Financial News

[southsider2k5]

I'd rather take into account ridiculously low interest and inflation rates and how wrong the WSJ editorial pages have been for the better part of a decade now.

 

You aren't taking into account massive government manipulation and using it to hold up that the WSJ was wrong when the only reason they weren't wrong was said manipulation. The mechanisms haven't been wrong. There has been intervention to the tune of trillions of dollars that changed things.

[Balta1701]

You aren't taking into account massive government manipulation and using it to hold up that the WSJ was wrong when the only reason they weren't wrong was said manipulation. The mechanisms haven't been wrong. There has been intervention to the tune of trillions of dollars that changed things.

You're also failing to take into account the Fed intervention on the opposite side, pumping out newly created "cash" in exchange for trillions of dollars worth of mortgage backed securities.

[southsider2k5]

You're also failing to take into account the Fed intervention on the opposite side, pumping out newly created "cash" in exchange for trillions of dollars worth of mortgage backed securities.

 

Which is negated by the trillions pushed out to hold rates down. And again, there is plenty of inflation located outside of the housing sector.

[Balta1701]

Which is negated by the trillions pushed out to hold rates down. And again, there is plenty of inflation located outside of the housing sector.

Which you consistently claim while never producing a shred of data to support.

[southsider2k5]

Which you consistently claim while never producing a shred of data to support.

 

I had, but you don't really give a crap my little stalker.

[Balta1701]

I had, but you don't really give a crap my little stalker.

I see, so you've decided to go down the road of public namecalling.

[StrangeSox]

I had, but you don't really give a crap my little stalker.

 

You had, but then commodities prices fell after that oil spike in the spring and the bond vigilantes and their run-away inflation remained in hiding.

[caulfield12]

I looked at the five tables and just estimated where the five main countries in terms of bonds purchased stand:

 

France $675 billion (because of the huge bets on Italy)

Germany $500 billion

UK $350 billion

US $170 billion

Japan $87.5 billion

 

Clearly, the French banks/banking system are the next domino to fall in this puzzle...Germany's sitting on top of enough reserves to cover losses if need be, but the French government, not so much

[mr_genius]

Clearly, the French banks/banking system are the next domino to fall

 

good

Edited November 10, 2011 by mr_genius

[Balta1701]

good

The us exposure to French banks is quite large.

[mr_genius]

The us exposure to French banks is quite large.

 

oh s***. we better bail them out then.

[Balta1701]

oh s***. we better bail them out then.

Wouldn't be the first time.

[southsider2k5]

oh s***. we better bail them out then.

 

[StrangeSox]

Which is negated by the trillions pushed out to hold rates down. And again, there is plenty of inflation located outside of the housing sector.

 

...so, if the money they're spending to keep rates down is negated by the money they're printing to increase supply, the net effect on inflation is zero or near zero. So you can't use that as another shadow to hide the bond vigilantes and their rampant inflation.

[Y2HH]

Which you consistently claim while never producing a shred of data to support.

 

Since you believe there is no inflation, you won't care if/when you don't get a raise to keep up with it. That's a statement, not a question.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Y2HH

[Y2HH]

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflati...ntInflation.asp

 

Appears there is inflation.

 

Oh, and it's nearly 4%, not 0%.

[StrangeSox]

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflati...ntInflation.asp

 

Appears there is inflation.

 

Oh, and it's nearly 4%, not 0%.

 

I dunno, this paragraph makes me seriously question if they know wtf they're talking about:

 

Inflation Rate in Percent for Jan 2000-Present

Our Inflation data (see table below) is calculated to two decimal places while the government only calculates to one decimal place. Therefore, while being based on the government's index our data provides a "finer" view. January and February 2005 is a perfect example, according to the government statistics both months had an inflation rate of 3%. In January however, our data shows it as 2.97% and February shows as 3.01%. Therefore instead of the inflation rate being "flat" it is actually rising slightly. In another example we see August 2003 and September with the Government saying the rates were 2.2% and 2.3% respectively. This would lead us to believe that inflation rose .1% during that period. In actuality however, it rose from 2.16% to 2.32% or a .16% increase, substantially more than .1%!

 

You don't just get to arbitrarily pick significant figures--they need to reflect the precision and accuracy of what you're measuring. I could tell you that I measured a pencil to be 6.5452309 inches long with my ruler, which is a much better measurement than Joe's 6.5"!!! and I'd be an idiot.

[Y2HH]

I dunno, this paragraph makes me seriously question if they know wtf they're talking about:

 

 

 

You don't just get to arbitrarily pick significant figures--they need to reflect the precision and accuracy of what you're measuring. I could tell you that I measured a pencil to be 6.5452309 inches long with my ruler, which is a much better measurement than Joe's 6.5"!!! and I'd be an idiot.

 

I'm not an expert on inflation -- so I won't pretend to be -- but thinking about this logically, when enormous sums of money are being injected into the supply combined with massive government spending, we SHOULD have seen a LOT of inflation.

 

However, I think what's keeping inflation down is the high unemployment rate. That said, this is just my logical conclusion as to why inflation is not moving very fast and seems to fluctuate between 0.5% to 4% over the last few years.

[Y2HH]

I dunno, this paragraph makes me seriously question if they know wtf they're talking about:

 

 

 

You don't just get to arbitrarily pick significant figures--they need to reflect the precision and accuracy of what you're measuring. I could tell you that I measured a pencil to be 6.5452309 inches long with my ruler, which is a much better measurement than Joe's 6.5"!!! and I'd be an idiot.

 

You question it because it doesn't agree with you.

 

They're NOT arbitrarily picking significant figures and ignoring others.

[StrangeSox]

I'm not an expert on inflation -- so I won't pretend to be -- but thinking about this logically, when enormous sums of money are being injected into the supply combined with massive government spending, we SHOULD have seen a LOT of inflation.

 

I'm not either, and a quick googling finds that the rate is just under four. I just couldn't believe how dumb that paragraph seems on its face.

 

However, I think what's keeping inflation down is the high unemployment rate. That said, this is just my logical conclusion as to why inflation is not moving very fast and seems to fluctuate between 0.5% to 4% over the last few years.

 

That seems right to me. Sure, all of this money was printed, but since millions still don't have jobs, it's not actually in circulation and demand is still suppressed.

 

[Y2HH]

I'm not either, and a quick googling finds that the rate is just under four. I just couldn't believe how dumb that paragraph seems on its face.

 

Which agrees with the inflation data website I sent you too in the first place.

[StrangeSox]

You question it because it doesn't agree with you.

 

They're NOT arbitrarily picking significant figures and ignoring others.

 

No, it seems in line with other estimates. It's just that their claims of super-precision should sound really, really dumb to anyone who's taken an undergrad science or stats course. They need to justify why their calculations can actually be more precise, not why they decided not to round off the numbers. You can't gain significant digits through calculations, so their data needs to have at least significant figures as well.

[StrangeSox]

Which agrees with the inflation data website I sent you too in the first place.

....yes it does. It's still a very stupid paragraph.

 

edit: this is a tangential nit-pick. I was skeptical of their results so I googled and confirmed in a few seconds. I'm still skeptical that they're not idiots.

Edited November 10, 2011 by StrangeSox

[Y2HH]

....yes it does. It's still a very stupid paragraph.

 

edit: this is a tangential nit-pick. I was skeptical of their results so I googled and confirmed in a few seconds. I'm still skeptical that they're not idiots.

 

[Balta1701]

I can't tell if this is a giant over-reaction, if it's some variant of "what we should expect", or if it means that they have reason to expect that MF's behavior was not abnormal.

Federal regulators have ordered an audit of every American futures trading firm to verify that customer money is protected, a move that comes after roughly $600 million in client funds were discovered to be missing from MF Global, the bankrupt brokerage firm once run by Jon S. Corzine.

 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator searching for the missing money at MF Global, will audit many of the nation’s largest futures commission merchants, according to a person briefed on the decision. Exchanges like the CME Group will examine smaller firms to ensure they are keeping customer money separate from company money, a fundamental rule on Wall Street.