tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post1475692174899494680..comments2024-03-22T06:05:36.544-04:00Comments on Kids Prefer Cheese: David Stockman wants to pee in your cornflakesMungowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02340064320347875601noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-49879233062400811492013-04-14T14:18:07.532-04:002013-04-14T14:18:07.532-04:00Wow... okay, we get it, you have a raging hard-on ...Wow... okay, we get it, you have a raging hard-on for Friedman, and Stockman will burn in hell for trying to smear your bff - who, by the way, helped institute income tax withholding, arguably (well, I'll argue it) the biggest enabler of escalating taxes.<br /><br />But... "But the Fed has a dual mandate of stable prices and maximum employment, and their attempts to raise economic activity have not in the almost 4 years of unconventional policy aggravated inflation." <br /><br />By what definition (other that that of a proud macroeconomist) is roughly 2% annual inflation "price stability"? If you are gonna focus not on price stability, but on rate-of-change of prices stability, why not go one further, and go for the second derivative? No, THAT would be ridiculous, right?<br /><br />Also, by the BLS ever evolving definition of inflation, we have not had much of it in the past 5 years, imputed rent and hedonic adjustments and all that jazz. So, you guarantee future performance based on past performance, is that it? Bernanke has admitted that any potential tightening will be implemented via the interest paid on excess reserves, not by shrinking the Fed's balance sheet. That's healthy in your world, and will not crowd out private lending, right?<br /><br />"'You can see how the Fed's unconventional policy responses have been geared to fears of deflation." - Ah, the good ole deflation hobgoblin. Can't have it! 1860-1900 were horrible for the US economy. Nobody spent a penny then, everyone hoarded them in mason jars and under mattresses. The Great Depression trumps it all - where the average depositor in a bank lost 20% of their money. It's much better for the average stock market investor to lose 50%. Makes perfect sense.<br /><br />Were YOU trying to get a date with Naomi Klein, mayhaps?Plamusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-36281199268168705752013-04-01T11:55:48.203-04:002013-04-01T11:55:48.203-04:00Well, it's customary to compare economic expan...Well, it's customary to compare economic expansions from the same point in the cycle, so we need to compare the one beginning in late 2001--not '2000'--with the one that began in March 1991.<br /><br />When we do that we see that they looked pretty much the same, until 2008. The best explanation for that divergence would be that the Fed was NOT expansionary enough--persistently abnormally low interest rates being a classic sign of that.<br /><br />But there is something wrong with 'Wall Street' if Stockman makes millions peddling this kind of nonsensical analysis.Patrick Sullivanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14948365865741313524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-48560095120364840332013-04-01T10:23:09.152-04:002013-04-01T10:23:09.152-04:00"Real GDP grew strongly from 2000 to 2007, th..."Real GDP grew strongly from 2000 to 2007, then collapsed."<br /><br />If by "strongly" you mean 2.4% per year, then, yes, GDP grew strongly from 2000 to 2007.<br /><br />Compared to history, that is anemic growth. Considering that this is an era of stagnant wages, and soaring corporate profits (including the soaring profits of Wall St. banks gambling in CDOs), one is left to assume that most, if not all, of this GDP growth was limited to the nation's elite rich. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00924752236409109939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7464708.post-64657089767580127862013-03-31T14:07:19.310-04:002013-03-31T14:07:19.310-04:00David Stockman apparently lives in Bizarro world, ...David Stockman apparently lives in Bizarro world, where up is down and truth is a lie.Normanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12866136113454261245noreply@blogger.com