In a shocking state of affairs, it would appear the stock market's wealth effect is not rubbing off on the real economy. The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) shows 0% of their members planning to hire. One can only presume we need moar QE, moar deficits, and moar wealth effect.

Recovery? 0%!!

Zero.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-09/small-businesses-planning-hire-0

Then what the he'll happened to to "trickle down"

Devils Advocate;1423126 wrote:Then what the he'll happened to to "trickle down"

Obamakare

Devils Advocate;1423126 wrote:Then what the he'll happened to to "trickle down"

You tell me. Barack is the king of "trickle down". Print a bunch of money, pass it out to your friends, and whatever they buy with it is more expensive for us to buy.

Cleveland Buck;1423129 wrote:You tell me. Barack is the king of "trickle down". Print a bunch of money, pass it out to your friends, and whatever they buy with it is more expensive for us to buy.

^only in your imagination. above target/average increases in the price level materialized despite massive "inflation" as you call it.

Small businesses are predictably not hiring as AD is still depressed and getting worse due to the payroll tax hike and the sequester. Spending cuts nd deficit reduction were supposed to inspire confidence and subsequent hiring. That is all bull.

With obama and the republicans both competing to be deficit scolds (albeit in different fashions) our only hope is the fed doing something totally new like targeting nominal gdp as congress and the resident are totally off base.

BoatShoes;1423176 wrote:our only hope is the fed doing something totally new...

Here's something new the fed can do: fuck off. The last 100 years have been complete horse shit.

BoatShoes;1423176 wrote: Small businesses are predictably not hiring as AD is still depressed and getting worse due to the payroll tax hike and the sequester.

"the sequester" ............ get the fu#$% outta here. You peddle this horsesh!& that someday down the road the rate of increase in spending might be cut by $60 billion out of $3,700 billion in government spending out of a $16,000 billion economy, and somehow that is hurtful?????? What kind of complete fool would believe such abject bullshi!! Oh I know, the 65 million fools and morons, dumbed down by public education over the last 30 years, who voted for more of this EPIC FAIL !!!!!!!!


You need to go infiltrate another cyberspace, cuz your stuff is getting rather pathetic.

BoatShoes;1423176 wrote:^only in your imagination. above target/average increases in the price level materialized despite massive "inflation" as you call it.

Care to refute anything I said? Or just spew the same nonsense that over the last 100 years has brought the world's most powerful economy to its knees.

What has happened to the stock market? Commodities? Even real estate (yes Wall Street is buying the real estate, no average Americans are buying houses). How are we getting wealthier when the bankers are buying up all of the assets with money they didn't even have before? I know you are in favor of wealth redistribution, but I don't think you thought it worked that way.

This small business is hiring subcontractors for short-term gigs only.

1099s all around.

Cleveland Buck;1423203 wrote:Care to refute anything I said? Or just spew the same nonsense that over the last 100 years has brought the world's most powerful economy to its knees.

What has happened to the stock market? Commodities? Even real estate (yes Wall Street is buying the real estate, no average Americans are buying houses). How are we getting wealthier when the bankers are buying up all of the assets with money they didn't even have before? I know you are in favor of wealth redistribution, but I don't think you thought it worked that way.

Well you didn't really make many tangible claims in your post that I quoted beyond the assertion that things are more expensive. This is readily refutable.

Since you don't believe the Department of Labor you can check the Billion Price Index.

http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/


We are not without problems however (as you point out) as using only expansionary monetary policy and not expansionary fiscal policy has lead to pervasive unemployment and so we are indeed struggling.

However, in those 100 years that you decry...after austrian/austerianism was supposed to have been left in the dust pin of history we experienced a largely great moderation and a robust growth in wealth for all Americans.

justincredible;1423179 wrote:Here's something new the fed can do: fuck off. The last 100 years have been complete horse shit.

In actuality this statement in comparison to the many thousands of years before it can hardly be even considered to be a belief that a reasonable person could hold. You're a smart guy so you might want to think this through.

Surely you do see how it is indeed worse in Europe where the Central Bank has followed advice you might seemingly give...such as raise interest rates; refuse to pursue asset purchases etc.

QuakerOats;1423183 wrote:"the sequester" ............ get the fu#$% outta here. You peddle this horsesh!& that someday down the road the rate of increase in spending might be cut by $60 billion out of $3,700 billion in government spending out of a $16,000 billion economy, and somehow that is hurtful?????? What kind of complete fool would believe such abject bullshi!! Oh I know, the 65 million fools and morons, dumbed down by public education over the last 30 years, who voted for more of this EPIC FAIL !!!!!!!!


You need to go infiltrate another cyberspace, cuz your stuff is getting rather pathetic.

It's kind of funny...in this very corner of cyberspace...we have had folks make complaints about lesser economic and socially valuable activity that is happening as a consequence of the sequester....huh.

Weird...when spending is = to income in a macroeconomy this would make sense...

You've had Republicans in control of the House for 2 and a 1/2 years...they've held the line on spending...The Socialist is proposing entitlement cuts....the deficit is rapidly dropping....the confidence fairy has not arrived.....

It doesn't get much more "expansionary" than $1-$1.5T deficits. Clearly there are limits or a gubmit could print and spend money until every one of its citizens were rich.

Pretty clear from the economic data that one of two things are happening: Either the record deficits have gone beyond the point of being productive to where it's actually contributing to the problem, or the negative feedback from the build-up of govt excess/debt from prior years is more than offsetting the record stimulus. You can't spend money you don't have into perpetuity, eventually you reach a tipping point. In either case, the solution is LESS spending, not more.

gut;1423224 wrote:It doesn't get much more "expansionary" than $1-$1.5T deficits. Clearly there are limits or a gubmit couldn't print and spend money until every one of its citizens were rich.

Pretty clear from the economic data that one of two things are happening: Either the record deficits have gone beyond the point of being productive to where it's actually contributing to the problem, or the build-up of govt excess/debt from prior years is more than offsetting the record stimulus. You can't spend money you don't have into perpetuity, eventually you reach a tipping point. In either case, the solution is LESS spending, not more.

It absolutely does and should when you consider private savings and the current account deficit. And, those deficits have shrank every year. You're Dr. Evil Syndrome has not been cured it seems. And of course it doesn't even make sense to say that a sovereign government that issues its own currency and spends it into existence with credits at its own central bank spends money it doesn't have. Of course bond desks know this too as we can see with still historically low interest rates despite years of supposedly horrific deficits in all countries with their own sovereign currency...including the Japanese (who have finally gotten serious about fighting deflation) and who has a much less promising population than we do and much higher debt as a percentage of gdp.

Of course you take it to the extreme of "every citizen being rich" so why bother?

It's weak demand plain and simple. and it's only getting weaker because this President wants to impress the people like Gut and all the other deficit scolds like Tim Geithner that he pals around with and then of course we have the republicans on their moral crusade against deficits because they always find religion when they don't have the presidency.

O-Trap;1423204 wrote:This small business is hiring subcontractors for short-term gigs only.

1099s all around.

I will say on the supply side that Obamacare really isn't helping but that...and other supply side stories like unemployment insurance are not the main story (just like bread lines and the Salvation Army didn't cause the prolonged unemployment of the Great Depression, etc.)

BoatShoes;1423220 wrote:In actuality this statement in comparison to the many thousands of years before it can hardly be even considered to be a belief that a reasonable person could hold. You're a smart guy so you might want to think this through.

Surely you do see how it is indeed worse in Europe where the Central Bank has followed advice you might seemingly give...such as raise interest rates; refuse to pursue asset purchases etc.

So the buying power of the dollar hasn't deteriorated to almost nothing in the last 100 years?

justincredible;1423230 wrote:So the buying power of the dollar hasn't deteriorated to almost nothing in the last 100 years?

That does not matter. You and the zero hedge people and the austrians and the libertarians...do not understand the roll of what a dollar...a federal reserve note really is. It is to facilitate exchange of REAL Goods and Services. And, In Real Terms...not nominal terms...the standard of living for average americans has dramatically risen over the last 100 years.

BoatShoes;1423226 wrote: It's weak demand plain and simple.

No, it's anti-growth and the future of crushing taxation. Just as classic theory predicts. Keynesians had their little run from what is now pretty clearly lagged/cumulative effects. Their response has been to double-down, which is convenient when you always just claim the stimulus wasn't enough. But the proof is in the pudding, as you like to say - record deficit spending, record stimulus, record monetary stimulus, the most anemic recovery in recent history, prolonged subpar employment, and on and on and on.

It's not Dr. Evil syndrome, it's reality. Like I said, I used to be a buyer of keynesian theory (well, in so far as the half-version practiced where you only have deficits), but I can change my mind in the face of overwhelming (or underwhelming, as the case may be) facts and reality. And that's what is so comical, because Keynesian theory has been completely hijacked to promote large, sustained deficits when the theory never advocated that.

You do realize that, don't you? There's absolutely no economic theory that predicts, advocates or supports what you are pushing. Maybe there are some fringe "theories", but there's nothing remotely mainstream that promotes perpetually large deficits as sound economic policy.

You do realize that the Soviet Union had all this "unique" attributes and spent itself into bankruptcy? You haven't forgot about the former USSR, have you?

BoatShoes;1423218 wrote:Well you didn't really make many tangible claims in your post that I quoted beyond the assertion that things are more expensive. This is readily refutable.

Since you don't believe the Department of Labor you can check the Billion Price Index.

http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/


We are not without problems however (as you point out) as using only expansionary monetary policy and not expansionary fiscal policy has lead to pervasive unemployment and so we are indeed struggling.

However, in those 100 years that you decry...after austrian/austerianism was supposed to have been left in the dust pin of history we experienced a largely great moderation and a robust growth in wealth for all Americans.

I didn't say "things are more expensive". I said the things they spend the new money on are more expensive. Since the bankers and government use this new money first, I would love for you to show that there hasn't been price inflation in stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate, college tuition, health care, etc.

The wealth created in the 40 years preceding the last 100 rivals the wealth created since. Incredible what austerianism accomplished. (It was not then nor ever Austrian.) Really the only major development in capital goods (productivity) since then is computers, which have made us dramatically more productive, but not really a whole lot wealthier all things considered. With productivity gains, consumer prices should have fallen by 50% over the last 20 years or so, not doubled. All of that wealth was stolen by the government.

BoatShoes;1423236 wrote:...the standard of living for average americans has dramatically risen over the last 100 years.

Merely coincidental that standard has likely fallen over the last 10-20 years...and at best flat over the last 30...no correlation with prolonged deficit spending. Nope. Nothing to see here, move along.

We can thank the Chinese and other countries that will produce goods for us for almost nothing for any increase in our standard of living over the past 40 years. Why do they do it? Well, they need dollars to buy oil and do business around the world, because the dollar is still the reserve currency. When that is no longer the case, good luck with the Keynesian nonsense.

Cleveland Buck;1423241 wrote:When that is no longer the case, good luck with the Keynesian nonsense.

And pretending like things are hunky-dory and we are better off with these massive deficits ignores the harm imposed on people living on fixed incomes. The govt can juice things, for how long we shall see, but it's devastating to people on fixed incomes. It's devastating to people with savings.

When the debt bubble bursts, it's going to be worse than the housing bubble. And the smart people in mostly equities are still going to get whacked. Bush "destroyed" the main savings for many Americans with the housing collapse. Obama appears determined to finish the job knocking out your 401k's and pensions.

And the really sad thing is the rich will survive bloodied but not beaten, while the poor/middle class that liberals claim to be helping with these policies are going to be absolutely devastated.

BoatShoes;1423227 wrote:I will say on the supply side that Obamacare really isn't helping but that...and other supply side stories like unemployment insurance are not the main story (just like bread lines and the Salvation Army didn't cause the prolonged unemployment of the Great Depression, etc.)

Rest assured, this isn't the result of just the Healthcare bill. It's a culmination of all the added costs of employing someone anymore that are virtually mandated. Everything from minimum wage to unemployment to health insurance to workers comp to withholding taxes. It's too expensive in comparison to hiring it out to people willing to do 1099s.

It's why, while I'm annoyed at stuff like the AHCAA, I just focus my energies on how to best run my business in light of it. In this case, it's finding a way to avoid it. I hire contract work and pay on 100% commission (or, if I'm paying someone from another country, I might pay them a decent wage there that is pretty low here).

I've contemplated setting up a way for local college students to get an internship with me, but I don't even know how to start setting that up. Haven't looked into it enough.

In any case, I again say, "1099s all around."

gut;1423247 wrote:And pretending like things are hunky-dory and we are better off with these massive deficits ignores the harm imposed on people living on fixed incomes. The govt can juice things, for how long we shall see, but it's devastating to people on fixed incomes. It's devastating to people with savings.

When the debt bubble bursts, it's going to be worse than the housing bubble. And the smart people in mostly equities are still going to get whacked. Bush "destroyed" the main savings for many Americans with the housing collapse. Obama appears determined to finish the job knocking out your 401k's and pensions.

And the really sad thing is the rich will survive bloodied but not beaten, while the poor/middle class that liberals claim to be helping with these policies are going to be absolutely devastated.

Saw a mini-bubble burst today with the bitcoin market. It's what bubbles do with no tether to tangible, imperishable commodities.

"Rest assured, this isn't the result of just the Healthcare bill. It's a culmination of all the added costs of employing someone anymore that are virtually mandated. Everything from minimum wage to unemployment to health insurance to workers comp to withholding taxes. It's too expensive in comparison to hiring it out to people willing to do 1099s."

Agree 100%. It is shocking how many people I know are working on a contract 1099 basis. With the costs of employing someone we've cornered ourselves into a permanent "real unemployment" high rate, particularly with respect to small businesses that don't have the capability to comply with actually employing someone.