The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Economic quackery > Comments

Economic quackery : Comments

By Justin Jefferson, published 17/4/2009

The government cannot heal the economy and stimulus packages don’t work.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. ...
  8. 9
  9. 10
  10. 11
  11. All
It is true.Daniel Hannan to Gordon Brown,"You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt!"

What must happen is the shrinking of Govt and reduction in taxes!
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 17 April 2009 7:56:05 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The author of this article is a complete idiot. He mostly engages in speculative resoning rather than fact. But his probably his silliest claim is that in order to put money into the economy, government must first take it out, thus netting all government spending to zero.

This is an utterly ficticious claim and lacks even the simplest understanding of the most basic functioning of our modern monetary economy. The federal government does not collect tax revenue in order to spend it, for dollars taxed by the federal government are immediately extinguished from existence. The fed spends first and then taxes later, largely in order to create demand for the currency it issues.

The author should stick to handing out pamphlets.
Posted by Fozz, Friday, 17 April 2009 9:20:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Is Goldman/Sachs Running the Plunge-Protection Team?
http://republicbroadcasting.org/?p=1280

Is the current stock/market rebound based on fundamentals,or are more sinister forces at work?..Tyler Durden,author of the ZeroHedge blog,
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/
one of the best financial bloggers around,have found some circumstantial evidence that suggests the mysterious Plunge Protection Team(PPT)has recently been boosting the stock market.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/blackm/plunge.htm

And some might say Goldman Sachs is running the show…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Financial_Markets

The Working Group on Financial Markets,known colloquially as the Plunge Protection Team PPT),was created in 1988 by Ronald Reagan,in response to the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987...Their operations have always been shrouded in secrecy,with a Washington Post article from 1997 writing that the group aims to prevent the“smoothly running global financial/machine”from locking up.

Conspiracy-theorists have long claimed that the PPT manipulates U.S. stock markets by using government funds to buy stocks in the event of market dislocation,but skeptics argue that such an operation would be unworkable.

Durden,cites an unusual piece of data on program trading,a part of the stock market that is controlled by mysterious computer/programs that use mathematical/formulas to buy and sell stocks.

According to the New York Stock/Exchange,ast week’s volume of program trading was 8% higher than the 52 week average...It’s strange that program trading volume would be increasing so sharply when overall market volume is declining,says Durden...It’s even stranger to note that principal trading,..which occurs when a brokerage buys or sells stocks for its own account,..is running 21% above 52 week average..New York Stock Exchange weekly volume,on the other hand,is running about 9% below 52 week average.

“A very interesting data point, also provided by the NYSE, mplicates none other than administration darling Goldman Sachs in yet another potentially troubling development,”writes Durden.“Key to note here is that Goldman’s program trading principal to agency+customer facilitation ratio is a staggering 5x,which is multiples higher than both the second most active program trader and the average/ratio of the NYSE,both at or below 1x.”

The implication is that Goldman Sachs trades much more often for its own(principal)benefit.“In this light,the program trading spike over the past week could be perceived as much more sinister
Posted by one under god, Saturday, 18 April 2009 12:19:32 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"What must happen is the shrinking of Govt and the reduction of taxes"

I don't have a problem with lowering the (federal) tax rate to some degree as the dollars don't pay for government spending since they are extinguished.

But I prefer to think that the size of government - federal in particular - must grow rather than shrink. For starters, how much further can we shrink it without compromising basic social services that the private sector cannot provide to everyone equitably? Government as an employer has already fallen from a quater of the labour force 20 or so years ago, to around 14% today.

Second, government is capable of doing something that the private sector has cleary demonstrated itself incapable of - employing all surplus labour. If we compare the current era with it's hands-off approach by government with the previous era where government was more actively engaged with the economy, we see that the hands-on era gave us an unemployment rate averaging around 2.5% over at least 25 years. The current period has given us an average unemployment rate in this country of around 7.6%, only falling under 5% around the peak of the boom, now gone bust. We never even got really close to the employment success of the preceeding era. And that doesn't even count under - employment.

There are a great many potential jobs in community and environmental services that could both enhance the wellbeing of our communities and absorb much of the labour that the private sector is currently shedding. Despite providing worthwhile services, the private sector will not go there because it is not lucrative enough. Govt could easily solve many of these problems if it abandoned it's neo-liberal outlook.
Posted by Fozz, Saturday, 18 April 2009 7:34:04 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think we need to distinguish between Capitalism, and finance Capitalism.
It has been said:"every crisis is an opportunity". Now is the time to take the banks' ability to create money out of thin air away from them, and end the debt based monetary system.
Printing 'greenbacks' is far less inflationary than fractional -or post fractional- banking.
The author is absolutely right about one thing.
Going into debt, to get out of debt, is really stupid.
Posted by Grim, Saturday, 18 April 2009 8:42:39 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Justin Jefferson could be my housecleaner, for all I care. It does not matter what people state as their profession. What matters is IDEAS. Discuss the merits of Jefferson's ideas. What would you people do if you did not have the NAME or any information about the author at all? Could you possibly debate the ideas using your own mind?

I congratulate Justin Jefferson. I am an economist, and this is a very well-written summary of communism vs capitalism. But don't take Justin Jefferson's or my word for it. Research it for yourself. Better yet, go try living in a communistic country. Rose Wilder believed in socialism/communism until she LIVED it. She then became a dogged defender of capitalism. Jefferson is absolutely correct. Communism does not even work in theory. I recommend reading Mao's Last Dancer and Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China for some research into this issue without having to relocate.
Posted by Janet H. Thompson, Saturday, 18 April 2009 1:18:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. ...
  8. 9
  9. 10
  10. 11
  11. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy