Happy π Day!
by coldwarrior ( 106 Comments › )Filed under Uncategorized at March 14th, 2017 - 12:01 am
Let The Cuts Begin!
by coldwarrior ( 57 Comments › )Filed under Donald Trump, Economy, Open thread at March 13th, 2017 - 10:15 am
But But But Trump isn’t a real CONSERVATIVE!!!! Isn’t that what I was told? Well, they are right, he isn’t a real Con-servative ™ (r) inc. That is FOR SURE!
President Trump’s budget proposal this week would shake the federal government to its core if enacted, culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce.
This would be the first time the government has executed cuts of this magnitude — and all at once — since the drawdown following World War II, economists and budget analysts said.
The spending budget Trump is set to release Thursday will offer the clearest snapshot of his vision for the size and role of government. Aides say that the president sees a new Washington emerging from the budget process, one that prioritizes the military and homeland security while slashing many other areas, including housing, foreign assistance, environmental programs, public broadcasting and research. Simply put, government would be smaller and less involved in regulating life in America, with private companies and states playing a much bigger role.
The Political Federal Reserve
by coldwarrior ( 159 Comments › )Filed under Economy, Open thread at March 10th, 2017 - 6:00 pm
Granted, The Fed has an impossible mandate from Congress (what happens when you let lawyers run the show): to provide price stability AND full employment. That said, this is purely political:
Yellen in October when she though Hillary would win Please watch the vid:
Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen offered an argument for running the U.S. economy hot for a period to ensure moribund growth doesn’t become an entrenched feature of the business landscape, during a speech at a Boston Fed conference.
President Trump Grows the Economy BIGLY:
America’s labor market might not be as great yet as President Donald Trump wants, but by almost any measure, it’s getting better.
Employers added an above-forecast 235,000 positions in February, while measures of joblessness and underemployment improved, the Labor Department’s monthly report showed on Friday. Wage growth picked up and the share of prime-age Americans in the labor force rose to the highest since 2011, suggesting the economy’s strength is drawing people off the sidelines.
While some of last month’s labor-market gains can be chalked up to unseasonably warm weather, particularly in construction, the figures are still solid and effectively seal a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase next week. Analysts expect wage gains to gradually accelerate further, which will underpin consumer spending, the principal driver of economic growth, amid a first quarter that’s looking tepid.
Yellen now the Trump is President ans is YUGELY succeeding:
With monetary policy still modestly accommodative, the U.S. central bank should continue to raise interest rates slowly to keep jobs plentiful and inflation low, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday.
“I think that allowing the economy to run markedly and persistently “hot” would be risky and unwise,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
While there are no signs as yet that the Fed is behind the curve or the economy is in danger of a sudden surge in inflation, she said, “I consider it prudent to adjust the stance of monetary policy gradually over time.”
So much for an impartial Federal Reserve. It’s time for Yellen to be called on the carpet.
Some Insightful Economic Information on China
by coldwarrior ( 138 Comments › )Filed under China, Economy, Open thread at March 8th, 2017 - 2:45 am
In the middle of all of the wire-taps and repeal of Obamacare, lets take a look at China:
China’s economic miracle, like that of Japan before it, is over. Its resurrection simply isn’t working, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. Sustained double-digit economic growth is possible when you begin with a wrecked economy. In Japan’s case, the country was recovering from World War II. China was recovering from Mao Zedong’s policies. Simply by getting back to work an economy will surge. If the damage from which the economy is recovering is great enough, that surge can last a generation.
But extrapolating growth rates by a society that is merely fixing the obvious results of national catastrophes is irrational. The more mature an economy, the more the damage has been repaired and the harder it is to sustain extraordinary growth rates. The idea that China was going to economically dominate the world was as dubious as the idea in the 1980s that Japan would. Japan, however, could have dominated if its growth rate would have continued. But since that was impossible, the fantasy evaporates – and with it, the overheated expectations of the world.
China’s dilemma, like Japan’s, is that it built much of its growth on exports. Both China and Japan were poor countries, and demand for goods was low. They jump-started their economies by taking advantage of low wages to sell products they could produce themselves to advanced economies. The result was that those engaged in exporting enjoyed increasing prosperity, but those who were farther from East China ports, where export industries clustered, did not.
China and Japan had two problems. The first was that wages rose. Skilled workers needed to produce more sophisticated products were in short supply. Government policy focusing on exports redirected capital to businesses that were marginal at best, increasing inefficiency and costs. But most importantly – and frequently forgotten by observers of export miracles – is that miracles depend on customers who are willing and able to buy. In that sense, China’s export miracle depended on the appetite of its customers, not on Chinese policy….
