ROBERT J. SAMUELSON | JUDGMENT CALLS

The Fed Doubles Down

Why Ben Bernanke's betting rate cuts won't create inflation.

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  • Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/01/2008 1:58:25 AM

    I hate to break it to you but INFLATION is alredy taken its grip on the economy. IF YOU NOTICE even fast food has gone up. THERE WAS NO NEED TO LOWER INTEREST RATES FURTHER.
    AS Prices rise demand will decrese ADAM SMITH. BY lowering interest rate you are hindering the recovery Process. THE FED ALREADY LOWERED INTEREST RATEs. WHAT THE ECONOMY NEEDS NOW IS A BAIL OUT Plan for the mortgage crisis. THE middle class just needs targeted tax cuts and you will see the economy turn around in six months. THE FED IS ENCOURAGING SPENDING INSTEAD OF SAVING. WE NEED TO LET THE CYCLE TAKE IT"S COURSE IF NOT THE COLLAPSE WILL BE DEVESTATING.

  • Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/01/2008 1:53:06 AM

    By: eddiewhere @ 01/23/2008 1:24:23 AM
    Comment: : Sometimes we have to let PRICES RISE it is a healthy thing. A Person who never gets sick can never build up an immune system to fight future more devestating viruses. It is not good to get sick all the time but it part of our biological developmet. PRICE CONTROLS ARE BAD WHY? Any price control below market rates and/or the expenditure of national savings (financial reserves) to hold down monetary devaluation are inflationary. Price controls and the expenditure of financial reserves subsidize inflationary levels of demand and prevent increases in supply. They make it much more difficult - much more painful - to bring inflation to a halt and restore healthy and sustainable economic growth.
    Monetary inflation is a TAX used by governments to expand the money supply and transfers wealth from its people to itself.
    Even when there is little "price" inflation, stable prices just mean that governments, by printing more money or otherwise expanding the money supply ("monetary inflation"), has appropriated for itself all the benefits of each year's increase in productive efficiency.Therefore the measures used to hold down price increases are actually additional forces or causes behind inflation, that will cause even further price increases in the future.
    "Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste." --Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800. ME 10:167
    "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [X Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power

  • Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/01/2008 1:24:07 AM

    I hate to break it to you but INFLATION is alredy taken its grip on the economy. IF YOU NOTICE even fast food has gone up. THERE WAS NO NEED TO LOWER INTEREST RATES FURTHER.

    Sometimes we have to let PRICES RISE it is a healthy thing. A Person who never gets sick can never build up an immune system to fight future more devestating viruses. It is not good to get sick all the time but it part of our biological developmet. PRICE CONTROLS ARE BAD WHY? Any price control below market rates and/or the expenditure of national savings (financial reserves) to hold down monetary devaluation are inflationary. Price controls and the expenditure of financial reserves subsidize inflationary levels of demand and prevent increases in supply. They make it much more difficult - much more painful - to bring inflation to a halt and restore healthy and sustainable economic growth.
    Monetary inflation is a TAX used by governments to expand the money supply and transfers wealth from its people to itself.
    Even when there is little "price" inflation, stable prices just mean that governments, by printing more money or otherwise expanding the money supply ("monetary inflation"), has appropriated for itself all the benefits of each year's increase in productive efficiency.Therefore the measures used to hold down price increases are actually additional forces or causes behind inflation, that will cause even further price increases in the future.

    "Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste." --Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800. ME 10:167
    "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." [X Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson: National Bank Opinion, 1791. ME 3:146

  • Posted By: wbpjr @ 01/31/2008 7:07:58 PM

    It seems to me that your final conjecture in the article ("If he succeeds, his reputation should soar. If not, his bad gamble could cost the American economy for years.") presupposes that the fed has a great deal more influence on the economy than history suggests. A more apt statement may be "If he succeeds, we may begin to see modest economic growth and a slight easing of the subprime crisis. If he fails, the mild recession we are already beginning to experience may contunue to worsen." Either way, there are far too many other factors in play for Bernanke's policy to any kind of definitive effect. wbpjr

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