Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wayners who wrote (60790)	1/9/2013 10:34:23 PM
From: greatplains_guy	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Freeloading ends when you can't freeload anymore. It seems pretty straight forward to me. The tough question is how do you predict when stupid people finally figure it out. They will probably figure it out when the checks stop coming. Not a minute before. I think it really comes down to inflation. The Federal Reserve is going to balk at buying more debt to the tune of ver a Trillion a year when even all the massaging and fraud that goes into producing the rate doesn't work anymore. Then I think there is a bond collapse that goes out of control. Helicopter Ben balk at dropping dollars out the window? You may be right, but I suspect there is no amount of fictional money Ben would stop at creating. This is not any country I recognise from growing up in it, nor from the history.

To: Wayners who wrote (60790)	2/10/2013 11:15:43 AM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Meet Esther George, the Fed's Lone Dissenter Vera Soliman Feb. 5, 2013 4:29 pm Last month, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to continue its bond-buying spree. The lone dissenting vote was the committee's newest member, Esther George. George, the president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, voted against policies which included the continued monthly purchases of $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities, $45 billion worth of long-term Treasury bonds, keeping their target for the federal funds rate between 0 and .25 percent so long as the unemployment rate is above 6.5 percent. George says her nay vote was due to concerns that the continued high level of monetary accommodation increased the risks of future economic and financial imbalances and, over time, could cause an increase in long-term inflation expectations. Her worries are not new. In fact, her predecessor Thomas Hoeing was known for voting against similar actions all eight times in 2010. George joined the Bank in 1982 and was promoted to first vice president of the Bank in 2009, shortly before her appointment as president in 2011. George and Hoeing worked together through the Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s: It’s hard for me to say I think about it very differently [from Hoeing], because Tom and I had some of the very same experiences coming through the ’80s and saw what caused banks to get into trouble. I started [as a bank examiner] at a little bank in a strip mall in Oklahoma City called Penn Square Bank. That was my education. I align pretty closely with Tom in thinking about how these risks can play out. We have watched for many years the funding advantage that has come from growing consolidation in the industry, so I wouldn’t paint myself very differently in terms of how I see those issues and the concerns. While she doesn't believe that unemployment serves as the right target—she prefers to focus on inflation—George doesn't ignore its importance entirely: Like others, I am concerned about the high rate of unemployment, but I recognize that monetary policy, by contributing to financial imbalances and instability, can just as easily aggravate unemployment as heal it. reason.com