[underdose]

Tragically, we have no checks and balances any more. Since 2006, there has been a democratic congress, but Bush has been able to expand his surveillance capabilities, increase the budget for the war, and make an unprecedented power grab in the banking and insurance industries. Until we have a viable third party, or until the republicans return to their roots, our “republicratic” oligopoly will continue to operate without checks and balances. Personally, it makes me very sad, and very disappointed in the voting public.

[underdose]

Tragically, we have no checks and balances any more. Since 2006, there has been a democratic congress, but Bush has been able to expand his surveillance capabilities, increase the budget for the war, and make an unprecedented power grab in the banking and insurance industries. Until we have a viable third party, or until the republicans return to their roots, our “republicratic” oligopoly will continue to operate without checks and balances. Personally, it makes me very sad, and very disappointed in the voting public.

[underdose]

Tragically, we have no checks and balances any more. Since 2006, there has been a democratic congress, but Bush has been able to expand his surveillance capabilities, increase the budget for the war, and make an unprecedented power grab in the banking and insurance industries. Until we have a viable third party, or until the republicans return to their roots, our “republicratic” oligopoly will continue to operate without checks and balances. Personally, it makes me very sad, and very disappointed in the voting public.

[underdose]

Tragically, we have no checks and balances any more. Since 2006, there has been a democratic congress, but Bush has been able to expand his surveillance capabilities, increase the budget for the war, and make an unprecedented power grab in the banking and insurance industries. Until we have a viable third party, or until the republicans return to their roots, our “republicratic” oligopoly will continue to operate without checks and balances. Personally, it makes me very sad, and very disappointed in the voting public.

[underdose]

Tragically, we have no checks and balances any more. Since 2006, there has been a democratic congress, but Bush has been able to expand his surveillance capabilities, increase the budget for the war, and make an unprecedented power grab in the banking and insurance industries. Until we have a viable third party, or until the republicans return to their roots, our “republicratic” oligopoly will continue to operate without checks and balances. Personally, it makes me very sad, and very disappointed in the voting public.

[underdose]

[quote=pencilneck]Arraya, very well put:

“The most likely scenario is the dollar will lose reserve currency privilege. There has been increasing cry’s from around the world on this recently. Actually this will devalue the dollar as much as hyper-inflation just technically we will be having deflation with massive devaluing. ”

[/quote]

Uh, this strikes me as a contridiction. We’ll have hyperinflation from the world wide dollar dumping and deflation because of devaluing? If the dollar loses reserve status, it is nothing but inflationary for the US. Even if assets continue to deflate, prices on consumer goods will skyrocket. No one will export anything to us anymore, so we would face severe shortages, and the exchange rate on currencies would push up the prices of what few things we manage to import. And everything we make here at home would be lured away by the stronger purchase power of holders of other currencies, or foreign holders of dollars still looking for any way to divest themselves of their deteriorating holdings. Deflation can not occur in this scenario. It would be worse stagflation than the 70’s. Can someone paint a similarly concrete scenario that illustrates a plausible deflation situation?

The debate whether printing and defaulting are the same or different has raged on many threads. I’m still of the mindset that massive printing IS defaulting. If you lend me $5 and I reach into a Monopoly game set, pull out one of the game 5 bills, give it to you and say “We’re square now”, you would feel like I ripped you off. Paying off a loan with money that is worth less than the money borrowed is a sneaky way to partially default. Just like causing inflation and robbing people of their purchase power is a sneaky way to tax. Our government is running out of options. Its appetite for borrowing is increasing exponentially, and the willingness of our creditors to lend us more is evaporating. They have no choice but to “default”, but they will be sneaky about it. They will have to ramp up their printing, or else there is no way to pay for the bailouts, social security, our military empire (even if we get out of Iraq, we’ve got bases in almost every country), etc. And this printing will debase the reserve holdings of other governments, accellerating the demise of the dollar as reserve currency.

[underdose]

[quote=pencilneck]Arraya, very well put:

“The most likely scenario is the dollar will lose reserve currency privilege. There has been increasing cry’s from around the world on this recently. Actually this will devalue the dollar as much as hyper-inflation just technically we will be having deflation with massive devaluing. ”

[/quote]

Uh, this strikes me as a contridiction. We’ll have hyperinflation from the world wide dollar dumping and deflation because of devaluing? If the dollar loses reserve status, it is nothing but inflationary for the US. Even if assets continue to deflate, prices on consumer goods will skyrocket. No one will export anything to us anymore, so we would face severe shortages, and the exchange rate on currencies would push up the prices of what few things we manage to import. And everything we make here at home would be lured away by the stronger purchase power of holders of other currencies, or foreign holders of dollars still looking for any way to divest themselves of their deteriorating holdings. Deflation can not occur in this scenario. It would be worse stagflation than the 70’s. Can someone paint a similarly concrete scenario that illustrates a plausible deflation situation?

The debate whether printing and defaulting are the same or different has raged on many threads. I’m still of the mindset that massive printing IS defaulting. If you lend me $5 and I reach into a Monopoly game set, pull out one of the game 5 bills, give it to you and say “We’re square now”, you would feel like I ripped you off. Paying off a loan with money that is worth less than the money borrowed is a sneaky way to partially default. Just like causing inflation and robbing people of their purchase power is a sneaky way to tax. Our government is running out of options. Its appetite for borrowing is increasing exponentially, and the willingness of our creditors to lend us more is evaporating. They have no choice but to “default”, but they will be sneaky about it. They will have to ramp up their printing, or else there is no way to pay for the bailouts, social security, our military empire (even if we get out of Iraq, we’ve got bases in almost every country), etc. And this printing will debase the reserve holdings of other governments, accellerating the demise of the dollar as reserve currency.

[underdose]

[quote=pencilneck]Arraya, very well put:

“The most likely scenario is the dollar will lose reserve currency privilege. There has been increasing cry’s from around the world on this recently. Actually this will devalue the dollar as much as hyper-inflation just technically we will be having deflation with massive devaluing. ”

[/quote]

Uh, this strikes me as a contridiction. We’ll have hyperinflation from the world wide dollar dumping and deflation because of devaluing? If the dollar loses reserve status, it is nothing but inflationary for the US. Even if assets continue to deflate, prices on consumer goods will skyrocket. No one will export anything to us anymore, so we would face severe shortages, and the exchange rate on currencies would push up the prices of what few things we manage to import. And everything we make here at home would be lured away by the stronger purchase power of holders of other currencies, or foreign holders of dollars still looking for any way to divest themselves of their deteriorating holdings. Deflation can not occur in this scenario. It would be worse stagflation than the 70’s. Can someone paint a similarly concrete scenario that illustrates a plausible deflation situation?

The debate whether printing and defaulting are the same or different has raged on many threads. I’m still of the mindset that massive printing IS defaulting. If you lend me $5 and I reach into a Monopoly game set, pull out one of the game 5 bills, give it to you and say “We’re square now”, you would feel like I ripped you off. Paying off a loan with money that is worth less than the money borrowed is a sneaky way to partially default. Just like causing inflation and robbing people of their purchase power is a sneaky way to tax. Our government is running out of options. Its appetite for borrowing is increasing exponentially, and the willingness of our creditors to lend us more is evaporating. They have no choice but to “default”, but they will be sneaky about it. They will have to ramp up their printing, or else there is no way to pay for the bailouts, social security, our military empire (even if we get out of Iraq, we’ve got bases in almost every country), etc. And this printing will debase the reserve holdings of other governments, accellerating the demise of the dollar as reserve currency.

[underdose]

[quote=pencilneck]Arraya, very well put:

“The most likely scenario is the dollar will lose reserve currency privilege. There has been increasing cry’s from around the world on this recently. Actually this will devalue the dollar as much as hyper-inflation just technically we will be having deflation with massive devaluing. ”

[/quote]

Uh, this strikes me as a contridiction. We’ll have hyperinflation from the world wide dollar dumping and deflation because of devaluing? If the dollar loses reserve status, it is nothing but inflationary for the US. Even if assets continue to deflate, prices on consumer goods will skyrocket. No one will export anything to us anymore, so we would face severe shortages, and the exchange rate on currencies would push up the prices of what few things we manage to import. And everything we make here at home would be lured away by the stronger purchase power of holders of other currencies, or foreign holders of dollars still looking for any way to divest themselves of their deteriorating holdings. Deflation can not occur in this scenario. It would be worse stagflation than the 70’s. Can someone paint a similarly concrete scenario that illustrates a plausible deflation situation?

The debate whether printing and defaulting are the same or different has raged on many threads. I’m still of the mindset that massive printing IS defaulting. If you lend me $5 and I reach into a Monopoly game set, pull out one of the game 5 bills, give it to you and say “We’re square now”, you would feel like I ripped you off. Paying off a loan with money that is worth less than the money borrowed is a sneaky way to partially default. Just like causing inflation and robbing people of their purchase power is a sneaky way to tax. Our government is running out of options. Its appetite for borrowing is increasing exponentially, and the willingness of our creditors to lend us more is evaporating. They have no choice but to “default”, but they will be sneaky about it. They will have to ramp up their printing, or else there is no way to pay for the bailouts, social security, our military empire (even if we get out of Iraq, we’ve got bases in almost every country), etc. And this printing will debase the reserve holdings of other governments, accellerating the demise of the dollar as reserve currency.

[underdose]

[quote=pencilneck]Arraya, very well put:

“The most likely scenario is the dollar will lose reserve currency privilege. There has been increasing cry’s from around the world on this recently. Actually this will devalue the dollar as much as hyper-inflation just technically we will be having deflation with massive devaluing. ”

[/quote]

Uh, this strikes me as a contridiction. We’ll have hyperinflation from the world wide dollar dumping and deflation because of devaluing? If the dollar loses reserve status, it is nothing but inflationary for the US. Even if assets continue to deflate, prices on consumer goods will skyrocket. No one will export anything to us anymore, so we would face severe shortages, and the exchange rate on currencies would push up the prices of what few things we manage to import. And everything we make here at home would be lured away by the stronger purchase power of holders of other currencies, or foreign holders of dollars still looking for any way to divest themselves of their deteriorating holdings. Deflation can not occur in this scenario. It would be worse stagflation than the 70’s. Can someone paint a similarly concrete scenario that illustrates a plausible deflation situation?

The debate whether printing and defaulting are the same or different has raged on many threads. I’m still of the mindset that massive printing IS defaulting. If you lend me $5 and I reach into a Monopoly game set, pull out one of the game 5 bills, give it to you and say “We’re square now”, you would feel like I ripped you off. Paying off a loan with money that is worth less than the money borrowed is a sneaky way to partially default. Just like causing inflation and robbing people of their purchase power is a sneaky way to tax. Our government is running out of options. Its appetite for borrowing is increasing exponentially, and the willingness of our creditors to lend us more is evaporating. They have no choice but to “default”, but they will be sneaky about it. They will have to ramp up their printing, or else there is no way to pay for the bailouts, social security, our military empire (even if we get out of Iraq, we’ve got bases in almost every country), etc. And this printing will debase the reserve holdings of other governments, accellerating the demise of the dollar as reserve currency.

[underdose]

[quote=peterb]RB- looks like the TED spread is confirming your thesis. Our govt only has as much power over this as their lenders will allow. So, it’s really their call. The Chinese have indicated that the party is pretty much over from this time on.[/quote]

RunningBear and peterb, I totally agree that our government does not control the world wide markets. They may think they do, and they may act according to that belief, but those actions will continue to have the dreaded unintented consequences. They do largely control the US mortgage market now. Even if they try to manipulate long term treasury yields by printing like mad to buy treasuries and it fails, accellerating the dumping of our debt by foreign creditors, they can still offer mortgages at 5% no matter what the yields on treasuries are. They’ll just socialize the losses on the mortgages, and print the money to make up the difference. This would be hyperinflationary, though. All I was trying to say is that it seems like all bets are off with interest rates on various debt instruments, at least in the short term. These clowns are doing whatever they can to manipulate things, and houses could creep up in nominal terms if inflation is severe enough no matter what happens to interest rates.

[underdose]

[quote=peterb]RB- looks like the TED spread is confirming your thesis. Our govt only has as much power over this as their lenders will allow. So, it’s really their call. The Chinese have indicated that the party is pretty much over from this time on.[/quote]

RunningBear and peterb, I totally agree that our government does not control the world wide markets. They may think they do, and they may act according to that belief, but those actions will continue to have the dreaded unintented consequences. They do largely control the US mortgage market now. Even if they try to manipulate long term treasury yields by printing like mad to buy treasuries and it fails, accellerating the dumping of our debt by foreign creditors, they can still offer mortgages at 5% no matter what the yields on treasuries are. They’ll just socialize the losses on the mortgages, and print the money to make up the difference. This would be hyperinflationary, though. All I was trying to say is that it seems like all bets are off with interest rates on various debt instruments, at least in the short term. These clowns are doing whatever they can to manipulate things, and houses could creep up in nominal terms if inflation is severe enough no matter what happens to interest rates.

[underdose]

[quote=peterb]RB- looks like the TED spread is confirming your thesis. Our govt only has as much power over this as their lenders will allow. So, it’s really their call. The Chinese have indicated that the party is pretty much over from this time on.[/quote]

RunningBear and peterb, I totally agree that our government does not control the world wide markets. They may think they do, and they may act according to that belief, but those actions will continue to have the dreaded unintented consequences. They do largely control the US mortgage market now. Even if they try to manipulate long term treasury yields by printing like mad to buy treasuries and it fails, accellerating the dumping of our debt by foreign creditors, they can still offer mortgages at 5% no matter what the yields on treasuries are. They’ll just socialize the losses on the mortgages, and print the money to make up the difference. This would be hyperinflationary, though. All I was trying to say is that it seems like all bets are off with interest rates on various debt instruments, at least in the short term. These clowns are doing whatever they can to manipulate things, and houses could creep up in nominal terms if inflation is severe enough no matter what happens to interest rates.

[underdose]

[quote=peterb]RB- looks like the TED spread is confirming your thesis. Our govt only has as much power over this as their lenders will allow. So, it’s really their call. The Chinese have indicated that the party is pretty much over from this time on.[/quote]

RunningBear and peterb, I totally agree that our government does not control the world wide markets. They may think they do, and they may act according to that belief, but those actions will continue to have the dreaded unintented consequences. They do largely control the US mortgage market now. Even if they try to manipulate long term treasury yields by printing like mad to buy treasuries and it fails, accellerating the dumping of our debt by foreign creditors, they can still offer mortgages at 5% no matter what the yields on treasuries are. They’ll just socialize the losses on the mortgages, and print the money to make up the difference. This would be hyperinflationary, though. All I was trying to say is that it seems like all bets are off with interest rates on various debt instruments, at least in the short term. These clowns are doing whatever they can to manipulate things, and houses could creep up in nominal terms if inflation is severe enough no matter what happens to interest rates.

[underdose]

[quote=peterb]RB- looks like the TED spread is confirming your thesis. Our govt only has as much power over this as their lenders will allow. So, it’s really their call. The Chinese have indicated that the party is pretty much over from this time on.[/quote]

RunningBear and peterb, I totally agree that our government does not control the world wide markets. They may think they do, and they may act according to that belief, but those actions will continue to have the dreaded unintented consequences. They do largely control the US mortgage market now. Even if they try to manipulate long term treasury yields by printing like mad to buy treasuries and it fails, accellerating the dumping of our debt by foreign creditors, they can still offer mortgages at 5% no matter what the yields on treasuries are. They’ll just socialize the losses on the mortgages, and print the money to make up the difference. This would be hyperinflationary, though. All I was trying to say is that it seems like all bets are off with interest rates on various debt instruments, at least in the short term. These clowns are doing whatever they can to manipulate things, and houses could creep up in nominal terms if inflation is severe enough no matter what happens to interest rates.

[Author]

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