News Stories

[Shadow Kira01]

Rockets Strike Israel as Hamas Negotiates Gaza Truce

Once again, 2 rockets are fired at an Israeli town. Looks like the Gaza truce is on a long and bumpy road. I wonder if it will even get signed..

[Sinestra]

Well iv too interesting ones i read today the first one was really a good read. The first is how the Japanese economy recovered during the 90's when the government got involved. The second one is stories we see all the time about bombs being found from left over wars but it rarely heard from Japan.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183691?from=rss

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29079796/

[Hage-bai]

I guess that NYU professor should know what hes talking about. A decade long slump is probably the low risk option. At least he recognizes the usefulness of Pork.

[Cluelessly]

Originally Posted by Sinestra

Well iv too interesting ones i read today the first one was really a good read. The first is how the Japanese economy recovered during the 90's when the government got involved. The second one is stories we see all the time about bombs being found from left over wars but it rarely heard from Japan.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183691?from=rss

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29079796/

He's saying QE worked.

???

Capital infusion gave the government more leverage in finally forcing the banks to deal with the large amount of nonperforming loans on their books. Meanwhile, nationalized banks had their toxic assets stripped out and were sold back to the private sector, much like the solution to the American savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. The banking sector today is back on its feet, and many Japanese feel their government did the right thing.

Japan's bank spreads were too low. No matter how much money was provided they could not lend because nobody wanted the money. So they ended up pushing rates lower and lower. The lower the rates the rates went the smaller the spreads got which mitigated all the impact of what ever they were trying to do. This guy is an idiot. They were trotting some fools earlier too talking how good bank bad bank have worked before. It never gets mentioned that they were given control for free.

It hasn't ended in Japan. What they should be thanking is the carry trade that temporarily saved them (and is currently collapsing, notice the size of the unwind). These are the same news sources that have said things would be okay despite everything these last few years. These stories are full of errors. The biggest one comes from the fact that manipulating things like interest rates are pure crap. It is only the perception that matters.

They are trying to inflate the money supply by making more loans and increasing consumption. All of this requires the expansion of debt. Except debt is what is defaulting right now. They can't stop the defaults. If you go to the Fed's website and look at the statistics I think the one clear thing you will find speaking out to you is that debt is defaulting at a ratio greater than one. Every dollar they pump in results in more than a dollar being destroyed. This pretty much means an imminent reset. They had to pull back a bit on the "stimulus" plan too since bonds were reacting violently to the news. Except Russia's impending default and the crap happening over in the east will likely push money back into bonds so I'm afraid they really will manage to ram it through. The game will end though, it is a matter of time. Borrowing more as supply shrinks is...

And they know what they're talking about? No, not really.

If you ask an economist about their job I think most will answer that money does not matter. They are concerned with the "flow of goods". Outside of their theoretical worlds (where for some reason they seem to make math fit the model rather than model fit the math) it doesn't work. If it did we wouldn't be here in the first place.

[iLney]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7880969.stm
Mother ****.

1.5 Trillion?????

[ClockWorkAngel]

Where the HELL do they get that much money?!

[Anh_Minh]

"Clap your hands if you believe"?

[Shadow Kira01]

A-Rod - the new face of steroids

The youngest American baseball player to have scored 500 homeruns was actually on steroids. On the contrary, this is nothing unusual or unexpected..

[Vexx]

The US economic engine is... what, about $12 trillion USD? But the answer is, they borrow it (debt rises), print it (inflation rises).

The "economic engine" is largely an illusion anyway with much "wealth" being speculative rather than based on real goods --- this just sort of blows some of the fog off to reveal that to anyone paying attention.
(yes, that was a large amount of arm-waving... )

[Shadow Kira01]

Tornado Confirmed Near Oklahoma City

Anybody living near the tornado region here? Now is the time to find someplace safe and hide for awhile. Hopefully, the tornado will go away after awhile..

Spoiler for news footage:

Dalai Lama made honorary citizen of Rome

A great move by Italia! It appears that another country has joined the bandwagon of not fearing China or giving a damn about their propaganda.

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The US economic engine is... what, about $12 trillion USD? But the answer is, they borrow it (debt rises), print it (inflation rises).

Don't we borrow mostly from China, Japan, and saudi arabia?

[Vexx]

We sell bonds... many people buy them (including those 3). I can't recall the percentage split out or whether it differentiates between individual investors or actual governments in terms of foreign bond purchasing.
For example, "China" has a large percentage but I'm not sure without some research whether that means government purchases or individual Chinese purchasing (or corporations for that matter).

[LynnieS]

Originally Posted by Vexx

We sell bonds... many people buy them (including those 3). I can't recall the percentage split out or whether it differentiates between individual investors or actual governments in terms of foreign bond purchasing.
For example, "China" has a large percentage but I'm not sure without some research whether that means government purchases or individual Chinese purchasing (or corporations for that matter).

Most likely the central government itself is doing the buying. Outside of certain instruments, U.S. bonds aren't purchasable by individuals - unless, of course, you are a big investor; people usually purchase government debt through bond funds instead.

That's a lot of money, though... Hopefully, it will actually do some good!

[ZephyrLeanne]

Originally Posted by Sinestra

Well iv too interesting ones i read today the first one was really a good read. The first is how the Japanese economy recovered during the 90's when the government got involved. The second one is stories we see all the time about bombs being found from left over wars but it rarely heard from Japan.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183691?from=rss

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29079796/

You know, Japan never recovered from the bubble? Many foreigners think Japan had recovered, but really, it sunk in '86 and never got out. It's already the 23th year of the recession in Japan, people are living with it. It's like a economic downturn stretched out for 10x the length.

The downturn in Japan occurred gradually rather than catastrophically, is known as the "lost decade" in Japanese.

[LynnieS]

Originally Posted by ShimatheKat

You know, Japan never recovered from the bubble? Many foreigners think Japan had recovered, but really, it sunk in '86 and never got out. It's already the 23th year of the recession in Japan, people are living with it. It's like a economic downturn stretched out for 10x the length.

The downturn in Japan occurred gradually rather than catastrophically, is known as the "lost decade" in Japanese.

I thought that I saw somewhere that there was a (very very) brief uptick that caused people to consider the recession in Japan to be over? Even though, however, the country is now back in recession...

As for that Newsweek article, ugh. In addition to the long recession, Japan's national debt is at almost 200% (numbers I've seen range from 170 to 190% or so - but please correct if I'm wrong) of the country's GDP. That's big and expensive to just maintain - never mind actually paying it off!

[ZephyrLeanne]

Originally Posted by LynnieS

I thought that I saw somewhere that there was a (very very) brief uptick that caused people to consider the recession in Japan to be over? Even though, however, the country is now back in recession...

As for that Newsweek article, ugh. In addition to the long recession, Japan's national debt is at almost 200% (numbers I've seen range from 170 to 190% or so - but please correct if I'm wrong) of the country's GDP. That's big and expensive to just maintain - never mind actually paying it off!

Close enough. Above 100%, the figures are just plain wild. I don't really know it myself, either, even though I'm in Japan myself.

[Green²]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of its kind in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station. NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the crash, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday.

"We knew this was going to happen eventually," said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA believes any risk to the space station and its three astronauts is low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course. There also should be no danger to the space shuttle set to launch with seven astronauts on Feb. 22, officials said, but that will be re-evaluated in the coming days.

The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. The Russian satellite was out of control, Matney said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_166214.html

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Green²

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_166214.html

^ Ah damned. You've beat me to it.

Not for the first time, science fact catches up with science fiction. For all we know, Ai's already out there, well on her way to becoming the hopeless romantic that she'd eventually become.

[Kakashi]

Russia is so winning the space race with it's defunct satellites.

[Vexx]

Wham bam thank you mam .... at some point we'll have to send out large drift nets....