Economics is not hard - Part I: Don’t let professional economists tell you otherwise

[Chris Coles]

Re: Economics is not hard - Part I: Don’t let professional economists tell you otherwise

Eric, I have known you for a long time, and spoken with you about economic issues while at Osborn Capital at least once a week. But I still cannot see the inflation coming--entirely based on political issues. The members of the Fed are elected by regional banks--who love deflation; they get paid back in more valuable dollars. Congress is owned by multi-nationals who outsource jobs and leave American "service workers" or unemployed to fend for themselves, offshoring labor. This cannot change without a revolution, and Americans are too uneducated, divided and deluded by MSM to initiate a change.

Protectionist legislation is not even on the table--though it is the only way to increase America's competitiveness--multinationals control Congress. Congress cannot even get a decent stimulus plan to spur demand. With ZIRP, the Fed is helpless anyway. Tax cuts for the wealthy merely moves money from one speculator to another, or otherwise overseas. When was the last time you saw a super-wealthy create a start-up?

Education debt is a ticking time-bomb, with graduates having no hope whatsoever of getting a job that can repay their borrowings--and it is non-dischargeable, following one to his grave. I think that if a real revolution is going to arise, it will be initiated by the young who are having their Burger King wages garnished by Sally Mae. All for having the ambition and dream to finish college.

I have no hope whatsoever until we return to Depression era tent cities outside of Congress and the White House overflowing with rowdy crowds.

You forget the one mechanism that has driven the economies of the planet since the beginning of time.... Competition. But this time, not multi-national based competition, but nation based competition. You are about to be humbled by a silly little nation from which many of your forebears originated. The United Kingdom.

Watch this space.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Economics is not hard - Part I: Don’t let professional economists tell you otherwise

And then, by pure chance, this has turned up on Slashdot.

Simply put, if we are serious about lifting the economy out of its rut, we need to focus all of our energy on helping entrepreneurs. Provide them with the incentives (tax breaks and seed financing); education; and infrastructure. And gear public policy—like patent-protection laws—toward the startups. Let’s not bet on the companies that are too big to fail or too clumsy to innovate.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/14/sta...ing-to-bet-on/

[Slimprofits]

Re: Economics is not hard - Part I: Don’t let professional economists tell you otherwise

Is this the Bernanke response?

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
At the Conference Co-sponsored by the Center for Economic Policy Studies and the Bendheim Center for Finance, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
September 24, 2010
Implications of the Financial Crisis for Economics

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsev...e20100924a.htm

With that taxonomy in hand, I would argue that the recent financial crisis was more a failure of economic engineering and economic management than of what I have called economic science. The economic engineering problems were reflected in a number of structural weaknesses in our financial system. In the private sector, these weaknesses included inadequate risk-measurement and risk-management systems at many financial firms as well as shortcomings in some firms' business models, such as overreliance on unstable short-term funding and excessive leverage. In the public sector, gaps and blind spots in the financial regulatory structures of the United States and most other countries proved particularly damaging. These regulatory structures were designed for earlier eras and did not adequately adapt to rapid change and innovation in the financial sector, such as the increasing financial intermediation taking place outside of regulated depository institutions through the so-called shadow banking system. In the realm of economic management, the leaders of financial firms, market participants, and government policymakers either did not recognize important structural problems and emerging risks or, when they identified them, did not respond sufficiently quickly or forcefully to address them. Shortcomings of what I have called economic science, in contrast, were for the most part less central to the crisis; indeed, although the great majority of economists did not foresee the near-collapse of the financial system, economic analysis has proven and will continue to prove critical in understanding the crisis, in developing policies to contain it, and in designing longer-term solutions to prevent its recurrence.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Economics is not hard - Part I: Don’t let professional economists tell you otherwise

Reads to me like the junky with a trembling hand telling the pusher that he has everything under control and that a small adjustment to the dose will solve all his problems....

Someone needs to place a copy of The PostCatastrophe Economy into his hands and tell him to read page 17, paragraph 2:

"Much as the great inflation crisis of the late 1970's gave the U.S. leadership the political will to make painful adjustments to economic and monetary policy, a grinding deterioration in living standards will drive American policy makers to return to the core values that made the country vital: an unparalleled capacity for innovation, a spirit of fair competition, a strong work ethic, a willingness to take risks, a tolerance for failure, a culture of self reliance, a willingness to forgo immediate gratification by saving for the future, a desire to pull one's own weight, and the respect for the rights of others".