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lol, as I was opening this thread I thought for sure it must be a reference to FoxNews.
The essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only where government must answer--not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, or a particular race, but to all its people.
Robert F. Kennedy
June 6, 1966




I was listening to a radio talk show host talk about the economy today. He made the statement that since walmart, mcdonalds, and burger king was doing great business that it was a lie the economy was headed for a fall.
It is amazing how many ostriches there are out there.
Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. ~ Mark Twain





re walmart, mcdonalds and burger king sales figures being up, his interpretation may have been correct in a 'vacuum'. However in the real world, one should also look at the sales figures of Penneys, TGIF and Applebees to see if they have experienced sales declines that coincide wity the gains by Walmart, McD and BK, because an equally valid interpretation could be that tightening 'suburbanite' budgets are forcing a downscale economization move.
The sales figures that your radio economist should be looking at are really Tiffany, Ferrari, Abercrombie etc. Reportedly, sales of high ticket 'luxury' items are through the roof this season. Coincidentally, peaks in sales of 'luxury goods' and ultra expensive 'collectibles' also occurred just prior to October 1929 !





well, here is what some 'offshore' economic pundits are saying ...
(snip)"The modern history of Consumption Debt, on a broad scale, especially, on non-essential purchases, is only a century old. Its messiah was none other than Henry Ford. Ford realized that it is not enough to offer great products at a reasonable price but the consumers must be induced to purchase in order for the producers to be able to sell more and more product and make more profits. This led to financing of the consumer goods that ultimately resulted in the 1920s boom in the US (very very similar to what has been going on in India over the past ten years). What is new in 2000s, compared with the 1920s, is not just pushing the consumer products, for which financing became a vehicle, but pushing of the debt itself, which now results in later afterthought purchases of big-ticket consumer items. I hope that you discern the difference between the two. PUSHING DEBT HAS BECOME THE EASIEST AND THE MOST PROFITABLE BUSINESS IN THE US OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS. Who wants to take the risks of a producer when financing has become so lucrative? Look at the largest "industrial" corporations in the US over the past decade, or two, and what you see is that they are lot more into financing business than in production business.
BTW, the boom-bust nature of the Longwave Cycle has most to do with debt, hence the "banker's mischief" in creating them. Let me quote my favorite economist, Joseph Schumpeter, "One of the results of our historical sketch will, in fact, be that the failure of the banking community to function in the way required by the structure of the capitalistic machine account for most of the events which the majority of the observers would call "catastrophe."" I am amazed by the fact that blind faithful of the American System don't see the current "reckless mortgage lending" as an indictment of the whole econo-political system as being corrupt. These blind faithful will pay the price in not too distant a future. That is what happens with any blind faith. No system, or human institution, is immune from the control by the Crooks. We can proudly claim to be #1 when it comes to takeover of the econo-political system by Corporate Crooks, or as "the Money Bags" had done in England a hundred years ago.
The two largest bubbles of their kind in the US history - the Stock Market Bubble of late 1990s and the Housing Bubble of 2002-06 - over the past ten years are a result of the largest Debt Bubble (or Credit Bubble) in US history."
(snip)"One consequence of the rise in Consumption Debt over an extended period, mostly pushed on the middle class, is rising ineqaility. This is one consequence that takes a very long time to correct. If you listen to people like Greenspan and Bernanke, who act as if they are "very concerned" about the problem of rising inequality, which they have contributed the most to!, you will hear lame excuses like education gap. What a crock. Is the education gap in the US much higher today than in 1973? Most importantly, the rich are NOT the most educated; it so happens that the most educated serve the richest, who happen to be lot less educated then them! BTW, Bush administration's solution to narrowing the inequality is, you guessed it, "No Child Should be Left Behind" program! I heard an administration official claim that, just a few days ago.
You will find direct correlation between the increase in debt on the middle class, as percent of income, and the rise in inequality. And this correlation is a result of causation. This time, the banking Crooks have taken the problem to such a scale that the middle class in America will be decimated. America will become a nation full of bankrupt households most of whom were formerly middle class. It does not bode well for the stability of the whole political system. The current Peak Debt may well foreshadow the collapse of the American political system, as the world has known it since 1776. And that would be a long life for a political system. Circa 2020s: It was a good system for most of the time it lived. May it rest in peace.
Jas Jain, Ph.D."(snip)


Yes, as the local farmer and businessperson struggles to survive, the companies with centralized "brains" and millions of low-expense workers thrive. Great foundation for an economy
almost as great (and what I thought the thread was about) is an entire TV technology (HDTV) being mandated by the US Government because the MANUFACTURERS LOBBIED for it to be so. Not because it truly serves the public (few people were complaining about TV resolution) or because there's any end-game advantage to the public (in fact, fewer HD channels can be broadcast over the same frequency spectrum, so less local-service), or to the broadcasters (forced to throw out equipment before it's truly past its useful life...and invest in technologies that might not survive 5 years and DO cost millions of dollars).
Yes, big brother knows best, but his rich uncle (the multinational manufacturers) is a trusted advisor.
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