Best Santelli Rant in a while..
- Thread starter Tsing Tao
- Start date
Santelli, in an odd sort of way reminds me of some of the more colorful politicians that ran for President in Ecuador, and got elected. One of them even mooned his fellow Ecuadorians on TV. I'm not sure that dropping one's pants in a Finance and Banking Committee Hearing would be all that effective.
I am trying to suggest something definitive that you would be happy with. The goal here is for the TWO OF US together to come up with a set of variables that we feel would settle the "dispute".
1-9. Agreed.
10. Yes, because I like articles that tell me about where stuff is going, rather than where it has been. It's my professional bias. If you'd like me to point you to specific data that HAS improved, that's a lot easier and I can certainly provide you a lot of that.
11. Yes, so you have, and I can certainly provide arguments against your arguments. However, given that we're talking about the future here, it appeared to me that a bet would be an optimal solution. Indeed, given that you were arguing against an article titled "Future is bright", I assumed that your view can be summarized as "Future is NOT bright". Hence, my suggestion of a bet. In fact, if you were to look more closely in the CR article, you would also note that it also contains a lot of stuff that has actually improved.
12. I DO want a bet. I just want a bet that we both agree is definitive (see above). If we cannot come up with such a bet and you want me to just answer your narrowly defined, specific question, I can certainly do that.
The only "dispute" here is that you believed QE1, 2 and Twist worked, whereas I did not. Not sure what would settle that dispute other than a debate about it, and likely you wouldn't give ground on that no matter what was shown. So that's out.
The only other thing I asked was why you changed your tune on QE3, and you claimed that previous versions of QE were warranted by the economic backdrop. Therefore (and these are my words) the current economic backdrop must have improved markedly to no longer warrant QE, ipso facto.
So I'm asking you what has improved, and you simply haven't given me anything that has improved. Even the Fed would, it seem, disagree with you that the economy has improved, for they continue with QE in the belief the economy needs it. Therein lies my problem.
I never agreed that QE was the right path - simply because the risks are too great of future imbalances, and it only rewards the rich through asset appreciation (markets, etc). You agreed with the Fed and QE because you agreed their economic view of the economy warranted such unusual efforts, yet now you don't, even though the Fed does.