Job Losses Hit 533,000 Last Month, Worst in 34 Years

Make cheap consumer products for the Chinese.

 

Wouldn't that mean some would have to pick up a foreign language for a little understanding?

Americans HATE that.

 

I was kinda joking. I think we're a long ways from that. But the fact is that if we continue to inflate at this ridiculous rate, the rest of the world is going to start looking at their cheap dollars and want something to show for them. There is some ability to export services, but I can't see the US undercutting India on that. Traditionally, the US has been good at two things: growing stuff and making stuff. We're still good at growing stuff, and I expect an agriculture boom. We need to get back to making stuff.

 

it would help if the Chinese would stop fixing their exchange rate to ours.

 

Inflation is at a ridiculous rate? That's news to me and the rest of the world.

 

I was semi-joking too. I like to pile on our shortcomings, but in the long run, I wouldn't bet against the American drive to reinvent ourselves. It'll take a reckoning of giant proportions to snap us out of our hubris (third world nation with nukes, what?) , but there's a common thread of hope and inspiration that I don't think is easy to die or for another nation to copy. So while a paradigm shift in national prestige is very likely, that entrepreneurial spirit is ingrained in our culture (unless the welfare state smothers it completely...).

Yet those days are still far away, and I'm not looking forward living in those "in between years"...

What we're still excellent at doing is finding available inventions or discoveries and imagining new ways to make them. I guess that theory would be taken to task should the Chinese, Europeans, or other emerging nations discover a cheap way to make the next big thing, such as solar or wind power generation/storage.

 

M1 inflation (most closely tied to Fed Policy) is over 11%.

<a href="http://www.shadowstats.com" title="Visit ShadowStats.com"><img src="http://shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-m3.gif?hl=1" border="0" alt="Chart of U.S. Money Supply Growth" /></a>

M3 inflation has reduced mostly because banks are increasing reserves. If they started at rates from a few months ago, M3 inflation could go to 40%.

Price inflation is trailing indicator.