James Surowiecki spoke with Congressman Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, about the current state of the financial system, health care, and solutions to the foreclosure crisis. They met at Frank’s office in Newton, Massachusetts, on August 24th.
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. —John Kenneth Galbraith
Retail Sales in Jan rose .4% headline m/o/m, .7% ex auto's, .6% ex auto's and gasoline and .7% at the core. The headline figure was less than expected while the rest were slightly better. But, with respect to non headline sales, because Dec figures were revised lower, taking the two months together were about in line with forecasts overall. Sales rose in electronics, building materials, food/beverages, clothing, sporting goods, dept stores and restaurant/bars and fell interestingly for online retailers, health/personal care, furniture and motor vehicle/parts. Bottom line, headline sales were below expectations due to the greater than expected fall m/o/m...
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September 2nd, 2009 at 8:44 am
Total absolute Fu*#ing moron who by the way is ENTIRELY wrong.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:56 am
Talking about addicts: These morons, the entire bunch save for a handful like Paul, Grayson and Sherman, are debt sucking debt leach addicts. Over 80 trillion in debt, we now spend 4 trillion, we take in 2 trillion and we can’t even sell bonds for the difference.
If he had an IQ one size larger than his shoe he’d know to devalue the dollar and re-denominate it.
The Fed should be abolished, we don’t need another government entity. What has the government gotten right? Medicare? Medicaide? Social Security? Katrina? The “Bail Out? TARP? PPIP? Deficits? Iraq?
When you can’t do anything right your better off doing LESS not more Barney. Absolute morons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
davossherman@gmail.com, who is the absolute moron, again?
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:05 am
number2son, forget it. He’s rolling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:48 am
“number2son Says: davossherman@gmail.com, who is the absolute moron, again?”
Hello Number2son:
I would call anyone in charge of the House Financial Services who doesn’t understand the Federal Reserve and our debt and our deficits a moron.
Money, not the economy, is the problem. We are as insolvent as Enron and our books are worse then Enron’s. Look at the 58 trillion in off balance liabilities for Social Security and Medicare Parts A and D and the 24 trillion in off balance obligations for the financial crisis. GDP is baked, off between 20-40%.
http://www.usdebtclock.org
Maybe a ‘hubris laden, power drunk bureaucrat who thinks he can micromanage every aspect of this once supposedly free market system”‘ would have been a more eloquent way of putting it, but moron is simpler, and faster and all encompassing.
Barney Frank either corrupt or Barney Frank is a moron who doesn’t understand what caused the problem.
In any event, Barney Frank WILL make it worse, not better. Phil Graham made it worse with his bill that got slipped in and allowed derivatives. Google “And he pushed through a provision that ensured virtually no regulation of the complex financial instruments known as derivatives, including credit swaps, contracts that would encourage risky investment practices at Wall Street’s most venerable institutions and spread the risks, like a virus, around the world.”
These people are the morons who make things worse.
Proof? He says the problem is getting better. Wrong, it is getting worse. He says Bernanke did a good job – Bernake just swapped cash for trash and stuck us with the bill, he is also going to tank the dollar. Bernake is either a well meaning fool who knows not right from wrong or he is part of a master plan to devalue the dollar and re denominate it shedding our debt – which will never be paid off any other way.
The Fed was supposed to regulate the banks. They didn’t. Bernanke in 2005 and Greenspan before said housing wasn’t going to blow up. It did. The FBI knew there was massive fraud. Think about that. The FBI could figure it out and the financial wizards couldn’t?
Now Frank wants to add another regulatory body. Like the SEC. Watch naked short selling http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/naked-short-selling-redefining-systemic.html , or read up on Markopolus http://commerce.wsj.com/auth/login?mg=inert-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/documents/Madoff_SECdocs_20081217.pdf and then tell me you think Frank is right.
Take care