Crickets?

March 9, 2010

"Yi Gang, head of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), said the U.S. Treasury market is the world’s largest government bond market, Reuters reported March 9. Yi stated that China’s foreign exchange reserves are “huge,” making the U.S. Treasury market important to Beijing. Yi expressed hope that China’s presence in the U.S. Treasury market would not become a political football. China, he stressed, was not in the game of short-term currency speculation, adding that it is market investment behavior, and shouldn’t be politicized. Yi said China is a responsible investor and can surely achieve a win-win result in the process of investing."

appears to be making an effort this morning.

I am shocked I tell you. But as a few of my Sheeple acquaintances would say.

" Its not the end of the world you know, the restaurants are full and look at the movie theater parking lot...full "

Cinco-X, from the thread:

*Hack editorialist Paul Krugman attacked Jim Bunning last week for blocking the extension of unemployment benefits. Krugman said “What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says”, namely that the government should keep paying unemployment benefits.

There’s just one problem. As James Taranto pointed out, a Nobel Prize winning economist has written a very popular textbook that points out exactly what Republicans are saying — “Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect . . . . Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.”

The author? Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman and his wife Robin Wells.*

PK says they are wrong...

Supply, Demand, and Unemployment - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:

The part that was interesting to me about that one was I thought municipal bonds were backed by the taxing authority of the issuer, not by physical collateral. Is that common?

Actually, I think it is. It's the rating of the bond that's dependent on the taxing authority. If you think about the situations we've seen in corporate BK's, the equity holder's get wiped out and the bond holders get equity. I guess that's a way of saying that the physical capital of the company ultimately belongs to the bond holders.

Cinco-X wrote:

Did he?

Yes, and he also said further down that it is wage deflation, not wage inflation, that is the issue.

I don't understand these kinds of arguments. How many people do you know that forgo a job because their unemployment is too good, especially with no health insurance?

Crime Over Spilt Milk - March 8, 2010

MARCH 8--A Kentucky woman is facing a felony assault charge for allegedly squirting breast milk into the face of a female jailer.

Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:

Rule 34

Yup:
Chef at Chelsea restaurant offers customers a taste of cheese made from his wife's breast milk - NYPOST.com

I keep seeing 5 cars in the parking lot of a local corporate chain motel that has over 100 rooms. There's nothing they can do except keep on keeping on until the money runs out and one day the corp'se closes it down.

Somebody that owns a small retail business can surely see the writing on the wall and is a lot more nimble and can say sayonara a lot quicker. I owned a small retail business for many years, and 60 hour weeks came with the territory. if I was losing money putting in 240 hour months, i'd be out of there yesterday, the breaking of the lease being the least of my problems...

Someone say breast?

...is that those sheep thrill boots from Aussie that chicks dig?

energyecon wrote:

OT doomish factoid - been seeing a number of stories pop up talking about the prospects of ug99 making an appearance in Pakistan...

black stem rust ?

iceman wrote:

Myself, I'm waiting out upgrading our kitchen till NC has its appliance rebate program (late April).

Planning on decorating the front porch, huh?

truth is stranger than fiction

Woman crashes car while shaving bikini area - NYPOST.com

LAM wrote:

Now the economists at UK research company Independent Strategy have waded into the debate and come to the conclusion that stimulus spending by President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others has been a complete waste of time and simply saddled future generations with a big bill that will crowd out the private sector for years
Road to Recovery - Economic Stimulus Was a Waste of Time: Analyst - CNBC

Yup; it's the debt that killing a recovery. As long as we refuse to admit that the trillions that went poof when the housing bubble and dot.com bubbles burst are gone forever, this debt will continue to act as an anchor pulling us under.....

...a real multi-tasking distaff would be applying makeup with the other hand, texting with her toes and driving with her knees

so she's on her way to meet her boyfriend and wanted to be ready

she has her ex husband take the wheel while she preens

oh, the price of beauty

volker the viking wrote:

so she's on her way to meet her boyfriend and wanted to be ready

she has her ex husband take the wheel while she preens

oh, the price of beauty

Two questions:
1. How did I know this was in Florida?
2. Is "boyfriend" a euphemism for something else?

black dog wrote:

As M & P go under the sheeple will be herded into whats left - the 'reporting' big box stores. The media will tout the gain in 'reported' retail sales this year as a sign of a recovery while retail sales tax collections continue to run negative.

Yep, but even the big box stores are closing outlets, and further concentrating customers, improving same store comparisons.

Wal-Mart Closing 10 Sam’s Club Locations in U.S. (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Whiskey wrote:
2. Is "boyfriend" a euphemism for something else?
John?

ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:

John?

Or dealer. Or both.

Mook wrote:

two years into this credit crisis, they still have to tap credit markets on a quarterly basis?

Many types of small businesses work on 90 day receivables. Medicare can take 190 days or more to pay invoices. Then some of your customers don't pay on time, then some never pay. Not saying it is a good business model, just the way it is.

DUH! There's no new business to hire for..... runaway Toyota rescue.... bank repos...... short sales..... these are not productive economic endeavors.... and despite what Bob Toll might think, housing does not lead, its just a leading indicator, its the underlying new jobs and productivity we need - I'm in his business.

Great idea...

Maybe like in WW2 when Spitfires would tip V-1's off course, somebody can offer the same service here on the pavement?

"......read krugmans book "the great unraveling" writen 10 years ago...he got it right"
.

.....I wasn't aware he had EVER gotten it "right". I'll need to read it.

Cinco-X wrote:

black stem rust ?

yah that is the one

Black Star Ranch wrote:

.....I wasn't aware he had EVER gotten it "right". I'll need to read it.

He did speak out about the housing bubble in 2005, and he was an early CR adopter. Those are two plusses in my book.

Business sales poor because of unemployment.

Unemployment because of poor business sales.

What will it take to break this stalemate?

We have another stalemate in the housing market: sellers aren't selling because their prices are too high. Buyers aren't buying because the prices are too high.

We need some good chess moves here.

Outsider wrote:

We need some good chess moves here.

What if we're in zugzwang?

josap wrote:

Lots of vacant strip mall space here, more vacants every month and no new businesses to fill the holes.

Any thoughts on when the strip malls might turn around . . . or at least stop declining?

In my travels into the local Big Smoke I see so many empty retail buildings, a good many of the "For Lease" signs have been exposed to last summer's 3 months of around 100 degrees per day and are faded out, but you can still make out the signs.

1/4 of an inch of glass is keeping watch on the barren space behind it in these fallen enterprises...

This recession has dragged on so long that I can think of several local businesses that have opened then closed since december 2007. And several more with business plans that would have had a very hard time succeeding in a booming economy let alone what we are dealing with now that must be burning cash/credit at a frightful rate.

energyecon wrote:

black stem rust ?

yah that is the one

I googled it expecting it to be some radical faction of "Al Qaeda", and when I only found references to cereal ailments, I was a bit confused....

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Got some bad news for you Yi, all American politics is right now is a political football and both sides tend to fumble a lot in the red zone.

Stephen Colbert put it better:

You give them (the opposing side) back the ball and then they help you kick a field goal.

Cinco-X

i wonder if it affects poppy production

Economics as a profession has truly not acquitted itself well during the crisis.

Economics seems to be a discipline of post hoc ergo proctor hoc misrepresented by a teeming mass of ipse dixit pundits.

Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda wrote:

Krugman, in particular, is a lightning rod. Politics and quotability are part of it.

It is more that he is so blatantly political without admitting it and that results in some spectacular instances of hypocrisy. Republican deficit spend = evil, Democrat deficit spending = manna from heaven being the most obvious.

As soon as poic and I double down on SRS.

mock turtle wrote:

the most effective way to stimulate business and an economy is to put money directly into the hands of families and small businesses...they spend it on food clothes health care tools and inventory

From an immediate standpoint that may be true, but in the long term, it produces a poor result, since it does nothing to increase the base of the economy. Spending on capital, (the right) infrastructure projects, etc. produces more long term growth. A perfect example of this situation is post war Europe. We were giving them money left and right, and it was being spent on food, fuel, etc., and when that was gone, their hands were out for more. The Marshall Plan (aka the ERP) stipulated that the borrowing nations produce a plan to repay any incurred debt before receiving money. Worked like a charm....

All sorts of and this morning on yahoo front page:
China: US assets should not be 'politicized' - Yahoo! Finance
Most Americans still unprepared for retirement - survey - Yahoo! Finance
Employers hold off on hiring; fewer cut jobs - Manpower - Yahoo! Finance

noob, mucha, mucha, mucha man. Isn't that a song.

Black Star Ranch wrote:

I wasn't aware he had EVER gotten it "right". I'll need to read it.

I wouldn't bother; no Keynesian has gotten it right-

Honestly, I'd prefer more constructive topics.

mock turtle wrote:

i wonder if it affects poppy production

Yes; it makes it an even better option-

Rob Dawg wrote:

It is more that he is so blatantly political without admitting it and that results in some spectacular instances of hypocrisy. Republican deficit spend = evil, Democrat deficit spending = manna from heaven being the most obvious.

i agree that krugman, politically, is clearly a democrat

what you call hypocracy i call a real difference in political ideaology

it is true that krugman is more willing to deficit spend when it boosts education, student loans, parks, highways, social service and like programs

and is often unwilling to deficit spend on defense and tax reductions for the fortune 500 corporations and the top 5% wealthiest in america

additionally there is the business cycle, and krugman believes that when the country is on the edge of a great depression, its not time to make balancing the budget the ruling priority

i agree with krugman...so long as the spending is properly targeted

i think you and i agree the tax breaks for cars and homes , pulling demand forward is a ruse

MaryAnn wrote:

poppy production most likely, and in US wheat and soybeans.

These rusts and blights affect, if I'm not mistaken, monocotyledons, and as such would not have a direct effect on soybeans or poppies. Soybeans and wheat are typically not grown in the same regions anyway.