Comments for The Remorseless Algebra of a Deflationary Death Spiral at http://atlanticfreepress.com , comment 1 to 10 out of 10 comments http://atlanticfreepress.com Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:35:50 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-9582 help everyone - djon Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:51:53 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-9581 l4d not for looser , let`s do it together connect 297.123.1.103 - djon Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:51:08 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5288 depression in the 30's was caused by farm drought. looks like this financial turmoil will be stirred up by farm problems. half the crop isn't in yet and it doesn't appear to be able to be planted. farm catastrophe for sure. - charles kuchar Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:17:13 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5287 People everywhere always live within some system that determines their economic moves. Soldiers go to their deaths or dismemberment in battles that are blatantly futile. There is admittedly plenty of blame to go around in this mess. However, every President and most Fed Chairmen have stoked the inflationary fires unceasingly for a century now. Why would anyone blame Americans who respond logically to the financial conditions created by their political and financial masters? If you can get a mortgage at a rate that causes less fiscal distress than watching savings/investments evaporate through the effects of inflation coupled with artificially low rates of return, why would one go the painful route? In 1970 I declined to take a large mortgage to buy a house because I thought the prices were ridiculous, and they were. My less prudent neighbors bought the big houses at inflated prices. A few years later it was obvious that they had read it right. Are we saying that it might have saved the American economy, had there been enough such suckers as prudent as I? But the boomer real demand wasn’t the only thing driving those prices. It was mainly the availability, for those times, of colossal quantities of newly created phony credit money for mortgages. The American worker did not provide this; rather it was his political and economic masters in Washington and New York. Americans have indeed forgotten their roots: Now it’s A Day's Work for Half A Day's Pay. The decline of the American standard of living has been under way for at least 30 years, not ‘starting today and for many years to come’, though that is probably the even worse future after the current crisis of insolvency. So let's spend lots more productive time pointing to the higher ups in the totem pole, some of them dead for many years, but many still carrying on in true grifter fashion with the help of Fed Chairs. “NO ONE FORCED YOU TO SPEND BEYOND YOUR MEANS AND LEVERAGE YOURSELF TO THE HILT TO LIVE LARGE NOW AND NEVER REALLY HOPE TO PAY ALL OF THE DEBT BACK IN THE FUTURE.” Baloney mixed with bull pfaffle. The average Joe does not know why things are as they are. He can only respond. Most B.A. grads in economics can’t give a coherent explanation. What were the financial Generals and Fed Chairs thinking as they pumped the credit bubbles, if anything? Maybe "We’ll sell the bafflegab above, as a saleable rationalization perhaps.". And since they are skimming theirs off the top, most of them will never face the foot soldiers’ personal financial crises. The average American is not a complete oaf. He can read prices and other economic signs almost as well as can some of the Generals who are living very high off their efforts. Blame is appropriate for those who have engaged in wrong behavior. We might take the average American to task for stupidly trusting that the financial / economic signs were normal and natural. But the ‘blame’ clearly belongs elsewhere. Those who constructed the fiat house of cards and those who now run it for their own enrichment are greatly to blame. It is good to see the Generals now facing some serious solvency problems of their own, richly deserved. But we certainly should avoid blaming the victims, however dull or unaware. These Generals and Presidents should have kept us out of this financial war on the average Joe, same as the Presidents should have kept us out of all those imperial wars. By the way, at Nuremberg they executed the leaders, not the remainder of the population who waved the flags in the massed ranks, and not only because many of those were already gone. - Doug in Indiana Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:15:47 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5286 I do not want the banks responsible for this mess bailed out at the taxpayers expense. My concern is that the our beloved politicians, yes both Republicans and Democrats, will be bought by the banks. Then the politicians will try to pass legislation that allegedly is to benefit the subprime borrowers. In point of fact most of the subprime borrowers have negative equity in their homes and put little or nothing down. In other words they have nothing to lose in case of foreclosure. That is why many are simply walking away from their homes now. The real beneficiaries of the legislation will be banks. It it the banks that are hurt in a foreclosure, not the subprime borrower. However, I am not expecting this legislation ...... until after the election in November. Am I getting cynical in my old age? - J. Irwin Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:17:56 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5285 Greenspan and Bush played their parts, although the emphasis here is surely on the former, and overall they play only a small part in the mess. The problem is far older and runs deeper than these two rather unimpressive individuals. Fiat currency comes to collect in the end. Always. Its just a question of when, and how much its going to hurt. Governments (and certainly private banks) cannot be trusted to print money in any form. It must be tied to something limited, to restrict greed and enforce honesty which cannot be relied on from people by default. Electronic credit just the latest form of paper money, which is just an empty promise to pay, being multiplied ad infinitum. The end of the dollar will perhaps prompt remaining currencies to reconsider this situation, before they meet the same fate. The world needs to learn about economics again. The kind which builds on value, not the kind given to us by banks and their academic seed. Just look at how the academic institutions were infiltrated earlier in the century by bankers with faulty ideas, forming the bias of modern economics. Now only one flavour of economics is taught - the disastrous kind on which we built this house of cards. A re-evaluation is long overdue. But it will be a miracle if that damage can be undone any time soon. Bring back gold before everyone ends up in the poor house. - dml Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:13:07 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5278 Americans since about 1970 have wanted to have more than what their incomes have been able to provide without borrowing massively. There is plenty of blame to go around in this mess. I do not recall any official, Fed Chair or President, holding a gun to American consumers' heads and forcing them to take on record amounts of debt in order to spend and enjoy now, immediately without any thought of saving for a rainy day. One reason American wages have not kept up with even inflation, forget the CPI, is that there are Billions of less-privileged masses who are willing to complain less, work for less, and demand less in days off and benefits than the 300-pound American. What incentives where there for American businesses to keep giving hefty annual wage increases to American workers when less-demanding workers overseas were just a phone call away. Americans have forgotten their roots: A Day's Work for A Day's Pay. But I am afraid the lowering of the American standard of living starting today and for many years to come will get Americans back on track. So let's not spend too much more wasted time pointing to higher ups in the totem pole to blame for a mess that that guy or gal in the mirror right in front of you contributed greatly too. NO ONE FORCED YOU TO SPEND BEYOND YOUR MEANS AND LEVERAGE YOURSELF TO THE HILT TO LIVE LARGE NOW AND NEVER REALLY HOPE TO PAY ALL OF THE DEBT BACK IN THE FUTURE. The foot soldier wins every battle, not the Generals. So quit blaming other unless you are blameless. - David W. Young Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:25:10 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5273 Nice Post.Posted this link in www.surfurls.com - gibsy Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:42:53 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5270 My heartfelt thanks go to Comrade Whitney for showing us how G.W. Bush and Alan Greenspan are singularly to blame for all the problems we find in our "great society". I did not vote for "W" and I have been a despiser of "The Maestro" since 1998. Nevertheless, the root of these problems go back to the mid-1960s and the ever increasing demands placed upon the United States Government by the vanguard of the American proletariat - - the Democratic Party. It was THEY who set up the ever-increasing madness of "Entitlements" without any regard to the demographic limits of how they can be funded. With their willing accomplices in the media (Walter Cronkite, et al.) they foisted upon the American people a set of TOTALLY UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS, the hurricane force winds of which are soon to make landfall. Mr. Bush is a poster boy for that rare combination of ignorance, arrogance, incompetence, and obtuseness. But the script was written long ago by LBJ and his ilk; the Republicans simply sold out the conservative cause to restore the republic, and for at least a generation or more they will be remembered as the biggest whores of all. Robert Ainsworth (rascules@integrity.com) - Robert Ainsworth Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:37:32 +0100 http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/4033-the-remorseless-algebra-of-a-deflationary-death-spiral.html#comment-5269 Change the picture on the bills to Greenspans. Old Ben didn't do this. - Mike Forman Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:17:58 +0100