In Greenspan's speech today before the National Italian American Foundation:
The 'greater economic stability' is a sham. There is a dearth of economic stability when the US has a:Moving forward, I trust that we have learned durable lessons about the benefits of fostering and preserving a flexible economy. That flexibility has been the product of the economic dynamism of our workers and firms that was unleashed, in part, by the efforts of policymakers to remove rigidities and promote competition.
Although the business cycle has not disappeared, flexibility has made the economy more resilient to shocks and more stable overall during the past couple of decades. To be sure, that stability, by fostering speculative excesses, has created some new challenges for policymakers. But more fundamentally, an environment of greater economic stability has been key to the impressive growth in the standards of living and economic welfare so evident in the United States.
- ~ $700 billion trade deficit
- 8 trillion Federal Debt
- ~ 550 billion Federal Deficit ( war spending included)
- Housing Bubble
- High Energy prices ( oil & natural gas)
- a non existant personal savings rate ( actually negative )
Greenspan is about to retire. The next Fed Chairman will have to deal with a very different economic landscape next year.
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Latin America has not been run by many who even called themselves "left" for 20 years. Now you have Chavez and Lulu, but before that, no one for quite a while.
ReplyDeleteWe can simply say we won't have certain things, but reality catches up eventually. Because of our trade, energy, and financial policies of the last 16 years, we are in trouble.
What "people" seem to want right now is some sort of populism (restricted trade, restricted immigration, and some government activism), but I don't think the elites will allow that, so we might be in for quite a mess when the stuff hits the fan.
You forgot the money supply and credit bubble in your list. Money supply and credit has frothed recklessly in the last decade setting up inflation, and in 2004 and 2003, global liquidity increased 20% each year. You can thank the Fed and Congress for the last 40 years… That's inflation, my friend, and it will have serious affects the stock of capital / savings.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of savings, you should add that to your list: the US has abandoned savings.
Otherwise, it is a back flip in logic to blame the philosophy Greenspan supposedly supported in the early 1960s for the absurdity that is his legacy since 1986. He abandoned most everything that could be remotely considered laze fair in favor of pseudo Keynesian monetary and credit meddling = Central planning / banking. This is the tool of both the left and the right – get that much straight.
Now, it is correct to point out that The Fed is about interests specific to the Fed and those who retain political power, but it cannot also be denied that large government of any type is a married bedfellow to Central Banking and the power to print money and create endless amounts of debt that will be deflated away in order to offer, in the short run, goodies for the voters that are modern opiates of the masses. But let’s be clear: the left has its preference for pork, and the right its own.
Skytrekker is and example of the left. Sky laments that the US has not socialized sufficiently to offer "affordable" healthcare, oblivious to the fact that the more you socialize the more dysfunctional the checks and balances become, and so more money must always be thrown at the problem from other areas of the economy, or from the Fed or via new debt. Already the unfunded liabilities off the books that are promised to elderly and future generations will most certainly bankrupt this country, and that means The Fed will turn on the money supply spigots to help the nation inflate its way out of the mess.. As if that would work…
Incidentally, the alternative to the right AND the left is not necessarily the center. It is freedom. The right and the left -- and even “the center” are equally enamored with central planning and political favoritism to industry and constituencies that meet their own agenda for trading resources and rights -- confiscated from the masses -- in exchange for votes. They just disagree on the who, what and how, and all use the same quasi authoritarian means of force, laundered, of course, through increasingly mobocratic elections. Each fights the other for control of the trough.
Freedom on the other hand, is freedom.
The problem is that yoy guys know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. Why do you assume that the GOP is the problem. Tell me the difference between the GOP and the Democrats. At least the GOP stands for something, the Democrats are against the GOP and stand for nothing else. If the GOP became pro-abortion the Democrats would flip merely because their stance in anti-republican.
ReplyDeleteThe fascist tendencies are not of this republican administration. They have been ongoing for quite a while and transcend the major parties. Time was that democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan actaully cared about the people. Now both sides want to attain the greatest power for themselves and the greatest economic benefit for their supporters. Not much else matters anymore.
You are misguided when you compare our right wing with the Nazi parties of the 1930s. The social, economic and historic context that you are completely not considering, completely separate these movements. But then again, given that this is a liberal blog, it is to be expected that you will simply label anyone that you perceive to have a different viewpoint as a nazi, racist, gay basher, etc.
You all miss the point, both sides are seeking to continue to foster and exploit the materialism and corresponding death of spiritual values that is manifest in this nation today. Our Constitution is at stake, a document that I believe to be spiritually or divinely inspired. But to you, the issue is the housing bubble and to others you are fools. As long as you focus on such issues, you will continue to be blinded from the greater issues at hand. Then again, as long as both sides are fighting over the bubble, you won't be able to see the interests and changes being triumphed by both parties at our expense.