middle class? housing market bubble? run away government spending? defense spending? loss of capital infrastructure? lack of progressive tax structures? loosening of tax codes to corporate entities? run away trade deficit? increased federal debt? billions per month in Iraq that don't go to troops? spending on the drug war? spending on abstinence programs that don't work?

Don't blame the previous 8 years of economic fumbling on a incoming president. At least he is trying to formulate a plan to avert disaster, unfortunately the free market doesn't care about the welfare of the economy as a whole, there is no invisible hand to pick up the American economy, notice the large manufacturing sector that has moved almost all production overseas.

They don't care about the American economy, they care about their own profits that is free market economics, fiscal spending and government stimulus is needed now to create a net injection into the economy.

The market plunged because Obama didn't promise any kind of net government bailout and you are here crying about socialism and new deals.

What do you think that says.

>> ^chilaxe:
What's more important, computer manufacturing or software programing ("paper")? One is not much use without the other.
How about the designs ("paper") for the next generation of computer chips? How about anti-terrorism consulting ("paper") for Indian anti-terrorism forces? How about the post-1945 Green Revolution ("paper")?
It's as easy to say that the service economy is the foundation of the world's production as it is to say it the other way around.


You're right that we export a lot of services and IP, but the balance of trade is still grossly inequal. We still have to borrow foreign savings to finance our consumption of their exports. Our trade deficit breaks a new record each month, it's around $70,000,000,000 a month now. That is how much more goods and services the world is providing us than we are providing them EACH MONTH.

In the past, we ran deficits as well. The major difference, and the ones all Keynesians are oblivious to, is that deficits prior to 1960 financed increases in productive capacity. Now we're borrowing money to consume imports on credit cards, absorbing products from the world with nothing to show for it but paper notes and a hot printing press. There's a HUGE difference between borrowing to produce and borrowing to consume. One is mutually beneficial, the other is parasitic.

It's a huge, unsustainable scam, and Austrians like Schiff recognize it.

isn't it lack of government oversight that got us into this mess in the first place???

Were the riots of the 60s a result of government failing to enforce Jim Crow laws? Rather than put law enforcement under a single umbrella, you need to understand the difference between a good law and a bad law. Before you even make the jump to regulation, ask yourself if the regulators are being regulated by the constitution? Nope. Sort that one out first, there's your problem. "Regulation" is an extremely general term used by politicians to great effect to blame others for problems and changes in market behavior that they create. We have a central bank in this country that price fixes interest rates since 1913. This is a socialist idea that was passed on the basis of its objective rather than its result. It turns out that letting a pseudo-government agency set interest rates results in an artificial lowering to delay politically inconvenient recessions. This artificial price fix results in the wrong kind of investment decisions and incentives, leading to phony bubbles that carry with them the seeds of their own destruction. I'll explain below.

In order for credit to exist, savings must exist. That's what credit is, someone else loaning their money out to someone at interest rather than spending it. Everyone wants a low rate of interest as a borrower. Everyone wants a high rate of interest as a saver. By definition, savings is underconsumption. Someone, somewhere, has to be saving rather than spending money in order for real credit to exist. These two forces are at odds with each other, to find the happiest medium between savings and production. That's completely perverted by a price fixing system where the government is dictating the interest rate for political purposes. Too easy dictation in the 90s caused the tech stock bubble, worthless tech stocks were trading at hundreds time earnings. When that "growth" came crashing down in 2000, Bush didn't want to have the recession occurring under his first term or he wouldn't get re-elected. So he and Greenspan lowered interest rates to 1% for a whole year to keep businesses borrowing and consumers consuming. The problem is, where is the savings coming from to allow both to happen at once? Overseas. We are the world's largest debtor nation now, borrowing from everyone to consume products that they make. They accumulate our paper money. We get their products. 70 billion a month trade deficit and still going. That's our economy the last twenty years. We abuse a reserve currency of the world status gained under the gold standard to export our now inflationary currency all over the world. That's coming to and end at some point. The Fed is increasing its balance sheet like there's no tomorrow, trying to replace the credit no longer being loaned to us with a printing press. It won't work. It didn't work in Weimar, it didn't work in Argentina, it didn't work in Zimbabwe, and it won't work here. The inflation is in the pipeline, it will hit during Obama's term. Obama and McCain are both socialists, the pork filled bailout bill they voted on ought to be evidence of that. Neither one understands that the recession needs to happen like the druggie needs withdrawal, and the more you try to stop the failures and painful reallocations with more drugs, the longer you're going to be in rehab.

So where did all that money from tech stocks filter into? With such low rates of interest and a removal of houses from the government's own inflation calculations, inflation shifted from tech stocks into real estate rather than being purged in a recession. So nobody but a few libertarian economists who learned a type of economics that isn't taught here could see the problem, one of them being Ron Paul's economic advisor Peter Schiff. In that mania, lending standards were abandoned to take advantage of the artificial demand created by the dictated low interest.

In other words, the market got drunk, but it was the FED THAT SPIKED THE PUNCHBOWL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucDkoqwflF4

You can see the austrian view (Schiff) directly in conflict with the pro-government keynesian/monetarist view that is predominantly taught in this country (Laffer/Swonk). That's why none of the so-called "harvard educated, brilliant, phd holding" managers of a these banks and investment firms were not only oblivious to what was going to happen, but regularly confuse weaknesses for strengths. It's that ass-backwards, we teach the economic equivalent of astrology. Why? Because who has the most to gain from a sexy interventionist theory that says inflation is necessary to prevent hoarding and politicians spending its citizens' money for them can stimulate economic growth? Why, it's the benefactors of inflation!

I'll address Necrodancer later, I gotta go. He seems awfully confused on what socialism is and how socialist we are.

Reading jwray's stuff makes me want to hurl.

Absolute capitalism without any welfare, inheritance/gift tax, or income tax would become practically indistinguishable from the worst sort of absolute monarchy as the vasy majority of the wealth is concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

Actually, socialist policies have done nothing but increase, and the problems you describe have gotten worse. Still waiting for that socialist idea that actually increases the wealth of the bottom. Prior to 1913 we never had an income tax. Special tax credits as a form of anti-competitive subsidy were thus impossible, and charity was at its highest in American history. Actually, the funniest part is just the idea that increases taxes on the rich helps in some way. All it does is incentivize those people to sit on their money, or move it into a tax haven, or leave the country altogether. Precisely what happened when Hoover raised marginal rates to 63% and FDR to 90% succeeding him. Would you go through the trouble of running a business if government is taking 90% of what you make if you make anything? Didn't think so.

Whoever owns all the means of living could dictate the terms of their use down to every detail such as what you're allowed to read in your apartment.

Epic fail. In a republic, a constitution prevents rights from being infringed, regardless of how much money one person has over the other. You can't even vote it away with a majority, that's the difference between a republic and a democracy. Who is responsible for electing politicians who follow it and punishing those who don't? You. You are the regulator for the regulators. 98% of the public didn't vote for Ron Paul, therefore 98% of the people don't believe the supreme law is important or should be followed. The end. You have no one but yourself to blame. You've chosen the benevolent dictator route, no law, no concept of barring certain powers under any circumstances. Good luck with that.

Ayn Rand fails to consider that if her pure capitalist system were followed absolutely, someone with enough money could have the same power over everyone as a fascist police state via owning all the media, owning all the land upon which the food is grown, etc.

In order to make that kind of money in a free market system that protects rights, the person to whom you're referring would essentially have to create every product and service with the utmost quality and awesomeness. Remember, with small government, he can't bribe a politician for forcibly appropriated money because the politician doesn't have it. He can't get an anti-competitive tax credit, because income taxes don't even exist for anyone, just like pre-1913. Fraud isn't an option because he would be taken to government courts and lose. False advertising either. Theft either. Rights are protected. What the hell does this person do to get wads and wads of money? Well... they essentially have to create a product or service that millions and millions of people will buy. Need workers for that. No problem, let's hire some workers for a penny a piece. What? They won't work for a penny because someone else is offering them a nickel? Shit, we'll offer them a quarter and still make money! WHAT YOU SAY, HE OUTBID ME ON THAT SKILLED LABOR AGAIN. CHRIST, THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER, MY PROFIT MARGINS ARE GETTING KILLED BY GODDAMN COMPETITORS TRYING TO DO WHAT I'M DOING AND BIDDING UP WAGES.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFdj103G60

Anyway, Ayn Rand's brand of libertarianism is not the popular brand. You're dreadfully confused to be building up this kind of strawman in your fearmongering of capitalism. I think this Milton Friedman link ought to clear it up for you, as well as some other things, such as how dirty technology invariably contributes to its cleaner successor, and how government cannot possibly spend other people's money with as much thrift as people would spend their own. This stuff seems so obvious once you hear it, but you'd be amazed at how clueless most people are at these basic fundamental behaviors. They assume that because 100% capitalism doesn't work, that the optimal system must be 50% or even less capitalism. In reality, just a little bit of government force is necessary and it should require no more than 10% of a people's capital in order to exercise the functions of defending rights and offering courts. It was never intended to appropriate 50% of our money for undeclared wars like Vietnam and Iraq, or subsidize industries in exchange for campaign financing, or fund pet projects, or forcibly manage retirement and health care via unsustainable ponzi schemes.

Remember, outside of nominal appropriations (taxes), the government inflates with a non-market determined money that it is capable of duplicating at no labor or material cost. Even a poor family not paying any income tax and getting welfare payments is having their wages and purchasing power diminished by the inflation tax. This is the key. This is the root cause, it's how despite everything they are getting with the left hand, government is taking more from the right via inflation. This is how our economy came to be in shambles, how markets distorted, how wealth started to transfer from the bottom to the top, like every fiat economy before it. Because those who use the money the Fed is creating increase their bidding power with it while those who have no money can't get their themselves because their wages and savings are being perpetually debased by it. How do you accumulate so much money that you can live off interest on stock for a living when your cost of living continues to rise faster than your wages? Bingo, you've figured it out. Congrats. Inflation is how government finances most of its activities today and this is how our economy has been destroyed. We let go of the gold limit in 71, we had one decent Fed chairman that took away the punch bowl to wipe the slate for another bull run, and that was it, the inevitable collapse of our fiat money is assured from the current hole we've dug. We now abuse our reserve currency status of the world gained under gold to export our inflation worldwide, which is why the problems today are so global. 10 trillion national debt, 70 billion a month trade deficit, 60 trillion in unfunded liabilities, a negative savings rate, two income households barely making ends meet, and an economy that since the early 90s has depended on perpetual credit extensions from the savings of the world to consume imported products that those creditors make in exchange for paper interest that they can recycle back into us or lock in a vault. They get paper, we get products. Yay for them. Yeah, don't delink from the dollar, don't use those savings to invest in production, keep loaning it to us to consume products you can't afford because of it.

These, of course, are policies you support. Libertarians don't want government to have the ability to inflate, because it makes no sense. You can't give government instant access to every person's purchasing power and expect them not to mortgage it. That's precisely what fiat money enables. And chances are that some lawyer spending millions of dollars to get in a low-paying position of legislating and distributing other people's forcibly appropriated money isn't going to be a very honest or incorruptible individual. Not sure why you haven't figured this out yet or why you think this is more efficient or moral than an individual trying to convince you give him your money in exchange for a product or service you want and think might improve your life.

The threat of starvation is just as effective as the threat of violence.

Where are people most starving today and throughout history? Exactly in the types of places where people are least able to keep and spend their own money as they see fit. Did China have to build walls to keep people from going into Hong Kong, or did Hong Kong have to build walls to keep people from going into China?