New Math

[basso]

Originally Posted by Kyrodis I've never claimed the present course has been great, but it's been vastly more beneficial than fiscal restraint/austerity. Removing assets from the private sector while its trying to deleverage is a terrible idea. I'm sure the average family with an underwater mortgage would be thrilled to hear that Uncle Sam wants to raise their taxes and reduce their disposable income. IMHO, there are a lot of things wrong with the present course. My gripes are primarily with where the government is spending its money. I also prefer lower taxes to increased spending because it would put the money directly in the hands of the households instead of various federal programs that have questionable value. Your turn. Do you advocate fiscal austerity? And if so, how do you see it helping anyone?

i advocate fiscal responsibility, at home, and by my government. whether responsibility requires austerity, hookers in cartagena, wine filled bathtubs in vegas, $32k/week trips to visit the family in Cali, lower or higher taxes, i have no absolute position. Absolutes are for Siths. our present course is unsustainable. the republicans in congress have proposed an alternative. the democrats have demagogued, Obama has demurred, defaulted on his duty as president.

you agree, apparently, that dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. the occasion is piled high with difficulty. would you rise with the occasion? or, rather, hath ye no stomach for a fight? then, like this president, depart, your passport made, crowns for convoy put in your purse.

hooker and blow await.

as for me, i'll strike out for the territory ahead.

[Kyrodis]

Originally Posted by basso i advocate fiscal responsibility, at home, and by my government. whether responsibility requires austerity, hookers in cartagena, wine filled bathtubs in vegas, $32k/week trips to visit the family in Cali, lower or higher taxes, i have no absolute position. Absolutes are for Siths. our present course is unsustainable. the republicans in congress have proposed an alternative. the democrats have demagogued, Obama has demurred, defaulted on his duty as president. you agree, apparently, that dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. the occasion is piled high with difficulty. would you rise with the occasion? or, rather, hath ye no stomach for a fight? then, like this president, depart, your passport made, crowns for convoy put in your purse. hooker and blow await. as for me, i'll strike out for the territory ahead.

It'd be a lot easier to discern what you're actually trying to say without all the tongue-in-cheek-isms, but it got several chuckles out of me. Kudos

Like you, I also advocate fiscal responsibility, but IMHO that's completely different from fiscal austerity. Government spending cannot be managed the same way you'd manage a household's (i.e. spend less than you earn, save money for a rainy day, etc). Continually operating this way at the macro level will cause the private sector to be slowly drained of all its financial assets.

Instead of worrying about insolvency, fiscal policy should to be tailored to the economic environment. The U.S. government cannot be insolvent unless it chooses to default on its "debts" voluntarily. The "debt level" is only unsustainable insofar as the levels of inflation government spending induces. In an environment where core/headline CPI is going practically nowhere, households are deleveraging and corporations aren't hiring, it's nonsensical that there's even debate about "debt levels."

My point is there are a lot of folks in Washington trying to solve the wrong problem. For all the good he's trying to do, Paul Ryan (bless his heart), wants to solve a government "debt" problem when:
1. There is no insolvency risk
2. The idle workforce problem or the household deleveraging problem should take priority

[bmb4516]

Originally Posted by Kyrodis Call me crazy, but it seems like you're preaching austerity.

You're crazy.

Austere - Definition - Having no comforts or luxuries

Greece is going through austerity. Spain, Italy - austerity.

Returning discretionary spending to pre-stimulus levels and balancing the mandatory side of the ledger through pro-growth tax reform, private retirement investment, and greater health care competition does not equal austerity.

[Kyrodis]

Originally Posted by bmb4516 You're crazy. Austere - Definition - Having no comforts or luxuries Greece is going through austerity. Spain, Italy - austerity. Returning discretionary spending to pre-stimulus levels and balancing the mandatory side of the ledger through pro-growth tax reform, private retirement investment, and greater health care competition does not equal austerity.

Apologies...maybe I used too extreme a word. If the semantics are an issue, then feel free to call it whatever you want: fiscal constraint, restraint, balance. At the end of the day, what is it that you find unsustainable about the public debt level?

Are you worried about the government running out of money and going bankrupt? Or are you worried about government spending without a corresponding increase in economic output leading to increased inflation?

The first can't happen. The second can, but IMHO is unlikely until the economy improves.

[Northside Storm]

Originally Posted by bmb4516 You're crazy. Austere - Definition - Having no comforts or luxuries Greece is going through austerity. Spain, Italy - austerity. Returning discretionary spending to pre-stimulus levels and balancing the mandatory side of the ledger through pro-growth tax reform, private retirement investment, and greater health care competition does not equal austerity.

All three of those things will be for nothing if the banks blow up again, and health care "competition" is an economic non-starter if you look at efficiency metrics around the world, and the theoretical foundations of monopsony.

Private retirement investment especially. The wave of contribution-based plans chasing the highest AAA-rated yields (which turned out to be complete securitized garbage) was a significant factor in a lot of pensions being shredded to pieces post-2008.

[Northside Storm]

Originally Posted by basso i advocate fiscal responsibility, at home, and by my government. as for me, i'll strike out for the territory ahead.

Thank god you're not on the FOMC, the country would have sunk by now.

You seem reluctant to discuss real solutions though...and seem content with just generalities. No thoughts on bank regulation that would encourage fiscal responsibility (examples like regulations on naked CDS, and financial clearing houses to replace the issuer pays system of ratings?)

http://business.time.com/2009/09/18/...agency-reform/

This is all progress, and that’s great. But I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t blowing an opportunity to do something bigger here. It’s hard to argue with increasing transparency and accountability and competition—even though increased competition among bond raters doesn’t necessarily do anything to increase the quality of ratings, as we’ve seen in both research and experience (there are 10 ratings agencies, but you only ever hear about 3 of them). The real problem goes to the very heart of the issuer-pay system. A rater that is beholden to the firm producing the thing to be rated is a fundamentally flawed concept. And we all know that. We all understand that these reforms are simply meant to make a bad system less bad. We live with that because the other obvious option doesn’t necessarily seem better. Plenty of commentators have thought back to the halcyon days of investors buying ratings directly, but there is such a vast public good in having ratings that anyone can see, in having ratings that (hopefully) warn the entire investing public when trouble is brewing, that the idea of going back to a system of privately purchased and held ratings seems questionable—and definitely not worth the high transaction costs. There, is, however, another way. We could create a disinterested third-party to mediate the relationship between issuer and rater. A number of people have suggested creating such a body, which could be either governmental or collectively controlled by the nation’s largest institutional investors. A group of finance experts at New York University have sketched out one version of how such a system would work: Read more: http://business.time.com/2009/09/18/...#ixzz1sMY9Q7Zh

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc9c5...#axzz1sMYLNsC8

A permanent ban on so-called naked credit default swaps is to be imposed across the European Union after lawmakers reached a deal to restrict the sovereign credit insurance to investors seeking to hedge long positions.