Mark, I did as you asked. The first site I got to on alta vista is this: parida.com
The rest weren't much better. My problem with your argument is this. You're saying, "We must build an interplanetary shield to protect us from annihilation from the asteroid that is hurtling towards us." I say, what asteroid?, and you tell me to search the web to find the answer???
Actually, the spread of this liquidity trap idea has more to do with Paul Krugman's eloquent use of rhetoric and a persuasive analogy than any real economic condition. (Check Japan's money growth... they're not pushing on a string; heck, they're barely pushing) Funny thing, Krugman was talking about Japan; somehow, due to general unease about the global economy, somehow this idea has been morphed into a very unsettling diagnosis of the U.S. Unsettling, dangerous, and complete hogwash.
>And yes, deflation and depression, if they occur, will be the result of unbanlanced income distribution, not that I should complain. We can see this is true just by looking to see people going hungry in indonesia, while corporate leaders complain about too much capacity.
Two points here. First, you're citing unbalanced international income disparity. But that has always been the case, always will be, and hasn't prevented U.S. growth any. In fact, in times past, the ratio of U.S. GDP to world GDP was much higher. Second, if we just limit income disparity to the U.S. itself, I give little credence to the hypothesis that the wage gap is widening dramatically. Besides, to take this to the ridiculous extreme, the U.S. had little problems growing during the industrial revolution, when the rich truly exploited the poor, or even before the Civil War, when the wage of a slave was zero.
Also, if you look closely at where the carnage is in corporate profits, you'll see that it's mainly in the multinationals that have expanded too far, too fast into new markets with sunshine projections that unfortunately didn't consider one thing: the ability of the emerging markets to actually afford their products. My favorite example is Coke, whose earnings difficulties have a lot to do with their hedging strategies, which can be basically summed up as: short dollar. Companies that operate mostly domestically, like the Big Three autos and the airlines, are having record years.
>So you and I are too rich, and some people in other countries are too poor. Now you can call me a socialist if you like.
No, you're quite right here. But the only solution that even has a half-chance of working is U.S. hegemony. I'm not particularly disturbed by that, but this is not exactly a P.C. idea.
Are Internet stocks too dear? Undoubtedly. Do we have an equity bubble? Perhaps. Is the U.S. economy falling off a cliff? A resouding no! |
