Debt Ceiling and Default

Quote from morganist:

How could it be a depression if it lasted a year. This is different it is not based on liquidity it is insolvency and demographic.

It was more like 2-3 years and it was generally accepted as a depression when it happened. From 1919-20, federal spending was reduced 65 percent. The New York Fed raised its discount rate to a record high 7%. From its peak in June 1920, the CPI fell 15.8 percent over the next 12 months. I wouldn't exactly say those were normal times.
 
Shortie,

The DEPRESSION is not that of our Grand Parents. The DEPRESSION is that of Ipods, Flat Screen Tvs, Cell Phones, and all that for the leaches and free loaders.

20% unemployment still leaves 80% employed as well.

Higher inflation, lower wages, and more unemployed will ripple through this nation. There is no end in sight as the UNEMPLOYMENT IS STRUCTURAL and nobody is creating a plan other than SPEND MORE MONEY.

Majority of the people do not trust Wall Street. This market is going up on light volume, volume is not returning. PERIOD. Banks, HFT, and locals on the floor are trading against each other. The average joe is now out of the "TRADING GAME" and Day trading is dead. Except here on ET where it still has a lingering stench.

Credit Card spending is UP UP UP . HOUSING is lower than it was in the 1930s. ....the housing ATM IS TAPed OUT! The floor or semi floor in the market is artificial and once the GOV stops proping up the Housing market, it will drop even harder!

States are broke,

Keep in mind. A GENERATION OF WEALTH LEVERAGE is UNWINDING. This country has yet to even reach the true pain threshold.

Keep an eye on the Layoff numbers in the next few months.

Fall and Winter are going to be far worse than 07 and people are really going to wake up.

But what do I know?

MK has a valid point as well.
 
Quote from MKTrader:

Total bunk about Greenspan. He wouldn't have even taken the job of Fed head and manipulated interest rates if he believed "self-correcting" was the way to go. The fact that he was once a Randian is immaterial. He was a pure establishment economist by the time he took that job.

How about the depression of 1921-1922? No stimulus, no FDR, the early Fed didn't get invovled. The gov't did basically nothing but tighten its belt and self-correcting worked beautifully. The same was true of every domestic depression before that (back when they correctly called them "depressions").

The Asian and Russian crises of 1997-1998 were largely left to self-correction and turned out much better than our TBTF, stimulate, regulate, new 2000+ page bills that don't address the real issues, etc.

I'm only stating what Greenspan himself said many times -- that the market would take care of excesses if left alone. In fact this was his response when directly confronted on numerous occasions with excesses in the mortgage industry. He was the chief regulator, but he did not believe in regulation! To his credit, he has now admitted that he made serious mistakes.
 
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