61–70 of 178 posts
The best whistle blowing before the bubble popped had to be Peter Schiff telling a huge crowd of mortgage bankers they were about to lose their jobs in Nov 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8rMwdQf6k
Peter Schiff fascinates me. He's had many right predictions and he's been making money off of these, all while telling the world exactly how he'll do it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Krugman is as "somewhat hyperbolic" as the GP. In fact, the GP qualifies his theories with "I think", Krugman states them as fact.
Just curious: Does the debt number include unfunded liabilities for social security, medicare, etc?
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Meas... and refer to the first paragraph of the article of a definition of the two debt types.
The most outrageous part in my mind was where Assistant AG Lanny Breuer (who just resigned) gave a speech in which he talked about how he loses sleep at night over concerns about what bringing a lawsuit against a big Wall Street corporation could do.
Imagine if you applied that argument to prosecuting drug cartels! "Just think of all the poor footmen and couriers who might lose their jobs if we prosecute their ringleader"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> inflation would spike Inflation did spike but what happened was that the definition was redefined in a deceptive way. Look at cereal prices and volumes. Prices have spiked and the containers/volumes have shrunk, but that's not taken into account under measures that exclude food prices. Energy prices have spiked. Gold prices have been running for more than 12 years. It's not to say we are seeing hyperinflation, but…
When people say that CPI doesn't show true inflation, what measure do they prefer to use instead?
My reaction while reading most of this was "Why didn't any of you try harder to let someone know? Why didn't you email everyone? Why didn't you call all the people you emailed? Wasn't there ANYONE important who would listen!?" After reading the whole thing, I was a little shocked to realize the answer is "No, there was no one important who would listen." The accountant who essentially documented the impending collaps…
Lots of people saw this coming. Peter Schiff, among other Austrians, were ringing alarm bells for years. That's part of the problem. People think, "How big a problem can it really be if you're on year number four of telling us what a problem this will be? Surely if it was as bad as you say, it would have happened already/we wouldn't be making all this money." If you read Michael Lewis' The Big Short, you'll get a nice profile of five or six guys who not only saw this coming, but actually timed it perfectly and made fortunes.
You can't solve problems like these by convincing one "important" person of anything, even if its the truth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love to watch Frontline, but as they've reported on areas where I know a bit more, it's become obvious how often they trade on outrage rather than detailed information. For example, in order to really report on why prosecutions did not happen, you would think they would take some time to explain how federal law defines certain crimes. But, they never did that at all--instead they ask people for a sort of gut reacti…
My biggest problem with them is that they often feel like prosecutors building a case. They lay out their arguments and pile on supporting evidence with what feels like the intent of proving things beyond a reasonable doubt. And I'm often convinced, but I never really feel like I get the defense attorney's cross-examination. That said, it's really obvious how much work and thought goes into these. If you compare anyt…
TV delivers a ton of information, but most of that information is emotional--i.e. facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. A voice on TV cannot speak facts nearly as fast as as you can read them.
"industry insiders were ringing the alarm bells" Just as today many economists are ringing the alarm bells: the governments public debt issues (both in U.S., Japan and many countries in the Eurozone) are going to end up very badly. Many central banks (including in the U.S.) have basically become bad banks. Anyone holding medium and long-term public government debt (like many insurance products) are basically bankrupt…
I hope pbs eventually covers the zero prosecution for HSBC bank money laundering. Only penalty was a month's worth of profit. Not one person will serve a day in prison. But hey, don't unlock your phone, it's a felony. Or download and free journal articles.
The sensationalism isn't helping. It's perfectly legal to download free articles.
Edit: no offense. Not sure if I grok your comment or you grok'd GPs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the system, and the whole concept of money in general, all entirely a confidence game?
Exactly. Even when the money was made of gold, it was still worth exactly what people thought it was worth, nothing more or less.
"industry insiders were ringing the alarm bells" Just as today many economists are ringing the alarm bells: the governments public debt issues (both in U.S., Japan and many countries in the Eurozone) are going to end up very badly. Many central banks (including in the U.S.) have basically become bad banks. Anyone holding medium and long-term public government debt (like many insurance products) are basically bankrupt…
I can't speak to the details of the various and diverse Europe problems, but in the U.S. the debt problem is primarily political. Tax receipts as a percentage of GDP are near historic lows, and GDP itself is inhibited because we are climbing out of a recession. In plain English--the government is taking a smaller piece of a smaller pie. No wonder our debt level has climbed. And yet U.S. Treasury bond rates are still…