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The Dow is steadily improving while the national quality of life is consistently worsening.
Barack Hussein Obama's first term is over. The numbers are: 1) National Debt up 54.7%. 2) Unemployment up 0.7%. 3) Poverty up 6%. 4) Approval rating down 18%. 5) Dow Jones Industrial Average up 72%!! Explain this disconnect between America's vital signs.
Closing Statement from edward long
25 contributors offered these points to ponder
~ we need new goals
~distribution of wealth is broken
~it's a bubble and it's going to burst soon
~statistics are inherently deceptive
~we are printing too much unbacked money
~the government is spending too much
~It's Barack Hussein Obama's fault
~5 folks said there is no more connection between Wall Street and Main Street
~we are loading debt onto future generations
~small investor confidence is at all time low
~younger folks American dream includes tech toys but no home ownership
~money can't but happiness
~the top secret TPP is to blame
~Big Pharma is parasitic
~the Military is a budget buster
~ It's NAFTA's fault
~we are living in the New World Order
~Deflation Depression
~Exessive China trade for shoddy merchandise
~Free Trade is good
~US corporate tax is world's highest
~the Landlord Bubble
~youth becoming deluded narcissists
~middle class being strangled by inflation
~the Media is way off target
~poor getting poorer is new phenomenon
~US is too big to fail
~need term limits for Representatives
~need to repeal the 17th Amendment
~need to revise the 16th Amendment
~need to reduce Cabinet positions to seven
~need to go Isolationist
~stop paying Dictators for permission to feed their starving masses
~we have a Placebo Democracy
~all profit comes from someone's pocket
~leaders are corrupt
~Government creates no wealth
~copyright laws benefit the elite only
~people are the whole problem
~Quantitave Easing
~Debt=Money
~all should read "The Creature From Jeckyl Island"
~only Economists can understand
~we elect politicians rather than people
~Debt and the Dow are proportional
~debt can be invested
~unemployment and wages are inversely proportional
~poverty causes wage reduction
~low wages stimulate profit and productivity
What was not mentioned, surprisingly to me, was if the DJIA got Barack Hussein Obama re-elected
Have a look at the 9 links in the post
Conclusion?. . . Wall Street and Main Street are independent!!
edward long 100+
http://live.wsj.com/video/why-a-growing-economy-doesnt-ensure-a-rising-mark/67EB28D4-56A9-44B2-B97F-AC0544D6AB12.html?mod=WSJ_article_outbrain&obref=obnetwork#!67EB28D4-56A9-44B2-B97F-AC0544D6AB12
Juan Chousa
edward long 100+
edward long 100+
"What would things look like if the Fed wasn't engaged in Monetary Malpractice?
Interest rates would be higher,
People would save more and spend less,
Government would spend within its means,
People would spend within their means,
There would be decreased consumption,
People would invest more,
Stock values would track company value and efficiency more closely,
Government would shrink,
America would produce and manufacture more,
Trade deficits would shrink,
The economy would recover and become healthy."
Faisel Butt
edward long 100+
Faisel Butt
I don't see the inclusion of his middle name as an insult per se. But when it is deliberately included, whilst misspelling his first name; completely ignoring the impact of his predecessor; and ignoring the political climate in which he is forced to operate - the subtext becomes apparent.
Again I'm not a supporter of Obama, but George Herbert Walker Bush didn't have to operate with a congress, where the majority saw it as their prime goal to obstruct all his policies to prevent him from being re-elected.
I'm not attacking your ability to spell. What I am saying is that you are perfectly capable of spelling the name of your president. And you don't need a birth certificate for that. If you're in doubt you can use this website: www.google.com
edward long 100+
Mette Jensen
David Grammer
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+
What that means is that the GDP of all nations is no longer connected up to creating jobs, building infrastructure, preserving the planet, creating housing opportunity, growing high quality food. We falsely feel secure when the dow hits new highs, housing starts rise, unemployment rates creep down a bit..
We are not paying attention to the thrieavbility of our economy.
We need new goals
.
New conversations about our economy that are more focused on equal opportunity and the distribution of wealth
New performance measures..a high dow does not translate to public good..to common good.
edward long 100+
edward long 100+
I received an email saying you posted to this debate but I do not see it. Try gain.
Edward Long
David Lenz
edward long 100+
Paul Tava
Check out Elliot Wave International at http://elliottwave.com/ for insights into how social mood drives markets and a discussion of the Deflation Depression we have been in since 2001.
edward long 100+
Justin Elkin
edward long 100+
Pat Henderson
edward long 100+
bart hsi
Now it needs no rocket science to figure out what caused the situation you mentioned in your proposal. First, the stock market was up because the first group was doing well they can keep the major portion of business profits and have the money to lobby for their advantages from the government. Only a little scraps of the profits are distributed to the shareholders. However, the prosperity in the large corporations does not apply to small businesses which belong to the 3rd group. Because they can't avoid the taxes and regulations. That's why we have high unemployment and poverty.
edward long 100+
bart hsi
Four years ago, there was only our Federal Reserve had Quantitative Easing by printing or creating credits to finance the government spending. Nowadays almost all the developed countries in the world are imitating us by means of QE. This GLOBAL MONETARY INFLATION will eventually come ashore to bite us in the form of buying up our real assets. This has already begun. For example, the Chinese are buying Canadian energy assets, then the Canadians are buying U. S. banks or investing in oil pipelines here. So the US$ are coming back and eventually will cause price inflation. We simply can't hope that the currency printing will always flow out and be kept by the foreigners forever. The stock market boom is also partially supported by such buying-up-assets-with-US$ too.
edward long 100+
Bob Stiglitz
I've been thinking about this for a long time - in our current model money flow is "stopped" or "started" based on "return on investment". I think that whole dogma is fundamentally flawed when you look at the laws of nature. In nature there is no perpetual motion machine, how could there be perpetual profit machine?
I've been thinking we should have money automatically flowing through peoples accounts by a certain percentage whether they are working or not and test fine tune this model by testing it out.
Human beings are the problem ultimately in the system, I've become keen on 'computer managed' capital flows where you get a group of scientists/experts to design a 'flow model' economy. In our bodies the blood just doesn't stop and start at random, if our bodies worked how our current world works we'd be dead.
edward long 100+
Bob Stiglitz
I've seen this in the game industry with DRM. No one should need permission to use the games and products they've bought. Right now the game industry has taken games hostage on the other side of the internet, you can google "diablo 3 auction house" for more info.
edward long 100+
Bob Stiglitz
You're wrong, the body is an economy. Decisions must be made about biological resources on the cellular level all the time.
edward long 100+
Mike Colera 10+
The system we used to have, I remember it well.
I remember when it changed. At the dawning of the age of Aquarius. "Make love, not war!" " Peace" And the noble causes, "The mentally ill have rights, free them from those draconian asylums." " War on poverty," War on Drugs". there were kids, puppies, the sick, the lame, the lazy. Now, Don't miss understand me. These causes are not inherently bad, they are noble, they show compassion, spirituality, the best of mankind.
BUT
No good deed goes unpunished.
The first thing was that there was no organization that could tackle these causes except the Federal Government
and the federal government stood up and accepted the responsibility, disregarding the 10th amendment, and the people cheered. What everybody forgot or ignored is that government generates no wealth. Government only has capital that was taken from the people. Now our economic system is capitalism. And in this time, capitalism was spreading world wide broadening the base of activity. Further, the system is dynamic, with ebbs and flows and it is uncaring, you misstep and it will take all your capital. So, when capital was at its peak in the US, it generated capital for the people and for the government and the noble causes where addressed. Not that well, but that is cause for another conversation. But capital flowed away from the US, and the government had to adjust to lesser revenues, so it borrowed monies to sustain the noble causes, then the flow returned and the government took on more noble causes. ( I am beginning to think there are more noble causes then people)
Then again the flow reversed and the government was short again...
The dilemma.
The government could borrow more, if they can find more
They could abandon some noble causes, not nice
They could take more capital out of the system, effecting the ebb and flow
They could fake it and hope they don't get caught.
Yes, a deserted island in the Pacific does looks good....
edward long 100+
Pat Henderson
We give billions to big pharma because (they say) it takes billions to bring new and promising drugs to market but their profits are bigger than the money we give them . They will sell their product to other countries cheaper than they will sell it to the people who gave them the money to develop it. And when we cross the border of our nearest and dearest neighbor to by it cheaper they say it may be tainted and want laws to discourage it.
While this is only one example there are many contradictory examples to be found.
I don't pretend to know the answers but I will say this.
I embrace the greatest experiment of human kind. The constitution of the United States. To empower the people to decide their own fate. While our constitution has been found to be flawed and certainly circumvented it is still a great triumph over the forms that came before. We have never been a true democracy because we have a constitution. That is to say just because the majority votes for something it still needs to fall under the parameters of that constitution.
We all want see a better and more just world. But without involvement in mass we will fall short almost certainly.
edward long 100+
Pat Henderson
edward long 100+
Mike Colera 10+
So, Let's get this right. The USA is not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. The federal governance was supposed to be for the 13 now 50 states. States have elected to use a populous vote to select the representatives and had appointed senators to represent them. The worry then was that a strong central government would become to much like a monarchy. So no titles, in Washington.
So, every couple of years, we go through an election, no 50 elections, all on the same night.
Now most of the first timers are noble people that want to represent their constituents. But something happens in Washington. After a few years they come back and not for elections but for coronation.
I mean, have you ever met a four term congressman? They hold out their hand so you could kiss their ring. Unless you're a big contributor. Yes, we need to vote out the incumbents every election until there is an amendment to term limits. Then we need to void the 17th and bring the states back into the fold.
The alternative is that the imperial city states of New York and LA will corrupt DC and subsequently divide this nation along the Mississippi. Sound like a wild rant? It is. But we need to do something bring the degradation of the constitution to an end.
edward long 100+
stuart hoffman
edward long 100+
Ben Jarvis 50+
edward long 100+
Ben Jarvis 50+
Brian Anderson
edward long 100+
Mathew Naismith 10+
It won’t find its way into our pockets Edward, in Australia we have had these wells for some time now but we are paying more for our natural gas than ever, it’s for the big boys to profit even more from not us & that’s the only reason they are really doing.
You might find this link interesting Edward as it’s to do with natural gas reserves & no it’s not bias.
http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2009/06/18/the-pitfalls-of-natural-gas-as-the-default-climate-change-option/#axzz2IrnGuYwv
Love
Mathew
edward long 100+
Mathew Naismith 10+
All I can say is we live in a placebo democracy these days, what is so democratic in having such a high volume of poverty-stricken & unprivileged people in high developed countries like the US & Australia? The wealth of the land certainly isn’t being democratically distributed evenly among the people of such well-off countries it’s being swallowed up by multinational dictators & they do dictate.
These multinational dictators just don’t dictate what’s going to happen in a particular country but the world. Take a look at the history of the bond market & see how just through the bond market multinationals have been able to dictate events to their own benefit of course in the world & this is only one area multinational dictators affect us look at the energy magnates how they dictate.
We live in a dictatorship & we don’t even know it, bring back true democracy & you will find that the unfair fluctuations we are having will just disappear.
Love
Mathew
edward long 100+
Mike Colera 10+
I see economies have gone global. Right now, in the states, basic manufacturing has gone, leaving a void, leaving a vast untapped manpower resource available. Currently, there is confusion and loss of focus. However, there is an ace in the hole. Vast new gas supplies should provide a very inexpensive energy resource. Right now we are limping along on information and service industries. I foresee a new infusion of capital as profits fall in other parts of the world and as profits fell here in the past, they will fall elsewhere. It is said that Mother Nature demands a balance across the globe.
Mathew Naismith 10+
Could you imagine if us Aussies did revolt, I think the yanks would leave us to the dogs at our gates even though we have been quite supportive of the US. Probably China would take over where the US left off, hmmmmmm!!!!!!
I don’t think it’s ever too late until the game is over or until the fat lady sings Edward, true democracy isn’t dead it’s just taken a wrong turn & we can only hope that the big boys wake up in time to this error of judgment. Greed is a very ugly, corruptive destructive obsession which could bring any true democracy down to its knees & maybe that’s what there trying to do which may be a part of this new world order.
True democracy was about being heard through an elected spokesman in a democratically held forum; now look at these spokesmen who are supposed to be our voice, there more like lords.
Love
Mathew
edward long 100+
Brian Anderson
edward long 100+
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578255663224471212.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
Mike Colera 10+
Economics is now a global play. Worldwide investors are looking worldwide for the best return on their investments. If investors are not investing in american companies thus supporting american labor because they are not making a profit is this a fault of the investor? If an American company has global reach and moves jobs overseas to make a profit for their investors, is that the fault of the investor? What is being said here?
edward long 100+
Mike Colera 10+
Consider, a location in the US, high taxes, high labor cost, lower profits, and there is another location somewhere else with higher profit potential... It's gone. Now, the US location, cuts taxes, labor takes lower pay, higher profit potential, Big companies move back. That's the NYSE.
I think the real recovery will come from small entrepreneur. If we encourage the little guy he will try to expand using people where as the big companies holding large capital will automate and look at processes rather the people.
BUT.
According to what I read, new tax laws and regulations could really dampen efforts by small entrepreneurs. So here we are with policies that make it easy for Big Companies to go elsewhere and making it harder for the little guys. Remember Sylvania one of the worlds largest light bulb companies, thousand of employees. Incandescent bulbs are bad, EPA gets involved. Compliance costs are out of sight. Enter little Christmas light bulb company in Germany. Buys Syvania, a company over 100 times bigger. Sales price??? Sylvania assets go to Germany, Sylvania employees hit the line.
Little guys are having banking problems effecting cash flow, increases in taxes on profits, regulatory compliance, increased labor benefit costs, etc. etc. So big boys are headed over seas and the little can't afford to pickup available labor. If it wasn't for WalMart building new stores, there would be nobody getting jobs.
Forget about the NYSE, ask at the local McDonalds if they are changing full time jobs to part-time.
Brian Anderson
edward long 100+
Mike Colera 10+
It's not all bad. When I was young, a long time ago, it would take me two trips to carry a $100 worth of groceries in the house. Now I can do it with one hand. Good living, I sure. When did a 3 lbs. can of coffee only weigh 39 ozs?
What this country needs to be better is all our scales being readjusted..
edward long 100+
Mike Colera 10+
Seriously, my only hope is that the USA is too big to fail, no matter how bad it is managed.
Long ago I proposed term limits for house members, repeal of the 17th Amendment and amending the 16th to cap what congress can tax. Right now they can take it all.
Cut the number of Departments in the administration to seven using the 10th amendment as a guide. I used to think that forward operating military bases would soften attacks on the homeland. I am rethinking this. With modern technology, maybe fortress American is a
better way.
I am reconsidering our foreign policy to spread freedom and democracy across the globe, I am finding those that want democracy, have it and those who don't have a dictatorial government protected by the UN. There are millions of starving peoples that we can feed, but to pay ransom to do so is so appalling.
I have no answers.
I wonder where honor and integrity in our society went. We are all victims, but the smartest, best looking and most deserving victims in history. When I was a child I went to Sunday School. We learned about all those thou shalt nots... I remember "thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods." The new commandment is " He's got more then me, give me some of his".
I have no answers.
My friend tells me " not to be concerned with all this, pretty soon the dementia will set in and they will feed you pabulum and you won't remember a thing " One can hardly wait.
Honest, I have no answers.
edward long 100+
Barry Palmer 50+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
edward long 100+
pat gilbert 100+
The change between the rich and poor is greatly exaggerated by the media. I have gone over this before. It has to do with falsely reporting household income, not counting government transfers to the poor, tax changes that incentivized reporting taxes as individuals under chapter S corps instead of a C corp.
Of course the rich people make more as it should be, otherwise it would be Russia where you could work hard or not, smart or not, with innovation or not, with the same pay. In which the only thing for sure is the increased consumption of Vodka.
What is definitely stealing the income of the middle class is government caused inflation and taxes and regulations and ridiculous government employee pensions.
Ken brown 30+
How friendly is the States in helping small business get up and running through tax incentives? I get this distinct feeling that a lot of the young have romantic dreams of instant statrtups and millions flowing out of nowhere.
Mary M. 100+
And yes, so many homes for sale here....mostly foreclosures and auction...
Lots of homes for sale for over 250 thousand in our coummunity. But when you visit some of the online real estate sites that keep a list of homes sold in the last week, you see the homes sold for the mid 100"s......asking price does not equal selling price.
And many who bought a home in the last 10 years, are stuck in it because they are worth much less than what they paid for.
Plus, it seems nobody can afford the homes that are for sale to begin with. Where are the people that should be buying these houses?..........ah, look in the unemployment lines. :(
edward long 100+
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578255663224471212.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
pat gilbert 100+
The senate typically goes with a CBO report that is static and does not account for human behavior or praxeology which changes when the rates are changed and would result in a higher revenue rate.
edward long 100+
American companies traded on Wall Street can make higher profits and pay better dividends to shareholders by investing in other countries rather than reinvesting profits here at home because of our high corporate tax rates? Is that correct?
pat gilbert 100+
Praxeology is the core of the problem, simply lower corporate taxes and the money will come to the domestic accounts.
Ken brown 30+
This may seem conspirawhako but it's not, as it has a lot of my people up and arms over the negotiations that was held in my country last year, it may seem to benefit your country but you won't see one dime of it.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/01/21/the-trans-pacific-slam-job/
Most of what it describes is true as our protesters who can be quite scrappy resorted to violence which wasn't good but it got the media focused on the meetings that were top secret. Hopefully my country and Australia stick by their ambivalent attitude to the demands made by these vermin.
Edit = So this might be a good excuse to lower the green back?
pat gilbert 100+
This goes on in the states big time. One example Sugar has tariffs on it despite NAFTA, this makes corn syrup a viable alternative which has raised the price of corn (which effects the price of meat and drains the Ogallala Aquifer) and kept the price of sugar artificially high.
Ken brown 30+
pat gilbert 100+
Ken brown 30+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN7ZIrfqD7Q
I'm all for trade though it will be more expensive for American made it will also give our dairy industry a slight boost even if they alter the packaging to state it is American grown, Canadian bacon is cheaper in Nz than our own bacon and some packaging states Nz pork. It makes a lot of us laugh.
I don't know about you but you have got to try Uruguayan beef, it put's all I've ever tried except game and wild steer to shame, it makes my countries beef taste like rubber.
pat gilbert 100+
I don't know the implications of this so I can't say anything else.
This article is somewhat of a tangent but not to the OP and explains some things about inflation that Bob and I have talked about in the past. I hate to admit it but maybe some of the conservative rhetoric was a bit distorted?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2012/10/19/no-the-united-states-will-not-go-into-a-debt-crisis-not-now-not-ever/
Ken brown 30+
What do you think if iran or israel started intimidation tactics to force the States to use more diplomacy in the region at the same time china and japan start getting real nasty with each other further pulling the States into a shaky position, wouldn't the market get a bit shaky?
You guys have the Pacific Pivot in place i think and here's some good news.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/trillion-shale-oil-find-surrounding-coober-pedy-can-fuel-australia/story-e6frea83-1226560401043
pat gilbert 100+
Does their influence trump the benefits of trade? Is it a coincidence that the people that go to war with the U.S. or vice versa don't have much trade with the U.S.?
The thing about oil production is the units of energy required to retrieve energy. Shale oil is down there but technology changes things. But it will not be as cheap as sweet light crude. It just changes the economy for a while.
edward long 100+
Ken brown 30+
This year we are worried our dollar might reach parity or close to it and our exporters are screaming already, life is tough, this we all know but this is a first I've ever come across a blatant push for adopting a set of laws that wasn't put through the normal processes.
EDIT = All countries benefit from trade and since my country changed it's tack with the States 25 years ago there was a cooling between the two over our non nuclear policy which it seems a little dated now. I just don't like this hardball stance.
W. Ying 10+
.Your data explain why money can buy only INVALID happiness when its amount is more than its OPTIMAL point.
.
pat gilbert 100+
In either case the touchstone is confidence.
Much money has come to the U.S. because it is a safer investment than Europe and is still the de facto world currency.
The absurd amount of money that Bernanke has printed has created the apparency of prosperity. I'm sure in his mind he is just doing what his boss BHO has forced him to do.
The two bubbles that I have seen the Austrians talk about are the bond rates which is definitely going to bust and the other one is health care which also will bust.
My congressman sent out his weekly newsletter in which he points out that he has paid in 1/3 of the benefits that he will likely receive from medicare and social security. The only way to pay for this is to borrow money which mean the next generation will have to pay for this.
Another factor is that the confidence level for investors is ostensibly at an all time low. This is the real benchmark for the real economy. This is not the stock market as this is companies who are below the level of an IPO, this is a guy who has an idea and needs money from small banks with a line of credit, a second on his house, borrowed money from his friends and family. Just think about the shark like unpredictable impetuous, impulsive, cavalier, conduct of the current POTUS does he give you confidence about the future?
It is witnessed by the last election. The younger folks do not have hope of owning a house. Technology has distracted them from what is important in life, ie their attention span is short, their ability to confront what is real has atrophied.
The culture of the country has changed from one of exchange to one of entitlement, this is HUGE.
edward long 100+
Ken brown 30+
edward long 100+
Robert Winner 50+
The fed producing "unbacked" money is a sure fire reciept for recession, inflation, and economic chaos.
In my opinion, I see keynesian economics and big government as the sure path to follow Argentina and even todays Venseuela. The EU still insists on retaining massive social programs that inspire generational welfare. If you go to the national debit calculator there is a block on the right edge that states the number of unemployed it does not match any statistics that any agency presents. The whole generator is fasinating. The administration has earmarked where government spending could be reduced or deleted. If true than why are they still here ... cut the first 100 on the list.
Yep the bubble is going to burst and massive inflation will occur. When it does there will be a political spin that says it is the fault of the tea baggers and the 1%. Argentina took the money from the rich and then the middle class because all of the money available could not support a big government and all of its entitlements.
You have shown us one red flag waving in a sea of red flags. Avoid the ice bergs ... hell our ships skipper is seeking them out. Invest in life perservers.
Bob.
edward long 100+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
edward long 100+
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Comment deleted
edward long 100+