Peter_Puget Posted June 30, 2011 Posted June 30, 2011 The Federal Reserve's massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping U.S. exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday. In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy. "There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked," Greenspan said in a live interview. "It obviously had some effect on the exchange rate and the exchange rate was a critical issue in export expansion," he said. "Aside from that, I am ill-aware of anything that really worked. Not only QE2 but QE1." link Quote
j_b Posted June 30, 2011 Posted June 30, 2011 Greenspan has been shown to be flat out wrong about most everything since he pitched his tent in Ayn Rand's closet, yet always trust corporate tools for pretending his opinion should be considered. Quote
JayB Posted June 30, 2011 Posted June 30, 2011 It's amazing to me that there was anyone running the show who believed that the unwillingness of institutions to lend to one another, etc was due to a 1930's style contraction of the money supply. Money wasn't the problem. There was plenty of money - but no one could tell who it was safe to loan money to. Ditto for the notion that spending over a trillion trying to prop home values inflated by a credit expansion was a good use for money even if it would work, much less that it would actually prevent home prices from mean-reverting. Just taking the entire sum expended on the stimulus/QE/housing-bailout and distributing it on a per-capita basis would have had the same effect on the money supply, and would have avoided all of the self-dealing that come along with funneling all of the cash through self-interested bureaucracies and financial institutions. Fail*10^n Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted June 30, 2011 Posted June 30, 2011 Speaking of FAIL, the sooner this failure is gone, the better Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted July 1, 2011 Posted July 1, 2011 Oh look another right-wing circle jerk. Oh, look: HOT CARL! Quote
Hugh Conway Posted July 1, 2011 Posted July 1, 2011 Oh look another right-wing circle jerk. Oh, look: HOT CARL! apply a little of that fantastic hindsight that PP and JayB have and you wouldn't be covered in shit there KKK Quote
tvashtarkatena Posted July 1, 2011 Posted July 1, 2011 The same Greenspan that felt it wasn't necessary to regulate investment fraud at all, no? Kind of a 'buyer beware' guy... Yeah, the same. Why does anyone listen to that assclown? Quote
Hugh Conway Posted July 1, 2011 Posted July 1, 2011 The same Greenspan that felt it wasn't necessary to regulate investment fraud at all, no? Kind of a 'buyer beware' guy... Yeah, the same. Why does anyone listen to that assclown? you forgot: the one who inflated the huge ass housing bubble in the first place Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted July 1, 2011 Posted July 1, 2011 The same Greenspan that felt it wasn't necessary to regulate investment fraud at all, no? Kind of a 'buyer beware' guy... Yeah, the same. Why does anyone listen to that assclown? you forgot: the one who inflated the huge ass housing bubble in the first place Barney Frank! Quote
Mal_Con Posted July 2, 2011 Posted July 2, 2011 How about a little out of the box thinking? There was a distinct possibility that the US economy would have crated in 2000. We had lost manufacturing and good union jobs in the 1980's. The Tech bubble in the 90's and the dot.com bubble after that kept the 90's popping but all things eventually end. By 2000 the industry stagnated and never really got back to where it was, the dot.coms cratered. What to do next HOUSING! it provided lots of high paying American jobs and near everyone could get a piece of the action. Keep it hot my lowering interest rates and taxes on capital gains. Eliminate regulations so everyone can play. It is real easy to make money when interest is a couple % and prices are rising 10%/yr. After 9-11 push the heat hotter! If it hadn't been done there would have been a massive depression in 2002 and Schrub would have been a one termer. Toss in a couple wars and scares to keep the righties happy. Eventually all booms have to end and this one just ended a bit too early for McCain. What people do not realize now is that cutting spending means cutting jobs, ending wars means less employment and dumping a bunch of unemployed killers back into the streets. Increasing taxes also reduces jobs. Cutting back unemployment, raising retirement and medicare age means more unemployed not less. Deficits-jobs surpluses - depression. Have a niceday. Quote
billcoe Posted July 5, 2011 Posted July 5, 2011 .....ending wars means less employment and dumping a bunch of unemployed killers back into the streets. Increasing taxes also reduces jobs. ...... I think that you need to rethink your entire shtick buddy, {especially the "trained killer part as military personal tend to be as law abiding as they come) but to discuss only 2 of your points. 1st) price out a single JDAM (the best low cost way to kill the enemy) let alone a Cruise Missile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_B-2_Spirit If we can get out of tossing million dollar bombs out of airplanes alone in the 3 or 4 major active locations we are in now, we'd save a fortune. Running these sorties even with the lowest cost ordinance is very costly. No need to reduce the amount of military personal we have, rotate them home and let them be peacetime soldiers in US based locations: station them in places named Fort Lewis, Fort Sill, Fort Benning, Fort Ord or whatever. We'd retain their skill sets in case of a serious future need, and they and their family's would be spending those paychecks in the US. The operational costs to run F18's or B-2s on repetitive missions would drop radically, as would fleet costs to have aircraft carriers stationed out of these shitholes. Aircraft carriers have 4,000 sailors on them, and the price of fuel to run one within jet range to bomb a country like Libya alone is enough to fund most small 3rd world countries. Our military operational costs are huge to achieve these minor questionable goals. 2nd) on the increasing taxes issue you note. Let the Obama (formerly Bush) tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Why should we be borrowing and paying interest on that money from the Chinese to allow the rich to bank more money? They aren't creating more jobs as much as deepening their portfolios while the middle class gets stuck with having to repay the borrowed $ sometime in the future. Pulling money out of the hands of the many so that it can get locked into the bank vaults of the few has always been a recipe for disaster in this country. We've seen it occur in history, why do it again voluntarily? We need to balance our budget badly. Reducing costs is critical, but as we do not seem to have the political will to easily do so those 2 methods noted above would be an easy start. Start that out of box thinking revision with those 2 issues and see what ya think. Interesting here's the army just flushed $3 billion down the toilet. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/89048-us-army-spent-2-7-billion-on-a-battlefield-computer-that-doesnt-work Quote
jon Posted July 5, 2011 Posted July 5, 2011 Greenspan was at the root cause of all of this, wtf is he even on TV. He needs to be in a cell. Why is it that when people don't see a huge increase in the GDP or unemployment rates that all this stimulus and QE1/2 is considered a failure? The point is to avoid deflation or stagflation and a repeat of the Japanese lost decade, not to create another bubble. It was a success. Housing prices need to stabilize otherwise more people will walk away. Why pay a $3k mortgage when you can rent it for $1k? The incentive to walk away just keeps increase; I personally know many who have when they could have easily afforded it. People have to accept that life is not going to return to 2004-2006, where unemployment was very low, money was easy to get, and a party clown owns 3 homes. This is the new reality. Until something is done with our out of control trade deficit we will never see the prosperity we once saw. People have to be willing to give up their cheap chinese goods and cheap foreign engineers and outsourcing. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.