3.9% GDP growth!

Loose Federal Reserve policy began in the years prior to the Great Recession under Chairman Greenspan. The raise in rates was in part a too-late response to the growing speculation in the real estate market. You may object to my causality concerning stock buybacks but apply a little logic. Corporations are attaining record profits, and corporation are borrowing money at record low rates, and purchasing their own stock a record high prices. Sure, this lowers the cash they have to pay on dividends, and lit owers their share count, which for balance sheet purpose makes there profits look better. In the end it is a misallocation of capital, and the end result may not be pretty. You make a comment that shows you are still missing the point "general health in the economy," and then contradict it with "low wage growth." Your assumption of health in the economy is driven by the Federal Reserve loose monetary policies, and the low wage growth is a symptom of deeper systemic problems.

well little to disagree with vehemently there.

as for greenspan - I think you are too harsh on his interest rate policies.

if you look at the timing:

you'll see rates were in the 5% range through the '90s, rising to a high 6.5% in 2000. 2000-2002 was recessionary, so interest rates fell to 1.0%. Then in the good times, starting in 2003, rates rose again, to the 5% range. Then the financial crisis.

what was greenspan supposed to do? keep rates high durnig recessions? rich people would like that, but it would not be good policy.

So rates were a little low coming into 2004-5, which helped spur the housing bubble.

but really - you seem to put close to 100% of the blame for the housing bubble on the fed. Which is silly - it was at least 50% and in my opinion more, the fault of stupid bankers who loaned out money when they shouldn't have.

Greenspan's mistake was trusting the banks to be good businessmen. There he sure f'd up.

as for the buybacks...you're making too much of them and making too much of the benefit of low interest rates.

You seem to think government is more powerful than it really is. Seriously - you think obamacare is a powerful arrow at the heart of the economy, when clearly it hasn't had much if any neg repurcusssions.

You think the fed is all powerful, causing bubbles and distotions willy nilly.

I would submit that you are ascribing too much power to gov't.

I don't fault the Federal Reserve for the housing crisis, but do feel it is a factor. Larger factor is human greed, be it individual or institutional. I don't fault the Federal Reserve for the intial policy response to the Great Recession. I just disagree with the policy of Quanitative Easing (QE) and what I fear there will be the eventual negative fallout. Of course we can lead ourselves to believe "that this time is different."

Enjoy Black Friday. Best wishes for the Holidays.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I don't fault the Federal Reserve for the housing crisis, but do feel it is a factor. Larger factor is human greed, be it individual or institutional. I don't fault the Federal Reserve for the intial policy response to the Great Recession. I just disagree with the policy of Quanitative Easing (QE) and what I fear there will be the eventual negative fallout. Of course we can lead ourselves to believe "that this time is different."

Enjoy Black Friday. Best wishes for the Holidays.

you too - all the best

excuses... wrote:

[quote]Ghost of Igloi wrote:

1. Thank Bush and the military for getting Bin Laden

2.Thank a resilent economyand its' ability to overcome the poor policies of the Obama Administration

3. Thank the Federal Reserve for driving stock prices above historical valuations

4. Thank Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and others for inflaming racial tensions

5. Thank Thank Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner for saving the banking system and automobile industry

This is the typical response of the politically ignorant:

Praise the failed Republican President for "setting it up" so the Democrat can save the country.

As a rule, Republicans since 1972 have failed at running this country. W Bush is the ultimate of what not do to.

Thank you Bush for pushing hydraulic frackturing so that we now can harvest the profits that the libs aggressively fought against.

Thank you Obama for losing Iraq and creating the Isis as well as heaps of other Muslim terrorist groups around the world.

I may be politically ignorant, but you sir are ignorant and politically naive.

agip wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Occam's razor doesn't apply to government and politics any more than it applies to advertising. Both are full of elaborate deceptions cleverly packaged as simple truths, and things are rarely as they seem up front.

surely you don't suggest that it is likely or even possible that the thousands of professional economists and bureaucrats who put together the economic stats regularly bend to politicians' whims?

and not one, not ever, never, has blown the whistle?

Occam's razor is a blunt instrument, if you don't mind the odd metaphor, but it works here.

Assuming mass conspiracy is wrong virtually every time.

Sorry crazy people, but that's the troof.

You don't need a mass conspiracy. Did GWB need thousands of people to manufacture evidence of WMD's in Iraq? No. He needed thousands of people to gather data and then just a few people to call it "evidence."

It's an old and dirty tactic, calling people who distrust the government crazy conspiracy theorists.

Bad Wigins wrote:

agip wrote:

surely you don't suggest that it is likely or even possible that the thousands of professional economists and bureaucrats who put together the economic stats regularly bend to politicians' whims?

and not one, not ever, never, has blown the whistle?

Occam's razor is a blunt instrument, if you don't mind the odd metaphor, but it works here.

Assuming mass conspiracy is wrong virtually every time.

Sorry crazy people, but that's the troof.

You don't need a mass conspiracy. Did GWB need thousands of people to manufacture evidence of WMD's in Iraq? No. He needed thousands of people to gather data and then just a few people to call it "evidence."

It's an old and dirty tactic, calling people who distrust the government crazy conspiracy theorists.

So spell out for me how the numbers are cooked.