Political Ramblings

[hemet dennis]

On the FED.

 

[rufus]

Well, we have a lot of different ideas here. Actually, probably none of us have any ability change anything. It is up to each of us to decide how to handle our own individual finances. Each monkey to his own peanut.

I personally do not believe we are dealing with a situation with finite resources. Just a few years ago, the wizards were telling us that we had reached peak oil. Then came the miracle of deep drilling, lateral drilling and fracturing. Now we are awash in natural gas and oil.

Those same wizards are now predicting that we will soon see $8 natural gas.

On the issue of the Fed, it worked before because we were a US economy, but now we are a global economy whether we like it or not. Money flows from country to country instantaneously. When they lower the interest rate, money flows from the US to the whole world.

The Fed needs to let the interest rate seek it natural rate.

Have you all been watching the Kitco gold and silver charts? When the price of gold goes up forty or fifty dollars within a hour or two, that does not reflect normal usage. It indicates to me that central banks and big corporations are protecting certain currencies.

 

[hemet dennis]

Well, we have a lot of different ideas here. Actually, probably none of us have any ability change anything. It is up to each of us to decide how to handle our own individual finances. Each monkey to his own peanut.

I personally do not believe we are dealing with a situation with finite resources. Just a few years ago, the wizards were telling us that we had reached peak oil. Then came the miracle of deep drilling, lateral drilling and fracturing. Now we are awash in natural gas and oil.

Those same wizards are now predicting that we will soon see $8 natural gas.

On the issue of the Fed, it worked before because we were a US economy, but now we are a global economy whether we like it or not. Money flows from country to country instantaneously. When they lower the interest rate, money flows from the US to the whole world.

The Fed needs to let the interest rate seek it natural rate.

Have you all been watching the Kitco gold and silver charts? When the price of gold goes up forty or fifty dollars within a hour or two, that does not reflect normal usage. It indicates to me that central banks and big corporations are protecting certain currencies.

Well I think that's a one sided look at interest rates. There's a reason that the FED has lowed interest rates. It's to help employment here and stimulate the economy. The reason some other countries rates are higher is there's more risk with them. Even at only 2% interest rate the Treasury doesn't have any trouble selling there bonds.

It's ones of the jobs of a central bank to protect there currency. So no shock there.

 

[bakerjw]

Had the Fed not dropped rates and kept them low, I'd hate to imagine how bad things would be right now. Unfortunately, there is too much uncertainty for businesses to take on extra loans or for banks to make loans that they may have made in the past.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

http://chiefweems.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/from-subjects-to-citizens/

 

[Q9]

Well I think you have a more gloom a doom belief then I do. But are you or I wrong ? Only time will tell.

One person earlier said that Bank of America loaned money to China with Tarp money. But the truth is that BoA bought a bank in China. And everyone cried over TARP but it turned out that the Government ( the taxpayers ) made money on the bank bailouts.

Most of the time I don't try to get someone to switch from one side to the other. But I like to get the facts to the person that's just reading because they don't know or are on the fence about something.

As it turns out, TARP was still a terrible idea. Once again, basic economics. It encourages poor policy on the part of "too big to fail" companies and hindered the ongoing economic correction. Any manipulation of the economy by government is a bad idea, and leads to worse, prolonged corrections. From a moral standpoint, why should tax dollars (that is, your dollars and mine) be used to bail out poorly-run companies? Of course, the feds basically mandated poor policy in some instances, which made it still worse...

The correction is entirely a product of the Fed and absurd regulation. They blow a bubble... and it bursts. So they fix it with more false prosperity with a NEW bubble! Nothing could possibly go wrong!

 

[hemet dennis]

Quote:
Well if the banks had failed the Government would have still had to pay all the people that lost bank accounts up to the max. FDIC limit. That would come from tax dollars (yep, your dollars and mine). If they had gone under I think the ripple effect would have hurt a lot more taxpayers. And yes it was brought on by some dumb government policies. I as one taxpayer am glad they did TARP, and that it didn't add to the debt.

"Any manipulation of the economy by government is a bad idea" Does that include anti trust laws ? Would we all be better off buying oil from only Standard oil company ?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Law proposed an called "the ‘NRA Members’ Gun Safety Act of 2013"

I have to assume they want people to just read the title...



Quote:

 

[bakerjw]

Almost everything that is wrong with legislation in this country can be seen in this example of the bill. Does anyone here really understand what they are saying?

 

[hemet dennis]

Almost everything that is wrong with legislation in this country can be seen in this example of the bill. Does anyone here really understand what they are saying?

Yes