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strategy says:today's italian yields aren't the end of the euro crisis but it's a good solid step. similarly, the US jobless claims number isn't a very strong indicator, but with it being consistently good for over a month, there's something significant happening. I know I've been saying this a lot lately, but between this and the way the republican candidates look, obama's chances are pretty great right now. I don't know where that leaves us, the thinking folk, on election day. given the way obama's first term went, I think it's pretty silly to think there's any way of knowing what initiatives he'll pursue in his second term. if he's actually a deficit hawk, I think it could turn our short-term problems into long-term ones. krugman addressed the US-as-a-family-budget analogy yesterday:http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/2...burden-of-debt/ unfortunately, I don't think that one's ever going away. it's really relatable and takes way too much time (and thought from the listener) to rebut.

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This has the potential to be the most boring thread in history.Suggestion to strat - put this in blog form. Maybe you already are, I don't know. At least in blog form, you might some day use it to convince future employers that you are both interested in and understand finance, which puts you in a better position than 98% of people with comparable employment/education.

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This has the potential to be the most boring thread in history.Suggestion to strat - put this in blog form. Maybe you already are, I don't know. At least in blog form, you might some day use it to convince future employers that you are both interested in and understand finance, which puts you in a better position than 98% of people with comparable employment/education.
Good idea, but do yourself a favor and don't ever link Krugman, unless your goal is to be viewed as not understanding the economy.
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This has the potential to be the most boring thread in history.Suggestion to strat - put this in blog form. Maybe you already are, I don't know. At least in blog form, you might some day use it to convince future employers that you are both interested in and understand finance, which puts you in a better position than 98% of people with comparable employment/education.
Smart people might not find it boring.
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Strategy also has a blog.

I can't browse FCP at work, and I always have stuff to say about the hundreds of business news articles I read per day, but I never put in the effort to find the articles again after I get home. so, let's harness this at-work work ethic and get an old fashioned proxy going with a post in the politics forum like "emails from strategy"
I like it because I'm usually interested in the links that people post and I try not to stray too far away from here and Cracked.
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Smart people might not find it boring.
I like it because I'm usually interested in the links that people post and I try not to stray too far away from here and Cracked.
Well, looks like the thread will be useful to about 3 people...which is actually pretty solid for this forum!
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Good idea, but do yourself a favor and don't ever link Krugman, unless your goal is to be viewed as not understanding the economy.
guy's a huge troll, but his perspective is sometimes insightful. if you can avoid throwing up as you click it, take a minute or so and read what I linked. I promise I'll never link his partisan hackery, or rather, never link something wholly devoted to it.
I like it because I'm usually interested in the links that people post and I try not to stray too far away from here and Cracked.
I don't know what kind of web monitoring my employer uses, but I figure I'll never get in trouble for browsing gmail, NYT, bloomberg, et al. as far as blogging, blogs never seem to generate discussion like FCP does. comments on like, every blog I've ever seen, seem to be either spam (95%) or trolls (5%). look at this thread so far: five responses! gangbusters!as far as impressing an employer, that was part of why I started my blog, but ultimately I don't think anyone has the time to be so thorough with entry-level applicants these days.
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guy's a huge troll, but his perspective is sometimes insightful. if you can avoid throwing up as you click it, take a minute or so and read what I linked. I promise I'll never link his partisan hackery, or rather, never link something wholly devoted to it.
See, this is why I can't read Krugman. He can't even get through three paragraphs without saying something that is so blindingly, painfully stupid it makes my head explode:
Suppose that for some reason the nation temporarily ends up being ruled by a guy who is driven mad by power, and decrees that ... everyone will receive a large allotment of newly printed government bonds, adding up to 500 percent of GDP.The government is now deeply in debt — but the nation has not directly gotten any poorer: the public, in its role as taxpayers, now owes 500 percent of GDP, but the public, in its role as investors, now owns new assets equal to 500 percent of GDP. It’s a wash.
So the govt can just print money and make us richer? If this is the case, why not give everyone a trillion dollars? We'll all live happily ever after with more money than we could ever spend.Or maybe Krugman is an idiot. One of the two. Sure, he goes on to try to cover his ass with some talk about incentives, but it is far, far deeper than that -- basically, if the govt invents money, the value of our money declines accordingly. Give everyone a trillion dollars and a gallon of gas will cost $100,000.But that is 2nd level thinking and this is Krugman.
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h, do you think the US/family budget analogy is sound?
I think there are many ways that it is comparable, such as: over the long run, income must equal or exceed spending, or you will eventually reach a point where you can no longer pay back your debts. People like Krugman say "well, we'll just print more money", but that is exactly the same as not paying back your debt -- it's just their way of saying "I am only going to pay you a certain percentage of what I owe you." Sure it looks the same, but if the dollar is only worth half as much, then the lender/recipient has lost half their value.I agree that the government doesn't have to actually pay it back, and I agree that they are capable of reneging in this way, but it is no more moral or fair when they do it on a large scale than when scumbag relative does it on the small scale.I think it is also a valid comparison in that short term expenses should be paid for with current income, middle term expenses (the equivalent of appliances and cars) should be paid for with middle-term income, etc. 30 year bonds should pay for things that last 30 years, 10 year bonds for things that last 10 years, etc. Passing current costs onto future generations is just plain immoral. Again, sure the government *can* do it, but it would take a real immoral prick to suggest that is is a fine and dandy ongoing policy for non-emergency situations.
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but we're not discussing morality. the analogy is inadequate partially due to the scenario you described. there will be no invading army ("repo man") to extract payment from a defaulting nation. this is just one of a million ways individual families and nations differ.

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but we're not discussing morality. the analogy is inadequate partially due to the scenario you described. there will be no invading army ("repo man") to extract payment from a defaulting nation. this is just one of a million ways individual families and nations differ.
Anyone who thinks they are not discussing morality in *every* discussion about government is missing the point of government.Certainly government should not just be about what is possible, because if it is, then Stalin = Churchill.
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but we're not discussing morality. the analogy is inadequate partially due to the scenario you described. there will be no invading army ("repo man") to extract payment from a defaulting nation.
Why not? Because America is too strong militarily compared to its creditors?I think this is a relevant example from history:Pasty War
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Anyone who thinks they are not discussing morality in *every* discussion about government is missing the point of government.Certainly government should not just be about what is possible, because if it is, then Stalin = Churchill.
these immoral options--whether they are exercised or not--have a very big impact on the interaction between borrower and lender in every scenario. this analogy is completely blind to that distinction, as many of these options are not available to families. you need to provide a real reason for why that should be overlooked.
Why not? Because America is too strong militarily compared to its creditors?I think this is a relevant example from history:Pasty War
counter-example from modern times. does anyone doubt the US' ability to win a war with venezuela?
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these immoral options--whether they are exercised or not--have a very big impact on the interaction between borrower and lender in every scenario. this analogy is completely blind to that distinction, as many of these options are not available to families. you need to provide a real reason for why that should be overlooked.
Because the borrowers are not the only ones affected. The small saver who knows nothing about money supply and currency trading and just wants to put a few dollars away for college is the one who is harmed the most. A policy that helps the rich and knowledgeable at the expense of the poor and powerless is pretty much the definition of immoral.So no, I guess people who knowingly invest in government instruments with full knowledge that they only way they can ever get their money back is through inflationary monetary policy.... yeah, they get what they deserve.
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#2to cancel out krugman, I bring taleb. some great stuff in here, looks to be a draft version of a chapter from an upcoming book? I can't quote it, but here it is for as long as his site's hosting it:http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/chapter4.pdf figure 15 looks an awful lot like a bull spread. considering that he spends a bunch of time discussing options, seems like it can't be a coincidence. don't really know where he's going with it, though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_spread the style is very similar to what you'll find in the black swan. the point to this chapter is pretty intuitive to a poker player, but I still found it very interesting. guy loves to take shots at business schools, finance professionals, etc. and here's someone responding to bill gross' article on the dangers of ZIRP. his conclusion (what do you want the fed to do, RAISE rates?) is what I implied with my response in the news thread. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011...rp-doesnt-work/ bill gross is disgustingly rich because he understands this stuff better than almost anyone else, but his fund has been very wrong this year. taleb and gross both made the same mistake: thinking US treasuries had found a tophttp://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-1...overnment-bonds and, randomly, sounds like things are going really great with north korea:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-30/n...no-changes.html

“The veritable sea of tears shed by the army and people of the DPRK will turn into that of retaliatory fire to burn all the group of traitors to the last one,” the statement said, echoing rhetoric during Kim Jong Il’s rule. “The DPRK will have no dealings with the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors forever.”
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I will read those when I have a chance. In the meantime, may I suggest that you (JJJ) do something more to indicate you are quoting strategy? Not quote tags (for the re-quoting) but maybe indent or a font change or colour or something. I was very confused about the writing/voice in this post until I realized you weren't writing it but in fact were just copy/pasting.

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#3 (note to Jubi: the following is from strategy)remember this picture? PqXlV.jpg it's a really silly chart that was cut from a rough draft of some promo material for ARRA. attempting to predict job numbers when everyone's doing really out of the ordinary stuff is pretty dumb by itself, but examining the unemployment number applies another filter (work force participation) that makes it even tougher to have any precision at all. so, I can agree that it was really stupid to even draft such a thing. I mention it today because I just heard someone on the news using it to deride Obama, which is at least as stupid. Even if you want to pretend that this chart is Obama's own measuring stick, the timing of the legislation and unemployment data destroy any validity that might have had. here's the unemployment rate, 1/01-1/11 ARRA was signed Feb 17, 2009 unemployment spiked to 9%--what appears to be the prediction chart's "without stimulus" maximum--before almost anything in the legislation was implemented. what adjustments do we make to Obama's chart to compensate for this? it bothers me when people commit to a number of jobs created/saved/destroyed due to factors x, y, and z. it's such a careless position to take, and it hints that you're either dishonest or ignorant of the certainty needed to say such things. it is yet another place where, "if we don't make this claim, it'll look like we're conceding theirs" is the prevailing logic on both sides.

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unemployment spiked to 9%--what appears to be the prediction chart's "without stimulus" maximum--before almost anything in the legislation was implemented. what adjustments do we make to Obama's chart to compensate for this? it bothers me when people commit to a number of jobs created/saved/destroyed due to factors x, y, and z. it's such a careless position to take, and it hints that you're either dishonest or ignorant of the certainty needed to say such things. it is yet another place where, "if we don't make this claim, it'll look like we're conceding theirs" is the prevailing logic on both sides.
The problem is that if they don't say what they intend to accomplish, they will be forced to admit why they are really doing it, which is to pay back campaign contributors with taxpayer money. Better a stupid lie than an unbearable truth.There is a reason why just announcing such a plan would cause a huge spike in unemployment -- once again as real economists predicted. Business people work to reduce risk, and the legislative uncertainty of an unprecedented pork spree is a huge uncertainty. Who will get the pork? Me or my competitor? Who will pay for it? When? Will they just inflate the debt away, as usual, or "soak the rich"? With that kind of risk hanging over their heads, smart business people go into bunker mode, trying to wait out the storm.
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wait, did you really just say that a windfall of government spending--1/3rd of which was tax breaks, none of it offset with any planned tax increases--caused that spike in unemployment?you're welcome to argue that spending is a shitty proposition in the long-term picture, but you've totally lost me here. the "storm" was the unwinding of all of lehman's positions, the very real concern that credit markets would just stop functioning, and the fact that consumer demand was looking to go away for a long time. go back and read the financial news from early to mid 08--it's all still archived and readily available. I did that when I was working on my mini-employment study. it's very interesting to see the story develop in the news and economic indicators, rather than being spun into a narrative and retold after the fact.

Sometimes there is a repo man; sometimes there is not. Why do you feel confident that in the case of the US that there will not be?
I can only speak to today's realities. no investor today expects to be backed by threat of force when they are wronged by a shady foreign country. this is actually just international finance 101, not my opinion.
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