Jan Rogozinski

The Money Supply and the Stock Market

The world is more complicate that you seem to think.

It's true that increasing money supply has led to bubbles. But note that the last stock market bubble was in 2001 with tech stocks. The next time Greenspan flooded the money supply, folks flipped houses, instead of stocks.

Secondly, one only gets these kinds of bubbles when one has an extremely unequal society, as we do in the US. At present the top 1% own most of the country. And the bottle 40% are scrapping to buy food. At the same time, the rich in the USA pay very low taxes because the tax rates are extremely regressive. [Hint. I'm talking about all the taxes folk pay, including FICA, sales taxes, property taxes, taxes on electricity usage, water usage, telephone usage, etc., etc. There is no one in the USA who does not pay taxes, Adan the poor pay a higher percentage of their income than the rich.]

Thus when the money supply grows, the money goes only to the top 5% who already have bought everything they want. When one is being paid 500 million a year and one already has seven homes and three yachts and 12 automobiles, there is nothing to spend the money on. So it goes into bubbles.

Because of our inequality the USA is a country of bubbles, blown by the very rich. But remember the stock market is not the only thing the very rich can bubble. Who knows? The next bubble may be in "art" again or even rare comic books.

Omnipotent Property Depression: History's Ominous Precedent

This reminds me of Abelson in Barrons, who has been predicting a depression every week for many years. This year he was right. A stopped clock, as they say, is right twice a day in the US and once a day in Europe.

What I don't get is this. (a) The great rise in housing prices was a Ponzi scheme and a bubble. Real Estate prices now are returning to a price set by normal supply and demand. Why is that bad for the economy?
(2) The problem is that real estate agents have convinced Americans to believe stupidly that their home is an investment. Graham-Dodd type analysis shows that the place one lives in never is an invest men; it always is 100% an expense. 95% of folk have mortgages they can afford to pay. Those that are sane will ignore totally that the notional value of their home has declined; they simply will live in the house and keep warm in the winter and be happy.
(3) In almost all cases those that sell stocks now will sell at a loss and probably at the bottom.
(4) If the Depressions gets so bad that every company goes bankrupt, including companies such as Exxon and Johnson and Johnson, and stocks are worthless, then all money in cash or banks will be useless. Gold also would be useless. Since no one would be making anything to purchase. So if one believes this crazy crap, then one ought to commit suicide now.

The Chickens of Irresponsibility Come Home to Roost Under Obama's Reign

It's the enormous pink spot tend elephant in the room that no one notices because every eon is blind.

The trillion dollars or more that the US spends every year to maintain its military empire, with 700 bases in 110 countries (or something like that) and 18 separate spy agencies.

Whiteout even counting the spy agencies (some of which have secret, hidden budgets, the US already spends much more on the military than all the other countries in the world (including Russia and China) combined.

This has been going on since Kennedy got the US into the Vietnam War. So that's 48 years! With spending on the empire accelerating every year since Reagan.

The Republicans keep saying, "we believe in small government," while constantly increasing military spending and thus constantly swelling the size of the government. And Obama is going to be just as bad-- except that he isn't a hypocrite like the Republicans. I've read that he wants to add another 100,000 soldiers to the existing number.

Spending money on the military is like piling up 100 dollar bills and setting them on fire. Military spending is useless and contributes nothing to our welfare. The stuff we buy either is stored up until it rusts, or it is used and thus destroyed in the case of bombs, or consumed the case of ammunition.

But it gets even worse when all the trillions of dollars spent on the empire since Reagan in 1980 has been borrowed. Thus increasing interest payments very year.

Imagine where we would be if all the unneeded military spending over that last 50 years had been used to build infrastructure here at home. Or alternatively used to cut taxes by 50% while paying off the national debt.

John Hussman: Depression Fear Mongering 'Ridiculous'

No "Pent-up Demand", Roosevelt solemny promised the voters to keep the US out of all "foreign wars." Of course he was lying. What he actually meant was that he was going to enter WWII, and once the US was in, the war would no longer bye 'foreign."

The Deflation/Inflation/Stagnation Debate

Housing prices were grossly inflated (or watered, as they used to say in the stock market.)

It was the bubble of all bubbles. So why should anyone want to stop housing pieces from falling back to where they were in 2000? It's not possible so to do, but why would anyone want to do something so dumb.

Folk are losing money because they were greedy. Bears can make money, bulls can make money; in the not so long run, pigs lose and deserve to lose.

The problem is that Americans are dumb enough to think that the House they live in is an "investment." Anyone that has taken either accounting 101 or economics 101 knows that all housing costs, including the initial purchase price and mortgage payments, always are 100% an expense, never an investment. In addition, housing is a totally messed up market. At least with stocks one can sell them at any time. So one can get out with a smaller lose.

White Noise Around Strong Current Negative Trends

Degrees largely are irrelevant and don't matter. With grade inflation, it's almost impossible to flunk out.

Check his record. That's what counts. See if he has an archive on his blog. If so, read some of the older posts, and see if they proved prescient. That takes work. But you get nothing for noting..