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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (7452)	2/9/2004 1:53:38 PM
From: Jim Willie CB	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

<FED and the white house sacred shitless> well well, I doubt there is anything sacred about either just jaggin ya SCARED SHITLESS, but I wish you would not swear excellent points, MishMan Russ makes a consistent solid argument for why prices should rise the only problem is that they are only rising for speculative goods e.g. stocks, bonds, real estate wherever Asian production output is involved, FAHGETTABOUDIT take away FannyMae financing (with Asian subsidies) and the entire artificial housing market falters badly since entering this excellent fray, I have thought considerably about how monetary inflation DOES produce final product price inflation key requirements are limited supply and adequate income we are missing both I see no imminent prospect for either to happen cotton prices are rising, but Bangladesh still provides all the nice rugged cotton rough & ready shirts I need and the price is low heck, I peruse the malls every weekend I like to scout for highschool aged girls to check them (it is remarkable to watch them detect their growing sexual power) but I also like to observe the 50% off sales for clothing last month I took advantage of a Best Buy sale a camcorder was on sale, reduced from $480 to $420 not only that, but Best Buy gave 0% for 6 months I doubt merchandise would push through without such attractive financing I can see directly how Best Buy profits are in decline I have mentioned since summer that China is the bootheel on American product pricing I offer this image in order to describe Greenspasm's disastrous reflation policy imagine GMan pumping up a big bicycle tire but the tire is contained within a tight collar keep pumping keep pumping 10-15 years ago, the tire would not have a collar now with the collar, expansion (of price) is impeded the tire bursts, and explodes the commerce equivalent is "going out of business" MishMan, I think we will see more and more businesses exit I have also harped on another parallel theme: GRADUAL US CORPORATE LIQUIDATION cutting costs, cutting strongest employees, reducing plant, these are signs of liquidation we prefer to label it as "cost cuts, belt tightening, trimming the fat" but it has been more like liquidation ask the 500,000 UAW workers who will lose jobs their car assembly plants are moving to Thailand, Philippines, and Brazil if that is not liquidation, then I dont know what it stage #1 -- liquidation amidst chronic low prices stage #2 -- shortages of supply, and higher prices we cannot get to stage #2 without first fully experiencing the pain of stage #1 REFLATION is a disaster it is causing lost profit margins and reduced household budgets China and India are now the mfg and service bootheels Clinton's Global Village Technology's New Economy Greenspasm's Reflation Initiative Cost Cutting Directives add it up === ECONOMIC DISMANTLEMENT WE ARE FAST ENTERING THE LIQUIDITY TRAP CHINA'S AND INDIA'S CONTINUED PRESENCE GAURANTEE WE RELUCTANTLY ENTER, STEP BY STEP, INEXORABLY the moronic Greenspasm will next encourage a new REFINANCE round for housing equity extractions if he succeeds, we take a giant step into the Liquidity Trap this man is a nightmare economist, hellbent on destruction / jim

To: mishedlo who wrote (7452)	2/9/2004 1:54:02 PM
From: russwinter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

<But if there was any merit in your overall argument, then carpeting, refrigerators, appliances etc should be going up.> Ok, let's start with carpeting, I'll return to your other queries when I get a little more time after the markets shut down. These products go into the finished product, and clearly the intermediate goods guys (Dow Chemical) are passing them on. Somebody's eating this, and I'll submit it's the consumer, it's not the intermediate goods people in this case, and I doubt the retailer. dow.com <Until we see consumer prices rise you have only proved my case not yours.. Here, I take it you trust government stats?

To: mishedlo who wrote (7452)	2/9/2004 2:23:30 PM
From: westpacific	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

You should see the sales in Europe. Everyweek the major stores have some new promotion. You want give away prices, most of the product coming out of China. Same story on this side of the pond as well.

To: mishedlo who wrote (7452)	2/9/2004 3:48:26 PM
From: gregor_us	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

The Basic Risk of Free Market Capitalism is Deflation. I know this seems a heretical notion to those who suffered inflation and studied inflation in many countries of the West, during the last Century. Nevertheless, Capitalism is designed--Free Market Capitalism that is--is designed to fill demand, store wealth, and then eventually create demand. There are simply no barriers to free market capitalism's ability to satisfy basic, organic demand. Once that has been accomplished, capitalism sets about on its next task of creating demand. Demand for all sorts of products, services, and experiences that satisfy the psychological desires, of human beings. Japan is the fate of capitalism. Satisfaction of basic organic demand was accomplished rather quickly. The next task was wealth storage in the form of aggregate savings. Finally, Japan set about the task of creating demand--until the inevitable exhaustion was reached among the populace. Japan is an intriguing portrait today. The government is in debt--but the people are not. It remains a very wealthy and stable society--with a strong social contract and a very, very high standard of living. I grant that this little "essay" of mine on capitalism is overly simplistic and that Japan as an example is flawed because of its unique cultural features which tend to drive its economic fate (Let's recall that Economics is a social science). Nevertheless, Deflation too has made its presence felt more than several times in Western History and it tends to follow the path I have outlined--provided it is allowed to flourish under freewheeling, free-market conditions. We live in precisely those conditions today. And, have been doing so since the Berlin Wall fell, Europe formed a common markets--and robust and free global trade became the paradigm most nations and people signed onto. And the globe is still signing on--to that paradigm. The largest counterbalancing force however in my view is Energy--and the cost of Energy and Energy's crucial factor in the production of food. I don't think of this counterbalancing force as Malthussian (sp.) so much as just a force of enduring scarcity. I'm not convinced capitalism can actually solve this problem. The problem for Alan Greenspan's Rate Cuts, Liquidity Pumping, and Weaker Dollar--and the Tax Cuts--and Asian Central bank's efforts to keep our interest rates low so that we can "perform" as consumers--is that this is all operating within a new, hyper, global, freewheeling capitalism that we've not actually seen before on this scale--with this level of interconnectivity. Labor is coming "on line" at a ferocious rate to a system already overloaded with spare production capacity. The effort therefore to keep the system Levitated has been massive. This always seems to happen in late-stage Capitalism, after basic demand has been satisfied, wealth storage has occurred, and the task of creating demand becomes increasingly desperate. (For now I will avoid the poltical aspects of our wealth distribution which have abandoned any pretense to European style Social Democracy--and put us on a course to Rich/Poor extremes...) I continue to see Inflation Panics breaking out in selected areas as we move forward--but Capitalism if not compromised by trade barriers will easily solve those those price increases. We are not only in a Deflationary Paradigm in my view but we are in the center of one of its periodic storms.