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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (749737)	10/27/2013 1:45:42 AM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574039

>I don't buy the notion that federal policy has to punish savings by pumping easy money into the economy. But we were talking about the income tax... QE is a little questionable in my book, too. >Savings is key to increasing consumer confidence. Maybe for someone who makes $50,000. But someone who makes $5,000,000? There's a point where it really don't matter anymore. >And when all you want to do is pump up numbers without looking at the core of it all, you don't have a sound, long-lasting policy. Instead, you are doing nothing more than monetizing federal debt. Once again, weren't we talking about income taxes? >Now if you want to run this by your "economist" friend and have him explain why this is sound economic policy, that would be great. But if you want to be like most of the other libtards on this thread and claim authority without demonstrating one shred of analytic thought, then you'd be wasting my time. I just sent him your post... he's a university economist who has been widely published. We'll see what he has to say. But to say I'm not giving you one shred of analytic thought is the pot calling the kettle black, at best. You responded to none of my post. You're just declaring victory and going home again. Don't be a dick like that. I'm trying to directly respond to all of your points, at the expense of actual work I should be getting done, particularly yesterday. -Z

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (749737)	10/27/2013 11:12:46 AM
From: SilentZ	1 Recommendation Recommended By Bilow Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574039

> And when all you want to do is pump up numbers without looking at the core of it all, you don't have a sound, long-lasting policy. Instead, you are doing nothing more than monetizing federal debt. >Now if you want to run this by your "economist" friend and have him explain why this is sound economic policy, that would be great. I sent your post his way. He said that if these policies really were monetizing federal debt, we would have very high inflation and high bond rates right now, and they're not. You predicted in 2009 that we were headed for runaway inflation... it's close to five years later and inflation is actually at very low levels for what should be a recovery period. -Z

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (749737)	10/28/2013 12:22:12 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574039

Hi Tenchusatsu; Re: "Savings is key to increasing consumer confidence."; I doubt this is true. What makes consumers confident is the knowledge that they're still going to have a job next year. And the primary contributor to that is high demand for labor. And that we don't have. Nor is improving consumer confidence at all important in terms of improving the economy. Sure as the labor situation improves consumers will feel more confident but that's a consequence, not a cause. The average consumer spends almost all the money he makes. If he saves, it's a tiny fraction of his pay. He gets accolades for saving 5%. The rest is eaten up by monthly expenses. As a contrast, I used to save fully 50% of my pre tax income. Very few consumers can do that. When rich people act like I did (and I did this back in the tech boom when engineers were very well paid), that's what destroys the economy. The Fed is having to pump more and more money into the economy. That money is leaking out of the economy. That is, the money is still there, but it's been put in the hands of people who do not spend it. The Fed is having to continue QE because of a lack of confidence in rich people and corporations. That's where the money is building up. Consumers can't hang onto money, Microsoft and Bill Gates can. The depressed economy must continue until the rich and business classes feel confident. And the Democrats are not the type to make rich and business feel confident. As they always do, the Democrats worry about the symptoms not the cause of the problem, and so their solutions are ineffective. If the Democrats obtained permanent control over the economy they would destroy it complete just as the liberals have in so many other countries. Fortunately, the American economy is quite resilient still, and I think it will eventually turn around and survive Obama. At the same time, I believe that having the Republicans in power these last 5 years would probably have been worse (from the point of view of the economy, not from the point of view of freedom or health care). The Republicans talk about controlling government spending and stopping QE. These would be disasters that would bring on a real Communist government. -- Carl