I saw some moron I know posted this on facebook - this actually argues that deflation is good and that it's the great way to "make prices lower" since that's what people need in a recession - face ****ing palm. And by that I mean you should take your palm and use it to have sex with your face if you believe this to be true.
The problems in the 30's were caused by the Federal Reserve, not the free market. And now you want the government to solve this problem. Again they are making things worse.
Speculation happens when you have easy credit, which is again set by the federal reserve. If you have a central organization controlling interest rates, instead of the free market, it makes it that much easier to turn a bad situation in to a worse situation. The recession that started the great depression my have been about speculation. However it would not have turned into the great depression if the Federal Reserve did not compound the problem by tightening credit and decreasing the money supply. Our current Federal Reserve chairman thinks the fed caused the great depression. http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=59405
There is not now, nor has there ever been, "peace." That doesn't make it something not worthwhile and not worth working for. Regulations, policies, and intervention are gladly supported by the private interests involved. That's the biggest delusion - regulations are rigged, they are a scam. It's time to fight CRONY-CAPITALISM and corrupt government meddling as much as possible. This is only possible through small government. Let true capitalism, free minds and free markets prevail.
I don't understand why people don't see that QE2 is working. Stocks went up on the announcement of QE2 and were going steadily higher before correcting slightly the past few weeks. Today, stocks went up 150 points on an improved labor market and consumer sentiment. This in the face of contagion worries in Europe and North Korea acting nutty. I think we should go for a QE3.
It's microbrained macro- "I save good and carry no debt, and now look at me! If only the government was just. like. me!"
Why is saving and carrying no debt a bad thing? If we look at the US as a company then being in debt is fine as long as we're still in a growth mode. It's just a lot of pressure to put on a government to think of the national debt that our progeny will have to inherit if we continue this trend. I'm glad that the Commission for Debt Reduction was created, but who knows if they'll come to a consensus. Not only is our nation in this state, but the populace is promoted to spend rather then save as well and that's definitely a huge problem during the more difficult times. During Hurricane Katrina, I worked at George R Brown and people were given preset cards to purchase any vital supplies that they could. The program was scrapped because people were ultimately blowing the $2000 preset cards on things that weren't necessities and staying in the same predicament as before. I don't blame them at all because it's due to the government's urging citizens to spend, both democrat and republican, that we have a society where the majority of people live far far beyond their means. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2079rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html
Well, QE2 is over - wakko can you outline how the poor and middle class are destroyed? - are you going to say inflation? Or even better, hyperinflation? You gold monkeys should slink off the nursing home like that Family Radio "rapture in 2011" guy did. But a major political party subscribes to yoru newsletter, so no luck for the rest of us....
I don't agree. They are unpopular with idiot ideologues who have absurd sway over less-informed voters and very-large corporate conglomerates. The moderately well informed voter is behind these changes, as evidenced by this forum, for example. Most folks understand the rationale for a stimulus and the need to correct the deficit. However, a few blowhards and some massively-dependent-on-the-government-tit-corporations sway the politicians...
er sam, while I think the poor and middle class being destroyed is hyperbolic, a high unemployment rate and the national debt as it is right now, is nothing to sneeze at. While you can say that QE2 hasn't done that much harm, you can't exactly say it's done that much good either.
The Dow Jones/NASDAQ is not the greatest metric of economic policy tbh, a lot of it is driven by irrationality, and psychological patterns. When Wall Street is doing well, it doesn't mean the economy is necessarily doing well too. The best example I can think of is the dot com bust...when we had investors who overvalued their crap sky-high and drove Wall Street to the heavens with price/earnings ratios that actually did not make sense on these new media darlings. This was despite the fact that economically speaking, American productivity levels were more or less the same. Greenspan got jumped for just saying Wall Street was in a period of "irrational exuberance"...but he was damn right. Too bad he swallowed up, and said "the new economy" was producing things at a rate that his statistics couldn't catch up with, because, well, we all know what happened.
So what you're saying is, if we disregard the fact that all the QE2 Naysayers predictions of gloom and doom were wrong, and have been wrong for a long time, then the QE2 Naysayers were not wrong. Classic northside storm.
No, what I'm saying is that if you're trying to score internet warrior points off of other people by bumping threads from December 2010, then you might want to also look at your own position. While the apocalypse hasn't happened, and the middle classes and poor have not been decimated, high unemployment and catastrophic national debt are not exactly specters of rosy economic health. QE2 may have caused more harm than good. Certainly, to say that we need to engage in QE3 would be...a matter of contention to say the least. So, with all that said, wakko's position may be more valid then that of glynch's and I assume yours. While it hasn't quite swung the way wakko predicted, I'd say QE2 is swinging more towards inefficacy and not doing too much...which considering the possible implications in the future, means it is more bad then good. so, score one point for wakko, who didn't bother to re-bump this thread to ask what QE2 has done for us (not very much---QE2 ended, we're still stuck in mediocrity, and the markets didn't exactly crash when it ended, did they?)
So QE2 - which was expressly enacted to avert deflationary pressures and promote growth generally - and after which, a period of growth and targeted inflation ensued and which the naysayers said would cause runaway hyperinflation, and which did not - was unsuccessful, if you disregard that it did both those things and did not result in hyperinflation. Once again, another fantastic, inarguable point from Northside Storm about what "we" should be doing with "our" monetary policy. I truly cannot argue with such a position - your arguments remain unassailable in their structure.
