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Quetzadilla posted:I mean, he's probably right? The housing market hasn't bottomed out, it's just that demand has artificially increased as a result of banks keeping shadow inventory to create artificial scarcity and real estate investment firms driving up prices/competition because they can pay in cash immediately to turn that foreclosed home into a rental to bundle and securitize and sell to a hedge-fund. Rent this year in the bay area increased 18% over the last 3 years, (8% in the past 12 months) and is officially more expensive than New York. Still can't afford to buy a house with that kinda money in Cali though! Oh. Uhh. Hmm. Wrt to the original post, I'm not familiar with the author but its pretty easy to make a deceptively 'correct' forecast with enough volume. Broken clocks and all that. For example it seems that in October of last year he predicted another devastating financial crash before the end of the year, but I doubt he'll be forthcoming in advertising that or his true forecasting record, just the correct ones. As for why we are probably not in imminent danger of another financial collapse, well, it just doesn't show in the numbers. Regional price fluctuations are probably due to regional factors. And we do actually have a safer financial system than we did pre-crisis because there is no way anyone is going to let a bank fail and everyone knows that. The implicit financial backstop drastically reduces the odds of a bank run type liquidity crisis. Do we have the best backstop and regulations? Hell no. But it's still pretty resilient for the time being. Edit: haha I found a quote. Also it seems some people think he is an economist. He's not. quote:The data is clear, 50% unemployment, a 90% stock market drop, and 100% annual inflation . . . starting in 2012. Pierat fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Aug 19, 2013 |
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Aug 19, 2013 19:56
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Pierat posted:And we do actually have a safer financial system than we did pre-crisis because there is no way anyone is going to let a bank fail and everyone knows that.  How does this make our financial system safer?
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Aug 19, 2013 20:17
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WampaLord posted:
Read the next sentence. Yes it distorts incentives and in the long run will do, well, something. The biggest effect is an implicit subsidy that increases financial profits by reducing borrowing costs. Maybe it will lead to riskier portfolios, I'd have to do some reading before I have an opinion on that. But in terms of preventing financial crises themselves, we have a more certain backstop than we did before. If Lehman wasn't allowed to go under, the worst of the crisis wouldn't have happened.
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Aug 19, 2013 20:27
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Pierat posted:Read the next sentence. Yes it distorts incentives and in the long run will do, well, something. The biggest effect is an implicit subsidy that increases financial profits by reducing borrowing costs. Maybe it will lead to riskier portfolios, I'd have to do some reading before I have an opinion on that. The financial system is safer then ever, because the government will let the industry do basically whatever it wants. Good thing too, or we'd have flat wages, high unemployment, and people dropping out of the workforce....
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Aug 19, 2013 20:57
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Zeitgueist posted:the government will let the industry do basically whatever it wants. Except collapse. Which is the relevant point wrt to why a financial crisis is unlikely to happen Next Month/Quarter/Whenever. Plus probably some sort of Minsky-like phenomenon where financial markets are risk averse right now because they are scared of another crisis. Longer term, yes, you're right. This is not the best policy regime and I've made that point in my last two posts.
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Aug 19, 2013 21:51
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Rolling Stone had this great article on why saving the banks and the government effectively lying about their solvency was a really goddamn terrible idea and only made them more top-heavy and more dangerously unregulated and irresponsible, but now I can't find it. It would both help me and the current discussion if someone could dig it up for me please 
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Aug 19, 2013 22:47
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Sorry, for whatever reason I read the first post I quoted as referring to California's economy rather than America's (hence my specifics being exclusively California related). That doesn't mean that we aren't headed for another national collapse though since like 2/3 of what I said applies nationally.Pierat posted:As for why we are probably not in imminent danger of another financial collapse, well, it just doesn't show in the numbers. Regional price fluctuations are probably due to regional factors. And we do actually have a safer financial system than we did pre-crisis because there is no way anyone is going to let a bank fail and everyone knows that. The implicit financial backstop drastically reduces the odds of a bank run type liquidity crisis. Do we have the best backstop and regulations? Hell no. But it's still pretty resilient for the time being. You do realize that implicit guarantee of banks basically guarantees another collapse?
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Aug 20, 2013 07:30
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Yeah, the assumption is that banks have "learned their lesson" when they almost certainly haven't. It is like giving some compulsive gamblers a bunch of chips, and then telling them if they lose then all that there are plenty more from where they came from.
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Aug 20, 2013 07:38
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, the assumption is that banks have "learned their lesson" when they almost certainly haven't. It is like giving some compulsive gamblers a bunch of chips, and then telling them if they lose then all that there are plenty more from where they came from. Nope, it's actually the pro-cyclicality of financial markets. You could just google Minsky or read his wiki, it's a pretty simple theory. And you'd like it, it's about unstable financial markets. Quetzadilla posted:Sorry, for whatever reason I read the first post I quoted as referring to California's economy rather than America's (hence my specifics being exclusively California related). That doesn't mean that we aren't headed for another national collapse though since like 2/3 of what I said applies nationally. A precipitous drop means big % increases after just as a matter of math. If there's another bubble it almost certainly won't be in housing. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/SPCS20RSA http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/SFXRSA I've yet to see a single source claiming a huge looming asset price bubble that has even minimal data to back it up. If there's as asset price bubble, it should be reflected in some asset pice.
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Aug 20, 2013 09:11
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Pierat posted:Nope, it's actually the pro-cyclicality of financial markets. You could just google Minsky or read his wiki, it's a pretty simple theory. And you'd like it, it's about unstable financial markets. Markets are fundamentally unstable and cyclical, which is why their increasingly influence will have destabilizing influence on American society (and the rest of humanity). The American economy didn't recovery from the last recession and the European economy in all serious ways is still in crisis. Another cycle of financial collapse might unravel things more than you would expect. Empires come and go, but this will be the first time it is truly global.
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Aug 20, 2013 09:20
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Pierat posted:Nope, it's actually the pro-cyclicality of financial markets. You could just google Minsky or read his wiki, it's a pretty simple theory. And you'd like it, it's about unstable financial markets. The second graph you linked shows housing prices double what they were twenty years ago and climbing again.
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Aug 20, 2013 14:25
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Pierat posted:I've yet to see a single source claiming a huge looming asset price bubble that has even minimal data to back it up. If there's as asset price bubble, it should be reflected in some asset pice. Student loans, which have replaced mortgages as the hot new thing to bundle and sell to investors (which aren't backed by any asset and are going to become massively delinquent).
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Aug 20, 2013 15:10
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Quetzadilla posted:Student loans, which have replaced mortgages as the hot new thing to bundle and sell to investors (which aren't backed by any asset and are going to become massively delinquent). Don't forget the added perk that they aren't dischargeable in bankruptcy.
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Aug 20, 2013 17:00
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Or that annual student loan abs issuances are less than half than what they were in the years leading up to 2008.
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Aug 20, 2013 17:05
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/02/fitch-us-student-loan-abs-can-withstand-idUSFit66142920130702 According to a Fitch press release: quote:Still-rising college costs and the amount of U.S. student loans reaching an all-time high have created a college tuition bubble, quote:Outstanding student loans approached nearly $1 trillion at the end of last year, becoming the second largest source of consumer debt after mortgage loans. quote:'Less than 25% of the nearly $1 trillion in outstanding student loans is securitized and funded through the ABS market,' said Senior Director Tracy Wan. quote:Of the often-quoted $1 trillion pool of outstanding student loans, only 15%, are private student loans that do not carry a U.S. government guarantee, as noted in our recent special report. So roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars are tied up in student loan ABSes, 85% of which is government guaranteed. I guess compared to a GDP of 15 trillion it's not a whole lot and it probably won't have a failure cascade like mortgages did, but student loans also have no real assets backing them and a higher default rate. I wouldn't say it's an insignificant amount, particularly given the tenuous nature of our economic "recovery" and even a small disruption could send us all reeling. Please toxx yourself re: a triple-dip recession Pierat.
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Aug 21, 2013 03:13
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Quetzadilla posted:http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/02/fitch-us-student-loan-abs-can-withstand-idUSFit66142920130702 Haha, okay. I'll even let you pick a date, but you have to be in on it too. Premature fed tapering doesn't count though! Edit: and do you mean two more recessions or just one? Cause that 'double dip' never actually happened. Pierat fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 05:04
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Pierat posted:Premature fed tapering doesn't count though! Malarkey! e: TBH this would be The Worst Toxx because we'd have to agree on metrics by which to qualify "recession" and the reporting source would vastly skew the results so I suppose I will just have to be smug in the knowledge that given the cyclical nature of capitalist economy I will be right eventually  . Besides being toxxed isn't a big deal since I've been trying to get banned since the day I registered! In all seriousness I'd be surprised if we didn't have a major disruption to our "recovery" within 4-5 years though.
Quetzadilla fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 07:05
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Does anyone have a good concise summary of the cause of the US Postal Service's problems in the last few years? I know it's largely the fault of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, but a good Snopes-style summary would be nice to have around.
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Aug 22, 2013 05:33
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Quetzadilla posted:Malarkey! Yes, I guess predicting a recession 10 years after the last one in a system that has recessions every 10 years would be the easiest toxx in the world.
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Aug 22, 2013 05:43
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cbirdsong posted:Does anyone have a good concise summary of the cause of the US Postal Service's problems in the last few years? I know it's largely the fault of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, but a good Snopes-style summary would be nice to have around. Shameless Republicans posted:Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service for the Twenty-First Century (Source) And that congress has been problematic quote:... And that they could probably stand to raise stamp prices, too: quote:How did the Post Office get into these dire straits when the price of stamps keeps going up?
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Aug 22, 2013 05:57
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cbirdsong posted:Does anyone have a good concise summary of the cause of the US Postal Service's problems in the last few years? I know it's largely the fault of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, but a good Snopes-style summary would be nice to have around. Dont mind the source but the discussion points are about spot on. It started with the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003 and PAEA of 2006 begins the nail in the coffin.
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Aug 22, 2013 07:07
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 Friend posted this today, I want to tell him it had more to do with GM pulling jobs and shutting down factories than anything but I need a bit more help than that.
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Aug 22, 2013 15:13
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It's not like you can point at any one thing and say "Yup, this killed Detroit" but a huge problem right now is that they have a population of 700k supporting the pensions of enough government employees to support a city over twice that size. Also a city physically big enough to hold 1.5 million people can't be reasonably maintained with half that population. It's not as simple as someone spending the city into the ground. As an Urbanist I'd say that the suburbanization of Detroit has played a big part in ruining Detroit. Suburban areas aren't very resilient whereas more urban areas are, and most of Detroit is suburban. And then there's white flight, lot's of surrounding suburbs are still affluent and just fine financially, and they wouldn't exist without Detroit either, so they can essentially have their cake and eat it too. But someone that doesn't look at everything through an urbanist bent like I do is going to see something different as a major cause, and I don't think either one of us would be wrong. I've never seen that documentary, but from the looks of it, it doesn't have any kind of political bent. So your friend just saw a movie about how bad Detroit is, and jumped straight to blaming liberals.
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Aug 22, 2013 18:33
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Edit, Question: Does anyone know how fringe (or not fringe) the Libertarian position of opposing mandatory vaccination on the grounds of [Freedom!] is? I've got a guy on another forum who literally asserts that Freedom from Vaccination is worth the cost, up to and including polio and small pox. FISHMANPET posted:I've never seen that documentary, but from the looks of it, it doesn't have any kind of political bent. So your friend just saw a movie about how bad Detroit is, and jumped straight to blaming liberals. Accretionist fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 18:41
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Accretionist posted:Edit, Question: Does anyone know how fringe (or not fringe) the Libertarian position of opposing mandatory vaccination on the grounds of [Freedom!] is? I've got a guy on another forum who literally asserts that Freedom from Vaccination is worth the cost, up to and including polio and small pox. Vaccinations are not merely an individual issue. There is also the issue of herd immunity, that you need to keep the vaccination level of the population above a certain level to keep diseases from spreading. By not getting vaccinated, he's sponging off the rest of the population by riding on the herd immunity they have created. Additionally, he may have the freedom to get sick, but he does not have the freedom to endanger others by harboring diseases he will pass on (aka Typhoid Mary) . His decisions do not affect him alone. They affect everyone, whether he likes it or not. Externalities like that are rather difficult for libertarians to cope with.
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Aug 22, 2013 19:00
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Accretionist posted:Edit, Question: Does anyone know how fringe (or not fringe) the Libertarian position of opposing mandatory vaccination on the grounds of [Freedom!] is? I've got a guy on another forum who literally asserts that Freedom from Vaccination is worth the cost, up to and including polio and small pox. The idea really isn't fringe, a pew poll showed 29% support letting a parent decide(this was the only poll I could find) http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues/ although the actual amount of people who don't follow through on all the quasi mandatory vaccinations is probably fringe. It may be slightly higher now because of the HPV vaccine and parents freaking out their daughter may at one point in her life have sex. A yougov poll in Britain showed about the same amount opposed there http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/04/11/majority-support-compulsory-vaccinations/ But no, you don't get to ramble about freedom when your
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Aug 22, 2013 19:08
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quote:You are mission the point. A corporation is an invention of the government, not of the free market. Yes, in a free market people can work together. But in a truly free market, they couldn't hide behind some "I didn't do that, the corporation did that!" bs. A human being built the car that had glue under the gas pedal. A human being designed it that way. A human being safety inspected it (alledgely) and a human being sold it. Those human beings should be held responsible for the results of their actions. Not hide behind some fictional "Entity" called a corporation. Me and this guy were arguing about 'Free Market' and how its utter bullshit, and this was his response when I pointed out things like Standard Oil I don't even know where to begin with this crap...
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Aug 22, 2013 22:44
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Literally even the Romans realized "hurr, personal responsibility" was stupid and provided a public grain dole along with other intermittent welfare acts. Tell him congrats to evolving to 4,000bc e: More seriously though, the 'free market' is as much a government invention as a corporation is since he's not a random farmer offering me a bin of apples for my bin of cabbage. Not to mention the corporation is the end result of the fact the market wanted corporations as they have distinct economic benefits. If corporations were bad, people wouldn't be buying shares in them. Free market at work But really, how does he expect global economics to function in 2013 without the entity we call corporations.
Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 22:51
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CommieGIR posted:Me and this guy were arguing about 'Free Market' and how its utter bullshit, and this was his response when I pointed out things like Standard Oil He seems to mostly be concerned with issues of liability. I know I wouldn't want to live in a world you could sue everybody in a car factory if the brakes failed or something like that.
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Aug 22, 2013 22:54
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FISHMANPET posted:He seems to mostly be concerned with issues of liability. And then he sends this. quote:I don't believe in "Intellectual property" - so steal all the ideas you want.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:02
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Sounds like a real winner  At least in your friend's world you'd be able to choose which inefficiently managed free market privately owned power grid you'd want to buy your lovely DC power from 
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Aug 22, 2013 23:05
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That reminds me, I think I read something once about some centuries old philosophical concept of like, "the fiction of the heroic individual," and the paradigm was basically that every man is a heroic construct and the world is an abstract plain across which the extension of will plays out and that this poo poo's straight up retarded but it's what American conservatives are regressing toward. This ring any bells? I know nothing of philosophy. Edit: Like, that guy is trying to reduce everything to individual will in this totally incoherent way
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Aug 22, 2013 23:11
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What is he advocating? Anarchy? Because if it's anything short of that then he's talking about certain institutions, laws like property and so forth that are needed for 'free market' transactions to take place, and these involve political decisions that affect how things go down. I try not to link to myself too much, but I wrote about this here, maybe it will help.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:13
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quote:rear end in a top hat or not, dead cats or not - Innovation occurred. Your statement was that Edison stifled innovation by "stealing" ideas (that he paid for). But the fact is, he was paying cash money for inventions, and inventors showed the frak up for work - and 1000 patents were filed. (also, don't agree with patents)
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Aug 22, 2013 23:25
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I have to say I'm amazed when people come in here looking for help with Facebook arguments with their friends and then the "friends" are posting nonsense like that. Why are these people your friends? For me personally, so many of my ideas on politics and morals heavily define who I am as a person, so in general I find myself not really wanting to spend time with people that are off the deep end.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:28
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Any there any good resources on the effects of pesticides used in agriculture on the human body? Doesn't need to be specific studies, but an evidence supported argument would be preferable.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:31
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FISHMANPET posted:I have to say I'm amazed when people come in here looking for help with Facebook arguments with their friends and then the "friends" are posting nonsense like that. There's people you may have known your entire life, who've you grown apart from for whatever reason, but your main contact with them is facebook. Sometimes we feel that maybe helping to change a long terms friends mind is better than saying "you disagree with me on economics, gently caress this".
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Aug 22, 2013 23:38
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I suppose I've moved around enough as a child that I don't have any friends I've known most of my life. On the other hand, I've only once changed someone's mind with internet arguing.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:48
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FISHMANPET posted:I suppose I've moved around enough as a child that I don't have any friends I've known most of my life. In my life, I've shifted from Republican to Libertarian to some kind of quasi-socialist humanist. A lot of internet debating was involved.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:51
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CommieGIR posted:Me and this guy were arguing about 'Free Market' and how its utter bullshit, and this was his response when I pointed out things like Standard Oil Patents are incentive for invention and the publicizing thereof: without them, anybody could steal your awesome idea you spent thousands of dollars and hours developing and sell it for pennies. They profit, you can't recoup your resources, so you don't invent anything new. Corporations are an incentive for lots of people to work together to accomplish a big task without risking the individuals' resources. Billionaires are willing to gamble a million dollars because if the idea/venture/whatever fails, oh well they lost a million dollars; if it pays off, hey they got some more million dollars! If they aren't protected by that legal fiction (of a company incorporated into a paper person) then their billions are at risk, and they'll just hang out safe in their mansion. Corporations and patents can be used for really nasty purposes, but there's a reason they were invented. They're ideas that can be (and are) abused, but they're not inherently bad or wrong. He seems to be objecting to these legal fictions. Perhaps he has the same objections to legal fictions like "The Rule of Law" or "Innocent until proven guilty" or anything besides "Might makes right," because that seriously sounds like what he's advocating.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:55
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