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On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with.
That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the other "side" is basically advocating stimulus spending to maintain socially adequate levels of employment, safety nets, and growth during times of recession, with the ideal plan that once the economy recovers you scale back government spending and begin paying off the debt.
Now, whether that happens is another thing entirely, as politicians like to piss away surpluses (historically republicans seem to be worse at it, too, I don't know about the "modern" republican party).
However, saying "there is no other side" is absurd. Standard macroeconomics "is the other side".
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On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with.
Why it is wrong to have so much debt and why should we worry about the debt right now?
The debt of the usa has been rising every single day since 1945 (and before) and the usa has been doing reasonably well, why is it so important to turn around this policy after now almost 70 years of non stop raising of the debt.
Will the usa completely collapse if the debt rises anny further? have we now reached the absolute limit of debt?
The debt is here to stay and grow till infinity and beyond. There is no way it will ever be repaid and there is no way it will ever drop.
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On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing.
In an environment where the government prints monney and gets more in debt everyday ,it is in general a smart strategy to take on debt yourself, specially if you use that debt to buy durable goods like a house.
Not only will your debt decline relativly due to the inflation (wich is a result of the monney printing of the government), you will also directly get a return on your investment because you dont have to pay rent annymore.
If i read here that people in the usa pay 1k a month for just a single room, then why not take a 150k mortgage for 700/month and buy yourself a nice house. You have a better place to live (priceless), you spare yourself 300 each month and on top of that you are 100% owner of the property after 30 years. A property that will have more then doubled in value in that time.
Even thoose who bought at the peak in 2008 will have a huge profit in 20-30 years. On top of that you risk absolutely nothing with buying a house in the usa, since if the market completely collapses you can just turn in the key and leave the house with no debt at all.
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On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset.
A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent.
Edit:On April 25 2013 06:20 Rassy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. In an environment where the government prints monney and gets more in debt everyday ,it is in general a smart strategy to take on debt yourself, specially if you use that debt to buy durable goods like a house. Not only will your debt decline relativly due to the inflation (wich is a result of the monney printing of the government), you will also directly get a return on your investment because you dont have to pay rent annymore. If i read here that people in the usa pay 1k a month for just a single room, then why not take a 150k mortgage for 700/month and buy yourself a nice house. You have a better place to live (priceless), you spare yourself 300 each month and on top of that you are 100% owner of the property after 30 years. A property that will have more then doubled in value in that time. Even thoose who bought at the peak in 2008 will have a huge profit in 20-30 years. On top of that you risk absolutely nothing with buying a house in the usa, since if the market completely collapses you can just turn in the key and leave the house with no debt at all.
It depends. You're ignoring taxes, fees and other costs. Also, Americans move a lot and so a 30 year+ time horizon isn't necessarily appropriate.
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On April 25 2013 06:02 BallinWitStalin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with. That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the other "side" is basically advocating stimulus spending to maintain socially adequate levels of employment, safety nets, and growth during times of recession, with the ideal plan that once the economy recovers you scale back government spending and begin paying off the debt. Now, whether that happens is another thing entirely, as politicians like to piss away surpluses (historically republicans seem to be worse at it, too, I don't know about the "modern" republican party). However, saying "there is no other side" is absurd. Standard macroeconomics "is the other side".
You're being completly mad. You just went though exactly what I said like I didn't just say it.
Stimulus and safety nets cost money. You're obviously not bringing money in during a recession so you now have to borrow a ton of money in order to spend it on those new safety nets and stimulus programs. Literally borrowing money to spend money to lower the amount that you're borrowing.
hideing being critisisim just because its "standard macroeconomics" doesn't make it any easier to fight against austerity. It Just helps those that advocate austerity.
Republicans "piss away" surpluses by giving the money that the government didn't need to take in back to the people it takes money from. Granted this was suppose to inhibit more "growth" but it doesn't make it any less right to do at the end of the day.
On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent.
You are missing the literal point of a home morgage. Its an investment for the future to protect your earnings. By simply holding onto your cash you are loseing money. You don't have enough money to make it worth investing on the stock market so you spend your money investing on the one thing thats available to everyday americans: real estate.
Just because there was a massive banking crash doesn't change the basic socio-economic climate of the middle class.
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On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent.
I think the "American Dream" insofar as its obsession with house ownership is definitely overzealous, but it is also founded on the very real lack of viable investment/ capital agglomeration tools for the lower income brackets. There needs to be some way for the middle and lower classes to take advantage of some of the things the wealthy are, and I don't mean mutual funds or 401k's, which we all know tend to hold up to financial crises like a barn in a Kansas windstorm. Lower end investors are forced to opt for such low risk opportunities that the whole thing becomes almost useless; meanwhile, once one hits the 200k club, a whole host of pretty clever financial tricks become available that effectively operate as financial mattress stuffing.
Financial education is definitely part of it, but there's gotta be more imo.
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I entirely agree with you there farva. The government really needs to provide something for the middle and lower class to invest their money into something even just while interest rates are kept so ungodly low and saving accounts are a joke. Rise-reward metrics aside the government needs to provide at the very least a single standard for the market to move around. The shipping system was created out of the US mail and I gotta believe something greater can come out of US investments or something.
Imagine selling t-bills in slices of $100 to $10 available to people straight out of their paycheck. Would get governments a lot more flexibility in how they have to approach their debt and give people and easy way to really buy-in to whats going on around them.
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On April 25 2013 06:36 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent. I think the "American Dream" insofar as its obsession with house ownership is definitely overzealous, but it is also founded on the very real lack of viable investment/ capital agglomeration tools for the lower income brackets. There needs to be some way for the middle and lower classes to take advantage of some of the things the wealthy are, and I don't mean mutual funds or 401k's, which we all know tend to hold up to financial crises like a barn in a Kansas windstorm. Lower end investors are forced to opt for such low risk opportunities that the whole thing becomes almost useless; meanwhile, once one hits the 200k club, a whole host of pretty clever financial tricks become available that effectively operate as financial mattress stuffing. Financial education is definitely part of it, but there's gotta be more imo.
IMO the tools that exist are fine. People just need to know how to use them.
Ex. A 401k is for retirement. You shouldn't care about the short term fluctuations. That's the only 'financial trick' you need.
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On April 25 2013 06:35 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:02 BallinWitStalin wrote:On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with. That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the other "side" is basically advocating stimulus spending to maintain socially adequate levels of employment, safety nets, and growth during times of recession, with the ideal plan that once the economy recovers you scale back government spending and begin paying off the debt. Now, whether that happens is another thing entirely, as politicians like to piss away surpluses (historically republicans seem to be worse at it, too, I don't know about the "modern" republican party). However, saying "there is no other side" is absurd. Standard macroeconomics "is the other side". You're being completly mad. You just went though exactly what I said like I didn't just say it. Stimulus and safety nets cost money. You're obviously not bringing money in during a recession so you now have to borrow a ton of money in order to spend it on those new safety nets and stimulus programs. Literally borrowing money to spend money to lower the amount that you're borrowing. hideing being critisisim just because its "standard macroeconomics" doesn't make it any easier to fight against austerity. It Just helps those that advocate austerity. Republicans "piss away" surpluses by giving the money that the government didn't need to take in back to the people it takes money from. Granted this was suppose to inhibit more "growth" but it doesn't make it any less right to do at the end of the day.
Woah woah woah, if Republican policies were to return the money the government doesn't need then they wouldn't do it in the form of tax cuts that they fought tooth and nail to incorporate intractably into the tax code.
"Stimulus" as an economic concept is formulated around the idea that it actually creates value in an economy. It follows from the idea of investment in general-which is certainly not some the creation of standard macroeconomics. How much and when is another issue entirely. You seem to be describing a government whose entire purpose is to have a balanced budget, which is not what government is about at all and thank god for that-the best way to balance the budget is to eliminate the government entirely!
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On April 25 2013 06:47 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:36 farvacola wrote:On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent. I think the "American Dream" insofar as its obsession with house ownership is definitely overzealous, but it is also founded on the very real lack of viable investment/ capital agglomeration tools for the lower income brackets. There needs to be some way for the middle and lower classes to take advantage of some of the things the wealthy are, and I don't mean mutual funds or 401k's, which we all know tend to hold up to financial crises like a barn in a Kansas windstorm. Lower end investors are forced to opt for such low risk opportunities that the whole thing becomes almost useless; meanwhile, once one hits the 200k club, a whole host of pretty clever financial tricks become available that effectively operate as financial mattress stuffing. Financial education is definitely part of it, but there's gotta be more imo. IMO the tools that exist are fine. People just need to know how to use them. Ex. A 401k is for retirement. You shouldn't care about the short term fluctuations. That's the only 'financial trick' you need.
Are you saying that the middle and lower classes susceptibility (which, arguably, has been shown to be increasing) to economic crises relative to the wealthy is nothing more than a product of their ignorance?
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On April 25 2013 06:50 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:47 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 25 2013 06:36 farvacola wrote:On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent. I think the "American Dream" insofar as its obsession with house ownership is definitely overzealous, but it is also founded on the very real lack of viable investment/ capital agglomeration tools for the lower income brackets. There needs to be some way for the middle and lower classes to take advantage of some of the things the wealthy are, and I don't mean mutual funds or 401k's, which we all know tend to hold up to financial crises like a barn in a Kansas windstorm. Lower end investors are forced to opt for such low risk opportunities that the whole thing becomes almost useless; meanwhile, once one hits the 200k club, a whole host of pretty clever financial tricks become available that effectively operate as financial mattress stuffing. Financial education is definitely part of it, but there's gotta be more imo. IMO the tools that exist are fine. People just need to know how to use them. Ex. A 401k is for retirement. You shouldn't care about the short term fluctuations. That's the only 'financial trick' you need. Are you saying that the middle and lower classes susceptibility (which, arguably, has been shown to be increasing) to economic crises relative to the wealthy is nothing more than a product of their ignorance?
I'm not sure that your statement about middle class susceptibility relative to the wealthy is correct, but to an extent, yes, I'm blaming ignorance. Credit was "democratized" but the knowledge to make good use of it wasn't.
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On April 25 2013 06:35 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:02 BallinWitStalin wrote:On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with. That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the other "side" is basically advocating stimulus spending to maintain socially adequate levels of employment, safety nets, and growth during times of recession, with the ideal plan that once the economy recovers you scale back government spending and begin paying off the debt. Now, whether that happens is another thing entirely, as politicians like to piss away surpluses (historically republicans seem to be worse at it, too, I don't know about the "modern" republican party). However, saying "there is no other side" is absurd. Standard macroeconomics "is the other side". You're being completly mad. You just went though exactly what I said like I didn't just say it. Stimulus and safety nets cost money. You're obviously not bringing money in during a recession so you now have to borrow a ton of money in order to spend it on those new safety nets and stimulus programs. Literally borrowing money to spend money to lower the amount that you're borrowing. hideing being critisisim just because its "standard macroeconomics" doesn't make it any easier to fight against austerity. It Just helps those that advocate austerity. Republicans "piss away" surpluses by giving the money that the government didn't need to take in back to the people it takes money from. Granted this was suppose to inhibit more "growth" but it doesn't make it any less right to do at the end of the day. Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent. You are missing the literal point of a home morgage. Its an investment for the future to protect your earnings. By simply holding onto your cash you are loseing money. You don't have enough money to make it worth investing on the stock market so you spend your money investing on the one thing thats available to everyday americans: real estate. Just because there was a massive banking crash doesn't change the basic socio-economic climate of the middle class.
Sorry bit im going to snip 1 comment you made that i think needs adressing.
Republicans "piss away" surpluses by giving the money that the government didn't need to take in back to the people it takes money from. Granted this was suppose to inhibit more "growth" but it doesn't make it any less right to do at the end of the day.
What is meant by "pissing away" the surplus is that in this vision of economics you borrow more money during a recession to keep safety nets ect in place and "jump start" the economy instead of smother it with austerity and when the recession ends you spend the surplus on reducing the deficit. You don't give that money "back to the people". You don't lower taxes, you use the surplus to pay back the debt.
If you use the surplus, as Republicans indeed have often wanted, to reduce taxes instead your deficit doesn't shrink and your income lowers. Now at the time you can handle that since the economy is doing fine but once another recession hits, and it will hit, you need to borrow more money again and you haven't begone to repay your old debt yet, so the debt keeps rising and rising until it gets out of control.
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On April 25 2013 06:35 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:02 BallinWitStalin wrote:On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with. That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the other "side" is basically advocating stimulus spending to maintain socially adequate levels of employment, safety nets, and growth during times of recession, with the ideal plan that once the economy recovers you scale back government spending and begin paying off the debt. Now, whether that happens is another thing entirely, as politicians like to piss away surpluses (historically republicans seem to be worse at it, too, I don't know about the "modern" republican party). However, saying "there is no other side" is absurd. Standard macroeconomics "is the other side". You're being completly mad. You just went though exactly what I said like I didn't just say it. Stimulus and safety nets cost money. You're obviously not bringing money in during a recession so you now have to borrow a ton of money in order to spend it on those new safety nets and stimulus programs. Literally borrowing money to spend money to lower the amount that you're borrowing. hideing being critisisim just because its "standard macroeconomics" doesn't make it any easier to fight against austerity. It Just helps those that advocate austerity. Republicans "piss away" surpluses by giving the money that the government didn't need to take in back to the people it takes money from. Granted this was suppose to inhibit more "growth" but it doesn't make it any less right to do at the end of the day. Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:25 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 25 2013 03:16 aksfjh wrote:On April 25 2013 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 18:29 paralleluniverse wrote:On April 24 2013 03:03 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On April 24 2013 02:48 farvacola wrote:Gosh, I wish I had enough money to insulate myself from the rest of the country! WASHINGTON (AP) — The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for 93% of the nation's households, the Pew Research Center said Tuesday.
The Pew report says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% 2009 through 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped 4%.
Pew says the main reason for the widening gap is that affluent households have stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy have more of their assets in their homes, which haven't fully regained their value since the housing downturn.
The upper 7% of households owned 63% of the nation's household wealth in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, said the report, which analyzed Census Bureau data released last month.
Tuesday's report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.
A September Census Bureau report on income found that the highest-earning 20% of households earned more than half of all income the previous year, biggest share in records kept since 1967. A 2011 Congressional Budget Office report said incomes for the richest 1% soared 275% between 1979 and 2007 while increasing just under 40% for the middle 60% of Americans. Pew: 93% of households lost net worth 2009-11 Three cheers for diversification! Edit: Maybe it's time to start emphasizing financial literacy in education a bit more? If as a country we want to give more economic control to the middle class then we best make sure that they'll be fine stewards of the wealth. What has diversification got to do with anything? Are you suggesting that rich people have lived through the Great Recession just fine and gotten richer because they know how to diversify their portfolio, whereas, the rest don't? And how exactly do you suggest we emphasize financial literacy, when most of these issues aren't even understood by experts? For example, how do you make money on the stock market? There are principles that most people think are correct, e.g. diversification, but there's still no known complete answer to the question. Or, when should I buy a house? Are you going to teach them that you shouldn't buy a house in a middle of a housing bubble and then give them a 5-step guide to detecting housing bubbles? A lot of people went through the past decade with their only major asset being their house. When house prices went up they did well, when house prices went down they did bad. Moreover, when house prices went up they cashed out to finance current consumption. That's not good decision making. And when I'm talking about financial literacy I want people to understand the mortgage they're taking out, how to manage their personal finances and how to plan for their retirement. Basic stuff. Stuff that would have saved a lot of people from 'predatory lending' and the like. As for "how do you make money on the stock market?" - how do you make money owning a home? At it's heart it's the same thing. What else are they supposed to invest in? Stocks and bonds? At least if they spend the money and own the home, they'll be able to live in it. Even if the home becomes worthless to others, it will still hold value to them. The only value for many other assets, to the owner at least, is the value in reselling the asset. A lot of people would have been better off just leaving their money as cash. You can always rent. You are missing the literal point of a home morgage. Its an investment for the future to protect your earnings. By simply holding onto your cash you are loseing money. You don't have enough money to make it worth investing on the stock market so you spend your money investing on the one thing thats available to everyday americans: real estate. Just because there was a massive banking crash doesn't change the basic socio-economic climate of the middle class.
That.....doesn't make any sense? I am basically saying that "the other side" is advocating stimulus spending during recessions, and debt repayment during boom cycles. Basically, you spend when you are able to, repaying it when you can (when economy is doing well, tax revenues are higher, social safety nets are not needed as much).
Austerity, as I interpret it, is basically trying to eliminate deficits during recessions.
There's nothing wrong with living within your fiscal means, and it makes the most sense to do so. Eliminating deficits long-term should, obviously, be a desirable goal.
Just not during times of recession.
That's the "other side". If this is what you are saying, then we're in agreements. But you're support of austerity programs as a response to the global recession seems like you're against this proposal.
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Who are you formatting your posts for like that? Your not even responding to anyone you're literally just taking random news stories from the week and adding your own slant to them. If people wanted that they could just literally read hippie news.
I mean we get it you are pro-legalization. Do you have any point or are you just trying to make sure we're all on the same page about that?
[/SATIRE]
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On April 25 2013 06:46 Sermokala wrote:
I entirely agree with you there farva. The government really needs to provide something for the middle and lower class to invest their money into something even just while interest rates are kept so ungodly low and saving accounts are a joke. Rise-reward metrics aside the government needs to provide at the very least a single standard for the market to move around. The shipping system was created out of the US mail and I gotta believe something greater can come out of US investments or something.
Imagine selling t-bills in slices of $100 to $10 available to people straight out of their paycheck. Would get governments a lot more flexibility in how they have to approach their debt and give people and easy way to really buy-in to whats going on around them.
I think you can do that with Treasury Direct's Payroll Savings Plan.
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On April 25 2013 07:55 aksfjh wrote:Who are you formatting your posts for like that? Your not even responding to anyone you're literally just taking random news stories from the week and adding your own slant to them. If people wanted that they could just literally read hippie news. I mean we get it you are pro-legalization. Do you have any point or are you just trying to make sure we're all on the same page about that? [/SATIRE]
He has a hammer and he posted a youtube video.
The other guy made 3 posts in a row with nothing but words and formatting
On April 25 2013 08:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 06:46 Sermokala wrote:
I entirely agree with you there farva. The government really needs to provide something for the middle and lower class to invest their money into something even just while interest rates are kept so ungodly low and saving accounts are a joke. Rise-reward metrics aside the government needs to provide at the very least a single standard for the market to move around. The shipping system was created out of the US mail and I gotta believe something greater can come out of US investments or something.
Imagine selling t-bills in slices of $100 to $10 available to people straight out of their paycheck. Would get governments a lot more flexibility in how they have to approach their debt and give people and easy way to really buy-in to whats going on around them. I think you can do that with Treasury Direct's Payroll Savings Plan.
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WASHINGTON -- More than five years since the start of the Great Recession, unemployment remains a major economic problem in the United States, with long-term unemployment among its most stubborn aspects.
Nobody told Congress.
A hearing Thursday on long-term unemployment held before the 19-member Joint Economic Committee began with just a single lawmaker in attendance. Panelists testifying on the problem and its potential solutions spoke only to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the committee's vice-chair, for the beginning of the roughly 90-minute session.
The all-but-complete absence of congressional interest was first documented by National Journal reporter Niraj Chokshi, who tweeted a photo of the hearing. Shortly after the photo was posted, several other lawmakers did trickle in to participate. Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) arrived eight minutes into the hearing. Once the hearing had been under way for 35 minutes, Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) was also in attendance, according to Chokshi. Eventually Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) also joined, bringing the crowd to four.
More than 4.6 million Americans have been jobless for at least 27 weeks, according to the latest job figures, a rate of 3.0 percent. That's higher than at any point since World War II, including the 2.6-percent peak during the recession of the early 1980s. The official unemployment rate currently stands at 7.6 percent, down from 10.0 percent at the recession's darkest moments, although much of the reduction has been due to people leaving the workforce -- simply giving up hope of finding a job.
Source
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On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with.
Far left blogs? Most of those links are just news websites which have quoted some people. You can probably look up those quotes in far-right news sources, if they talk about this stuff.
Yes, austerity is a plan to combat national debt, except the RR study which found that there's a catastrophically dangerous 90% of GDP threshold where growth massively dropped of (or so they claimed) had a Excel error, which debunked it's findings. There is no need to combat national debt right this moment. The 3 major economies with amongst the highest debt are US, UK and Japan, they are also the countries that can borrow at the lowest interest rates.
You say that there is no viable alternative to austerity as if you haven't even heard the other side of the story. But there is another side: Debt is not at dangerous levels right now, government spending increases employment and output, which alleviates the waste of human capital caused by long-term unemployment. It's even possible to do stimulus via printing money which doesn't increase debt. No, it's not highly inflationary in these times, and those predicting high inflation have been proven wrong. Keep monetary policy loose, interest rates at zero and continue QE to keep credit flowing and to encourage economic activity. When the economy is stronger, growth will automatically reduce debt to GDP and government spending should be cut when the economy is near full employment.
There's no evidence to suggest that austerity is a wall holding a building up. In fact the evidence shows that the event that prevented the Eurozone from collapsing, was not austerity, it was when the ECB committed itself to unlimited support of government bonds. Who's saying the sequester and spending cuts is holding the US up, as opposed to stifling growth?
It seems that the case for austerity is falling apart, given the events of the week, that's why I wrote that post.
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On April 25 2013 11:49 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:Austerity didn't win and isn't winning because its a smart good policy in any way. Its winning because there is literally nothing else out there to argue against it. Because austerity is a plan to combat a national debt. What other economical plans are out there? Raise the national debt in some attempt to lower the national debt? Can you really sell that to people on the street? Arguing against austerity is literally arguing against a wall holding some building up that you don't like. It really doesn't give a shit because its a wall. On April 25 2013 01:23 aksfjh wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, parallel doesn't get to post as much as some of us. His posting comes in bursts. His information is still relevant. Also notice that he actually puts information in his posts, Sermokala, as compared to much of the nonsense you espouse.
I was planning to bring up some points to his posts, but have been chin deep in work this morning. Glad to see you too. His 3 posts in a row there weren't painted to anyone they were literally just commentary and random links and quotes to various far left blogs, with some far left news papers to give him an aura of credibility. In what aspect even though? None of them have any point, none of them have any direction, all of them are just hate and bashing people he doesn't agree with. Far left blogs? Most of those links are just news websites which have quoted some people. You can probably look up those quotes in far-right news sources, if they even talk about this stuff. Yes, austerity is a plan to combat national debt, except that study which claimed that national debt was close to the catastrophically dangerous 90% of GDP threshold where growth massively dropped of (or so they claimed) had a Excel error, which debunked it's findings. There is no need to combat national debt now. The 3 major economies with the amongst the highest debt are US, UK and Japan, they are also the countries that can borrow at the lowest interest rates. You say that there is no viable alternative to austerity as if you haven't even heard the other side of the story. But there is another side, debt is not at dangerous levels, government spending increases employment and output, which alleviates the waste of human capital caused by long-term unemployment. Keep monetary policy loose, interest rates at zero and continue QE to keep credit flowing and to encourage economic activity. There's no evidence to suggest that austerity is a wall holding a building up. In fact the evidence shows that the event that prevented the Eurozone from collapsing was when the ECB committed itself to unlimited support government bonds. Who's saying the sequester and spending cuts is holding the US up, as opposed to stifling growth? It seems that the case for austerity is falling apart, given the events of the week, that's why I wrote that post.
The RR study came out in what 2010? Austerity isn't something that came out of nowhere in the past 3 years. The study didn't claim any massive event other then a lagging of national growth by 1% year over year. This idea that its going to collapse the austerity movement is a product of how hyper-partisan the anti-austerity crowd has gotten. There is no real alternative to it. I don't see how an attempt to balance nations budgets in order to fight off exponential sovereignty debt is in any way contrary to the ECB supporting buying government bonds. I would in fact say that they only way that they can support government bonds unlimited like they are is because china and Germany know that these countries are serious about being able to pay for these governments bonds that the ECB is buying.
You can't deny that portugal/spain/greece are on fire literally and financially. Growth simply isn't something you can count on to put out these fires. No economist in the world should or would tell you that they know how to make growth happen. Raising taxes, lowering spending, is how everyone will tell you how a government can lower its deficit.
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EPT
