Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Now, what news on the Rialto?
Mr. Perfect
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Zack Morris wrote: What does this have to do with Reagan-era policies, their impact on the economy then, and their usefulness now? Nothing.
You were the one who brought up debt as a complaint. Since it is your complaint you now must condemn obama much more forcefully than you condemned Reagan because obama's debt is way worse. We're all waiting.
The national debt is not yet having any meaningful impact on the US economy and investment therein. Interest rates are at historic lows globally.
:shock: Do you know why that is. If you did you would not bring up interest rates, else it would cause people to look into why rates are so low (the economy under obama is so bad it's propped up zero percent interest rates and unlimited money printing).

A 300lber also may "not yet" feel his weight is a risk to his health. What that has to do with anything I'll never know.

Also, if you have no problem with debt why did you use it to rail against Reagan? His debts were much smaller by every measure than obama's. If obama gets to do it why doesn't Reagan get to do it much smaller
There is no inflation. The United States remains the preferred destination for foreign and domestic investment dollars by a wide margin.
Ever played musical chairs.
Will the debt have an impact down the road? Probably. When? No one knows for sure, but not in the near term given the relatively inferior shape of the rest of the world.
Ever played Russian roulette.
If anything, the US is awash with access to cheap money to finance new ventures as evidenced by the frothy technology sector and the booming oil/natural gas sector.
Yes, and the 1% thanks you while everyone else suffers. Left wing supply siders. Supply side for me and not for thee.
A reduction in the deficit and the debt are not pertinent to this particular discussion because these things did not happen under Reagan, either.
You made them pertinent. You brought up Reagan debt. They are pertinent because of you.
A 3% drop resulting from the worst recession since the 1940's, just as the baby boomers head toward retirement. What inferences can be drawn from this regarding Reagan-style policies (whatever those are, because you've sure failed to demonstrate a grasp of the 1980's economy) will have to be spelled out to me. Reagan didn't face this sort of a situation. And given the nature of business cycles, it will take years for this to correct itself even if all the "right" steps are taken.
Reagan faced Keynesian inflation/stagflation, which is designed to boost employment and GDP but at the expense of inflation similar to old Soviet 5 year plans. Central planners would produce 5% GDP growth and starve the peasants in the countryside.

In the US everyone was working but everyone felt poorer and poorer as the cost of living skyrocketed and the value of their savings plummeted. I know because I was there. And so were most of the people in the previous opinion poll. That is why Reagan won in a landslide against Carter, and despite a corrective recession early in his term won a bigger landslide 4 years later. Everybody loved the results.

Here's the labor force participation rate in better context:
latest_numbers_LNS11300000_1970_2014_all_period_M08_data.gif
I got this directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Why did you truncate your plot? Between January 1976 and 1980, the participation rate grew by 2.7%. Between 1980 and 1990, it grew by 2.8%. By your logic, Carter puts Reagan to shame and the 1970's were the best of times in Amerca. And note the very clear inflection point during the 1990's, well before W. and Obama. Do you understand why this happened and why the upward trend in labor force participation peaked?
Already covered above. Employment growth under Carter came at a direct cost.

You are at a disadvantage because I was there. The media would report job and GDP figures but the cost was double digit inflation. The country wisely decided the tradeoff was a disaster.
Now that I've demolished your argument, let's stick to the point.
My argument is that jobs grew under Reagan and have plummeted under obama.

You have not put a smudge on my argument. My argument is iron clad.

You condemned Reagan for things obama is much worse at. To maintain your integrity you must now forcefully condemn obama for his much greater debt, creation of underclass and horrific job performance.

I'm waiting.
All true but none of it reinforces your point.
Boy it sure does. This is an underclass creation that dwarfs anything you can find on Reagan.
I posted a very detailed and purely factual analysis of the 1980's economy
No you didn't.
showing that there was nothing remarkable about that one-trick pony.
73% of America, most of whom lived through the different eras disagree with you vehemently. Good luck convincing that many people who know way more about it than you do.
The 1980's were an era of wage stagnation, low-skill retail and food industry job growth, and a one-time expansion in trade and wholesale driven by importing technology from Japan and cheap goods from elsewhere.
Nope. CS says the 1980's was driven by computer chips from California and tanks. Which one of you should believe, particularly since neither one of were there and apparently have done scant reading on the subject.
The 1980's were the era of strip malls, shopping malls, and retail stores: KMart, Walmart, Shopco, Mervyn's, Circuit City, Marshall's, Ross, Sears, etc., etc., etc. Many of these are now defunct because the factory-to-consumer pipeline has been decimated by the Internet, which continues to thrive in the United States.
[/quote]
What this has to do with the American people loving Reagan's economic performance I don't have any idea.

All I know is you condemned Reagan for underclass, debt, and poor jobs, while it's now established obama is orders of magnitude worse on all counts.

Waiting for your firm condemnation of obama.
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Zack Morris
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Zack Morris »

Mr. Perfect wrote: You were the one who brought up debt as a complaint. Since it is your complaint you now must condemn obama much more forcefully than you condemned Reagan because obama's debt is way worse. We're all waiting.
Consumer debt and the trade deficit are what I mentioned.

Image

The "prosperity" of the 1980s was financed by a reduction in savings and increase in debt.
If anything, the US is awash with access to cheap money to finance new ventures as evidenced by the frothy technology sector and the booming oil/natural gas sector.
Yes, and the 1% thanks you while everyone else suffers. Left wing supply siders. Supply side for me and not for thee.
The oil boom is hailed as a job creation engine for blue collar workers. The technology sector is one of the last bastions of the middle and upper middle classes in the United States, alongside health care.
Reagan faced Keynesian inflation/stagflation, which is designed to boost employment and GDP but at the expense of inflation similar to old Soviet 5 year plans. Central planners would produce 5% GDP growth and starve the peasants in the countryside.

In the US everyone was working but everyone felt poorer and poorer as the cost of living skyrocketed and the value of their savings plummeted. I know because I was there. And so were most of the people in the previous opinion poll. That is why Reagan won in a landslide against Carter, and despite a corrective recession early in his term won a bigger landslide 4 years later. Everybody loved the results.
The economy of the 1970's hardly resembled the Soviet system. The "corrective" recession was achieved purely through monetary policy by a Carter administration holdover. Whatever you think Reagan did to combat structural problems in the US economy that developed during the 60's and 70's, he was not very effective. The 1980's transformed us into a service economy dependent on jobs on the fast track for obsolescence.

As I pointed out, we've passed an inflection point in labor force participation. Retiring boomers are responsible for roughly half of the drop in the participation rate. If you pay attention to the financial press, hardly a day goes by without this being discussed. Here's an article from today's WSJ:
Over the past year a series of studies—the most recent by six Federal Reserve economists—have converged on the conclusion that aging explains about half the post-2007 drop in the labor force participation rate. The debate now centers on the other half. More teenagers and young adults ages 16 to 24 are now enrolled in school, which temporarily depresses labor force participation but will benefit them and the economy over the long term. On the other hand, the unenrolled portion of this cohort is less likely to be working or looking for work than it was a decade ago.
My argument is that jobs grew under Reagan and have plummeted under obama.
See the discussion above. It's also noteworthy that the unemployment rate for college grads has been converging toward the historical norm, even if those grads are overqualified for more of those jobs than ever before. The problems with higher education would be enough to fill a separate thread but suffice it to say that never before has the post-secondary education system received as much scrutiny as since 2009.

You've failed to demonstrate that there was any substance to the Reagan economy. The sad fact is that low-skilled workers are less useful than ever before and no one has a clear solution for that.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Sorry Zack Morris, you can change the subject and move the goalposts all you want but it won't change that this was your original argument.
Zack Morris wrote:I like how you've derailed the thread into an argument about how high Reagan scores in popularity contests. Anything to avoid shining light on the unsustainable, debt-fueled, underclass-creating economy of the 80's.
We have demonstrated that obama is orders of magnitude worse in each category, so in order to maintain your integrity we will await your strong condemnation of obama.

obama has set records on unsustainable, debt fueled underclass creating economies. Setting records as we speak.
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Heracleum Persicum
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

Workers @ age 65 plus.png
Workers @ age 65 plus.png (34.07 KiB) Viewed 1574 times
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Simple Minded »

Heracleum Persicum wrote:
Workers @ age 65 plus.png
Interpretations?

The greying of America?
Old folks like to work?
Times are tough for old farts?
Old people who are raising their grandkids need more income?
They spend so much time at McDonalds Ronald gave them jobs?
All of the above?
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

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Economist | Tumbling resource prices suggest the world economy is slowing
GIVE commodity markets credit: they are anything but boring. Between 2000 and 2011 broad indices of commodity prices tripled, easily outpacing global growth and stoking Malthusian hysteria. Jeremy Grantham, a wealthy financier, noted at the time that it was not so much “peak oil” that would undo humanity but “peak everything else”. Yet since then commodity prices have slumped by about a quarter, and roughly 11% since June alone. That is not, however, an unalloyed good.

This reversal of fortunes, naturally, is much better news for net importers of resources than for net exporters. For consumers, a drop in the price of natural gas or rice is like a tax cut: it leaves households with more disposable income. Rising oil prices often tip importing countries into recession, and can put pressure on currencies as current-account deficits widen. The cheap resources of the 1990s, in contrast, helped to buoy real wages in the rich world.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.

world economy is in "deflation"

.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

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Image
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.


Coming soon : "Ageless workplaces" .. Working until you die

An aging population, increased life expectancy and better health care mean that today's forty-somethings are gearing up to work another 30 years

.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Typhoon »

FT | An extraordinary state of ‘managed depression’
Suppose we had been told two decades ago that a time would come when the highest short-term intervention rate implemented by the four most important central banks of the high-income countries was just half a per cent. Suppose, too, we were told that the European Central Bank was down to 0.05 per cent, after a brief and unsuccessful effort to raise the rate from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent in 2011.

Suppose, not least, we had been told that by late 2014, rates almost as low as this, or even lower, had been in effect for more than five years, and in Japan for two decades. What would we have expected as the result of such policies? High inflation, if not hyperinflation, would have been our answer. Indeed, we would have wondered why policy makers had gone mad.
FT | Incomes fail to recover, except for those at the very top of the ladder
The defining feature of the economic recovery since 2009 is how little it feels like a recovery. Part of that is the sluggishness of growth. But even more important is how the rewards have been shared out, with the vast majority going to a small number of people with the highest incomes.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote:FT | An extraordinary state of ‘managed depression’
Suppose we had been told two decades ago that a time would come when the highest short-term intervention rate implemented by the four most important central banks of the high-income countries was just half a per cent. Suppose, too, we were told that the European Central Bank was down to 0.05 per cent, after a brief and unsuccessful effort to raise the rate from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent in 2011.

Suppose, not least, we had been told that by late 2014, rates almost as low as this, or even lower, had been in effect for more than five years, and in Japan for two decades. What would we have expected as the result of such policies? High inflation, if not hyperinflation, would have been our answer. Indeed, we would have wondered why policy makers had gone mad.
FT | Incomes fail to recover, except for those at the very top of the ladder
The defining feature of the economic recovery since 2009 is how little it feels like a recovery. Part of that is the sluggishness of growth. But even more important is how the rewards have been shared out, with the vast majority going to a small number of people with the highest incomes.
As predicted by teabaggers.
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Zack Morris
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Zack Morris »

Actually, the prediction was hyperinflation within 2 years. It's been 5 years since hyperinflation was supposed to set in (and Japan has gone much longer than that).
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Doc »

Zack Morris wrote:Actually, the prediction was hyperinflation within 2 years. It's been 5 years since hyperinflation was supposed to set in (and Japan has gone much longer than that).
Mostly it comes down to what other currencies are you going hold in cash? There really is not too much in the way of low risk moderate yield investment opportunities out there.

All boats go down in a low tide. Though in many respects there has been inflation Food has gone way up. Metals The rice of gold while lower now is still about 60% above where it was. The same for oil. Though it is going down due to falling demand and rising supply.

In other news Obama said his credit card was declined last month. Apparently his bank decided that he was too much of a risk..
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

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Reuters | U.S. regulator targeting lower down payments on mortgages
The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said on Monday it was developing rules to let Americans buy homes with down payments as low as 3 percent, part of a push to boost access to credit.
Good idea. After all, it worked out so well the last time . . .
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Zack Morris wrote:Actually, the prediction was hyperinflation within 2 years. It's been 5 years since hyperinflation was supposed to set in (and Japan has gone much longer than that).
That was just one prediction. Teabagger predictionr rates are at about 90% succesful, while Democrats are about at 10%.

That is why you are going to be immolated in the next election. Permanent damage.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Typhoon »

chindit13 wrote:Perhaps I haven’t found it in the history books, but when was this Golden Age when the Middle Class could afford vacations, new cars, quality dental care, etc., except for that brief post-WWII era when the US had the advantage of not having a blown-up production base, and when no one gave a lavender if Chinese or Indians starved to death?

What everyone really seems to be upset about is that humanity is returning to the mean in terms of relative lifestyle, and that non-highly skilled labor has no pricing power. Well, that has been the case for the masses pretty much since Oldavai Gorge, except for this recent blink of an eye. Welcome back to the Old Normal! Did you forget history?

We had a good run, but it wasn’t the norm. It was an aberration. We got spoiled, and then we did what the typical Wall Street analyst does, which is project the present or very recent past into an infinite future. We came to the belief that we had some birthright to live as well or better than our parents. Ain’t gonna happen. We already had Peak Lifestyle.

Everything about which the Doomer Crowd [ZH] here complains each and every day ad nauseum are either unrealistic fantasies (like any of you would be doing better if we had a gold standard), or are the stopgap measures societies took to extend the good times for as long as possible (debt, fiat, active Central Banking—symptoms, not causes of what ails us).

Labor is in surplus. That is what is driving everything. Efficiency is on the rise, which makes labor even more redundant. Cut out fiat, the Fed, fractional reserve, whatever…it will change absolutely nothing. None of you would be better off, none of you would get a better job, and not a single additional person in Greece or Spain or France would get a job either. Virtually none of you is necessary to a functioning society. Neither am I, but unlike most of you folks here, I know I was born at a good time, in a good place, in the right color and gender. I know I was lucky, so I don’t carry the false anger that makes most of you hate everything, especially your own increasingly miserable lives. That Old Normal is a letdown to those who feel entitled.

The period 1950 to about 2005 was the absolute peak of human comfort and ease, especially in OECD countries. There was never an easier time in all of human history to succeed and live a pleasurable life. The unskilled or the barely skilled, who had the good luck to have been whelped within the borders of a highly developed country like the US, had virtually no excuse to be anything but successful. In particular, white males coming to adulthood during that five plus decade period probably had to go out of their way, or just be complete genuflect-ups, to fail.

It’s now over. Absent a rare and necessary skill, the lifestyle of an OECD citizen is going to drop to the level of a developing world citizen. The undeserved Birth Advantage (low-skill worker getting popped out in a highly developed nation) has been repealed. Most people no longer feel they owe anything to a person simply because the person materialized within the same man-made borders. Why should they? It’s not like any of you care about me or I give any more of a lavender about any of you than I do some female living in rural Bangladesh. In fact, I probably prefer her, because she doesn’t feel entitled and isn’t constantly whining. She accepts the inherent unfairness of existence and deals with it. We all got spoiled and held our leaders to a higher standard that we hold Gods/the Universe. Is it fair you were born the way you were born? Go complain to The Man, since He did it.

There is historical precedent, or a good example, for what is happening now, albeit for this example there was a better resolution than anyone today is going to get. In the mid-19th Century, Cyrus McCormick built his combine. It could do in a day what it previously had taken fifty men a week to do. Most of the agrarian labor force was suddenly made redundant. Lucky for them there was something called the Industrial Revolution, so they had a place to go. All we’ve got is the Social Networking Revolution, and it is anything but labor intensive.

The equivalent of a thousand McCormick combines are materializing today in virtually every field of endeavor. As humanity approaches the Singularity, this trend will accelerate. International lifestyles are going to meet in the middle. India and China (and that Bangladeshi female) will rise a bit; the US, EU and other developed country labor forces are going down. A lot.

Sure the Fed and all the financial machinations are adding to the problem, but their total impact is negligible compared to the reality of massive human redundancy. If anything, they’ve prolonged the party a bit, but will make the initial hangover more painful. It was going to be painful regardless. We’re just living in the proverbial interesting times.

The elite, however, will do what they have done in every economic iteration in history, which is to find a way to come up trumps. Darwin always Rules.
If this is an accurate assessment, then it hardly matters if it's the parochial Republicrats or Demopublicans that are in power in the USA.
Except to those for whom politics is another point scoring spectator sport.

A major structural change in the global economy is probably underway.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Sounds like a futurist working for Jimmy Carter in 1979.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:
chindit13 wrote:Perhaps I haven’t found it in the history books, but when was this Golden Age when the Middle Class could afford vacations, new cars, quality dental care, etc., except for that brief post-WWII era when the US had the advantage of not having a blown-up production base, and when no one gave a lavender if Chinese or Indians starved to death?

What everyone really seems to be upset about is that humanity is returning to the mean in terms of relative lifestyle, and that non-highly skilled labor has no pricing power. Well, that has been the case for the masses pretty much since Oldavai Gorge, except for this recent blink of an eye. Welcome back to the Old Normal! Did you forget history?

We had a good run, but it wasn’t the norm. It was an aberration. We got spoiled, and then we did what the typical Wall Street analyst does, which is project the present or very recent past into an infinite future. We came to the belief that we had some birthright to live as well or better than our parents. Ain’t gonna happen. We already had Peak Lifestyle.

Everything about which the Doomer Crowd [ZH] here complains each and every day ad nauseum are either unrealistic fantasies (like any of you would be doing better if we had a gold standard), or are the stopgap measures societies took to extend the good times for as long as possible (debt, fiat, active Central Banking—symptoms, not causes of what ails us).

Labor is in surplus. That is what is driving everything. Efficiency is on the rise, which makes labor even more redundant. Cut out fiat, the Fed, fractional reserve, whatever…it will change absolutely nothing. None of you would be better off, none of you would get a better job, and not a single additional person in Greece or Spain or France would get a job either. Virtually none of you is necessary to a functioning society. Neither am I, but unlike most of you folks here, I know I was born at a good time, in a good place, in the right color and gender. I know I was lucky, so I don’t carry the false anger that makes most of you hate everything, especially your own increasingly miserable lives. That Old Normal is a letdown to those who feel entitled.

The period 1950 to about 2005 was the absolute peak of human comfort and ease, especially in OECD countries. There was never an easier time in all of human history to succeed and live a pleasurable life. The unskilled or the barely skilled, who had the good luck to have been whelped within the borders of a highly developed country like the US, had virtually no excuse to be anything but successful. In particular, white males coming to adulthood during that five plus decade period probably had to go out of their way, or just be complete genuflect-ups, to fail.

It’s now over. Absent a rare and necessary skill, the lifestyle of an OECD citizen is going to drop to the level of a developing world citizen. The undeserved Birth Advantage (low-skill worker getting popped out in a highly developed nation) has been repealed. Most people no longer feel they owe anything to a person simply because the person materialized within the same man-made borders. Why should they? It’s not like any of you care about me or I give any more of a lavender about any of you than I do some female living in rural Bangladesh. In fact, I probably prefer her, because she doesn’t feel entitled and isn’t constantly whining. She accepts the inherent unfairness of existence and deals with it. We all got spoiled and held our leaders to a higher standard that we hold Gods/the Universe. Is it fair you were born the way you were born? Go complain to The Man, since He did it.

There is historical precedent, or a good example, for what is happening now, albeit for this example there was a better resolution than anyone today is going to get. In the mid-19th Century, Cyrus McCormick built his combine. It could do in a day what it previously had taken fifty men a week to do. Most of the agrarian labor force was suddenly made redundant. Lucky for them there was something called the Industrial Revolution, so they had a place to go. All we’ve got is the Social Networking Revolution, and it is anything but labor intensive.

The equivalent of a thousand McCormick combines are materializing today in virtually every field of endeavor. As humanity approaches the Singularity, this trend will accelerate. International lifestyles are going to meet in the middle. India and China (and that Bangladeshi female) will rise a bit; the US, EU and other developed country labor forces are going down. A lot.

Sure the Fed and all the financial machinations are adding to the problem, but their total impact is negligible compared to the reality of massive human redundancy. If anything, they’ve prolonged the party a bit, but will make the initial hangover more painful. It was going to be painful regardless. We’re just living in the proverbial interesting times.

The elite, however, will do what they have done in every economic iteration in history, which is to find a way to come up trumps. Darwin always Rules.
If this is an accurate assessment, then it hardly matters if it's the parochial Republicrats or Demopublicans that are in power in the USA.
Except to those for whom politics is another point scoring spectator sport.

A major structural change in the global economy is probably underway.
An interesting set of opinions from Mr. Chindit13. I have long thought that based on historical norms, post WWII America (and much of the West) has been an abnormally prosperous place for all it's citizens (yes, some more than others, blame "da man," blame your parents/genes, blame karma and your actions in a previous life, whatever), and that those born post 1970, or born into middle class/upper middle class families may have very disappointing lives as adults, due to becoming accustomed to unearned prosperity in their youth.

Even the concept of retirement. Removing age and experience from society, is that a good thing?

Never sweating, no sunburn, frostbite, callouses, pulled muscles, no 16 hour days, or 90 hour weeks to earn a buck, or help a friend/relative/neighbor.

Is that realistic? Is it beneficial? If so, for how long?
Last edited by Simple Minded on Thu Oct 30, 2014 3:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Mr. Greenspan said gold is a good place to put money these days given its value as a currency outside of the policies conducted by governments.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/former-f ... 1414597627
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Simple Minded »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:
Mr. Greenspan said gold is a good place to put money these days given its value as a currency outside of the policies conducted by governments.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/former-f ... 1414597627
NH,

I couldn't access the article, but your summary screams gold prices are headed down for a while, probably several years. Look at when central banks have bought gold in the past.

Or it could just be another retiree saying "the new kids can't steer the ship as well as I did when I was Captain."
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Typhoon »

Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
chindit13 wrote:Perhaps I haven’t found it in the history books, but when was this Golden Age when the Middle Class could afford vacations, new cars, quality dental care, etc., except for that brief post-WWII era when the US had the advantage of not having a blown-up production base, and when no one gave a lavender if Chinese or Indians starved to death?

What everyone really seems to be upset about is that humanity is returning to the mean in terms of relative lifestyle, and that non-highly skilled labor has no pricing power. Well, that has been the case for the masses pretty much since Oldavai Gorge, except for this recent blink of an eye. Welcome back to the Old Normal! Did you forget history?

We had a good run, but it wasn’t the norm. It was an aberration. We got spoiled, and then we did what the typical Wall Street analyst does, which is project the present or very recent past into an infinite future. We came to the belief that we had some birthright to live as well or better than our parents. Ain’t gonna happen. We already had Peak Lifestyle.

Everything about which the Doomer Crowd [ZH] here complains each and every day ad nauseum are either unrealistic fantasies (like any of you would be doing better if we had a gold standard), or are the stopgap measures societies took to extend the good times for as long as possible (debt, fiat, active Central Banking—symptoms, not causes of what ails us).

Labor is in surplus. That is what is driving everything. Efficiency is on the rise, which makes labor even more redundant. Cut out fiat, the Fed, fractional reserve, whatever…it will change absolutely nothing. None of you would be better off, none of you would get a better job, and not a single additional person in Greece or Spain or France would get a job either. Virtually none of you is necessary to a functioning society. Neither am I, but unlike most of you folks here, I know I was born at a good time, in a good place, in the right color and gender. I know I was lucky, so I don’t carry the false anger that makes most of you hate everything, especially your own increasingly miserable lives. That Old Normal is a letdown to those who feel entitled.

The period 1950 to about 2005 was the absolute peak of human comfort and ease, especially in OECD countries. There was never an easier time in all of human history to succeed and live a pleasurable life. The unskilled or the barely skilled, who had the good luck to have been whelped within the borders of a highly developed country like the US, had virtually no excuse to be anything but successful. In particular, white males coming to adulthood during that five plus decade period probably had to go out of their way, or just be complete genuflect-ups, to fail.

It’s now over. Absent a rare and necessary skill, the lifestyle of an OECD citizen is going to drop to the level of a developing world citizen. The undeserved Birth Advantage (low-skill worker getting popped out in a highly developed nation) has been repealed. Most people no longer feel they owe anything to a person simply because the person materialized within the same man-made borders. Why should they? It’s not like any of you care about me or I give any more of a lavender about any of you than I do some female living in rural Bangladesh. In fact, I probably prefer her, because she doesn’t feel entitled and isn’t constantly whining. She accepts the inherent unfairness of existence and deals with it. We all got spoiled and held our leaders to a higher standard that we hold Gods/the Universe. Is it fair you were born the way you were born? Go complain to The Man, since He did it.

There is historical precedent, or a good example, for what is happening now, albeit for this example there was a better resolution than anyone today is going to get. In the mid-19th Century, Cyrus McCormick built his combine. It could do in a day what it previously had taken fifty men a week to do. Most of the agrarian labor force was suddenly made redundant. Lucky for them there was something called the Industrial Revolution, so they had a place to go. All we’ve got is the Social Networking Revolution, and it is anything but labor intensive.

The equivalent of a thousand McCormick combines are materializing today in virtually every field of endeavor. As humanity approaches the Singularity, this trend will accelerate. International lifestyles are going to meet in the middle. India and China (and that Bangladeshi female) will rise a bit; the US, EU and other developed country labor forces are going down. A lot.

Sure the Fed and all the financial machinations are adding to the problem, but their total impact is negligible compared to the reality of massive human redundancy. If anything, they’ve prolonged the party a bit, but will make the initial hangover more painful. It was going to be painful regardless. We’re just living in the proverbial interesting times.

The elite, however, will do what they have done in every economic iteration in history, which is to find a way to come up trumps. Darwin always Rules.
If this is an accurate assessment, then it hardly matters if it's the parochial Republicrats or Demopublicans that are in power in the USA.
Except to those for whom politics is another point scoring spectator sport.

A major structural change in the global economy is probably underway.
An interesting set of opinions from Mr. Chindit13. I have long thought that based on historical norms, post WWII America (and much of the West) has been an abnormally prosperous place for all it's citizens (yes, some more than others, blame "da man," blame your parents/genes, blame karma and your actions in a previous life, whatever), and that those born post 1970, or born into middle class/upper middle class families may have very disappointing lives as adults, due to becoming accustomed to unearned prosperity in their youth.

Even the concept of retirement. Removing age and experience from society, is that a good thing?

Never sweating, no sunburn, frostbite, callouses, pulled muscles, no 16 hour days, or 90 hour weeks to earn a buck, or help a friend/relative/neighbor.

Is that realistic? Is it beneficial? If so, for how long?
There is historical precedent, or a good example, for what is happening now, albeit for this example there was a better resolution than anyone today is going to get. In the mid-19th Century, Cyrus McCormick built his combine. It could do in a day what it previously had taken fifty men a week to do. Most of the agrarian labor force was suddenly made redundant. Lucky for them there was something called the Industrial Revolution, so they had a place to go. All we’ve got is the Social Networking Revolution, and it is anything but labor intensive.
The social networking revolution is interesting.

As a tool, the Google search engine is incredibly useful.
One can locate information in minutes, when it would have previously taken hours and sometimes days pouring over books in a library.
So it is value-added tool that enhances productivity.
The other remarkable point is that it is free. Various companies used to charge dearly to collect and provide the same information.
However, if everyone was like me, then Google's business model would collapse. I've never clicked on a sponsored link.
I don't see even them anymore as I use Adblock along with security software pop-up blockers.

I also use Ghostery, Disconnect, and Privacy Badger to minimize tracking by 3rd parties along with HTTPS Everywhere and a VPN.
So whatever info does leak through is not accurate.

On the other hand, social networking sites/apps such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. do not strike me as useful. They're basically entertainment sites.
That is fine, but hard to understand how one can build an economy on likes and tweets by twits.
More productivity inhibitors than enhancers :wink:

Amazon is another interesting case.
Again, I find it very useful for specialist books.
It has decimated many brick and mortar business, while creating new channels and opportunities, yet has never made a dollar's profit.
It has also pioneered warehouse automation, meaning that far fewer people need to be employed for order fulfillment.

The world is changing . . .
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Simple Minded

Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:
The world is changing . . .
Very true, "all is flux." has always been true.

Thankfully we are not all the same. Huge chunks of the economy would collapse if more people were like me.

The free market: what customers demand, someone will produce.

Each generation redefines "normal" in their first 20 years, but human nature remains consistent.

Some say human nature and free markets are good things, others, not so much.
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Re: Gloom, Doom, or Boom? Finance and Economics

Post by Typhoon »

Lexington | The nostalgia trap
Politicians need to stop pretending to angry voters that globalisation can be wished away
Too many leaders in the rich West have picked up on gloom about the future as a driver of public distrust of politics, but offer only narrow, partisan solutions, often focused on scrapping opponents’ policies that they always disliked.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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