David Stockman, the former OMB director under President Reagan, speaks with Bloomberg Television’s Tom Keene on “Surveillance Midday” about the U.S. debt crisis.
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.
"Dollar depreciation leads to higher inflation and ultimately forces foreign creditors to question their rationale and indeed their sanity for continuing purchases of U.S. Treasuries." -Bill Gross
Initial Jobless Claims for the week ended Feb 18th totaled 351k, 4k less than expected but the prior week was revised up by 3k to 351k. The 4 week average did fall to 359k from 366k, the lowest since Mar '08. Continuing Claims fell by 52k to the lowest since Aug '08. Also, Extended Benefits fell a net 69k. Bottom line, the data still points to a labor market that continues to improve however lumpy the process feels for many. ...
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May 19th, 2011 at 8:27 am
Stockman gets more articulate with age.
Who will “educate” the American people about the following?
* a small percentage of higher income HHs pay most of the taxes, though at a lower rate than before
—– they don’t want that on them and neither should the rest of America
* too many HHs pay few or no taxes, some by design (i.e., tax policy), some by happenstance (e.g., unemployed)
—– some people who rail against gov’t and taxes pay few, we have lost our sense of shared burden
* as a percent of GDP and HH income taxes are down not up
—– the data is clear but not clearly communicated
* politicians on both sides have created unsustainable spending patterns
—– wars with no apparent end, tax policy as a surrogate for straight up social policy, etc.
* the real corporate tax burden is well below the stated corporate tax burden
—– no CEO would admit to the need to pay more even if their heart and head told them so
* we love “our” country yet hate each other’s political position
—– ironically, we have a shared history of messy politics and tax policies (e.g., the whiskey rebellion!)
* no one, quite literally no one, seems interested to having a shared understanding of the “facts”
—– facts have implications if you don’t like the implications then deny the facts, or spin them, or lie
OK…done.
May 19th, 2011 at 8:29 am
Solvency crisis with 10 year treasuries at 3.2%? That’s insane
May 19th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
We could eliminate all the debt tomorrow by exchanging freshly printed dollars for Treasury Securities — just swap one piece of paper for another. Done deal.