What is surprising to me is not the amount of money spent on what was bought, but the fact that AOL has any performance issues at all. They still have users? They have an entire database of users?
This just proves more than ever that Wikileaks is right, it's in the right and the US government is wrong.
US government is wrong about the economics, it's wrong about policy, it's wrong about politics, it's pretty much wrong on everything at this point, I don't think it can be redeemed.
ha, not ONLY there are agents here watching, they are also actively commenting, moderating, trying to create a narrative.
I know it's very 'black helicopterish' of me to say that, however here is my reasoning for it.
Every time I talk about economy in terms that I understand, I explain it from my libertarian point of view, which relies on Austrian school of thinking about economics.
It does NOT MATTER how well mannered, how non-confrontational my comments are.
Regardless of any merit in them, almost without a single failure they get moderated up first, and then they get pretty much destroyed into 'Troll/Flamebailt' category after a little while.
Since/. does not allow a user to see references to all his comments, I cannot count and provide statistics, but out of 24 comments that we see on our user-comment page, I immediately see2, that are moderated 'Troll' right at this moment. Both are about economics, both are about inflation (as I see huge inflation with all the printing of dollars).
Now, I don't know, it maybe is a bit much for a bunch of 'agents' to sit and try and correct the narrative to fit the view that is officially presented by the gov't, but I would not be surprised if this really happened.
Isn't that great? They gov't assumes it has power over everything you do (well, the gov't is put there by the proverbial people, so I guess it's 'people' who assume this right?) everything that you do to make a living, everything you work on, they have the ultimate ability to tax you at 100% or MORE and then maybe they can gift some of the fruits of your labor back to you, and it's you, who should watch not to 'fuck them over'.
No, expanding the money supply is not the same as inflation. Inflation is a rise in price levels (but you don't have to take my word for it). When the money supply is expanding perfectly in sync with the level of economic activity, so that prices remain flat, that's zero inflation.
- that is Keynesian nonsense. Inflation is expansion of monetary supply. The Keynesian shamans have perverted that notion and invented a new term for it, which you bought: 'monetary inflation' and they redefined what inflation always used to mean before Keynesian shamans destroyed the field of economics, they redefined inflation as price inflation.
I notice that you are trying to be a smart ass with the 'let me google it for you' routine, and as I said previously that there isn't much I can do for you further if you continue with the same Keynesian shamanism, I then do stick to my words: I can't do anything for you.
You insist that Austrian economics is discredited, which of-course is pure nonsense, Jim Rogers, Soros, Schiff and others who make pretty living investing based on Austrian school, have predicted the economic collapse during the Internet bubble, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble, predicted the inflation and the resulting rise of commodities and emerging markets while the Keynesians are generally lost in the woods normally found speculating on stocks going up and down in basic day trading schemes.
But good luck to you in all your endeavors, may you be right and may you never experience the effects of the inflation that you are so consistently not seeing, AFAIC there isn't much hope for this not to become a hyper-inflationary depression, which I wish you also never to experience.
Uh, no. A very low positive inflation figure does not magically become "rampant" inflation just because you think the figure should actually be negative. - again, the Fed is expanding the money supply all the time, all the stimulus and 0% lending to banks and selling the bonds, all of this is inflation.
If there were no inflation, that would be zero inflation, with prices staying the same. If prices were falling, that would be deflation, not "no inflation".
- I can't make you see what you are refusing to see - in recession prices fall, the price stability that you are observing and that is unnerving the Fed is inflation of money printed canceling the deflation of prices that should happen as the bubble burst.
Unless you were in a cave for the past number of years, you should have noticed bursting of housing bubble, the house prices must be coming down, they still must go down more.
If you looked at the shorts in bond market, you'd see a number of US municipalities shorted right now because they are expected to implode, you'd see places like Las Vegas being shorted for the past year for example, the place is about to collapse in terms of the bond market. The recession brings prices down but you are not seeing it because there is so much stimulus and bailouts and just free money handed out.
That would be catastrophic, so it's a good thing that isn't happening.
- no, that's the necessary step in a bursting of an asset bubble, it's not 'catastrophic', it's excellent for starting to restructure the economy. Why do you call this catastrophic? The mortgages that were handed out to all the people who couldn't pay - that was catastrophic, that, and interest rates at 0-1% led to the overheating of the housing market.
Prices must come down, they are blown up out of proportion. Houses need to be affordable first of all, because don't forget, houses are NOT investment, they are an expense that people take in order to live somewhere. Many people must lose their houses that they have with mortgages they can't afford and where they didnt' even put any money down, and they should go rent, and rent should be cheap in a falling asset category.
Housing must become cheap, with jobs moving out why, how, for what reason should house prices stay so high?
So Bernanke came out with more money printing, he believes, like you, that house prices must not only be kept at their level, but that they should be inflated. Of-course he wants to do that - the Fed, the banks, the gov't are holding toxic assets - failed mortgages.
Deflation is a bad thing for anyone who isn't sitting on a big pile of cash.
- no, of-course not. Deflation is a necessary step, it is a GOOD step, it brings the overheated prices down, keeps the money stronger and allows people to buy stuff cheaper, allows people to save money to restart economy by creating new businesses. Of-course people have no money to save, the gov't is incentivizing spending and it taxes income. The gov't is wrong. It's not spending that's needed but savings, savings allow people to restart economy by creating new businesses. Can't do it while being taxed on income and being pushed to spend money you don't have.
If you have any household debt, like the average American does, deflation effectively jacks up your interest rates, since you owe the same number of dollars but those dollars are now worth more (and harder to obtain). And it certainly doesn't help a slow economy -- why would I buy a widget today for $500 if I think it might be $450 next week, or $400 the week after that?
- and you SHOULD NOT be buying any widgets. You should be saving your money, the widget prices must fall. The household debt, well that's an excellent question - if you have a house that's falling in price to the point where it's under water (you owe more than the house is worth), leave the house. Get out of tha
You say "more inflation" as if we've been experiencing high inflation already, when in fact inflation has been unusually low for quite some time (lower than the Fed's target level, and it's only just now they've considered doing anything to bring it back up).
- well, that's why/. needs an economic section.
The inflation is rampant. If there was no inflation, you would have seen what really happens during recessions - deflation of prices. And prices should deflate, home prices should fall dramatically, much lower than they are now, and many other things should also deflate in prices. You are observing inflation, which is what the Fed is doing - it is expanding the monetary supply.
The inflation IS expansion of monetary supply. You are looking for price inflation, but prices ARE inflated, they should have been much lower right now if the Fed didn't put its dirty little hands into this.
The Fed is not satisfied with the current inflation levels and it wants the prices to go higher, I have explained the reasons in an above comment in this thread, it's lengthy, I do not want to retype.
Suffices it to say that if you look carefully at commodity prices, sugar, cotton, wheat, gold, meat, whatever, prices are rising. I have left a comment about it a bit earlier on/. as well.
Many economists believe that since the main problem with our economy now is a lack of demand,
- let us stop here. First, all of the economists who believe this should not be considered actual economists.
The problem in USA is lack of production, not lack of consumption. Should USA start producing again, it will be able to consume. Here is a simple mental exercise, I mentioned it earlier:
If all currencies devalue, which countries will be better off, those who have production capacity and manufacturing sector in their countries, or those who do not?
Countries with productive capacities will be fine, they'll aim at their own markets and their quality of life will suffer initially, but eventually will go up.
Countries without productive capacities will not be fine. They have nothing to offer even to their own citizens, they will have shortages of everything. All goods and services will become scarce and quality of life will go down.
an increased money supply and higher inflation is what we need to get it moving again. - no. Another mental exercise: what will happen if everybody in the country was given a newly printed stash of cash, let's say a million dollars? Would that help to restart the economy or would that crash the currency?
No amount of borrowing and printing can help economy that is losing it's productive capacity. What is needed is the return of real investment capital, real credit, which right now is being eaten by the gov't, that stimulates spending and not savings, which are needed to re-create the productive economy. You see, a society without production and which only is relying on subsidies is not an equivalent player in an economy that has producers. US consumer will not be subsidized forever and no amount of stimulus spending by government can make USA a productive society again.
The only correct way to make USA a productive society is to allow the private sector to have access to the credit that is currently used by US gov't, who spends it on stimulus and wars and various gov't programs, even though gov't is basically insolvent right now. Should the US bond holders decide not to continue holding the bonds and not rollover at the end of their very short holdings (6 months to a year rather than 10-30 years) the US will be obliged not only to pay interest, but to repay the principal, which they of-course woul
Well, when your own opinions do not hold water, then somebody who knows can point out all of the fallacies of a comment such as yours and explain how it is incorrect and why, not for the sake of a person such as yourself, who is uninterested in opinions, but for the sake of people who may have legitimate question and are interested to see what is happening not only from point of view of Keynesian shamanism.
And of course, people that know things could point out that since we're falling into a deflationary spiral,
- definitely there is deflation, but it is completely overpowered by the existing inflation.
Recession is about deflating prices, but inflation is about increasing money supply, both things can and are happening right now simultaneously.
The prices on such things as houses, seem to be stable, this is the inflation in action. In reality prices should be falling. Of-course the gov't doesn't want to have falling house prices, in fact just about a week ago Bernanke came out with a statement that the Fed now has a new mandate: mandate to increase prices.
Gov't doesn't want house prices to fall because banks (and by proxy the gov't) are holding toxic mortgages right now on the books, if the house prices fell (which they should do, because jobs are disappearing, so clearly dwelling prices should go down) then most banks would have failed immediately. You'd have banks crash right away, it would force US bonds to crash and then US gov't would go bankrupt because it wouldn't be able to refinance its short term mortgage (it is running on short term teaser rate mortgage right now).
money printing is actually an attempt to stabilize inflation at its historic 2%, permitting job growth and
- this person, who wrote it, is insane. Saying that you STABILIZE INFLATION BY INCREASING MONEY SUPPLY. That's right. He thinks (it's a he, right?) that inflation can be STABILIZED by printing money. No, you do not stabilize inflation by printing money. You cause inflation by printing money. Inflation is an expansion of money supply.
Also saying that this will permit job growth - this comes from Keynesian shamanism. You see, by devaluing the US dollar, Bernanke believes he'll make US labor less costly, meaning that capital investments will come back to the USA if its labor is seeing as cheap. However while it is true, that inflation causes people to lose purchasing power and thus make them cheaper in those terms as opposed to nominal terms, USA has a different problem on hands - it has created an environment, where generally cost of starting and doing business is too expensive regardless even of the wages. The ever-increasing regulations, the income/payroll taxes, the subsidies of large monopolies makes barriers to entry for new businesses to high and at the same time the artificially low interest rates and thus a weakening currency prevents credit from reaching the private sector, because the banks loan from the Fed at near 0% and then 'invest' into US bonds at higher rate and make the spread. In this situation if the interest rates all of a sudden went up above the interest rates that the US bonds are promising, all those banks would immediately lose their profit and become insolvent. They wouldn't be able to return that money with that interest.
What inflation does in real terms: it increases prices of many goods, where prices should fall, this especially is true in housing and rent (and wages) and at the same time it forces the prices for necessities to rise.
Again, Bernanke just said that he wants to see prices rise much faster than they are rising right now. Isn't he concerned about the poor Americans who have to buy the food, the fuel, who have to rent?
preventing a Japan-like lost decade
- Japan never had the same problem as USA. Japan never stopped their production, never lost their manufacturing. Japan had huge surpluses, it didn't have the debt, it had very strong
Don't forget about the risk and about the cost of opportunity. There is always a risk associated with any endeavor (well, supposed to be, until the gov't 'insures' something against risk and crashes the economy) and there is cost of opportunity - money could be spent on other things that really could provide more benefit for the sunk costs.
I wonder why/. does not have a section on economics. Isn't it long overdue to have one?
So many stories really belong in economics.
We could discuss what things are worth.
We could point out stories that appear on front pages of various portals and news sites and discuss what really is going on behind the title on them, just like the title I linked to:
Stocks Rise on Renewed Hope for Fed Action
- which sounds as if it is a positive for the economy that stocks rise on 'Hope for Fed Action', when in reality, those who understand can tell you that "Fed Action" means more money printing/borrowing, which implies more inflation and debt, so rising stocks (and rising gold) in this situation means that there is an expectation of yet more inflation, so stocks will go up in nominal terms, but all US holdings will lose more purchasing power.
Isn't/. 'news for nerds' and isn't economy yet another 'nerdy' subject?
In ounces of gold it would be around 1,040,041.6 ounces. In DOW it would cost approximately 127,186
It is also possible to estimate its cost in terms of Libraries of Congress, man years and many such wonderful things, however note that many Keynesians say that gold has no value but what is 'speculated' to be value while they do not see the same thing about their cherished and printed fiat, so then we could argue that Linux kernel is worth nothing if 1,040,041 ounces of gold priced at current levels in USD are worth nothing.
I didn't know that Ahmadinejad and Putin became members of US Republicans, but it's not surprising.
Also I am pretty sure that while Krugman is a Keynesian shamanistic hack, Obama, Bernanke and Geithner do really belong on the Republican list, after all they are the guys bailing out banks and printing stimulus to pass to the large monopolies, of-course Obama just continued what Bush started, but he did continue it.
As to Cheney, Limbaugh, Beck, didn't you see, I said:
you can trust these people
- so there you go, are you satisfied. Just because I am moderated as funny, doesn't mean that you also didn't get what you wanted - a definite endorsement of who to trust, right?
P.S.
You know, I do actually trust that Christine O'Donnel is not a witch, I just don't think she is me.
But when I see a nick name like this: "phantomfive", I expect to see this bad boy but what we normally observe behind such impressive name on the interwebs is something like this.
Slashdot Mirror
What is surprising to me is not the amount of money spent on what was bought, but the fact that AOL has any performance issues at all. They still have users? They have an entire database of users?
Right, because subsidies to companies is what allows me to support myself.
I only have one answer to you: I disagree with subsidizing any business at all for any reason, regardless of any perceived benefits.
This is just sick, it's sick that any government would subsidize any business ever at all.
This just proves more than ever that Wikileaks is right, it's in the right and the US government is wrong.
US government is wrong about the economics, it's wrong about policy, it's wrong about politics, it's pretty much wrong on everything at this point, I don't think it can be redeemed.
ha, not ONLY there are agents here watching, they are also actively commenting, moderating, trying to create a narrative.
I know it's very 'black helicopterish' of me to say that, however here is my reasoning for it.
Every time I talk about economy in terms that I understand, I explain it from my libertarian point of view, which relies on Austrian school of thinking about economics.
It does NOT MATTER how well mannered, how non-confrontational my comments are.
Regardless of any merit in them, almost without a single failure they get moderated up first, and then they get pretty much destroyed into 'Troll/Flamebailt' category after a little while.
Since /. does not allow a user to see references to all his comments, I cannot count and provide statistics, but out of 24 comments that we see on our user-comment page, I immediately see 2, that are moderated 'Troll' right at this moment. Both are about economics, both are about inflation (as I see huge inflation with all the printing of dollars).
Now, I don't know, it maybe is a bit much for a bunch of 'agents' to sit and try and correct the narrative to fit the view that is officially presented by the gov't, but I would not be surprised if this really happened.
wassup Doc? You tell'em, doc!
forget about 'between the lanes', how about under the road itself?
"not to fuck them over".
Isn't that great? They gov't assumes it has power over everything you do (well, the gov't is put there by the proverbial people, so I guess it's 'people' who assume this right?) everything that you do to make a living, everything you work on, they have the ultimate ability to tax you at 100% or MORE and then maybe they can gift some of the fruits of your labor back to you, and it's you, who should watch not to 'fuck them over'.
No, expanding the money supply is not the same as inflation. Inflation is a rise in price levels (but you don't have to take my word for it). When the money supply is expanding perfectly in sync with the level of economic activity, so that prices remain flat, that's zero inflation.
- that is Keynesian nonsense. Inflation is expansion of monetary supply. The Keynesian shamans have perverted that notion and invented a new term for it, which you bought: 'monetary inflation' and they redefined what inflation always used to mean before Keynesian shamans destroyed the field of economics, they redefined inflation as price inflation.
I notice that you are trying to be a smart ass with the 'let me google it for you' routine, and as I said previously that there isn't much I can do for you further if you continue with the same Keynesian shamanism, I then do stick to my words: I can't do anything for you.
You insist that Austrian economics is discredited, which of-course is pure nonsense, Jim Rogers, Soros, Schiff and others who make pretty living investing based on Austrian school, have predicted the economic collapse during the Internet bubble, predicted the collapse of the housing bubble, predicted the inflation and the resulting rise of commodities and emerging markets while the Keynesians are generally lost in the woods normally found speculating on stocks going up and down in basic day trading schemes.
But good luck to you in all your endeavors, may you be right and may you never experience the effects of the inflation that you are so consistently not seeing, AFAIC there isn't much hope for this not to become a hyper-inflationary depression, which I wish you also never to experience.
Cheers.
Excuse me, when I go reread the history book on this.
Didn't IBM and Microsoft wrote a chapter together on one OS already? OS2?
And the Iranian Dear Leader?
Uh, no. A very low positive inflation figure does not magically become "rampant" inflation just because you think the figure should actually be negative. - again, the Fed is expanding the money supply all the time, all the stimulus and 0% lending to banks and selling the bonds, all of this is inflation.
If there were no inflation, that would be zero inflation, with prices staying the same. If prices were falling, that would be deflation, not "no inflation".
- I can't make you see what you are refusing to see - in recession prices fall, the price stability that you are observing and that is unnerving the Fed is inflation of money printed canceling the deflation of prices that should happen as the bubble burst.
Unless you were in a cave for the past number of years, you should have noticed bursting of housing bubble, the house prices must be coming down, they still must go down more.
If you looked at the shorts in bond market, you'd see a number of US municipalities shorted right now because they are expected to implode, you'd see places like Las Vegas being shorted for the past year for example, the place is about to collapse in terms of the bond market. The recession brings prices down but you are not seeing it because there is so much stimulus and bailouts and just free money handed out.
That would be catastrophic, so it's a good thing that isn't happening.
- no, that's the necessary step in a bursting of an asset bubble, it's not 'catastrophic', it's excellent for starting to restructure the economy. Why do you call this catastrophic? The mortgages that were handed out to all the people who couldn't pay - that was catastrophic, that, and interest rates at 0-1% led to the overheating of the housing market.
Prices must come down, they are blown up out of proportion. Houses need to be affordable first of all, because don't forget, houses are NOT investment, they are an expense that people take in order to live somewhere. Many people must lose their houses that they have with mortgages they can't afford and where they didnt' even put any money down, and they should go rent, and rent should be cheap in a falling asset category.
Housing must become cheap, with jobs moving out why, how, for what reason should house prices stay so high?
So Bernanke came out with more money printing, he believes, like you, that house prices must not only be kept at their level, but that they should be inflated. Of-course he wants to do that - the Fed, the banks, the gov't are holding toxic assets - failed mortgages.
Deflation is a bad thing for anyone who isn't sitting on a big pile of cash.
- no, of-course not. Deflation is a necessary step, it is a GOOD step, it brings the overheated prices down, keeps the money stronger and allows people to buy stuff cheaper, allows people to save money to restart economy by creating new businesses. Of-course people have no money to save, the gov't is incentivizing spending and it taxes income. The gov't is wrong. It's not spending that's needed but savings, savings allow people to restart economy by creating new businesses. Can't do it while being taxed on income and being pushed to spend money you don't have.
If you have any household debt, like the average American does, deflation effectively jacks up your interest rates, since you owe the same number of dollars but those dollars are now worth more (and harder to obtain). And it certainly doesn't help a slow economy -- why would I buy a widget today for $500 if I think it might be $450 next week, or $400 the week after that?
- and you SHOULD NOT be buying any widgets. You should be saving your money, the widget prices must fall. The household debt, well that's an excellent question - if you have a house that's falling in price to the point where it's under water (you owe more than the house is worth), leave the house. Get out of tha
Oooooh, common, that was considered to be off-topic in that thread?
You say "more inflation" as if we've been experiencing high inflation already, when in fact inflation has been unusually low for quite some time (lower than the Fed's target level, and it's only just now they've considered doing anything to bring it back up).
- well, that's why /. needs an economic section.
The inflation is rampant. If there was no inflation, you would have seen what really happens during recessions - deflation of prices. And prices should deflate, home prices should fall dramatically, much lower than they are now, and many other things should also deflate in prices. You are observing inflation, which is what the Fed is doing - it is expanding the monetary supply.
The inflation IS expansion of monetary supply. You are looking for price inflation, but prices ARE inflated, they should have been much lower right now if the Fed didn't put its dirty little hands into this.
The Fed is not satisfied with the current inflation levels and it wants the prices to go higher, I have explained the reasons in an above comment in this thread, it's lengthy, I do not want to retype.
Suffices it to say that if you look carefully at commodity prices, sugar, cotton, wheat, gold, meat, whatever, prices are rising. I have left a comment about it a bit earlier on /. as well.
Many economists believe that since the main problem with our economy now is a lack of demand,
- let us stop here. First, all of the economists who believe this should not be considered actual economists.
The problem in USA is lack of production, not lack of consumption. Should USA start producing again, it will be able to consume. Here is a simple mental exercise, I mentioned it earlier:
If all currencies devalue, which countries will be better off, those who have production capacity and manufacturing sector in their countries, or those who do not?
Countries with productive capacities will be fine, they'll aim at their own markets and their quality of life will suffer initially, but eventually will go up.
Countries without productive capacities will not be fine. They have nothing to offer even to their own citizens, they will have shortages of everything. All goods and services will become scarce and quality of life will go down.
an increased money supply and higher inflation is what we need to get it moving again. - no. Another mental exercise: what will happen if everybody in the country was given a newly printed stash of cash, let's say a million dollars? Would that help to restart the economy or would that crash the currency?
No amount of borrowing and printing can help economy that is losing it's productive capacity. What is needed is the return of real investment capital, real credit, which right now is being eaten by the gov't, that stimulates spending and not savings, which are needed to re-create the productive economy. You see, a society without production and which only is relying on subsidies is not an equivalent player in an economy that has producers. US consumer will not be subsidized forever and no amount of stimulus spending by government can make USA a productive society again.
The only correct way to make USA a productive society is to allow the private sector to have access to the credit that is currently used by US gov't, who spends it on stimulus and wars and various gov't programs, even though gov't is basically insolvent right now. Should the US bond holders decide not to continue holding the bonds and not rollover at the end of their very short holdings (6 months to a year rather than 10-30 years) the US will be obliged not only to pay interest, but to repay the principal, which they of-course woul
Well, when your own opinions do not hold water, then somebody who knows can point out all of the fallacies of a comment such as yours and explain how it is incorrect and why, not for the sake of a person such as yourself, who is uninterested in opinions, but for the sake of people who may have legitimate question and are interested to see what is happening not only from point of view of Keynesian shamanism.
And of course, people that know things could point out that since we're falling into a deflationary spiral,
- definitely there is deflation, but it is completely overpowered by the existing inflation.
Recession is about deflating prices, but inflation is about increasing money supply, both things can and are happening right now simultaneously.
The prices on such things as houses, seem to be stable, this is the inflation in action. In reality prices should be falling. Of-course the gov't doesn't want to have falling house prices, in fact just about a week ago Bernanke came out with a statement that the Fed now has a new mandate: mandate to increase prices.
Gov't doesn't want house prices to fall because banks (and by proxy the gov't) are holding toxic mortgages right now on the books, if the house prices fell (which they should do, because jobs are disappearing, so clearly dwelling prices should go down) then most banks would have failed immediately. You'd have banks crash right away, it would force US bonds to crash and then US gov't would go bankrupt because it wouldn't be able to refinance its short term mortgage (it is running on short term teaser rate mortgage right now).
money printing is actually an attempt to stabilize inflation at its historic 2%, permitting job growth and
- this person, who wrote it, is insane. Saying that you STABILIZE INFLATION BY INCREASING MONEY SUPPLY. That's right. He thinks (it's a he, right?) that inflation can be STABILIZED by printing money.
No, you do not stabilize inflation by printing money. You cause inflation by printing money. Inflation is an expansion of money supply.
Also saying that this will permit job growth - this comes from Keynesian shamanism. You see, by devaluing the US dollar, Bernanke believes he'll make US labor less costly, meaning that capital investments will come back to the USA if its labor is seeing as cheap. However while it is true, that inflation causes people to lose purchasing power and thus make them cheaper in those terms as opposed to nominal terms, USA has a different problem on hands - it has created an environment, where generally cost of starting and doing business is too expensive regardless even of the wages. The ever-increasing regulations, the income/payroll taxes, the subsidies of large monopolies makes barriers to entry for new businesses to high and at the same time the artificially low interest rates and thus a weakening currency prevents credit from reaching the private sector, because the banks loan from the Fed at near 0% and then 'invest' into US bonds at higher rate and make the spread. In this situation if the interest rates all of a sudden went up above the interest rates that the US bonds are promising, all those banks would immediately lose their profit and become insolvent. They wouldn't be able to return that money with that interest.
What inflation does in real terms: it increases prices of many goods, where prices should fall, this especially is true in housing and rent (and wages) and at the same time it forces the prices for necessities to rise.
Again, Bernanke just said that he wants to see prices rise much faster than they are rising right now. Isn't he concerned about the poor Americans who have to buy the food, the fuel, who have to rent?
preventing a Japan-like lost decade
- Japan never had the same problem as USA. Japan never stopped their production, never lost their manufacturing. Japan had huge surpluses, it didn't have the debt, it had very strong
You haven't seen what you thought you saw. You don't want to talk about it. You want to go have a cookie now. Cookies are good.
OTOH I am sure this place is literally crawling with Anonymous Coward vaginas.
People disagree with their government's policies/behavior in many parts of the world violently, because violence is used against them.
Don't forget about the risk and about the cost of opportunity. There is always a risk associated with any endeavor (well, supposed to be, until the gov't 'insures' something against risk and crashes the economy) and there is cost of opportunity - money could be spent on other things that really could provide more benefit for the sunk costs.
I wonder why /. does not have a section on economics. Isn't it long overdue to have one?
So many stories really belong in economics.
We could discuss what things are worth.
We could point out stories that appear on front pages of various portals and news sites and discuss what really is going on behind the title on them, just like the title I linked to:
Stocks Rise on Renewed Hope for Fed Action
- which sounds as if it is a positive for the economy that stocks rise on 'Hope for Fed Action', when in reality, those who understand can tell you that "Fed Action" means more money printing/borrowing, which implies more inflation and debt, so rising stocks (and rising gold) in this situation means that there is an expectation of yet more inflation, so stocks will go up in nominal terms, but all US holdings will lose more purchasing power.
Isn't /. 'news for nerds' and isn't economy yet another 'nerdy' subject?
Obviously software cost depends on what you measure it in. For example Linux kernel is estimated to cost near 1.4 billion US dollars (at the bottom), but IF you measure this in chickens.... it could cost 35,008,752.2 chickens.
In ounces of gold it would be around 1,040,041.6 ounces. In DOW it would cost approximately 127,186
It is also possible to estimate its cost in terms of Libraries of Congress, man years and many such wonderful things, however note that many Keynesians say that gold has no value but what is 'speculated' to be value while they do not see the same thing about their cherished and printed fiat, so then we could argue that Linux kernel is worth nothing if 1,040,041 ounces of gold priced at current levels in USD are worth nothing.
It's all a matter of point of view.
I didn't know that Ahmadinejad and Putin became members of US Republicans, but it's not surprising.
Also I am pretty sure that while Krugman is a Keynesian shamanistic hack, Obama, Bernanke and Geithner do really belong on the Republican list, after all they are the guys bailing out banks and printing stimulus to pass to the large monopolies, of-course Obama just continued what Bush started, but he did continue it.
As to Cheney, Limbaugh, Beck, didn't you see, I said:
you can trust these people
- so there you go, are you satisfied. Just because I am moderated as funny, doesn't mean that you also didn't get what you wanted - a definite endorsement of who to trust, right?
P.S.
You know, I do actually trust that Christine O'Donnel is not a witch, I just don't think she is me.
But when I see a nick name like this: "phantomfive", I expect to see this bad boy but what we normally observe behind such impressive name on the interwebs is something like this.
Did I get that right?
Well clearly, you can trust these people: Ahmadinejad, Bush, Putin, Obama, Cheney, Limbaugh, Krugman, Bernanke, Geithner, Beck and such.