[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Whether we stay in Iraq and Afghanistan 20 years or 100 years, the Pashtuns and Arabs will still be stone age Islamic savages, just richer savages for having bamboozled us out of trillions of “aid.”
![/quote]
Take out Iran’s life long enemies for them, sway the ones you don’t take out to join them, all while spending trillions. Hard to see how that’s not going to work out for us.
[quote]dhickey wrote:
The fact is that there is very little the most popular calculations or ratios can tell us about the health of an economy. Employment, debt to income ratios, savings rates, and adherence to basic economic principals are more useful than gov’t manipulated GDP or inflation calcs.[/quote]
Hickey Your right–GDP is definetly a manipulated number. All the numbers are manipulated. General health of the economy is a hard thing to estimate. Employment figures are decent but they usually are understating the problem. I like debt to income ratios. I have a hard time with savings rate because it does not count purchased stocks or mutual funds. All the numbers have problems. I really like looking at the cost of commodities since the prices are set by the market–Gold, Scrap Steel, Lumber, Pulp, Oil, Grains. Out of all of these there isn’t really one that is indicating a turn in the economy–gold prices are scaring the shit out of me.
[quote]BigJawnMize wrote:
dhickey wrote:
The fact is that there is very little the most popular calculations or ratios can tell us about the health of an economy. Employment, debt to income ratios, savings rates, and adherence to basic economic principals are more useful than gov’t manipulated GDP or inflation calcs.
Hickey Your right–GDP is definetly a manipulated number. All the numbers are manipulated. General health of the economy is a hard thing to estimate. Employment figures are decent but they usually are understating the problem. I like debt to income ratios. I have a hard time with savings rate because it does not count purchased stocks or mutual funds. All the numbers have problems. I really like looking at the cost of commodities since the prices are set by the market–Gold, Scrap Steel, Lumber, Pulp, Oil, Grains. Out of all of these there isn’t really one that is indicating a turn in the economy–gold prices are scaring the shit out of me. [/quote]
Commodity prices can send mixed messages. They can increase or decrease depending on the overall strength of the economy. Increases or decreases in commodities, relative to the dollar, can’t really tell us much about the economy without understanding inflationary policies. They can’t tell us much about inflation without understanding the overall health of the economy. Unless you are looking at trending over a large span of time, they don’t seem all that usefull to me.
Commodity prices should be a very solid market signal but gov’t intervention has made them almost useless.
Savings rates tell how much real money is available for investment. I could give a shit about my neighbor’s retirement account but I do care about money available to create lasting jobs. If we floated interest rates we would get a very clear picture of how much real money is available for investment vs. the demand for that money. It would also encourage investment over consumption, which the gov’t and their calculations are trying to avoid.
Personal investments in the stock market are not the same as savings in the traditional sense. If interest rates were allowed to float, we would see significant shift in real savings rates. With interest essentially at 0%, there is no money to be made in savings. I certainly don’t have any $ in traditional savings. Why would I right now?
Interest rates and stock markets tell us almost nothing. Interest rates are a complete fabrication and stock market prices are not far off. Wall Street is all too happy to gobble up the optimistic picture painted by gov’t calucations of economic strength, and most investors don’t know any better.
Again, interest rates should tell us all we need to know about capital available for investment (savings rate numbers would not be needed), and stock market prices should be a very good indication of economic health. But again, gov’t intervention has taken these market signals away from us by tampering with them.
[quote]John S. wrote:
BigJawnMize wrote:
There have been times in this country’s history that 3% was celebrated. Many yearly quarters of the 50’s and 70’s saw growth under 1%. Today 3% isn’t great, but a little perspective is needed before we jump to blame somebody or jump to another government stimulus.
you do realize that the GDP growth was strictly government spending right? [/quote]
No, it wasn’t. But a large part of it WAS layoffs and other cost-cutting measures rather than any real growth.
[quote]John S. wrote:
While Bush is responsible too, Obama bought the economy with his stimulus package. He was the one saying sun shine and rainbows would follow if we passed his stimulus. [/quote]
It goes far beyond Bush and Obama and today’s democrats and republicans and deregulation and BAD regulations. In retrospect, NAFTA and free trade was a terrible idea. At least the way it was done. Eradicating our manfucaturing base and sending all the jobs overseas was not smart. Not smart folks. Not smart, Mr. Clinton. Not smart.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
John S. wrote:
While Bush is responsible too, Obama bought the economy with his stimulus package. He was the one saying sun shine and rainbows would follow if we passed his stimulus.
It goes far beyond Bush and Obama and today’s democrats and republicans and deregulation and BAD regulations. In retrospect, NAFTA and free trade was a terrible idea. At least the way it was done. Eradicating our manfucaturing base and sending all the jobs overseas was not smart. Not smart folks. Not smart, Mr. Clinton. Not smart. [/quote]
We can actually agree on something, NAFTA fucked us over.