The Fed

[Lukey]

When one individual steals from another, it is government that delivers justice.

And when a majority uses government to gang up on a small minority and "legally" take their money from them, is that also a "government delivering justice?" I guess it all depends on your point of view.

 

[georgephillip]

And when a majority uses government to gang up on a small minority and "legally" take their money from them, is that also a "government delivering justice?" I guess it all depends on your point of view.

That small, rich minority has been using government to privatize profit and socialize cost for generations. Over the past 25 years the US workforce has changed drastically in regards to race, gender, marital status, and education. The one thing that hasn't changed is the level of US median income which is still just under $52,000. How have the small minority of oligarchs fared over the same time period? How will they fare over the next 25?

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-american-middle-class-hasnt-gotten-a-raise-in-15-years/

 

[Lukey]

That small, rich minority has been using government to privatize profit and socialize cost for generations. Over the past 25 years the US workforce has changed drastically in regards to race, gender, marital status, and education. The one thing that hasn't changed is the level of US median income which is still just under $52,000. How have the small minority of oligarchs fared over the same time period? How will they fare over the next 25?

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-american-middle-class-hasnt-gotten-a-raise-in-15-years/

You do know what happened circa 1968-71, right? The big governmentism of The Great Society combined with the escalating costs of the Vietnam War to cause a currency crisis that resulted in the US $ going full fiat. Ever since then the size and cost of government has exploded, subsidized by our ownership of a (now fiat) world reserve currency. Do you really find it surprising that all that big government has done is serve to make the oligarchs as rich as potentates and kings? I certainly do not.

How will the middle class fare over the next 25 years? Probably continued decline as we turn more and more of the economy over to the bureaucrats and their cronies in the oligarchy.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

How Free Markets caused 2008- Individuals were free take out a mortgage they couldn't afford, they were also free to default on them. Banks were free make loans to whoever they wanted regardless if they were qualified or not. Banks were free to offload those mortgages by bundling them into poorly constructed securities. The rating agencies were free to rate those securities and not do any homework on them. AIG was free to sell credit default swaps that weren't properly priced, and couldn't afford to pay. It seems that free markets just create risk.

Those Who Finance the Jihad Wage Economic Warfare, Too

And Big Oil-protected OPEC was free to charge whatever they wanted for oil, which sudden cost tipped over the economy more than any other immediate cause. But the petrocrat-owned media never emphasize that most crucial determinant of economic collapse.

 

[georgephillip]

Do you really find it surprising that all that big government has done is serve to make the oligarchs as rich as potentates and kings? I certainly...

Then why not allow a democratic majority to use government and "gang up" on the small minority of oligarchs to take "their" money from them? The moral principle of progressive taxation has survived for 2500 years and is, therefore, profoundly conservative: the greater your gain, whether due to hard work or luck, the greater your moral duty to pay back to the society that made you wealthy in the first place.
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/01/06/time-to-junk-income-taxes/

 

[Lukey]

Then why not allow a democratic majority to use government and "gang up" on the small minority of oligarchs to take "their" money from them? The moral principle of progressive taxation has survived for 2500 years and is, therefore, profoundly conservative: the greater your gain, whether due to hard work or luck, the greater your moral duty to pay back to the society that made you wealthy in the first place.
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/01/06/time-to-junk-income-taxes/

That's Marxism and in every Marxist economy I am aware of the politburo and apparatchicks live like oligarchs. It's the progressivism (Marxism) in our political economy that is building government into a huge corrupt money and power machine, just like you find in all union headquarters and other Communist political leadership structures. Small government and free open and transparent markets is how you get rid of oligarchs and their all powerful big government political puppets. Concentrating command and control is what breeds corruption.

 

[georgephillip]

That's Marxism and in every Marxist economy I am aware of the politburo and apparatchicks live like oligarchs. It's the progressivism (Marxism) in our political economy that is building government into a huge corrupt money and power machine, just like you find in all union headquarters and other Communist political leadership structures. Small government and free open and transparent markets is how you get rid of oligarchs and their all powerful big government political puppets. Concentrating command and control is what breeds corruption.

What's your impression of the following five principles?
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/01/06/time-to-junk-income-taxes/
"Five ancient principles that have survived the test of time and are, therefore, profoundly conservative, should guide us.

"The first is the moral principle of progressive taxation — that the greater the gain you manage to attain, whether through hard work or luck, the greater your duty to pay back the society that made your riches possible so that it will endure. This concept is 2,500 years old, coming to us along with its civil twin, democracy, from ancient Athens.

"The second is horizontal equity. Each person, or business, with the same ability to pay should pay the same tax. We must not tolerate a system in which one family or company pays far more than another with the same income, thanks to all the fine print in the tax code.

"Simplicity, transparency and ease of payment should be the last three of the five guiding principles, as Adam Smith taught more than two centuries ago."

Oligarchs have survived Marxism and the Progressive movement in this country and thrived like never before. They have demonstrated their contempt for "free open and transparent markets" regardless of the size of government for hundreds of years. If their political influence is not taxed into extinction, they constitute an existential threat to humanity.

 

[Days]

Let's face it, governments are terrible at directing economic activity. The economy as a whole will grow faster if we raise rates:

When the Fed broke ranks with Wall Street in 2014 to taper its bond purchases, it was warned of disaster but achieved a major success. Bank lending to small businesses surged until the Fed pulled back on normalization, and real GDP growth accelerated above 4% for two quarters.

The Fed’s theory that extremely low interest rates will someday cause solid growth has been disproved repeatedly. It failed in 2003-06, when the Fed held rates at 1% and then limited rate increases to only 0.25%, which channeled credit into the housing glut. Growth would have been faster and more balanced if rates had been higher. In the current recovery interest rates are even lower, but the results have been worse, with real growth averaging only 2.2%—the slowest recovery on record.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/pro-growth-tools-for-the-frozen-fed-1444169417

If we've learned anything from the dismal economic climate of the Obama years, it's that big government, interventionism, and central planning DO NOT produce economic growth. Just as we should have learned during the Great Depression. And the fall of the Soviet Union. And the ongoing slow motion fiscal train wreck that is the Eurozone...

wait, so you are saying turning all our old warehouses into condominiums wasn't a good idea? But they make such cool residences for the ultra rich. What's wrong with having a ton of ultra rich new homes and condos? Can't we have our cake and eat it too?

Don't give me that old fashioned work ethic crap... why should we need businesses to support our living? Next thing you'll be saying that while we are still building more and more rich housing, the market will totally collapse from a lack of production supporting the housing growth. Like that will ever happen. I'm sure we can go on merrily building rich homes forever, its not possible for all those rich homes to be foreclosed upon as soon as they appeared... when has that ever happened?