Well dudes, she is and the reason is the energy inflation costs which have tapped every item we buy at the supermarket.
The reason is the Nike factory in Indonesia where they were throughout the 90's paying wages which made workers
live in cardboard shacks as they emerged from triple canopied hinterlands. The reason is the poor quality of american cars in the 70'sand 80's which gave rise to Nissan, Toyota, and Subaru. The reason is the crazy environmentalists who have given long range survival THEORIES primacy over our ability to create independent energy (of any kind) and survive TOMORROW. The reason is greedy bankers whose invention of 'products' to push to people who could not possibly have afforded homes allowed them to put planned cash on the books as if it were REAL MONEY. The reason is the cheap adulterated products made in China (and other places) do this kind of thing (for the doubters Snopes rates this as TRUE).
So we have already abandoned all we can. We heat exclusively with wood. $750/year and our home is warmer than anyone else we know. We have heated with wood for 32 years. Mark 1973 as a turning point. We have one truck (18 mpg), but our other vehicles all get > 30 mpg. All paid for. We had a 20 year fixed mortgage and paid it off. We bought our appliances after we had the cash.We buy the food we have to and like, and pick it carefully (no not at the health food store, but after seeing the size of the chicken breast on our last purchase we are wondering WTF they are feeding these frankenchicks). And with great resentment for the waste of money the energy costs have engendered. We go out of our way to buy American, but when we looked for an LCD screen ......it says Westinghouse but the LCD is surely made in Tolucca, or outside of Penang. What is Westinghouse today anyway?
We are already staying home. I suspect, so are a lot of others. Anyone running out to spend $20+ to see a POS movie showing people's pus engorged heads being sliced off? Sorry, but the galactically depressing Atonement was a waste of that money. I can just read the news for that.
Now what happens in at the Bourse, the NIkkei? Things have consequences.
The proper reaction of the Fed is not to enable more spending it is to enable MAKING THINGS (including software), and then to have the rest of the government get the hell out of the way. Today they are probably all dying around the world to have the fed lower interest rates again so we can all, here in the USA, run out and buy another foreign made durable good.
8 comments:
Just now on the news....The Fed just cut the rates. Emergency move.
3/4 point cut
Penalizing the savers, of which I happen to be one.
Is the Fed trying to force us savers to buy products? Sure looks that way.
Call me naiive, but I always thought the best way to save is to invest.
The only good idea I heard from Huckabee is his tax idea,
No income tax, just a national consumption tax.
If you get your money and invest it .. no tax whether that's savings or otherwise.
If you buy a BMW you pay. If you buy a Ford you pay less. How much tax you pay is under your control.
Right now the world needs america to BUY not save or produce. That's what this is about.
We're being told to go shopping.
What a farce!
If you don't have money, don't buy anything. It's almost always foolish to spend money you don't have.
However, it is absolutely true that the world does depend on us to spend money in order for them to make money. In fact, sorry to be pedantic, but no one would ever make money if others wouldn't spend money.
Spending money grows the economy.
So, what's your point?
If the govt is going to commit an act then rather than do something stupid to cause inflationary pressure in order to get us to spend, or a tax rebate which Milton Friedman won a NObel Prize for predicting (among other things) would be of no or little effect....commit acts which empower CREATION not consumption. If people create and reap the benefits of that, they will spend.
Investing in creation is a good idea. However, it takes longer for that to filter its way into the economy, right?
Rebates and lowered interest rates are focused on consumption. So, here's my question, asked in all naiivety:
Isn't money spent logically spent on products which were already created? So, what's the difference?
1) Milton Friedman's BIG paper written at the time of NIxon's big tax rebate predicted two things... when people are fired, for a while they go on spending the same in anticipation of being in a new job, and he predicted that a rebate would do NOTHING to help the economy since it is not a promotion or a raise and people would change their spending habits for a one time check. He was right on both counts
2) It takes longer indeed, but it has to be done and results in REAL GAIN, not a momentary gain via consumption which Friedman predicted won't happen anyway. People will pay down debts, and the rebate will all go back to citibank?
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