Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

[Azrael]

[Demon of Undoing]

No , actually , it's the level of economic analysis I am willing to do with you on this subject. I think all the love went out some time ago , and if I have to dig up three years of argument , well , me and Billy Brag decided some time back that we only give our life for love. Not doing it for a fight , it simply doesn't matter and you are unlikely to be moved anyways , as am I. We sit on two different sides of this issue, completely independently of any consideration of tribe. As mentioned , I've read enough of the various wings of the issue to know ( and where have I heard this before ) initial assumptions determine almost everything after. I'm simply not going through reams of it, I gave it up for Lent and it never found it's way back.

At any rate , if you're done with your wiseassery , I'll be done with mine. I'm done with mine , in any event. You can have all the last words you like.

[Azrael]

I'm done with my wiseassery, too. No hard feelings.

[Demon of Undoing]

I'll even go so far as to make an apology. All today I've been concerned I was having some sort of cardiac event only it fit no real profile in it's particulars. However, and this is something I want to get with Tinker about , I just did a very unusual neck- cracking that somehow made my pulse both more regular and made it stop pounding. Craziest thing, and I am not a fan of chiropractic , but it's like it never happened now , when I woke up with it and couldn't lick it. Now I have my usual second wind and feel like I could pull the ears off a gundark.

Which is to say that if I have abused people due to my own physical weakness , I have transgressed a rule I previously made with a rather stern oath. The self flagellation will commence shortly ( hey, I think the iPhone almost turned that into ' felatio' . Boy would that have changed the tenor of this post ).

Which is the long- winded and pompous way to say I'm sorry. This lot deserves a bit more consideration in both argument and in general treatment than might otherwise be warranted. There really are no low people here. Except me, and that's just a hobby.

[Azrael]

I accept your apology. Please accept mine. I'm sorry for being rude and condescending. Things got a little out of hand.

[~]

Looks like I picked a hellava day to change my avi...

[Tinker]

[Colonel Sun]

[Demon of Undoing]

It's possible , but my pulse was " dancing " as my wife put it. The beats themselves were normal , but would come in a short series, then actually pause for an instant. Varrying intensities , for at least 12 hours. Dizziness if I got up too quick , fatigue , but BP was normal and overall rate was only as elevated as normal activity might warrant. Everything went away with the neck pop ( a two- axis affair that is a technique made to kill from behind , no kidding) , literally instantly. Like I said , crazy. I wouldn't have believed it. This morning ? Full contact dancing ( think of Randall "Tex " Cobb in " Uncommon Valor" , that movie where Patrick Swayze did a credible performance as a Marine ) to half of " Mothership " from Led Zeppelin. Hardly broke a sweat. Who know ?

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

Q: Does it matter?

[Azrael]

Great chart. It looks like we do a good job keeping GDP ahead of the debt ceiling until the Great Recession knocks GDP.

[Colonel Sun]

[Demon of Undoing]

Thank you , Sun- sama. I am grateful for your knowledge and concern. In respect for the reason you bring and the well being of my family, I will indeed seek the guidance of a professional.

Benny Hinn comes to town on Wednesday.











Just kidding. I have an annual physical coming soon. My gratitude, however , is genuine.

[Alph]

[Hans Bulvai]

I think this belongs here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... employment

[HAL9000]

Actually there is a simultaneously a shortage and surplus of capital. This is because although there is increasingly more capital in existence, it is getting more concentrated in a small elite fraction of the population. Because the remaining proportion of capital outside the top 1-2 % is diminishing, it also follows that the ability of the majority to consume more is severely constrained, and therefore the upper class is less inclined to invest aggressively in new businesses, making their capital static and inefficient.

Government Deficit Spending causes capital accumulation in the upper class. This is because when the government subsidizes the lower class (or the unemployed), all the money given to this group by the government is immediately spent to buy goods and services just to survive. Thus the lower class and the unemployed instantly lose the money the government gave to them, and they lose this money to the upper class who sell these goods and services. But note that the government deficit spending was done by borrowing from the upper class in the first place. Hence during the same tax year, not only the upper class still owns the government bonds they received in exchange for lending that money to the government, but the upper class already recovers that money during the same tax year because the lower class immediately spends that money to buy from the rich. For this reason, the upper class actually likes the government deficit spending, no matter how much they complain on the surface. The only complication is that this time some of the government deficit spending is no longer accumulating in the upper class as much as during the previous decades, because the foreign trade deficit is causing this money to go other countries.

[HAL9000]

[HAL9000]

Some suggestions to save the economy:

1) Rather than just pay the unemployed benefits in exchange for doing nothing, the government should directly hire people and make them do useful things. Build infrastructure, improve education, many productive jobs that improve the quality of life.

2) The Federal Reserve gave nearly $1 trillion of interest free loans to the financial institutions who do very little to lend to small businesses that are the backbone of the US. Thus the Fed should directly lend to the small businesses a similar amount of money, and this would dramatically revive the economy.

[Torchwood]

Welcome to the forum, HAL

[Colonel Sun]

HAL9000, welcome.

[AzariLoveIran]

[HAL9000]

[Colonel Sun]

[Demon of Undoing]