When watching this, remember that Cassandra got kicked around pretty good too. But she was 100 percent right. As was Peter Schiff.
I particularly like Ben Stein getting this even wronger than his position on evolution.
(H/T Sully)
When capitalized, "Sie" is the formal way to address adults of either gender in polite German. I majored in the…
If one assumes that a person is making their money, including enough money to have no incentive to "work", by…
Ob sie wirklich Deutsch spricht. Normalweise, kommt die US Soldaten nicht ins Stadt und spricht nicht so oft mit denn…
As for being a Nazi, ich spreche fliessend deutsch und wohnte in Deutschland fuer drei Jahre mit der americanishe Luftwaffe…
And of course this "incentive" only applies to poor people: Rich people who already have enough to live off of…
Holy shit! What is wrong with these economic cheerleaders! God damn!
I love how Schiff uses rational facts and the only thing those idiots can do is say, “You’re wrong,” and laugh but not actually talk about why they think he is wrong.
What’s also interesting was last year I was watching lectures by Dr. David Harvey from CUNY on his class on Capital Vol. 1 and he was talking about the economy and about how it is essentially going to bottom out and go into a recession because, “That’s just how it is; everything is pointing to that and in this system it is inevitable.”
Sane people 1
Fox News Crazies -500%
before you get all gaga over this guy and his predictions go take a look at some of the conservative nonsense he writes…
http://www.europac.net/externalframeset.asp?from=home&id=14566
If you are pessimistic all the time and things start to go bad you start to look good.
I don’t know, do you get credit for predicting a recession in 2006 if the recession of 1999 never actually ended? There was the desperate Bush attempt to paint the economy as if it never was in a recession, but it was pretty obvious to most everyone with eyes.
Yes, the bear economists do get credit for calling this one, because they foresaw exactly the reasons that we would be in so much trouble.
I’m so tired of hearing pundits – every single day – saying “NO one ever predicted that ANYthing like this would EVER happen!” Actually, yes, if you were paying attention on the internet the past several years, lotsa people have been predicting just this.
I have no training in economics, but I knew in detail about what was coming based on my web-education. I don’t buy it that these econo-gods didn’t see it coming. It’s like the WMDs in Iraq . . . how did so many of us anti-war protesters know that Iraq was not a threat (and, yes, we were in-fact *right* about the WMDs and the post-invasion meltdown) and the top security people be so wrong? Self-delusional ideology.
Can we ignore Laffer and his napkins from now on?
Also, Laffer manages the amazing in this video — he sits at a table with Tim Robbins and Bill Maher and still comes off as by far the biggest asshole in the room.
“No one” predicted these things because the current crop of “conservatives” aren’t “conservatives” at all. Neo-cons are form-before-function kinds of guys. Stimulating the economy via stupid-easy credit is not the same as stimulating the economy with rational and sane credit policies, and that’s where the present administration failed — the credit policies did not reflect the risk associated with that credit.
For years economists have been writing about the growing housing bubble, all the while the (soon to no longer be) present (halleluyah …) administration took credit for a “growing economy”. Instead of pricing in the risk of the bubble bursting, the “growing economy” was taken as proof that the looming housing correction wasn’t a threat. After all, easy credit was going to insure (somehow …) that people would continue to spend well beyond their means (which itself constitutes another form of risk).
The belief in a magical economy — one in which all that’s needed is spending, spending and more spending to make it all better — stems from the loss of the true conservative brain trust in the wake of 12 years of Bush rule. Conservativism works every time it’s tried, but not because Rush Dumbaugh mutters that magical phrase. It works because it deals with the world that exists, not the world one wishes would exist. And a world in which the fires of economic growth are stoked with rising debt and unrealistic housing prices is not a world that’s being operated using Conservative values. There’s a name for Politics By Wishful Thinking and it doesn’t start with a capital “C”.
It’s possible to be right for the wrong reasons. Peter deserves credit for publicly and unambiguously going against the grain like he did, but his proposed cure for the American economy doesn’t ring true. While there are significant risks in being overly dependent on foreign capital, it’s not at all clear that ‘increased savings’ per se is the appropriate cure. There was plenty of capital around in the country — indeed, that’s what fueled the rush to subprime lending. Americans ‘saved’ by purchasing assets which were, indeed, driven by bubble dynamics. But whether those assets were houses or tech stocks, it’s not clear how ‘increasing savings’ addresses that dynamic. (I’ve never seen any of the ‘save more it’s good for you’ crowd address the issue of the anemic often-less-than-inflation interest rates that banks pay on so many savings vehicles.)
The real issue is making production for use profitable. To do that, you have to put increased purchasing power into the hands of consumers instead of into the hands of the super rich. That requires increased and highly progressive taxes on the wealthy (and profitable corporations) and an intelligent use of government incentives to decrease trade deficits and discourage production modes which destroy the ecology … in short, a more or less complete repudiation of Reaganomics.
Schiff might have the problem right, but as a solution, his ‘save more, spend less’ bromide is complete fail.
Americans ’saved’ by purchasing assets which were, indeed, driven by bubble dynamics. But whether those assets were houses or tech stocks, it’s not clear how ‘increasing savings’ addresses that dynamic. (I’ve never seen any of the ’save more it’s good for you’ crowd address the issue of the anemic often-less-than-inflation interest rates that banks pay on so many savings vehicles.)
Saving can’t be the same as consumption. Buying a house to live in oneself is an act of consumption, not saving or investment. (Buying property to develop for rental or sale is different, but that’s not a very big piece of the housing bubble.) No sensible long-term investor puts all their money in tech stocks; you put it in mutual and index funds that are spread out broadly over many industries. That’s how most 401ks, pension funds etc. are invested. It’s a rate of return over the long term that is much higher than a CD.
The only investments I’ve had are a Fidelity Fund (which I don’t plan to look at until I’m ready to retire, because that’s the kind of Fund it is) and stock in a company for which I used to work (which is actually at about the price at which I bought it six years ago, after having gone up to almost $60 in the intervening time… sigh, but it’s also something I don’t plan to sell for many years).
It’s only a repudiation if all one understands is the “form” of Reaganomics and not the “function”. The function of Reaganomics was to tilt the tax code and government policy in a direction that stimulated jobs growth through capital investment. What should have happened, but didn’t because neo-conservatives don’t understand “function”, is the tax code should have been slowly moved to favor the working class.
This lack of understanding of FUNCTION is why the Republican party is failing. It’s the same reason that people can confuse a LIABILITY — a home mortgage — for an ASSET — home ownership. The risk under the new administration is that the Democratic leadership doesn’t understand how to manage the growth and development of both sides of the economy — production and consumption, business and consumer.