Gold Breakout In Process, Thanks To Germany [View article]
The dollar has lost 95% of its purchase power over the past 100 years, Gold has doubled ($/oz)/CPI. This is before massive QE. What's so hard to understand?
Bring back the Greenback? Yikes, that's scary! A surefire way to destroy our currency! Japan may be the first big to experiment with bypassing CB autonomy, we'll see how that works out for them.
Have you considered the paper by Singh and Stella, I believe April 2012, describing shadow banking as the primary culprits for deflationary tendencies? Their conclusion: When $2T of money in the shadow banking system evaporates, the Fed can print a lot of money and still only achieve tepid inflation.
My concern is simply malinvestment. The Fed is doing what they have to do to prevent a deflationary spiral. Isn't this what Japan has been doing for 2 decades. And doesn't all of that QE keep the status quo alive, suppress creative destruction, misallocate investment, and rob the poor savers for the sake of the rich debtors (lower real purchase power for wage earners with artificially propped equities for shareholders, no returns on savings?). The business cycle has always gone up and down, wouldn't it be better to allow some controlled GDP contraction and deflation, carry the hedgies out on a stretcher and start over?
Does The U.S. Have A Public Spending Problem? [View article]
Muoio, There is a good place for voluntarily entering into insurance pools to protect against unexpected catastrophic illness, not for purchasing elective, preventative, and routine medical care. 3rd party payers have been the biggest drivers of the skyrocketing cost of medical care. Same pattern as college tuition since heavy govt subsidy and Stafford loans have predominated. There is DEFINITELY a place for free market principles in medicine. The general public is not too stupid to shop for quality medical care, as CMS and the AMA would have you believe. They can certainly drive R&D in the cellphone market which is very complex. Check out the surgery center of OK, where my colleagues are undercutting the CMS monopoly and providing much better outcomes, patient satisfaction, etc. http://bit.ly/10hibDm The bulk of modern economists can't agree on what color the sky is. The Austrians consistent framework is the best comprehensive method for understanding production. Collectivism and social planning are killing the economic engine of this country, the free and liberated individual.
Does The U.S. Have A Public Spending Problem? [View article]
Von Mises wouldn't approve of outlawing health insurance. The US healthcare system suffers from several big problems of which the following are the most important: 1. 3rd party payers dominate reimbursement, this eliminates price discovery by consumers. 2. CMS controls ICD, RVU, and DRG rates, they have a government-controlled and enforced monopoly. Private Insurers adjust their rates in line with CMS. 3. Volume of care is incentivized by CMS 4. Employer based health insurance is tax deductible, giving incentives to bid up cost of medicine at expense of wages 5. Litigation. Docs get WAY too many consults and order WAY too many tests, and prescribe WAY too many drugs for fear of litigation. 60% of US MDs will find themselves (ourselves) on the witness stand. Muoio is right that the system is broken. He makes a couple of good points (malpractice, disease mgmt), but "paying doctors for successful outcomes" makes me cringe! This is code for more inefficient and asinine quality measures rolled out by CMS to legitimize Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement cuts. Understand the problem first, then advocate a corrective policy.
We should be seeing deflation given the credit contraction and negative money multiplier in the shadow banking system (Singh and Stella 2012). But instead we have core CPI of + 2% yoy due largely to FED policy. It appears the FED is achieving their goal of modest inflation in these "deflationary" times; but at what cost?
Repoed, Part 2: A Deeper Look At Banks' Source Of Dry Powder [View article]
And we are surprised by the Primary Dealer's appetites for US securities! It sounds like low yields are here to stay, right up until the very hour of their crash! This explains a lot. Thanks Colin.
SPY Soars As U.S. Borrows 32.2 Cents Of Every Dollar Spent In Fiscal 2013 [View article]
Core inflation is up 2% yoy despite massive credit contraction, and negative money multiplier effect >$2 trillion in the repo and shadow banking system. What does this tell you? Should we be having inflation or deflation in these times? Again, Nominally, I expect equities to do just fine as long as we have an active central bank. That's just not the smartest place in Real Terms to put your money these days. http://bit.ly/1076RHX
The Primary Dealers have $1.8 trillion of depreciating US govt securities on the balance sheets; don't you think some of that will find it's way into equities? Colin Lokey has a good article this week describing this phenomenon http://seekingalpha.co... I will wade back into US equities when the macro picture hopefully someday looks fundamentally bullish, unless you're blind that's not anytime soon my friend.
SPY Soars As U.S. Borrows 32.2 Cents Of Every Dollar Spent In Fiscal 2013 [View article]
The FED can keep equities propped forever in nominal terms, have a good time trying to feed your kids 1000s of shares of blue chips. I'll put my savings in precious metals.
The Great Paper Chase: Let The Currency Wars Begin! [View article]
I'm not big on conspiracy theories but I really don't understand this currency race to the bottom. Is it orchestrated so that the sovereign debt markets will all crash at the same time, leading to a 21st century Bretton Woods?
"take it or leave it! this is the way the world works."
That's the problem. Chartalism is a wealth-stifeling, savings and investment-robbing scheme that benefits the political and the powerful. Horray, the big banks survive another day so they can continue to parasitize more wealth from the production and industry of the US taxpayer.
(G-T) = (S-I) - net exports therefore Public debt = private savings This is an accounting tautology and has nothing to do with actual wealth production. When currency ceases to be a store of wealth it is meaningless chartalism, monopoly money.
Designshoe, MMM mmm mmm!!! That Modern Monetary Theory kool-aid taste so good! Horray for MMT or Monetary Realism or New Kaynesism or New Chartalism, whatever the egg heads are calling it these days! A sovereign issuer of fiat currency has no spending restraint! Lets mint some trillion dollar coins!!! Yes indeed, if you truly understand the monetary system you will soon realize that money grows on trees and the more debt and spending by the central bank = more money for everyone!!!
Unbelievable how many "economists" (Warren Mosler) have bought into this utter nonsense.
Gold Breakout In Process, Thanks To Germany [View article]
Can The Fed Create Inflation? [View article]
Have you considered the paper by Singh and Stella, I believe April 2012, describing shadow banking as the primary culprits for deflationary tendencies? Their conclusion: When $2T of money in the shadow banking system evaporates, the Fed can print a lot of money and still only achieve tepid inflation.
Inflation Update - Still Benign [View article]
Does The U.S. Have A Public Spending Problem? [View article]
There is a good place for voluntarily entering into insurance pools to protect against unexpected catastrophic illness, not for purchasing elective, preventative, and routine medical care. 3rd party payers have been the biggest drivers of the skyrocketing cost of medical care. Same pattern as college tuition since heavy govt subsidy and Stafford loans have predominated.
There is DEFINITELY a place for free market principles in medicine. The general public is not too stupid to shop for quality medical care, as CMS and the AMA would have you believe. They can certainly drive R&D in the cellphone market which is very complex. Check out the surgery center of OK, where my colleagues are undercutting the CMS monopoly and providing much better outcomes, patient satisfaction, etc. http://bit.ly/10hibDm
The bulk of modern economists can't agree on what color the sky is. The Austrians consistent framework is the best comprehensive method for understanding production.
Collectivism and social planning are killing the economic engine of this country, the free and liberated individual.
Does The U.S. Have A Public Spending Problem? [View article]
The US healthcare system suffers from several big problems of which the following are the most important:
1. 3rd party payers dominate reimbursement, this eliminates price discovery by consumers.
2. CMS controls ICD, RVU, and DRG rates, they have a government-controlled and enforced monopoly. Private Insurers adjust their rates in line with CMS.
3. Volume of care is incentivized by CMS
4. Employer based health insurance is tax deductible, giving incentives to bid up cost of medicine at expense of wages
5. Litigation. Docs get WAY too many consults and order WAY too many tests, and prescribe WAY too many drugs for fear of litigation. 60% of US MDs will find themselves (ourselves) on the witness stand.
Muoio is right that the system is broken. He makes a couple of good points (malpractice, disease mgmt), but "paying doctors for successful outcomes" makes me cringe! This is code for more inefficient and asinine quality measures rolled out by CMS to legitimize Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement cuts.
Understand the problem first, then advocate a corrective policy.
Inflation Update - Still Benign [View article]
Repoed, Part 2: A Deeper Look At Banks' Source Of Dry Powder [View article]
SPY Soars As U.S. Borrows 32.2 Cents Of Every Dollar Spent In Fiscal 2013 [View article]
http://bit.ly/1076RHX
2012's Biggest Lie, 2013's Biggest Risk [View article]
http://seekingalpha.co...
I will wade back into US equities when the macro picture hopefully someday looks fundamentally bullish, unless you're blind that's not anytime soon my friend.
SPY Soars As U.S. Borrows 32.2 Cents Of Every Dollar Spent In Fiscal 2013 [View article]
The Great Paper Chase: Let The Currency Wars Begin! [View article]
2012's Biggest Lie, 2013's Biggest Risk [View article]
this is the way the world works."
That's the problem. Chartalism is a wealth-stifeling, savings and investment-robbing scheme that benefits the political and the powerful. Horray, the big banks survive another day so they can continue to parasitize more wealth from the production and industry of the US taxpayer.
(G-T) = (S-I) - net exports therefore Public debt = private savings
This is an accounting tautology and has nothing to do with actual wealth production. When currency ceases to be a store of wealth it is meaningless chartalism, monopoly money.
Repoed! How The Fed And Depositors Fund Banks' Big Bets [View article]
2012's Biggest Lie, 2013's Biggest Risk [View article]
MMM mmm mmm!!! That Modern Monetary Theory kool-aid taste so good! Horray for MMT or Monetary Realism or New Kaynesism or New Chartalism, whatever the egg heads are calling it these days! A sovereign issuer of fiat currency has no spending restraint! Lets mint some trillion dollar coins!!!
Yes indeed, if you truly understand the monetary system you will soon realize that money grows on trees and the more debt and spending by the central bank = more money for everyone!!!
Unbelievable how many "economists" (Warren Mosler) have bought into this utter nonsense.
2012's Biggest Lie, 2013's Biggest Risk [View article]