Economy

[John D Harris]

Originally Posted by Azred That is because you are in the markets for the long term instead of the short term. The people who consistently lose are the ones who try to micromanage their investments on a daily basis, trying to maximize their daily gains buy buying and selling that day's "hot tips" or "trending now" stocks. The long-term result of investing is growth and a 4.2% return every year for 10 years is better than 50% return now. (check it for yourself: 1.042^10 > 1.50)

LOL ain't that a fact jack! Yeah they are buying and selling on preceived value trying to make a quick buck. I remember in 1987 the day after Black Monday or Tuesday, Hale my memory ain't what it used to be. The talking heads all rushed to interview Sam Walton who at the time was the world's riches man. He lost nearly 30% of his worth in one day $2,000,000,000. They were saking him what he was going to do, ringing their hands... He smiled and replied I lost $2,000,000,000 on paper I ain't going to do anything but go to work like I have for the last twenty-five years.

[Memnoch]

The Chinese are sticking the boot in too. I guess they have a point, with so much money of theirs tied up in the US.

SHANGHAI--China has "every right now" to demand the U.S. address its debt problem following the Standard and Poor's decision to downgrade U.S. government debt for the first time in 70 years, the state-run Xinhua news agency said Saturday. In a biting commentary, the state news agency urged the international society to improve supervision over the U.S. dollar and said the world may need "a new, stable and secured global reserve currency to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country." "China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets," Xinhua said. China, with over $1 trillion invested in U.S. Treasurys, is among those that would be most immediately affected by any U.S. default or downgrade. "To cure its addiction to debts, the United States has to reestablish the common sense principle that one should live within its means," Xinhua said. "It should also stop its old practice of letting its domestic electoral politics take the global economy hostage and rely on the deep pockets of major surplus countries to make up for its perennial deficits," Xinhua added. http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011...rkets-turmoil/

[John D Harris]

LOL yeah Mem it could get very interesting...

[Timber Loftis]

You know what, screw China. If we had not given them $300bn+/yr in unfavorable trade imbalance for 20+ years, they wouldn't have as much cheddar to invest, and they wouldn't be standing there griping that we had the audacity to let our currency fall to the same level theirs is and always has been rated at. For all the crazy Trump brought to the table with him, he was the only one preaching about a trade imbalance that has pushed us further and further off kilter since the days of GHW Bush.

But, kudos to S&P. They said show us $4T in reductions or get downgraded. We gave them less than half of what they asked for, and we just got what they said we would get. In truth, all this hullabaloo over the deficit did was end up getting us to a point where instead of going from 14 to 26T in debt over the next decade we'll go to 24T. Big deal, nothing changed. They all should have downgraded us if they were honest.

[Timber Loftis]

[Felix The Assassin]

Well from an inside perspective, there have been/are more hiring freezes in the last 120 days, then I'm aware of in the past several years. There are currently 385 empty cubicles at the HRC, 950 people doing roughly 1835 employees worth of work. Sure, there are 412 employees on Priority Placement due to the Accessions command draw-down, but not all can match the HRC skill set, and none match ditch repair or structural engineer, so add more to the unemployment numbers!

Rumbling rumors report that soon lesser criminals will be released to ease the prison system budget!

[Memnoch]

24:15












Know what that is?

The US is now spending $24 for every $15 it receives in taxes.


http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politi...807-1ihgm.html


Do we need to fix the numerator, denominator or both?

Also, the primary analyst on the S&P report to downgrade Uncle Sam's credit rating is *gasp* Canadian! *intake of breath*

http://business.financialpost.com/20...rade-canadian/

[Azred]

China might say that they are concerned or upset about our financial situation but the reality of the fact is that they are quite happy about it. From their point of view, all this mess is more proof that their currency should become the international reserve currency rather than the dollar.

Even if we completely stopped payment on the securities they hold they are betting that their economy won't suffer as badly as ours will.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally Posted by Felix The Assassin Well from an inside perspective, there have been/are more hiring freezes in the last 120 days, then I'm aware of in the past several years. There are currently 385 empty cubicles at the HRC, 950 people doing roughly 1835 employees worth of work. Sure, there are 412 employees on Priority Placement due to the Accessions command draw-down, but not all can match the HRC skill set, and none match ditch repair or structural engineer, so add more to the unemployment numbers! Rumbling rumors report that soon lesser criminals will be released to ease the prison system budget!

The problem with targeting only the spending side of the equation is that basically any effort to cut government costs translates into cutting jobs. You have to factor that in when you're talking about how much it will "save." If the "savings" translates into too many new jobless hitting the unemployment pool, then we're equally screwed.

Truth is simple: between 3 troughs, discretionary spending, entitlement programs (medicare/caid), and "revenues" (taxes), you must use some tools from all 3 or you cannot hope to solve the problems we have. When one side of the aisle refuses to discuss more taxes and the other side refuses to cut entitlements, it essentially dooms us to these bread and circus shows where 5% of what is needed to be done gets done. Can't avoid it.

[robertthebard]

Originally Posted by Timber Loftis The problem with targeting only the spending side of the equation is that basically any effort to cut government costs translates into cutting jobs. You have to factor that in when you're talking about how much it will "save." If the "savings" translates into too many new jobless hitting the unemployment pool, then we're equally screwed. Truth is simple: between 3 troughs, discretionary spending, entitlement programs (medicare/caid), and "revenues" (taxes), you must use some tools from all 3 or you cannot hope to solve the problems we have. When one side of the aisle refuses to discuss more taxes and the other side refuses to cut entitlements, it essentially dooms us to these bread and circus shows where 5% of what is needed to be done gets done. Can't avoid it.

If by entitlement, you mean I paid into Social Security my whole working life, and now that I need it, and Medicare came hand in hand with my Social Security Disability, then yes, I'm entitled to getting that money back, with interest. Medicaid didn't kick in in my case until I had both disability and Medicare running, so I guess I'm entitled to that too.

Here's the conundrum, you can't cut the size of government w/out cutting those jobs. It royally sucks for those people that have jobs in parts of government where somebody that already had a job could have done the work, but reducing pork in government means cutting jobs that weren't essential in the first place. It's just too bad they aren't basing these cuts on performance/qualifications instead of pay grades.

However, what this should do is motivate government to actually getting off their asses and creating those jobs, or allowing the people that actually do create jobs to do so. Of course, they could also do a sweep, and eliminate all the illegal aliens working in the US, regardless of what jobs. They could also penalize/reward businesses that are the most hit by illegals for using illegal labor. If they don't have a legitimate work visa, they don't deserve to work. I wonder what percentage of unemployed American citizens would be working then? We could also penalize/reward manufacturing companies for either moving out of the US, or staying. I can't see any way I'd object to a tax cut for a corporation that keeps several thousand Americans working. However, the penalty for manufacturing goods outside the US could be as simple as import taxes on the goods they now make outside our country. Don't want to pay the levy? Simple, re-open/open a factory here, and give Americans jobs making what are supposed to be American products.