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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (55080)	10/29/2004 1:37:54 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Jay - odd coincidence - last night I decided to stop obsessing over the election and the furthest away thing I could think of was the Great Depression. I understand, more or less, the fact that gold, exchange rates, and interest rates were the primary cause, not the Great Crash, and I understand pretty well the role that the Federal Reserve (US), Bank of England, and Hjalmar Schacht (Germany) played. I have been putting off and putting off studying France's role, so finally started on that. I read Kenneth Moure's seminal 1996 essay on the Franc Poincare. Beautiful. It all fell into place. I need to get the book. discovereconomics.com I've recommended before Bernanke, as well as Eichengreen's Golden Fetters, which is probably the most accessible. I can't respond to your entire post, as I am headed to Charlottesville for a Slow Food event, apple harvest and cider tasting, and need to hit the road. Re: China. You really really really need to get up to speed on Mundell-Fleming. I posted a diagram of Mundell Fleming (the trilemma) a while back, it may still be up, find the link and check it out. Mundell explains all. Governments can control any two of the following three: 1) international flow of capital; 2) exchange rates; 3) interest rates and money supply -- but only two. I've tried to explain to y'all that when it finally is peeled away, economics isn't really politics and it isn't really animal spirits, it's math. Especially interest rates and exchange rates. I think you probably need to understand differential equations to play with it, but you can understand the broad principles without being good at math. Check it out. Re: election. Bush wins.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (55080)	10/29/2004 2:51:23 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Jay, an excellent post. I hope you are right about Taiwan.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (55080)	10/29/2004 3:54:52 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Since Yiwu the Murderous mentioned it <Taiwan will make nice with mainland> one should bear in mind that it's up to the bully to make nice. The bully's victim can grin and appease, cry and beg, all they like and Islamic Jihad will still hack their head off, live and then dead, as seen on tv. It's true that the little guy can bait the thug into aggression, but that's usually unnecessary. Bullies find a good reason to attack, no matter what. Saddam gave the USA cheek and challenge and King George II had all the reason he needed. Heck, Saddam was a really nasty piece of work. So was Uday. Good enough reason to attack. WMDs, AlQ, 911 and all that was just icing on the cake. Same with Taiwan. Except that Taiwan is a LOT tougher than Saddam. China would find the going tougher and more expensive. A big hole in the 3 Gorges dam would be annoying for a start. Similarly, the USA would find China not easy to militarily defeat. There would be major economic dislocations making the whole idea untenable. I suppose you have noticed that the USA doesn't harangue China about human rights much these days, what with the USA being confused about what a human is and how many rights, if any, they should enjoy and how much torture, discomfort, uncertainty and sheer terror they should have inflicted on them when held as "enemy combatants", without trial, no habeas corpus, no evidence, no human rights - not like those of real humans, aka Americans. Taiwan is making nice with China. You don't see them demanding to take over the mainland. Of course the whole thing could be resolved by holding a China-Taiwan referendum: Do you want China to be taken over by Taiwan so they become one country? Do you want Hu Jintao and his laws, or Chen Shui-bian and his laws, to be President? Hey presto, problem solved. No need to have soldiers shooting. If both China and Taiwan say "Yes" to the first question, the second question would decide the constitution. Meanwhile, South Korea's ex-president visits Taiwan and tells China where to stick it. taipeitimes.com I suppose Koreans suffered enough at the hands of China trying to force South Korea into the fold and be like North Korea. I'm sure a Chen would make a good politician in Beijing. Mqurice

To: TobagoJack who wrote (55080)	10/31/2004 7:15:28 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Jay - reread your post 10K and can't think of any more to comment -- will wait until Wednesday, maybe we can talk about the aftermath of the US election. The only thing you might be interested in is that I no longer care where my goods are made - China, Taiwan, Pakistan, Haiti, Mexico, etc., etc., etc. Only thing that matters is that it's good value. So China is doing better in the public relations department. ;^) As for "stomping on bubbles" -- still a bad idea. The monetary authority's job is to keep the money flow steady and the pressure even.