Quantitative Easing for Whom?

[georgephillip]

Why does the DNC hate the poor?

That should be the question.

And why do the poor continue to fall for it?

Public education is my guess

What's your best guess about Republican concern for the poor, No Child Left Behind?

 

[Roadrunner]

Why does the DNC hate the poor?

That should be the question.

And why do the poor continue to fall for it?

Public education is my guess

What's your best guess about Republican concern for the poor, No Child Left Behind?

It should be called NO CHILD ALLOWED AHEAD.

It geared the classroom to the lowest performing student there.

I know, I suffered under it, and retired the day I could.

I could not give essay tests, all tests had to be either multiple choice, with a study guide that had the exact answer, or matching, or fill in the blank, in which case there had to be a "word bank".

If the test question said "What color is the sky", and the answer was blue and gray, the test could not say gray and blue.

If a kid with a 504 failed a test, you had to re-test them until they passed, or, just give them the fuckin' grade.

BTW, there was not a single Republican on the school board, and I never had a Republican principal.

 

[georgephillip]

They lend money to the 1% Obama was picked to serve, not the 47% duped into putting him into office.

Gruber had it dead right.

Obama has been one of the best investments Goldman Sachs ever made. The one percent win regardless of which choice we make in the voting booth.

 

[georgephillip]

BTW, there was not a single Republican on the school board, and I never had a Republican principal.

I'm pretty sure there are good Republicans working the front lines of education, but they make the same mistake good Democrats make in the voting booth.

On an unrelated topic, some of the MOOCs I participate in are close to obtaining software that will accurately score essay questions.

Maybe part of the solution to public education in the US is already online?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The one percent win regardless of which choice we make in the voting booth.

dear, win??? Only Marx thought there should be class war with winners and he got 200 million killed. Also, the folks at Goldman won when they got their Harvard MBA's, not when a politician was elected. Did you ever wonder why why France or Holland would talk to Goldman about how to finance their governments and not to a fool liberal like you?

 

[georgephillip]

dear, win??? Only Marx thought there should be class war with winners and he got 200 million killed. Also, the folks at Goldman won when they got their Harvard MBA's, not when a politician was elected. Did you ever wonder why why France or Holland would talk to Goldman about how to finance their governments and not to a fool liberal like you?

Which capitalists is China talking to?
"Human rights defenders in China regularly face police harassment, house arrest, short-term detention, 'reeducation through labor,' forcible commitment to psychiatric facilities, or imprisonment on criminal charges, often on state security or public order grounds.

"Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year sentence in Heilongjiang province for incitement to subvert state power. His wife, Liu Xia, has been missing since December 2010. She is believed to be under house arrest in the capital Beijing to prevent her from campaigning on her husband’s behalf.

"Li Tie, a writer and dissident from Wuhan in Hubei province, was sentenced on January 18 to 10 years in prison for subversion. Li’s especially harsh sentence was the last of several given to several long-standing democracy activists in the wake of the Arab Spring.

"After a year in detention, veteran activists Ni Yulan and Dong Jiqin were sentenced on April 10 to two years and eight months, and two years respectively for 'creating a disturbance.' An appeal court shortened Ni’s sentence by two months in July.

"In late April, the blind activist Chen Guangcheng escaped from his home in Shandong province where he had been unlawfully confined with his family since his release from an unjustified prison term for 'intentionally damaging property and gathering crowds to disturb transport order.' Helped by a network of activists, Chen sought refuge at the United States Embassy in Beijing. Following tense negotiations between the US and China over several weeks, Chen was finally allowed to leave with his family on May 19 to study in the US, after central government envoys gave assurances there would be an investigation into his unlawful detention. Chen Kegui, Chen’s nephew, faces homicide charges for injuring several guards who raided Chen’s brother’s home in the middle of the night after they realized Chen had escaped. Local judicial authorities barred Chen Kegui’s lawyers from representing him, claiming they had already appointed a legal aid lawyer for him."
Why do rich neo-con$ bow before succe$$ful Chinese capitalist$?

World Report 2013 China Human Rights Watch

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear, win??? Only Marx thought there should be class war with winners and he got 200 million killed. Also, the folks at Goldman won when they got their Harvard MBA's, not when a politician was elected. Did you ever wonder why why France or Holland would talk to Goldman about how to finance their governments and not to a fool liberal like you?

Which capitalists is China talking to?
"Human rights defenders in China regularly face police harassment, house arrest, short-term detention, 'reeducation through labor,' forcible commitment to psychiatric facilities, or imprisonment on criminal charges, often on state security or public order grounds.

"Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year sentence in Heilongjiang province for incitement to subvert state power. His wife, Liu Xia, has been missing since December 2010. She is believed to be under house arrest in the capital Beijing to prevent her from campaigning on her husband’s behalf.

"Li Tie, a writer and dissident from Wuhan in Hubei province, was sentenced on January 18 to 10 years in prison for subversion. Li’s especially harsh sentence was the last of several given to several long-standing democracy activists in the wake of the Arab Spring.

"After a year in detention, veteran activists Ni Yulan and Dong Jiqin were sentenced on April 10 to two years and eight months, and two years respectively for 'creating a disturbance.' An appeal court shortened Ni’s sentence by two months in July.

"In late April, the blind activist Chen Guangcheng escaped from his home in Shandong province where he had been unlawfully confined with his family since his release from an unjustified prison term for 'intentionally damaging property and gathering crowds to disturb transport order.' Helped by a network of activists, Chen sought refuge at the United States Embassy in Beijing. Following tense negotiations between the US and China over several weeks, Chen was finally allowed to leave with his family on May 19 to study in the US, after central government envoys gave assurances there would be an investigation into his unlawful detention. Chen Kegui, Chen’s nephew, faces homicide charges for injuring several guards who raided Chen’s brother’s home in the middle of the night after they realized Chen had escaped. Local judicial authorities barred Chen Kegui’s lawyers from representing him, claiming they had already appointed a legal aid lawyer for him."
Why do rich neo-con$ bow before succe$$ful Chinese capitalist$?

World Report 2013 China Human Rights Watch

too stupid we can all cut and paste a million links. Do you act like an idiot on purpose?

 

[georgephillip]

too stupid we can all cut and paste a million links. Do you act like an idiot on purpose?

Are you too stupid to explain why you endorse human rights violations by your capitalistic brethren in China?

 

[TC_Triple3]

yes, to avoid depression and help the economy and pensions recover.

So when did the US economy recover?

the recession was over years ago thanks to QE and related activity if thats what you want to know.

WOW! It's hilarious that you actually believe this nonsense. I suppose you're looking to GDP numbers as proof that the recession has ended. Two quarters of positive GDP and voila, the recession is over. Laughable. GDP and CPI have strayed so far from reality that they are almost useless for historical comparisons, or as metrics for economic health unless you know how they are calculated, and it's obvious that you don't know.

Do you know what 'geometric weighting', is? How about 'hedonics'? Substitution?

Here are a few examples for both GDP and CPI:

GDP

If you own your house free and clear, the government adds how much they think you should be paying yourself rent to live there and adds that amount to the GDP.

Another is the benefit you receive from the “free checking” provided by your bank, which is imputed to have a value, because if it weren’t free, then you’d have to pay for it. So that value is guesstimated and added to the GDP as well.

Computers are hedonically adjusted to account for the idea that, because they are faster and more feature-rich than in past years, they must be more additive to our economic output. So if a thousand dollar computer were sold, it would be recorded as contributing more than a thousand dollars to the GDP

CPI

It is now assumed that when the price of something rises, people will switch to something cheaper. So any time, say, that the price of salmon goes up too much, it is removed from the basket of goods and substituted with something cheaper, like hot dogs.

Anything that rises too quickly in price is now subjected to so-called “geometric weighting,” in which goods and services that are rising most rapidly in price get a lower weighting in the CPI basket, under the assumption that people will use less of those things. Using the government’s own statistics from two different sources, we find that health care is about 17% of our total economy, but it is weighted as only 6% of the CPI basket.

A 27-inch television selling for $329.99 was selling for the same price as last year, but was now equipped with a better screen. After taking this subjective improvement into account, the price of the TV was adjusted downwards by $135, concluding that the screen improvement was the same as if the price of the TV had fallen by 29%. The price reflected in the CPI was not the actual retail store cost of $329.99, which is what it would cost you to buy, but $195.

You have no idea what you're talking about. If you think creating more asset bubbles in the stock and bond markets is a recovery then you're crazy. These bubble will burst as well. The only thing the FED did was to rescue favored interests and kick the can down to road.

I don't think you have any idea what economic growth really is, how it occurs, or why. You're stuck on fuzzy numbers and pure propaganda.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

WOW! It's hilarious that you actually believe this nonsense. I suppose you're looking to GDP numbers as proof that the recession has ended. .

yes dear economists using the same definitions we have used for decades concluded the recession was over many years ago.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

. If you think creating more asset bubbles in the stock and bond markets is a recovery then you're crazy. These bubble will burst as well.

Current stock prices are not used in GDP calculations and there is no evidence of a bubble in them anyway. The Fed has been brilliant so far. If they'd get some help toward cpaitalism the economy would boom.

 

[georgephillip]

yes dear economists using the same definitions we have used for decades concluded the recession was over many years ago.

How many years ago did economists begin using "geometric weighting", "hedonics", and "substitution" when calculating GDP and CPI?

 

[TC_Triple3]

How many years ago did economists begin using "geometric weighting", "hedonics", and "substitution" when calculating GDP and CPI?

The Government has been massaging official statistics since the early 60's. Unemployment statistics were first, starting with Kennedy, who disliked high unemployment numbers, a new classification was developed that scrubbed so-called ‘discouraged workers’ from the headline data, causing unemployment figures to drop.

Richard Nixon bequeathed us the so-called “core inflation” measure, which strips out food and fuel.

But In 1996, Clinton implemented the Boskin Commission findings, which now measure inflation using three oddities: substitution, weighting, and hedonics. To begin with this list, we no longer simply measure the cost of goods and services from one year to the next, because of something called the "substitution effect." Thanks to the Boskin Commission, it is now assumed that when the price of something rises, people will switch to something cheaper.

At every turn, a new way of measuring and reporting was derived that invariably served to make things seem a bit rosier than they actually were. Economic activity was higher, inflation was lower (a lot lower), and jobs were more plentiful. Unfortunately, the cumulative impact of all this data manipulation is that our measurements no longer match reality. We are, in effect, telling ourselves lies, and these fibs serve to distort our decisions and jeopardize our economic future.

 

[TC_Triple3]

Current stock prices are not used in GDP calculations and there is no evidence of a bubble in them anyway. The Fed has been brilliant so far. If they'd get some help toward cpaitalism the economy would boom.

Gee I didn't know that asset prices were not included in GDP, or CPI calculations (heavy sarcasm)!

Where do you think the bulk of QE went? Could it be capital markets? Let's see, an increase in the volume of money that flows into capital markets. Golly I wonder what happens when the demand for stocks and bonds goes up. Hmmm. maybe, just maybe, asset prices go up? Nah, I'm sure it's just evidence of a rosy recovery.

What happened when banks were churning out home loans to anyone and everyone? This also increased the volume of the money stock. Golly I wonder what happened when all that money was chasing property? Housing prices skyrocketed. Was this a bubble? Would asset prices be at their current level without QE? Not a chance. This too is a bubble and like all bubbles it will burst.

 

[georgephillip]

The Government has been massaging official statistics since the early 60's. Unemployment statistics were first, starting with Kennedy, who disliked high unemployment numbers, a new classification was developed that scrubbed so-called ‘discouraged workers’ from the headline data, causing unemployment figures to drop.

Richard Nixon bequeathed us the so-called “core inflation” measure, which strips out food and fuel.

Is there any credible/accurate way of measuring today's UE and inflation rates as they would have been calculated before 1960?

 

[georgephillip]

Gee I didn't know that asset prices were not included in GDP, or CPI calculations (heavy sarcasm)!

Is anyone else getting the impression Special Ed isn't here to honestly contribute to finding the truth about the state of the US Economy? (no sarcasm required)

 

[TC_Triple3]

The Government has been massaging official statistics since the early 60's. Unemployment statistics were first, starting with Kennedy, who disliked high unemployment numbers, a new classification was developed that scrubbed so-called ‘discouraged workers’ from the headline data, causing unemployment figures to drop.

Richard Nixon bequeathed us the so-called “core inflation” measure, which strips out food and fuel.

Is there any credible/accurate way of measuring today's UE and inflation rates as they would have been calculated before 1960?

It's a painstaking process to remove all of the changes to these metrics, but it can be done. These statistics are politically charged so it is difficult to discern if someone's adjusted statistics are accurate, or also politically motivated. The same is true for the money supply since the FED stopped reporting M3, but the money supply can still be calculated.

 

[TC_Triple3]

Is anyone else getting the impression Special Ed isn't here to honestly contribute to finding the truth about the state of the US Economy? (no sarcasm required)

He acts more like a troll than anything else. Condescension and insults in one sentence blurbs that he repeats to no end. Very little in the way of contribution. What's funny is that he calls everything he disagrees with "too liberal" and "stupid" while hailing all things Republican. He claims that the economy has recovered and it was policy that was responsible. If that were true (it isn't), were did most of the policy that occurred after the crisis originate? That would the Obama Administration, so shouldn't he give Obama credit for saving the economy? He's a walking, talking contradiction that has no idea what he's talking about. A legend in his own mind.

 

[georgephillip]

He acts more like a troll than anything else. Condescension and insults in one sentence blurbs that he repeats to no end. Very little in the way of contribution. What's funny is that he calls everything he disagrees with "too liberal" and "stupid" while hailing all things Republican.

I realize it's (virtually) impossible to gauge the motives of posters on the internet; however, Special Ed shows flashes of real economic insight you might expect from a business school professor, yet he doesn't seem willing to share his knowledge with those he perceives as inferiors ("liberals") Or maybe he's a retired Ivy League Marxist with way too much time on his hands? My biggest problem is not knowing when his posts are red herrings,

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

He claims that the economy has recovered and it was policy that was responsible

100% agree that the economy is slowly recovering. It is happening as Republican capitalism overcomes and adjusts to the distortions( e.g. cash for clunkers) caused by liberal or soviet interference. Indeed, a recession is the time it takes capitalism to sort out the mess caused by liberal interference.

Do you understand?? If you don't understand say "exactly" where and we can continue your education.