Financial News

[Rex Kickass]

That was in response to the "terrorist" cat calls of the other side.

 

Again, you don't counter an accusation of being called a hostage taker and terrorist by referring to things as hostages worth ransoming. Just sayin.

[StrangeSox]

I left that out there just for you to miss the point.

 

Let me take a stab:

 

These numbers are never available quickly enough and therefore it's impossible to craft good government policy to address them.

 

[Balta1701]

Let me take a stab:

 

These numbers are never available quickly enough and therefore it's impossible to craft good government policy to address them.

A better answer might be that if there's reason to suspect that there is a rapid change happening in the market, then we ought to assume that the models are underestimating its intensity and we need to really go above and beyond what the standard response should be.

 

Hopefully I'm not alive the next time someone needs to remember that lesson.

[southsider2k5]

Let me take a stab:

 

These numbers are never available quickly enough and therefore it's impossible to craft good government policy to address them.

 

Here's the problem.

 

If the numbers aren't actual or accurate, they are based on someone's set of assumptions. Whose assumptions are they based on at that point? We have seen the fallacies of the unemployment and inflation numbers being completely in accurate because of what they include and don't include. We all know about the trick of unemployment leaving out certain blocks of people. Inflation is no different as the trick to make inflation seem tamer lately is housing prices. that is one of the components of CPI. With housing prices falling, and people walking away from leases, that component is falling, while the stuff we all consume is going up like crazy. They cancel each other out, and we hear about how there is no inflation. That isn't the reality at all, but that is how the numbers look. I'm sure if it is taking 3 years to get real economic numbers, the same stuff is going on here to dress up the numbers just like any other governmental statistic out there. The reality is that there is an incentive to produce the numbers that the sitting government wants to get its policy through. That incentive is keeping your job and funding.

[Balta1701]

Except in this case, the BEA (and BLS) produced numbers that hurt the ability of the sitting government to get its policy through.

[southsider2k5]

Except in this case, the BEA (and BLS) produced numbers that hurt the ability of the sitting government to get its policy through.

 

No it didn't. It produced numbers that didn't install a panic. That was the big thing at that time.

[Balta1701]

No it didn't. It produced numbers that didn't install a panic. That was the big thing at that time.

Yup. And the Republicans have not ripped on anyone for saying that the crisis produced a beneficial policy situation.

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

No one wanted a crisis, they just didn't want a crisis to go to waste.

[southsider2k5]

Yup. And the Republicans have not ripped on anyone for saying that the crisis produced a beneficial policy situation.

No one wanted a crisis, they just didn't want a crisis to go to waste.

 

Nice Rahm quote. And we got the largest expansion of the federal government since the new deal, so he got it.

[StrangeSox]

Nice Rahm quote. And we got the largest expansion of the federal government since the new deal, so he got it.

I'm pretty sure the number of government employees is down significantly and the ACA is considerably less expansive than the Great Society and was unrelated to the economic downturn.

[Balta1701]

Nice Rahm quote. And we got the largest expansion of the federal government since the new deal, so he got it.

 

You seriously expect me to believe that anything done in the past 3 years is bigger than the Great Society programs of the 60's in scale?

[Balta1701]

I'm pretty sure the number of government employees is down significantly and the ACA is considerably less expansive than the Great Society and was unrelated to the economic downturn.

Be a little clear here...local governments are down by nearly a half million employees, State governments are down a little (because the Feds helped them out temporarily) and federal employment is currently up by 100k or so since the start of the crisis.

[StrangeSox]

Ah, my mistake, I thought federal employment was down as well.

[Balta1701]

Ah, my mistake, I thought federal employment was down as well.

Give this current deal a chance to work for 6 months or so and you'll be right.

 

Edit: Gives me a chance to show this graph. Starts from Dec. 07.

 

[StrangeSox]

Where you could make a philosophical point is the insurance mandate and the broader implications of expanding the commerce clause. That's a pretty expansive view of what government can and cannot regulate.

[southsider2k5]

Give this current deal a chance to work for 6 months or so and you'll be right.

 

Edit: Gives me a chance to show this graph. Starts from Dec. 07.

 

 

And that pretty much proved my point about the expansion with the massive peak.

[Balta1701]

And that pretty much proved my point about the expansion with the massive peak.

You do realize that's entirely the census, correct?

[StrangeSox]

CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT!!!!

[southsider2k5]

You do realize that's entirely the census, correct?

 

And actually that graph is incorrect. At least according to the OPM numbers.

[Balta1701]

And actually that graph is incorrect. At least according to the OPM numbers.

Link?

[Balta1701]

The opm list I checked says that government hiring was 13,000 jobs between 2009 and 2010, except that was with census jobs counted in 2010, which would mean the opm says ex-census the federal government cut jobs after Obama took over. It also shows that the Feds added 100k jobs between 07 and 10 everywhere outside of the defense department, which was the rest of the hiring and only accounted for 180k over that time, which is probably a consequence of fighting 3+ wars.

[Balta1701]

There are suggestions in this WSJ article that overnight funding for private banks in Italy is starting to dry up.

In Italy, one of the country's biggest banks, UniCredit SpA, faced numerous questions from analysts about the bank's short-term loans and whether disruptions in the funding market pose a threat. Executives acknowledged the market turmoil was having an impact, but downplayed its severity.

 

"Liquidity…is available in the market. It's very, very short [term], but available," one senior executive said.

 

Short-term funds typically are less stable and more expensive than longer-term commitments, one of the reasons why banks and regulators try to limit their reliance on short-dated funds.

A dry-up of short term funding was one of the final kicks that killed Lehman and the other U.S. institutions that broke.

[southsider2k5]

Crude has made a couple of trades under $90 today and gas at $2.85.

[StrangeSox]

"Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?" - David Frum.

[StrangeSox]

There's also this, from May.

 

In a study examining 472 predictions made by 26 pundits, the public policy class and their professor discovered that nine were accurate more than 50 percent of the time while 17 failed to make the correct call on a regular basis.

 

The findings, presented in a paper titled “Are Talking Heads Blowing Hot Air? An Analysis of the Accuracy of Forecasts in the Political Media," showed that in general liberal columnists performed better than their conservative counterparts.

 

Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd (known for her mistakes), and Ed Rendell scored the best. Lindsey Graham, Carl Levin, and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas made the most mistakes.

Howard Wolfson, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, John Kerry, and Tom Friedman were some of the big names who fell in the middle range.

 

 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugma...5#ixzz1U4ndClKF

[southsider2k5]

There's also this, from May.

 

Now, a class at Hamilton College led by public policy professor P. Gary Wyckoff has analyzed the predictions of 26 prognosticators between September 2007 and December 2008.

 

Interesting time period they picked...