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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (76604)	2/26/2000 11:57:00 AM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

wayne, here is my view. alan caused the bubble. he knew it while he was doing it. the purpose was to keep the us economy from imploding the recessionary world. now, al.com would LIKE the markets to stay flat or maybe drop a little. not much. does he want to deflate the bubbble? dow 6k naz 2.5k? NO WAY! he wants a bubble, but only so big. but, alas, he won't do anything about it but talk. especially before the election. most con men get you to listen to them so you don't pay attention to their hands. watch alan's hands, not his mouth.

To: Freedom Fighter who wrote (76604)	2/26/2000 1:52:00 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Wayne - "February 1996 Define It Away ..." "...To drum up support, backers are quick to reassure us that all good economists say the current CPI understates the real inflation rate. But if economists could know the real inflation rate, there would be no need for a CPI. We'd only need to consult the financial fortune tellers. In the old days, only Austrian School economists criticized government economic data. They refuted the idea that economic activity can be accurately quantified and debunked the gizmos economists use to pretend it can. But nowadays, there's a raging debate on the CPI. Every theory is shot down by someone else, and on seemingly solid grounds. There are hundreds of formulas and strategies for determining the direction and range of price movements. There's the "geometrical" formula, the "harmonic average" formula, and the "arithmetic" formula currently in use. Moreover, everyone has an idea of what should and shouldn't be in there and how much it should count. Why so much debate? Because every attempt to discover an inflation rate is necessarily flawed. We can't just measure inflation the way we measure the height of a tree. Prices reflect too many variables. We can't be sure what accounts for changes. It makes no sense to lump together price changes for incomparable goods. Nor is there a "price level" in the sense that there's a sea level, and the desire to make it stable (monetarism was the most elaborate) is a futile exercise. Let's say: liver transplants are going up in price, computers are going down in price, and milk remains the same. What can we conclude about movements in the overall price level? Honestly speaking, nothing. There is no "average" price for goods and services because there are no "average" buyers of goods and services. There are only specific consumers who purchase specific products and services. People who buy college tuition for five children experience a different "inflation rate" than twenty-something techno-hermits. Neither is there a definite "inflation rate" waiting to be unveiled. Even when the government is goosing the money supply, inflation affects different goods and sectors at different times and to varying degrees..." lewrockwell.com "February 28, 2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sound Money Needed More Than Ever Greenspan Admits Fed Flaw in Testimony" "...For my part, I was intrigued by an admission that Greenspan made to my direct questions put to him. After I pressed him for an explanation of what he considered the best tool to measure the money supply, Greenspan plainly admitted that he was at a loss for picking out what such a measure might be. When I suggested that it must be difficult to manage something you cannot even define, he not only agreed with me but said it was (and this is Mr. Greenspan's word) "impossible" to manage something you could not define. This is in fact an obvious truth but at the same time a startling admission from our nation's leading maker of monetary policy. Of course, one thing of which Greenspan is quite aware due to his familiarity with the economics of sound money, is the fact that the creation of units of monetary exchange out of thin air will lead to a recession...." house.gov Regards, Don