If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These Are They

Re:If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These ... by linuxftw on Thursday September 13, 2018 @05:53PM (#17982985)

> Until it can't.

It already couldn't, thus monetary easing (aka, inflation, aka increasing the money supply). Governments always default on their debts through inflation. In the US it was called "QE"

Without QE, the treasury auctions would have yielded higher rates of borrowing for the feds. Instead, QE pushed the yields down and money rushed into risk assets (stock market). We're in uncharted economic territory. How do we unwind? Right now, they're slowly letting the balance sheet shrink, but not significantly.

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Re:If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These ... by tabtab on Thursday September 13, 2018 @06:17PM (#17983173)

Inflation was sub-par during the QE era.

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Re:If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These ... by linuxftw on Friday September 14, 2018 @08:58AM (#17986840)

Well, there's inflation and then there's the governments version of 'inflation.' Have you see the prices of homes and the stock market?

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Re:If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These ... by hndamien on Friday September 14, 2018 @11:00AM (#17987645)

"Inflation" should more correctly refer to the inflation of the money supply and not the corresponding rising of prices from dollar dilution.

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Re:If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These ... by tabtab on Monday September 17, 2018 @06:45PM (#18010763)

The Federal Reserve didn't seem very comfortable using QE, but felt it was needed due to the depth of the crash. We were lucky we didn't have a repeat of the 25% unemployment of the 1930's. There's no law of nature that says all slumps are repairable. When things get bad enough, the masses rise up and demand socialism, because "average" socialism is usually better than crashed capitalism. Eating bland food and standing in line is better than death.

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Re:If There Is Such a Thing as Economic ‘Good Times,’ These ... by linuxftw on Friday September 21, 2018 @01:42PM (#18041351)

Short of a meteor/nuclear strike, I can't imagine mass starvation in the US, we simply produce too much food. Without QE, there would have been economic slowdown, banks would have been shuttered, but IMO life would have otherwise carried on as normal.

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