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As far as I can tell, anything less than 2% inflation is a "Deflation Death Spiral". Fear of the deflation bogeyman is reaching absurd levels. Of course, this fear is what allows governments to inflate with impunity.

Actually, the CIA is a front company for Goldman Sachs.

Hmm... 5 billion is the amount GMAC got from TARP. 60 days is the the amount of time GM has to present the new plan for viability. Coincidence?

Easy. These numbers are completely made up, I don't know what they are, but this illustrates the concept. In a given year, the government collects 200 billion in Social Security Tax. It pays out 100 billion in benefits. It has 100 billion surplus left over. So what it does is take that 100...

$488 billion in 2008. Note that a budget year ends Sept 30, so TARP etc count towards the 2009 budget. No worries, though, Obama says he plans to half the deficit by the end of his term, so by 2012 it will only be $900 billion.

I know people who believe "fractional reserve banking" means that a fraction of the banks total deposits are kept at your local branch, and the rest is kept at some "main vault" somewhere. They have no idea what it actually means.

The salary freeze for government workers applies to 100 government workers. Even less than a drop in the bucket. Number of lobbyists thrown out of Washington == 0. He just prohibited anyone working in his admin from lobbying for 5 years after leaving. The same restrictions Clinton had...

After watching some of these hearings and listening to the questions, I've decided Bob Corker (I think that is who it was) is the only Senator on this committee who has any kind of brain.

Hopefully he means Liesman? I put Macke in with Santelli as the only two I can tolerate.

I'm not sure what you guys are expecting. Yes, you have heard over and over how this season will be a catastrophe, worst ever on record, etc. But that doesn't mean sales will be down 30% or something. If you look at forecasts sales growth will probably be close to flat or -2% at most. Why...

credit crunch = having actual lending standards

It is public debt plus private debt.

I don't know what it means, I was just doing some math. In 1929, GDP was 101444 M, from the chart Debt/GDP was about 175% Total Debt/101,444 = 1.75 Total Debt = 177527 M In 1933, GDP shrunk to 68,337, Debt/GDP was 265% Total Debt/68337 = 2.65 Total Debt = 181093 M Not a big...

Looking at that chart, I find it hard to believe that credit expanded so much from 1929-1933. I assume the spike on this chart during those years is due to contraction of GDP.

I'm guess I'm on the other side of everyone's trade. I think Paulson has done OK with the $700 billion. From the beginning, I thought it was about preventing the domino effect of bank failures, which via FDIC would basically mean game over. Since the bailout passed, some amount of confidence...

Pretend I am in idiot (it should not be hard :)). Forget the debt, getting back to inflation. Are you saying steep inflation can only be caused by a increase in the narrow money supply, and not the broad money supply? If so, why not? I've always considered the statement "printing money" or...

Many people who follow the Fed's balance sheet now acknowledge the Fed is engaged in "quantatitive easing". Do you not consider this "simply printing money"?

At the risk of asking a stupid question, why can't the automakers just borrow from the Fed's commercial paper facility?

I would get rid of the Fed but.... Given that our money can be created out of thin air by running the printing press (or at this point, simply a click of the mouse) I certainly don't want that power to lie with politicians. That's the path to Zimbabwe.

"The current veteran UAW member at GM today has an average base wage of $28.12 an hour, but the cost of benefits, including pension and future retiree health care costs, nearly triples the cost to GM to $78.21, according to the Center for Automotive Research." Is this stat wrong?