Federal Reserve to responsible people: You chumps!
I noted early and often that the government’s message to thrifty Americans over the last year has been: Stop saving. Start spending. Fools!
The Ant and the Grasshopper fable has been turned on its head.
The Federal Reserve’s move to slash interest rates to nothing is another nail in thrift’s coffin.
Pay your bills on time?
Posted in: Subprime crisis
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- ButAsForMe! » Federal Reserve to responsible people: You chumps!
- Bernanke and the Fed are a Bit Confused « Trust, But Verify
- You’re Still A Chump « Jane Q. Republican
- Mark Sanford Announces his Candidacy for President « JoHNBRoDiGaNDoTCoM
- Bailouts Unconstitutional Failures | OpenMarket.org
- Fed Cuts Rates, Punishing Thrift, and Impoverishing Savers | OpenMarket.org
- Fed Aims for Zero - and May Hit It | BobMaistros.com
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Thank you Michelle! Sometimes it seems people are scared to attack the Federal Reserve. It’s a corrupt system which will eventually (maybe very soon) destroy this country.
No institution should have the power to print money backed by nothing, it has always failed. End the Fed!
But as noted on the news, Consumer Interest rates have not fallen. The chumps are the Federal Reserve. All they are doing is padding the bottom line of the banks. It’s not helping the economy at all.
How many lies do you see in these statements:
We’re screwed ‘08, ‘09, ‘10, ‘11, … you get the idea.
I’ll keep paying my bills on time, because I will be in better shape than these yo-yos when the you-know-what REALLY hits the fan. And I heard that an economist with several diff. credentials after his name (by way of a friend who knows him directly) is saying there will be some kind of bigger crash later this year—about summertime, apparently. I’ll keep paying down my debts and be hoping for the best.
Right, that’s market-based interest rates. Soon, (I think it might have already happened) the government will mandate the interest rate, and every bank will have to lend at that rate. People will lap it up as this crisis has been sold as a failure of de-regulation. The government could also do it through the newly-nationalized Fannie and Freddie.
It’s been one of the biggest frauds ever conceived. I was considered a conspiracy nut when I talked smack about Alan Greenspan in 1999.
The World Bank and the IMF are the same thing on a global scale.
Ok great. First we’ll have deflation than massive inflation. There is no other option now. Who the heck is in charge of my world?
For starters, I say repeal Amendment XVI of the US Constitution.
YES the “fair tax”. Please join us.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
Same here! I’ve been paying off all my debt so that all I have to pay on is my house. That’s a pretty tall feat, especially when I pay more for my kids’ education than my house every month! In the end, the sacrifice for both will be worth it.
Don’t get mad, get even … refi.
that’s what I’m doing.
refi and get your interest rate down.
Take advantage of the situation as much as legally possible.
It’s only fair.
Actually, if we are going to enter a period of hyperinflation, you’re better off not paying off your debt.
But things are so manipulated now I have no delusions about knowing what is going to happen.
I’ll just try to keep my job, so I can pay any bills I have. Keep plugging away, stash a little, and every time nObama sends me a check, I’m going to do something that pi**es him off: I’m buying another gun.
You have that right, Michelle. I am stopping retirement contributions, except those that have a company match, and thinking of how to shield my savings from the US government.
When corrupt politicians, thieves, greedmongers, pirates and terrorists have sucked all of the money out of science and research, pillaged the common, honest people, it will signify the end of modern civilization. We will have entered a new dark ages.
Somethings that went wrong in 2008.
My company froze my wages.
My company moved me to a smaller cubicle.
My company cancelled the yearly Christmas Party (known as PC Winterfest Party)
Oh and none of the presidential candidates were worth a damn.
and I should grow up to be a responsible citizen why?
Sometimes I wonder, I really do
Managing monetary policy is the role of the Federal Reserve.
As long as they stay within those bounds, that’s fine with me. It sure beats leaving “Velocity of Circulation” to the attitudes of the MSM where it seems to be managed these days.
The real question should be, “what would be a better means for stimulating the economy?”
By “stimulating” I mean building some confidence leading to free market spending. Our small business is at 1/4 the usual sales. If this keeps up, no amount of down sizing will keep the company from defaulting on business loans. And I know we’re far from being alone in that dilemma.
So much for putting money in a savings account.
Get this:
Not sure what to think of this but it seems to me that you have to get pretty far behind on your taxes before the IRS files a lien.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081216/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/irs_homeowners_2
Out of all the millions of words I’ve heard about this crisis, I tend to believe Schiff and others who say it’s not a liquidity problem, it’s a solvency problem.
Until banks and insurance companies issue true balance statements, the economy will tank.
It’s a shame now, that my parents taught me that my name was my honor. I borrow money from a person or business, it is required by me, to pay it back. Otherwise, my name means nothing more than defining a “thief”. It seems, these days, being a “thief” is worth the reward. I can skip all my bills, and get praised by society. Well, on second thought, I’ll stick to the “old-fashioned” morals and values, ingrained in me, from years of being raised by responsible parents and be PC incorrect.
Same with my parents. And if you signed a contract, you read it before you signed it and stuck to the terms!
Jesus.
All is going according to His plan. very difficult times are coming…
Why would you think for one second that rates will be going down? Banks are hurting, if anything rates will stay the same or go up. For the last year as the fed funds rate went down, credit card rates went up, not down. All this does is make it easier for banks to make more money to pay for the bad loans they continue to make. ACORN is still serving the same “stated income no down payment” loans. After you pay them their fee, of course.
The only way to get even is pay your mortgage off sooner and don’t let them make as much. Of course if you are able to get “assistance” from the government why pay it at all? They are giving houses away these days.
michelle thank you for so articulately and forthrightly stating the problem. if spending money recklessly because it was “cheap” worked, why are we in this mess? we have too many houses in foreclosure because we had too many people say “gee i can afford a second vacation home when i only have to pay 3.5% no money down mortgage rates.” so we are supposed to get out of this by buying 2nd vacation homes with 4.5% fixed rate loans given out by the government (taxpayers) to people who already lost their previous house. or maybe they should just buy a car.
So let me get this straight – the Fed is trying to encourage spending at a time when people are ALREADY in debt up to their eyeballs and the savings rate is negative. Brilliant! This
is turninghas turned our economy into tha largest Ponzi scheme in history.Remember when “inflation” meant increase in money supply. Now it means increase in prices. So now they justify inflation to combat inflation (except they call it mistakenly deflation). So when demand finally catches up to supply we will see an increase in prices like this country has never seen before. We are like a spring being loaded. Hyperinflation, here we come. This may be a good time to buy what you can’t afford later – like gold.
And steal whats left of our money.
The definition of inflation hasn’t changed. You just understand it better now.
The increase in the supply of money decreases the value of the money already in existance, so it takes more money to buy the same thing – prices go up.
It’s fascinating when you read up on it – the people at the top of the money chain get to use the cash before it devalues, so they get richer. People at the end, which is the workers and the savers, never get ahead, and in fact, get poorer.
That’s why taxes always have to go up – if the dollar didn’t devalue, we could almost always maintain our infrastructure on a set percentage of our production.
I am such a geek, but when I took econ 101 in college I knew I had found a niche. It was crystal clear to me right out of the gate. Philosophy….not so much.
The Federal Reserve is NOTHING more than a Privately owned Bank (with Govt. oversight).John D. Rochefeller Jr., JP Morgan and Nelson Aldrich started this scam,President Wilson went along with it. If you think about it, the Internal Revenue Service is “The STRONG ARM” of the Fed… That is how The Goverment gets ITS PIECE OF THE PIE.
Chumps… I like that term, it has alot of meaning. And when people have their “Mortgage Burning Parties”, they celebrate what? No more Bank Payments? WRONG !!!! As long as there is a PROPERTY TAX, you ONLY RENT THAT DWELLING From… The FED. (sorry, its true).
Once a member of the Board of Governors is appointed by the president, he or she functions mostly independently. The Board is required to make an annual report of operations to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.[34] It also supervises and regulates the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks, and US banking system in general.
The ONLY way I think we can actually OWN our property is a FLAT TAX, and RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD.
It was the Gold Standard that Rockefeller,Morgan and Aldrich got rid of, so THEY WOULD CONTROL…Everything.
This is not a black and white issue. Many people, after a lifetime of saving, have watched their balanced well managed portfolios decline by 40% or more in the past half year. The Fed is lowering interest rates to nearly zero in so that this won’t continue.
Interesting. Also note there is NO help for those who are unable to make mortgage payments but are responsible enough to NOT be upside down on their home.
What message does THAT send?
You mean after they let it happen in the first place. What would happen if they refused to play this game. Demand decreases, businesses go defunct until the supply meets the lowered demand. Prices will drop until they are equal. These business however are returning to the previous number of customers (because of this decrease in competition) and make the same money they did before. The market place should decide (and will any way because the current scheme will not work). But now the pain will be worse.
Saving money is useless when you have to carry all of your cash down to the store because it takes an entire wheelbarrow full to buy a single loaf of bread.
Printing money very quickly destroys savings and that seems to be the track we’re taking.
gee lgm, then why aren’t the nasdaq stocks back up to 2000 levels, because god knows we spent a ton and gave out money like water since then, and nasdaq never got above 2500, 1/2 of the 2000 record of 5000+. if government could spend us out of a recession, there would never be any recessions, because year in and year out since wwII our government has spent more than it did the year before.
What is the Real Definition of Inflation?
Webster’s 1983 Definition of Inflation
According to Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary published in 1983 the second definition of “inflation” after “the act of inflating or the condition of being inflated” is:
“An increase in the amount of currency in circulation, resulting in a relatively sharp and sudden fall in its value and rise in prices: it may be caused by an increase in the volume of paper money issued or of gold mined, or a relative increase in expenditures as when the supply of goods fails to meet the demand.
This definition includes some of the basic economics of inflation and would seem to indicate that inflation is not defined as the increase in prices but as the increase in the supply of money that causes the increase in prices i.e. inflation is a cause rather than an effect.
Webster’s 2000 Definition of Inflation
However, The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © 2000 Published by Houghton Mifflin Company says:
Inflation:
2) A persistent increase in the level of consumer prices or a persistent decline in the purchasing power of money, caused by an increase in available currency and credit beyond the proportion of available goods and services.
In this definition, inflation would appear to be the consequence or result (rising prices) rather than the cause.
Shifty Words
So between 1983 and 2000 the definition appears to have shifted from the cause to the result. Also note that the cause could be either an increase in money supply or a decrease in available goods and services.
cheapseat said (#36):
All that money is the reason the NASDQ has not sunk more. We are in deep %$#^!@* trouble.
Gee, LGM, do you honestly believe that YOUR beloved “leaders”, Pelosi, Reid, Frank have a clue about what’s going on here. Democrats (and, unfortunately, some Republicans) love BIG brother government and spending. But, the democrats have outdone the Republicans through their hatred of free enterprise. I know little of Paulson, but he is as bad, or worse than all of these corrupt politicians (and sadly, he was appointed by Pres Bush), Damn right we are in deep trouble.