44th President and 111th Congress (US Gov't 2009-2011)

[Max Thrillington]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Why I Support the Stimulus



Considering how bad the look is of the economy, the United States should take shift action immediately. The stocks just plummeted again.. Hopefully, the recession crisis will not last forever.

Yeah but Obama is clueless about the economy. We're not going to get out of this buy borrowing more money and spending more and getting deeper into debt.

[klowny]

we will still be in debt and not out of this recession, also No to gun control

[Shadow Kira01]

Originally Posted by klowny

we will still be in debt and not out of this recession, also No to gun control

Why do you not support gun control? Wouldn't that make the United States a safer place? When everybody have a gun, fist fights will less occur because it becomes more chaotic. I don't think the idea of allowing everybody to own a gun would result as a deterrent that prevents violence. In fact, it would promote it. Although I don't think Obama will succeed in getting the world out of recession but his action towards gun control is good.

[felix]

Originally Posted by klowny

also No to gun control

God fobid someone not die when one person looses it. /sarcasm

[Vexx]

The US *has* gun control; 50 different versions of it plus some federal stuff. Simply enforcing the current rules would be useful first ..... go fig.

[klowny]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Why do you not support gun control? Wouldn't that make the United States a safer place? When everybody have a gun, fist fights will less occur because it becomes more chaotic. I don't think the idea of allowing everybody to own a gun would result as a deterrent that prevents violence. In fact, it would promote it. Although I don't think Obama will succeed in getting the world out of recession but his action towards gun control is good.

i don't like the the idea of giving up the right to own a gun, it's used to defend and its not a good idea just to give it up. There has been a history of gun control laws that did not end very well

[Max Thrillington]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The US *has* gun control; 50 different versions of it plus some federal stuff. Simply enforcing the current rules would be useful first ..... go fig.

50.. more like thousands. But we're just 1 law away from safety ladies and gentlemen!

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Why do you not support gun control? Wouldn't that make the United States a safer place? When everybody have a gun, fist fights will less occur because it becomes more chaotic. I don't think the idea of allowing everybody to own a gun would result as a deterrent that prevents violence. In fact, it would promote it. Although I don't think Obama will succeed in getting the world out of recession but his action towards gun control is good.

I don't want USA to become a euro clone.

... and without the 2nd Amendment, the rest mean NOTHING (yes it's a cliche)

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Shadow Minato

Why do you not support gun control? Wouldn't that make the United States a safer place? When everybody have a gun, fist fights will less occur because it becomes more chaotic.

My wife says "an armed society is a polite society... after the first two weeks".
The problems in the US are NOT related to the type of weapons used - people find amazing creative ways to kill each other. We have deeper systemic societal problems that if addressed would go much farther in reducing crime/violence. Actually as it is, violent crime has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years (keeping hardcases behind bars til they're too old to be asses seems to have done some good). Spread across 300 million people puts it far below, say, automotive deaths. Britain would be my initial counter-example of how extensive "controls" don't help (never mind the countries in which only warlords and thugs having guns). But this is a thead about the 44th President and the 111th Congress, so I won't say anymore on the subject here.

I'd rather talk about what they're doing or not doing to band-aid our spiral into a Dark Age....

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The problems in the US are NOT related to the type of weapons used - people find amazing creative ways to kill each other. We have deeper systemic societal problems that if addressed would go much farther in reducing crime/violence. Actually as it is, violent crime has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years (keeping hardcases behind bars til they're too old to be asses seems to have done some good). Spread across 300 million people puts it far below, say, automotive deaths.

If Freakonomics is to be believed, the reduction of crime in the United States during the 1990s was due, at least partly, to the legalisation of abortion in the 1970s. I think the authors, Steven Levitt and John Donohue, make an interesting point.

So, how is this related to anything that Obama is doing right now? Not directly, perhaps, but tangentially, yes. Improving and rebuilding neglected infrastructure may help improve urban environments and eventually reduce crime, promote education and attract jobs — on a macroeconomic scale. Much of the actual work will still need to be carried out on state and county levels. Local leadership will have the most direct impact on how effective this massive stimulus package will turn out to be.

Hopefully, it wouldn't all be spent on useless pork.

[Vexx]

Pork seems to depend on where you're standing as per the bill. My favorite "numbnuts" today are two congressmen who voted against the bill and then took loud credit for the projects it was bringing to their district. Hopefully their constituents are paying closer attention :P

A number of talking point nonsense making the airwaves seems to think that, for example, school buildings drop out of the sky from magic pixies instead of counting as job-creating construction work. Or that removing asbestos doesn't count as a job.... remember these are the same idiots that happily doubled our national debt, used up our military without replacing the assets, passed tax cuts during military operations, and with corporate pressure underfunded government agencies to the point where our peanut butter kills us (and people in other countries it may be). They have just a little bit of a credibility problem right now.

Someone joked that if you're going to spend a lot of money, it is better if its people who know how to do it. When the Dems overspend, we seem to *get* stuff down at the peasant level. When the modern version of the Repubs overspend, the money just vanishes.

[Max Thrillington]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Pork seems to depend on where you're standing as per the bill. My favorite "numbnuts" today are two congressmen who voted against the bill and then took loud credit for the projects it was bringing to their district. Hopefully their constituents are paying closer attention :P

A number of talking point nonsense making the airwaves seems to think that, for example, school buildings drop out of the sky from magic pixies instead of counting as job-creating construction work. Or that removing asbestos doesn't count as a job.... remember these are the same idiots that happily doubled our national debt, used up our military without replacing the assets, passed tax cuts during military operations, and with corporate pressure underfunded government agencies to the point where our peanut butter kills us (and people in other countries it may be). They have just a little bit of a credibility problem right now.

Someone joked that if you're going to spend a lot of money, it is better if its people who know how to do it. When the Dems overspend, we seem to *get* stuff down at the peasant level. When the modern version of the Repubs overspend, the money just vanishes.

Employment and productivity aren't the same thing. Moving around asbestos creates NOTHING. It produces NOTHING. We're not in the position to be wasting our time making things look pretty. It's like a man who's up to his eyeballs in debt, his house looks ugly, it's in a state of disrepair. Walls have stress cracks, paint is peeling. So he borrows money to model it. Now his house looks pretty, he's deeper into debt. Does his pretty house help him?

They don't know what's going on, they seem to think we need to return the economy to the point before it failed not even realizing that the great economy we had was a phony one. Our GDP is 70% consumption subsidized by foreigners buying up our debts. The service sector ballooned up around this consumer economy that did nothing but pushed around easy credit. When it came time to pay our loans, America was broke. The flow of credit came to a halt and the economy that was fueled by consumption on credit collapsed like a house of cards.

Japan spent trillions paving over everything that could be paved. They amassed a debt that is the highest of any industrialized nation, 180% of their GDP. All this was done to stimulate their economy after the asset bubble burst. The Nikkei finally hit the bottom in 2003. It's trading at 65-75% off it's height of 40,000+ in the late 80s.

After all that trillions wasted on trying to revive their phony asset bubble economy. Yet somehow it's going to work in the US.

Geithner thinks the Japanese didn't spend enough.

[Vexx]

It produces a functioning school building where before you had a non-functioning facility. You've obviously never been in some of the schools being talked about. If that is "creating nothing" not much to talk about then. I suppose fixing up long under-maintained water supplies and unsafe bridges produces nothing either....

Unrelated to that, I do agree that a a fair portion of the "wealth" created over the last decade or so was imaginary, but that was part of the lovely delusions of Wall Street. But your description isn't quite exactly what happened to Japan --- the results cushioned the blow for the majority of society and spread the pain thinner over a longer stretch. The alternative is a repeat of the 1929-1932 scenario. And the current Nikkei is probably a lot more realistic. The value of the US market at the moment is still cocked up -- many companies are undervalued and many are overvalued because the institutional investors are, frankly, dumb as mud. They use poor metrics in evaluating their choices.

[Neki Ecko]

Originally Posted by Max Thrillington

Yeah but Obama is clueless about the economy. We're not going to get out of this buy borrowing more money and spending more and getting deeper into debt.

First of all, Obama isn't clueless about the economy at least he is tried to fixed the problem, unlike GOP.

I think you dont understand what "stimulus" really means, it supposed to help out the American People so they can spend again and have a job, even bring new businesses around the States.

Sure it is risky, but there is no other way unless you got a better idea. Obama is doing his best to fixed the problem. So have patience with him, besides you sound like one of GOP talking points from FOX anyway.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Max Thrillington

Japan spent trillions paving over everything that could be paved.

A result of pork-barrel politics actually. Or, more specifically, heavy lobbying by local construction companies. The idea of infrastructure spending to boost an economy is sound (Singapore, for example, took advantage of the construction slump in the 1990s to expand its mass-transit rail network), but its implementation can easily go awry.

Originally Posted by Max Thrillington

They amassed a debt that is the highest of any industrialized nation, 180% of their GDP... After all that trillions wasted on trying to revive their phony asset bubble economy. Yet somehow it's going to work in the US. Geithner thinks the Japanese didn't spend enough.

Geithner isn't completely wrong: Japan's domestic consumption is very low compared to its export revenue. That's why Japan is currently in its worst recession since the 1974 oil crisis, because its export markets are in severe decline.

Japan's problem was that its government took too long to jump-start its economy after its asset-bubble burst. As a result, the country got trapped in a deflationary cycle, discouraging Japanese from spending. Why should they? If prices are falling year-on-year, you'd become richer just by holding on to your cash, even at near-zero interest rates.

This continues to be a problem in Japan. Its fragile recovery over the past three to five years comes from its exports, and since that has collapsed, so has its economy.

[ZephyrLeanne]

[QUOTE=TinyRedLeaf;2222073]

A result of pork-barrel politics actually. Or, more specifically, heavy lobbying by local construction companies

.

The idea was to attract urbanites from the 6 major cities [Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and Fukuoka] to move to the smaller cities, like Sendai, Aomori, Fukui, ...

The idea of infrastructure spending to boost an economy is sound (Singapore, for example, took advantage of the construction slump in the 1990s to expand its mass-transit rail network)

,

Everytime there's a downturn, there's a new line.
After the 80's crisis: NS, EW Lines
After the 90's crisis: NEL
Around Sars: CCL, Jurong/Marina expansions
Right about now: Downtown Line

Pretty smart.

but its implementation can easily go awry.

True. Look north. Malaysia.

Geithner isn't completely wrong: Japan's domestic consumption is very low compared to its export revenue. That's why Japan is currently in its worst recession since the 1974 oil crisis, because its export markets are in severe decline.

I guess a recession hurts consumer sentiment.

Japan's problem was that its government took too long to jump-start its economy after its asset-bubble burst. As a result, the country got trapped in a deflationary cycle, discouraging Japanese from spending. Why should they? If prices are falling year-on-year, you'd become richer just by holding on to your cash, even at near-zero interest rates.

Quite a insightful view.

This continues to be a problem in Japan. Its fragile recovery over the past three to five years comes from its exports, and since that has collapsed, so has its economy.

Right on the spot.

[Cluelessly]

Originally Posted by Max Thrillington

snip

Nikkei intraday high was just short of 39,000...?

There is no problem with running a deficit in order to improve supply (productive asset or something of that sort). The problem only appears when the ROI is lower than what is spent (as it is now).

Originally Posted by Neki Ecko

First of all, Obama isn't clueless about the economy at least he is tried to fixed the problem, unlike GOP.

I think you dont understand what "stimulus" really means, it supposed to help out the American People so they can spend again and have a job, even bring new businesses around the States.

Sure it is risky, but there is no other way unless you got a better idea. Obama is doing his best to fixed the problem. So have patience with him, besides you sound like one of GOP talking points from FOX anyway.

The fix that they have proposed is worse than the problem. What does anybody believe will be accomplished by nullifying the losses of the banks? There is nothing to be "saved".

Keynes teaches us that money is to be spent in order to counteract the cyclical nature of business. Spending is done through the saved money from earlier. You cannot get around this. Maybe the true objective is to trigger a monetary reset, but otherwise he has no clue at all what he is doing.

The other thing about Keynes in the first place is that he is saying there is a surplus of government revenue during the good times. The argument to this is that government shouldn't be running the surplus anyway and should return it to the population as savings (not consumption). That'll never happen though so it's pointless to discuss.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Japan's problem was that its government took too long to jump-start its economy after its asset-bubble burst. As a result, the country got trapped in a deflationary cycle, discouraging Japanese from spending. Why should they? If prices are falling year-on-year, you'd become richer just by holding on to your cash, even at near-zero interest rates.

...And what would have happened if they had spent faster? You can't fix the problem with things like spreads by spending when it is created through the addition of more debt. The market continues to deflate no matter how fast you spend until it hits the equilibrium mark. Once the asset bubble collapses the business model depended upon by some certain major industries collapse completely. The resulting deflation is not something you avoid. Everything must be payed back. Deflation in today's sense is defaulting debt and the more you attempt to lend during a downturn the more defaults you will have.

Expanding: hypothetical case where interest rate is at 0%. This means banks must not suffer any default at all just to break even. The lower you push the rate the lower the allowable number of defaults. But during this period you want people to take on more debt in order to re-inflate. The chain is never broken because government chose to intervene. Whenever they stick their messy little fingers in places it doesn't belong balancing points are completely stripped away.

The recovery was fueled by the carry trade.

tl;dr They're doing the right thing if they want to force a reset.

I think I'm a broken record.

[Vexx]

Well, at least you're not a "GOP talking points broken record".

The bill was called the "Recovery Act" not the "Stimulus Act" so it didn't have the sole purpose of "job creation" which the GOP and its operatives keep mischaracterizing. I think you're right in that it won't "fix things" -- many parts of the bill are meant to soften the pain to the voting public and mitigate a free-fall into oblivion. Unfortunately, the first TARP pile, as predicted, basically got sent into the pockets of those who quite seem to realize how close they are to being lined up against the wall and shot in frustration. Frankly at the moment the "captains of industry" have no credibility at all and day after day simply prove they aren't even interested in their own corporations. The other thing is that Japan Actually Makes Things unlike the US where multi-national corporations have offshored a large chunk of our Making Things capability.

Personally, I'd like to see a number of changes to the concept of "corporation" at the moment. I'd also like to see changes in the regulation of stocks and the stock market to discourage speculation and encourage long term investment in reliable stable companies. I'd also like my flying pig in stripes, but meh. Geithner, imo, was a terrible choice - he's simply another rendition of Bernanke and Paulsen, all inside guys protecting their reckless buddies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7895505.stm hmmmm....

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Cluelessly

Keynes teaches us that money is to be spent in order to counteract the cyclical nature of business. Spending is done through the saved money from earlier. You cannot get around this. Maybe the true objective is to trigger a monetary reset, but otherwise he has no clue at all what he is doing.

I somehow suspect that you haven't fully grasped how money supply works. Yes, spending is done through money saved from earlier. But having savings also allows you to leverage. From a fiscal point of view, that means you're making more productive use of your asset — cash in this case.

One looming problem of this whole downturn is that "debt" is getting a bad name. Well, rightly so, in the case of Wall Street investment banks that were geared up to over 30 times their liquid assets. But gearing at lower ratios isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, on day-to-day operational levels, it's the grease that keeps a company running.

Yes, it's true that spending in the United States and Britain for the past decade has been fuelled by over-geared mortgages. But even so, debt remains a critical part of sound financial management, not least because it allows a company (or an individual) to achieve much higher returns on equity.

The truth is, bubbles are very hard to avoid in practice. That's why governments try very hard to control inflation during good times (and in this case, failed). A good deal of technical analysis might allow you to spot a worrying trend, helping you to avoid the pitfall before it bursts. In the end, though, no one can fully predict how irrational behaviour could affect a market. Speculators tend to move in herds and drag everyone else along, willingly or not.

The other thing about Keynes in the first place is that he is saying there is a surplus of government revenue during the good times. The argument to this is that government shouldn't be running the surplus anyway and should return it to the population as savings (not consumption). That'll never happen though so it's pointless to discuss.

Not true. Sovereign wealth funds are made up of such government surpluses. But that's another topic not relevant to the present discussion.

The market continues to deflate no matter how fast you spend until it hits the equilibrium mark.

Pray tell, where is the equilibrium mark? You're theorising from the comfort of an ivory tower. Meanwhile, the jobless man on the street couldn't care less — he needs a job, now.

Japan's problem was that it bit the bullet too late. Once the deflationary spiral had set in, the cost of reinflating its domestic economy through fiscal measures became too great. Hence the ever looming public debt that never achieved its intended aim.

What's really needed in Japan's domestic economy right now is actually more competition. In truth, it's still a very closeted, heavily-protected economy dominated by a handful of zaibatsu. Japanese companies prove that they are actually very competitive — in foreign markets — but at the same time, they don't want to compete against foreign rivals in their own turf. Products and services therefore improve at an inefficient pace, which does little to encourage the Japanese to spend instead of hoarding cash.

Originally Posted by Vexx

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7895505.stm

It seems that the only other certainty in life, other than death and taxes, is corruption. So long as we're fundamentally motivated by greed, I think it's a problem that'll never go away.

[Vexx]

Speculators tend to move in herds and drag everyone else along, willingly or not.

There *used* to be tools in place to discourage speculative investing that engages in rapid flipping. I'd like to see encouragement and return to well-planned long-term investing using whatever levers are necessary.