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Honestly, I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about. You aren't wrong, per-say, you just list all things that have literally 0 to do with the act

Honestly, I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about. You aren't wrong, per-say, you just list all things that have literally 0 to do with the actual problems. Its a very common political trick for an ideologue like yourself to grab a bunch of things they think are bad and argue they are the cause of all your ills. You are approaching things from a "this is good for people, it must be good for the country" point of view. A national economy is not a person and doesn't function on the same economic rules as a person does. The real problem in this country, frankly, is the Federal Government has been badly mismanaging economic & tax policy for 30+ years. They've repeatedly used short term solutions and short-changed everything from highways to R&D in the name of military, taxes, & social spending. Many long term investments in physical goods [e.g. buildings] are really only rated for a 30ish year timeline for depreciation for a reason. That combined with the demographic shifts, labor market arbitrage, massive private debt load are the actual problems. Did you bitch when the private debt to gdp was over 120%? Did you even think about it, honestly? I'd list sources but I honestly think you wouldn't believe me. ---- > A vanishing middle-class is not healthy. By that logic, the US economy has in the shitter since the 1980s. > Inflating assets is not healthy. Actually, inflating prices is the definition of healthy and has been for a long time in economic theory. No economist argues we should have deflation. > QE is not healthy. & 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. Having deflation would be less healthy than 0% interest and QE. QE is also over. > 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. That isn't a serious issue as long as the US is considered the reserve currency. National debt doesn't have a direct correlation with economic growth. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/government-debt-isnt-the-problemprivate-debt-is/379865/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/governme... > Government Debt Isn't the Problem—Private Debt Is > What was the big problem? Look at the line representing private debt. It clearly is not parallel to the GDP line and, indeed, reflects a rapid growth of private debt relative to GDP. > Look familiar? Time and again, that’s the story we found: A major financial crisis is preceded by a runup in private debt relative to GDP. In fact, there seems to be only one other ingredient required for a crisis: that the absolute level of private debt is high to begin with. We found that almost all instances of rapid debt growth coupled with high overall levels of private debt have led to crises.

civilframe 11y ago
Excellent points. Most people confuse macroeconomics with microeconomics. You cannot apply the principles of personal finance to a national economy.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Macroeconomics is (in my opinion) the science of applying statistical analysis to microeconomics in such a way that it retroactively justifies whatever it is the power-elites are already doing. As such, there is a lot of hand-waving, misdirection, and misuse of language in it. Whenever someone says "deflation," I must immediately ask "of what?" Production costs? Retail prices? Wages? Quantity of circulating currency? Most of the time, an unqualified "deflation" means "a trend of declining retail prices, as measured by non-adjusted currency." And I know why economists in the employ of monetary authorities hate it. It means that there was a missed opportunity for that authority to steal more from the economy by inflating the money supply at a faster rate. Ordinary price deflation is beneficial [for the working class]. It allows you to buy more stuff with less of your own labor. You can buy a computer today that is vastly more capable than one from 1995, at maybe 20% the cost, as measured by your own labor. You might have spent two weeks of gross wages back then. Now, you might spend 2 days of your work. Working people usually spend at least 2000 hours of their own labor per year, for a span of about 50 years. They have to budget that 100000 hours out for everything they will ever want or need. They can't get more stuff for free just by printing off a few more bills or raising taxes. So everybody loves it when they can all get more stuff with the same amount of work, and everybody hates it when they have to work twice as hard to only get the same amount of stuff their parents had. The economy hasn't just been in the toilet since the 80s. Real wages for working class families have been in decline since 1970. And the cause (in my opinion) was economists who pretended that macroeconomics was something other than a simple summation of many thousands of individual microeconomic models. They pretended that "government" was some magical economic actor that could defy the laws of microeconomics, by gradually moving numbers from the "truth" column of the ledger into "lies", from "lies" to "damned lies", and finally putting them into "statistics", where they could safely be explained away, hidden in margins for error, or redefined into nothing. This is what monetary authorities and their pet macroeconomists have given us since 1970. The ordinary march of human progress--which has steadily given us an approximate annualized return of 1.5% per year, failing only temporarily due to wars, plagues, or other catastrophes--now goes directly into an annual inflation of the money supply of at least 1.5%. This has transformed global commerce from an ever-rising tide that floats all boats, into one where only the yachts float higher as the canoes, coracles, skiffs, and dinghies get swamped. You can and should apply the principles of personal finance to national economies. You may learn something about macroeconomics that you didn't suspect before.

civilframe 11y ago

Excellent points. Most people confuse macroeconomics with microeconomics. You cannot apply the principles of personal finance to a national economy.

logfromblammo 11y ago
Macroeconomics is (in my opinion) the science of applying statistical analysis to microeconomics in such a way that it retroactively justifies whatever it is the power-elites are already doing. As such, there is a lot of hand-waving, misdirection, and misuse of language in it. Whenever someone says "deflation," I must immediately ask "of what?" Production costs? Retail prices? Wages? Quantity of circulating currency? Most of the time, an unqualified "deflation" means "a trend of declining retail prices, as measured by non-adjusted currency." And I know why economists in the employ of monetary authorities hate it. It means that there was a missed opportunity for that authority to steal more from the economy by inflating the money supply at a faster rate. Ordinary price deflation is beneficial [for the working class]. It allows you to buy more stuff with less of your own labor. You can buy a computer today that is vastly more capable than one from 1995, at maybe 20% the cost, as measured by your own labor. You might have spent two weeks of gross wages back then. Now, you might spend 2 days of your work. Working people usually spend at least 2000 hours of their own labor per year, for a span of about 50 years. They have to budget that 100000 hours out for everything they will ever want or need. They can't get more stuff for free just by printing off a few more bills or raising taxes. So everybody loves it when they can all get more stuff with the same amount of work, and everybody hates it when they have to work twice as hard to only get the same amount of stuff their parents had. The economy hasn't just been in the toilet since the 80s. Real wages for working class families have been in decline since 1970. And the cause (in my opinion) was economists who pretended that macroeconomics was something other than a simple summation of many thousands of individual microeconomic models. They pretended that "government" was some magical economic actor that could defy the laws of microeconomics, by gradually moving numbers from the "truth" column of the ledger into "lies", from "lies" to "damned lies", and finally putting them into "statistics", where they could safely be explained away, hidden in margins for error, or redefined into nothing. This is what monetary authorities and their pet macroeconomists have given us since 1970. The ordinary march of human progress--which has steadily given us an approximate annualized return of 1.5% per year, failing only temporarily due to wars, plagues, or other catastrophes--now goes directly into an annual inflation of the money supply of at least 1.5%. This has transformed global commerce from an ever-rising tide that floats all boats, into one where only the yachts float higher as the canoes, coracles, skiffs, and dinghies get swamped. You can and should apply the principles of personal finance to national economies. You may learn something about macroeconomics that you didn't suspect before.