Krugman Warns Obama that He'll Face 1937 w/out More, Massive Stimulus

Krug is exaggerating a bit to push his agenda yet again. That said a new fiscal package financed by the fed quite likely to be in the cards over the next 12 months, but if congress turns down a fed proposal to spend and tax cut without having to pay for it then I will proclaim myself Santa Claus for one week
 
The timing must be right. It's all about getting re elected. They don't care about you or me. They care about getting re elected. As the election nears the economy will improve.
 
Quote from PragmaticIdeals:


1 dollar of debt today to pump up a meaningless stock market (0 underlying economic value) will be many more dollars of debt that a future generation will have to pay.


This is a ludicrous statement. "Meaningless stock market"? "0 underlying economic value? So, according to you all companies on the various exchanges have no value?
 
Quote from toc:

Did not read the article or the comments by ET folks but would want to point out one thing:

maybe you should try reading sometime instead of believing the state propaganda. I guess the world needs zombies too.

Stimulus did keep the banking system afloat and massive unemployment at bay. Without stiumulus package we would have seen CHAOS in the US and the world.

I MEAN HORROR MOVIE STYLE CHAOS.

Yes because prior to this Keynesian statist bullshit. The united states was just a collection of random tribes with no economic system using excrement as a medium of exchange. God Forbid if we return to the pure anarchy that existed prior to 1930.

If another stimulus package is needed then US will have to go for it. What will happening is US government will own lot more assets and companies, kind of socialism, and USD will take major hits. This will only be reversed if EU and other nations face similar trends and issue their own stimulus packages, then everyone will still run to the USD's safety and there might only be a controlled correction of this currency.

Government has saved Housing, Banks, Car companies.

WTF??

I think and hope that they are at the end of the barrel and soon stimulus packages will end. No need to bail out the 711 and NoFrills type stores or ball game teams and designer clothing franchises. Government has to draw and declare a line.

:D

Seriously, are you a registered voter?


Why is unemployment going to go to 20% BLS (35% real) because the fucking economy is a joke. Its an illusion and the wizard is being unmasked.

In the last 12 months every anachronistic socialist proxy company has been bailed out instead of allowed to fail.

let capital flow to the productive. Allow debt to de-levarage.

Name one thing that has been done to entice a person to start a small business. 70% of new jobs.

Are we going to see lower cost of capital for small business?
Lower regulations?
Lower taxes?


And this isnt just Obamas fault, he is just the icing the cake.

Meritocracy is dead, Klepto-Corporotracy is what we have now.

Enjoy the matrix.
 
Your heart is in the right place-yes Krugman and his internationalist ilk are distinctly anti-American and anti free market.

However you're making a few assumptive errors in your posts-errors in thinking that I too frequently make.

For starters, the Dollar: I wouldn't categorize the greenback as cheap. Except against the Yen it's pretty much at "average" prices. EVERY NATION is trying to weaken their currency. Think outside the box. The India's and Iran's of the world ARE NOT saying, "America's balance of payments suck, we don't trust dollars." Instead the rest of the world is saying, "how can we export our way out of our own recession if the Dollar continues to be competitively valued. Perhaps we can use threats to convince U.S. policy makers to support their currency "

To wit: Other than the Dollar what has become the worlds true flight to quality currency? The low yielding, backed by 2.7x more debt to GDP than the dollar, no natural resources, Japanese Yen.

If the dollar is mere garbage based on your set of fundamentals than the Yen should be bona fide rat shit using the same criteria.

Also as far as the destruction of asset wealth: keep in mind that those dollars banks lent creating a housing "bubble" didn't go up in smoke. They were paid to sellers. For every buyer who owns a condo priced in the stratosphere with bank money there is a seller who pocketed the money. Even in even out. It's only the mark to market of real estate on the decline acting as an asset wealth destroyer. U.S. home prices are still at levels above 2003-so the "bubble" part of the rise has filled in but the base line is intact. (maybe not forever but for now at least.)

As long as Asia remains the Factory For The West, i.e. unencumbered by protectionism, they will support the dollar and support Treasury securities.

My best guess is many of these currency and debt markets are going to trade essentially sideways for years without challenging last years highs nor taking out the early year lows.




Quote from PragmaticIdeals:

You speak of idealism, and yet you dogmatically propose that printing an "unimaginable" amount of money is somehow pragmatic.

Let's break down the mechanics of what really transpired, in essence:

1) Decades of artificially low interest rates and allowing banks to sell loans to 3rd parties (securitization), combined with a massive consumer (irrational) appetite for debt, caused a housing super-spike that has only deflation by about 50% thus far.

2) Trillions of "dollars" that the bank "created" and loaned, had 0 economic underlying value. Zero. They essentially gave money to someone with no means of repaying it, and this person spent it on buying an asset whose value was artifically high precisely due to incessant lending (increased demand).

3) The spike in household wealth likely spiked the stock market far beyond its economic means since people, businesses and banks invested and consumed more, thinking they were wealthy (income effect).

To sum up:

The economy was nothing more than a bubble of epic proportions, with 0 economic value underlying the "dollars" of wealth that is being "destroyed."

The wealth has dissapeared, but the debt remains.

Of course, some sort of financial system stabilization is required (preferably in the form of an accountable government-run system, or at least massively regulated like Canada). However, excessive money-printing to re-inflate the bubble and re-spike asset/stock prices will do nothing except shift the burden to future periods to feel the pain of the "wealth destruction".

The problem is that the further you stave off the pain, the EXPONENTIALLY larger the debt from the deficit-spending becomes, due to the time-value of money.

1 dollar of debt today to pump up a meaningless stock market (0 underlying economic value) will be many more dollars of debt that a future generation will have to pay.

A generation already encumbered by the debts generated by today's generation and likely won't even have the dollar as the world reserve currency to help bail them out.
 
quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
Also as far as the destruction of asset wealth: keep in mind that those dollars banks lent creating a housing "bubble" didn't go up in smoke. They were paid to sellers. For every buyer who owns a condo priced in the stratosphere with bank money there is a seller who pocketed the money. Even in even out. It's only the mark to market of real estate on the decline acting as an asset wealth destroyer. U.S. home prices are still at levels above 2003-so the "bubble" part of the rise has filled in but the base line is intact. (maybe not forever but for now at least.)

It seems to me this guarantees future inflation. The money has been created and is in the economy. The banks can (may or may not) write off the debt but the money paid out remains.
 
I agree, bro. It's hard for me to think there's 1931 type deflation coming when the world is still littered with beneficiaries from the Age of Liquidity. IMHO, yes there's a big deflationary winding down in global economies-which is why assets and even commodities and exchange rates are stuck in a range-but big picture there's certainly enough money out thee to cause corners in essentials.



Quote from nevadan:

It seems to me this guarantees future inflation. The money has been created and is in the economy. The banks can (may or may not) write off the debt but the money paid out remains.
 
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:

those dollars banks lent creating a housing "bubble" didn't go up in smoke. They were paid to sellers. For every buyer who owns a condo priced in the stratosphere with bank money there is a seller who pocketed the money. Even in even out.

The problem is that people spent $50 mill worth of inputs to build something worth $25 mill, repeated ad infinitum around the country - that's a huge net destruction of wealth.

The problem with bubbles is misallocation of resources and encouragement of wealth-destroying economic activity, not zero sum transactions.
 
Textbook true but not necessarily true to this discussion. Most of the slide in real estate values has been plummeting land prices while the cost of construction and materials have stayed well above earlier in the decade lows. And yes those land transactions are zero sum. I met a younger guy here on ET who turned 10k into 2mil by flipping in Florida. The money is safely in his pocket. So it matters little to him if the buyers stuck Wachovia or whoever on the hook for that 2mil. Said 2mil is now his.


Quote from Cutten:

The problem is that people spent $50 mill worth of inputs to build something worth $25 mill, repeated ad infinitum around the country - that's a huge net destruction of wealth.

The problem with bubbles is misallocation of resources and encouragement of wealth-destroying economic activity, not zero sum transactions.
 
Facing 1937 or a variant like that (aka sliding off into a 3rd world country unemployment) is inevitable in the USA, stimulus or no stimulus.

Prepare or perish!

You all know I am telling the truth :)
 
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