Say Anything Blog

Carrick, the master economist strikes again.  Did you notice the word ‘rut’ or just jump over it.  Did you read this?  I’m betting you saw it at MSNBC or wherever you pulled that one from and decided yours was much ‘nicer’.  I’ll help you:

By Martin Wolk
Chief economics correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 8:14 p.m. ET June 28, 2006

Fed rate hikes beginning to pinch economy
Homeowners, borrowers feeling the impact of two-year campaign

When the Fed began raising rates under then-Chairman Alan Greenspan in June 2004, the benchmark overnight lending rate was at 1 percent — its lowest level in nearly a half-century. It was easy money that helped fuel a boom in housing and consumer spending on big-ticket items, and each quarter-percentage point increase seemed barely perceptible to most consumers and business executives.

But two years later, the overnight rate is at 5 percent, and the cumulative impact is increasingly apparent across the most rate-sensitive segments of the economy, including housing, automobile sales and financial markets

*******

Liberal denial is quite the phenomenon.

Onward and upward; life is a bowl of cherries.

And somehow, I have a feeling Clinton’s name will come up here.  I’m guessing Robert108.

Oh, and one more thing, Carrick.  For a PhD, your eye catching and deceptive subject title “Liberals continue to Lie’ is a really low shot.  But always expected here.  I guess even from you.  Just another control move, of course.  You are all a psychological case study to end them all.

How can a “pinched” economy grow at a 5.6% annual rate? 

Carrick: As if on cue, the leftie blogger shows up, trying to deny the reality of the economy.  You are truly a prophet!(notice that I shunned the pun)

Wrong again.  For those who preach the doom and gloom of a 5% prime rate, we survived Carter and his double digit interest rate and double digit inflation rate, so five percent is no emergency, but I don’t expect the lefties to face facts.

Clearly, the chief economics correspondent for MSNBC, Martin Wolk, would be a lot more at ease reporting on certain AAA baseball teams, shrimp fishing in the waters of the Gulf Coast, or the history of Chinese kites.

Despite Wolk’s dour and quizzical assessment, the real story here is that despite a sustained two year effort to moderate the growth of the economy by slowing the rate of liquidity increase and gently increasing interest rates, our nation’s economy continues strong.

A 5% Fed Funds and Discount rate are actually a tad low by historical standards, as are today’s prime rate and Fannie/Freddie 30 conventional fixed mortgage rates.  New home sales, expected to have eased a bit, were up again last month.

Meanwhile the sustained growth in the economy, fueled by the Bush administration’s tax cuts, have thrown off additional tax revenues at an astounding 12.9% rate of increase.  Enough so that IBD reports that the Bush promise to halve the deficit may come about some three years earlier than projected.

Through May ’06, the deficit was down from $273 billion to $227 billion, and because of the strong growth in both the economy and federal tax revenues, the deficit is now expected to come in at around 2% of GDP.

Wages are also reported to be strong as CBO reports withheld individual income and payroll taxes are up 7.6% on the year, and increasing of late.

Anyone foolish enough to use to word “rut” in describing the economy’s overall performance, or giving credence to such nonsense, obviously has no idea what they’re talking about.

Facts are an enigma to liberals.  They can’t agrue against them or figure out how to spin them.  Does anyone remember Jimmy Carter’s 16-20%+ rate of inflation.  I remember holding a 16 1/2% bond for about 8 years.  He basically threw up his hands and gave up.  Hey, New York City almost defaulted.  There was so much competition for money that the fed held weekly auctions.  This was after Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats “gave away the farm”.  Clinton was a bit player who tried to veto the Republican congress, but they kept overriding him.

Rut.  What a stupid word to use in the article.

What constitutes a ‘rut’ here?  3% growth?  3.5% growth?  Maybe 4%?

I’m also really tired about this housing ‘bubble’ that keeps getting trotted out every time our GDP breaks 5% or the deficit continues it’s freefall.

Here’s your “housing bubble” right here.

Thanks for the input, BatOne and Robert108.

And Diane… I can’t help it if “lying liberal” is alliterative.  But it drives home the point doesn’t it?  Anybody who thinks our economy is tanking has their head firmly planted in the sand (being someplace the Sun don’t shine).  They are either intellectually dishonest to themselves, or shoveling lies for like the good shills they are.

If it helps your feelings any, I think you are lying to yourself as much as anybody else.  There are others, who I won’t name, who simply are out-and-out liars.  I happen to think you really don’t know better.  So yes, education matters. 

And no, you really aren’t fooling anybody with your trash talk and nonsensical appeals to authority.  I don’t need to be an “expert” to divide two numbers or to read a line graph.

Get an education, stop acting like you know everything already and learn.  You’ll be a happier person for it.

Ah, yes!  Jimmy Carter.  One more pitiful example of a first-rate education wasted on a third-rate individual.

Double digit interest rates, double-digit inflation, and damn near double digit unemployment.  A truly stellar economic combination.

Under Carter, a 1.7% increase in economic growth would have been an improvement, rather than a “rut.”

And to add to Carrick’s advice: Invest!

Stop fooling yourself and get on the US Economy Train.

Hoodlumma:

Rut. What a stupid word to use in the article.

What constitutes a ‘rut’ here? 3% growth? 3.5% growth? Maybe 4%?

Did you notice that the narrative (what was said) was more important to our resident troll, than the facts that were being presented?

When reading articles, I tend to skip over other people’s emotionalized language unconsciously, and jump straight to the actual numbers presented.  Who cares what a reporter thinks in any case?  It’s not like most of them have a real education…

And doesn’t the Fed increase the prime rate to reign in overly-rapid growth and inflation?

It really helps to put things in perspective from time to time, just to remind certain people of things not to be repeated.  One more example, then I must get on a conference call.  If the Boy Scouts were federally funded, it has been extimated that the budget would be upwards of 3 billion dollars.  Many young boys have been turned into productive, law abiding citizens.  Some have even been saved from a life of crime.  All this is done with no federal, state, or local subsidy.  Even some United Fund money which is contributed by individuals has not been taken.  All they ask is the same rights as any other individual or family in the USA, to walk on public lands and camp just like anyone else.  Now, for the record, I was an Eagle Scout, and my children were also.  Liberals.  Clueless.  My next book will be Anne’s after The World is Flat.

Chief RZ, I usually try and blank out the years of Carter’s administration; all aspects from his domestic spending strategies, to his international diplomacy, to his incompetence at national security issues.  He was such a complete loser that Clinton looks like a bright light-bulb in comparison.

Surely his presidency was one of the great tests of our democracy.

H,

Actually, the Fed doesn’t control the Prime Rate, or any interest rates other than the Fed Funds rate and the Discount rate.  All others are market driven.

Ordinarily you would expect that the yield curve (interest rates over time) would increase the farther out in time you go.  But on occasion, the markets throw a curve known as an “inversion” where short term rates, say 1 year T-bills are higher than longer rates, such as 10 year Bonds.

Some economists, mostly liberals, regard this as a sure sign of a coming recession.  The rest of us regard this a sure sign that the markets are more uneasy with the short term situation than long term prospects.  We recently had just such an inversion in the yield curve.  As you can see, we are not in a recession.

Who cares what a reporter thinks in any case? It’s not like most of them have a real education…

Why would a reporter need to know what he, or she, is talking about?  Especially if they went to J-school.

Bat, a journalism degree already means that you know everything.

Duh.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Carrick, there is book learning and life/experience learning.  You obviously value the former over the latter; myself the opposite.

I think you try too much to cross over your line of ‘expertise’ and believe that your degree gives you privileges you obviously can’t support with credibility of information or response.

You are fooling yourself like most people who have too much education for their level of intelligence.  I’ve only known one PhD whose intelligence surpassed his Masters from Purdue and his PhD from M.I.T., and he was one of the most humble people I’ve ever met.

You would do well to take a lesson.

One thing that needs to be said here is that a formal education or degree is not a badge of honor or credibility.  Knowledge is.  And knowledge can be obtained apart from the ivy-covered, mold-infested walls of universities, where little robots emerge with heads almost too large to fit through the classroom doors with tons of useless information mucking up and wasting their limited brain cells. 

What’s refreshing is someone, like my friend, who knows that.  Most over-educated faux intellects don’t.

Clearly, the chief economics correspondent for MSNBC, Martin Wolk, would be a lot more at ease reporting on certain AAA baseball teams, shrimp fishing in the waters of the Gulf Coast, or the history of Chinese kites.

You speak from experience?

I’ve seen nothing BUT progress after we survived the Carter debacle. Reagan and Bush #1 built the platform that allowed the Clinton years to be what they were. Even though bubba wasn’t all that concerned with Presidential duties at least he didn’t get in the way. Although we did experience record corporate corruption under his watch and we did experience the collapse of the tech boom, causing a short interuption of the investment community. None the less, we bounced back strong.
And we did so under Bush #2.
Thank you Mr. President.

**==

I would be remiss if I didn’t give my Public Service Announcement: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE TROLL.

diane says, Carrick, there is book learning and life/experience learning. You obviously value the former over the latter; myself the opposite.

How do you figure?

Carrick is merely looking at a couple of historical economic figures and then comparing those figures.

You, on the other hand, are shit-talking.

Mickey:

I would be remiss if I didn’t give my Public Service Announcement: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE TROLL.

No doubt.  This is an example where troll droppings can be used to illustrate a point, sort of like compost as a nutritive source to reason. 

What I find interesting is that Diane continues to erroneously insist that the only people who can make definitive statements, like say, “8 exclusivity, while having none of the training necessary to claim any real insight into whether that is actually necessary.

I on the other hand, am advocating the extremely arrogant position (to her at least), that knowledge is accessible to all people, not just those of us with Ph.Ds.  Unlike her, I am speaking for a position of personal knowledge, and have the training and background to authoritatively make that statement.

There are no gatekeepers for knowledge. Facts are facts regardless of who utters them.  The whole promise of the blogosphere is that it make available to a larger population the prospect of direct aspect to the facts.  Simple pieces of information, like whether the current prime rate is typical or abnormally high, can be answered by any interested person with a modicum of economic knowledge.

It certainly doesn’t require the “expertise” of a beat reporter like Marty Wolk to digest our information for us.  To think that a person with a journalism degree has some exclusive hold on reality not available to the rest of us, well, is simply ROFL LOL hilarious.

One man’s(or woman’s) rut is another person’s groove.  Five percent plus annual growth for an economy this size is a very good groove.  The wish for negative news shows in the choice of words.

Mickey: Got to disagree with one of your statements.  Clinton did get in the way, with high taxes.  High taxes have a delayed effect, especially in such a dynamic economy as ours, and so didn’t do the real damage for some years.  Without his high taxes, we would have done even better, IMO.

Try paying for gas with GDP.
Prices up , Inflation up, Wages down.

You would think the Left would love higher interest rates for three reasons:

1. It encourages immoral day traders like me to buy CDs instead of stock and puts more money into bank accounts, more money for loans they can default on.

2. Their own politicians, policies, and warped ideology are responsible for them.

3. Rates would be a lot higher if their side was running things and they wouldn’t be complaining a bit about it.

They just whine because it’s the best thing they can come up with to attack Bush on an excellent economy. That, and they are by nature whiny little snots.

Woof: Just ask the environmental ayatollahs for that gas money.  They say they are improving our world by restricting the supply of gas by restricting both new domestic exploration and the building of new refineries, when all they have really accomplished is raising gas prices, enriching the terrorist countries and making us vulnerable by increasing our dependence on imported oil.  Yes, get your gas money from them and stop whining!

WOOF:

Prices up , Inflation up, Wages down.

Is it just me, but is WOOF double counting inflation?  Doesn’t “prices up” mean the same as “inflation up”.

But we thank you for your example of liberal dishonesty in the face of reality.  For instance, excluding energy costs, the CPI was a tepid 0.1% last month.

And, if you can illustrate for us how rising energy costs are an indicator of economic health, we would be profoundly grateful. 

Otherwise, it’s a stressor on economic growth, so that a 5.6% growth rate is a sign of superior economic strength.  That is, it means the opposite of what you would like it to mean.

Secondly, wages increased by 0.6% for the last quarter, 2.8% for the last year.  You can take solace in the fact that you can describe this as “labor costs for employers up”.  That’s negative news isn’t it?

You said yourself you’d admit that the economy was improving when jobs improved.  They have improved, and job prospect for new workers has improved steadily for the last two years, after the end of the recession.  But I’m not surprised that your mantra hasn’t changed, because it never was about the facts.

Carrick: No, inflation is when prices increase without a corresponding increase in value.  Otherwise, you are spot on.  That doesn’t mean Woof knew that.  In fact, it is unlikely that he does know that distinction.  The reality is that taxes and govt regs are the main cause of inflation.  Even though a growing economy might have micro events where demand temporarily outstrips supply, that “inflation” is not a factor in the sense of being bad for people.  It is their demand for the product, after all, that causes the price increase, so it is really an increase in value.  In our system, things are worth what someone is willing to pay for them.  Marxists always forget that simple truth.

Inflation is the government printing more money.

If the price of one item in the basket goes up you purchase less of that product or another product.

Everything balances up until the government comes along and screws it all up.

TW: Sorry, but that’s an old 19th Century meme, and essentially Marxist in nature.  It was invented by those who wished a stagnant economy based on some precious metal standard, thus limiting the supply of available capital in the economy.  The govt prints money all the time, because ours circulates so fast that it wears out rapidly.  That old meme was based on the presumption that, unlimited by having to equivalence paper money with stored gold and silver, the govt could just print it at will, without any corresponding value.  The value of our money is based on our ability to produce goods and services that people want.  Marx considered that borrowing money was evil, because it robbed the working man.  Very old stuff.

OK, sorry I didn’t get it just right.

Inflation is when the government increases the money supply faster than the economy is growing as a whole.

The amount of paper money in circulation is a very small part of the money supply.

Jeez, try to talk to the third grade liberals here and Mr R-108 calls you out.

Taking the average over the full year of 2005, hourly earnings fell 0.6% compared to 2004 (coincidentally, 2004 also saw an 0.6% annual average wage loss compared to 2003).

TW: Like I said, taxation and regulation.  Dicking with the money supply is known as monetary policy, and falls under the heading of govt regulation.  It’s also called regulation of the money supply. Fiscal policy, or regulating the interest rate(the price of money) is the sexy policy thing nowadays with the govt types.

“Jeez, try to talk to the third grade liberals here and Mr R-108 calls you out.”

Sorry about that, TW, but I’m a stickler for economic truth.  I think it’s necessary to win the argument.  Nothing personal.

Woof: Try as you might, you can’t turn the silk purse of the US economy into a sow’s ear.

Economy is up, woofie is down. WaaWaaWaa!!

Adjusted for CPI, including energy, I admit that our real earning power, on average is down, which is sort of like (but not the same as) “wages down”.

If you don’t fold in the phenomenal increases in energy costs, you find that the remaining sectors of the economy are staying remarkably stable, including CPI in those sectors, as well as in consumer demand.

It’s absolutely phenomenal to me that with the large energy increases in the last year that our economy has done so much heavy lifting.  That is a sign of a very robust economy, no matter how you cut it.

Not only that, but the “phenomenal increases in energy costs” are supposed to improve our lives, according to the environmental ayatollahs, who are responsible for them.  We are getting value for that, right?  Doesn’t the cost/benefit work out for the best?  If not, let’s scrap those environmental regs that are restricting the supply of energy.  I did forget environmentalism as a cause of inflation, but it comes under the heading of govt regs.

Carrick,

Your point about the economy doing the heavy lifting is a good one… even if you’ve overlooked the economic impact of last year’s hurricane devastation.  Larry Kudlow calls economic growth the greatest story not being reported, and he is right.

Robert/Whistler,

You two are essentially saying much the same thing at two very different levels.  Stop quibbling.  Conservatives simply cannot lose this type of argument, first because unlike those on the left, we actually know what we’re talking about, and second because its damn near impossible to lose an argument with someone, anyone, whose “best” weapon is a Paul Krugman.  Take a look at the leftist nay-sayers here and tell me that any of them can offer a plausible argument that the economy is in the toilet, or that tax cuts don’t work to stimulate economic growth.  They can’t.  End of discussion.

Bullwinkle,

1.  Its not that those on the left love higher interest rates.  Its just that they really don’t understand the significance of higher rates… or how they got that way.  You’re giving them way too much credit.

2.  Speaking of which, “whiny little snots” is way too restrained and considerate a description.  It is totally unwarranted.

Bat: All good points.  What I notice about all the leftie liars lying about the economy are essentially clinging to the old Marxist belief that a demand-based economy would ultimately fail.  They can’t square what their ideology tells them with the ongoing reality, so they say ridiculous things, like Krugman.  Any first-year econ student can refute Krugman completely, but he is the “economist” for the left, so he gets ink and attention.  Go figure.  BTW, as far as I’m concerned, TW and I aren’t quibbling.  It’s time to put that “printing money” thing in its grave and shovel in the dirt.

Mortgage broker BatOne proudly announces:
New home sales, expected to have eased a bit, were up again last month

Big builders provide incentives to purchase even in tough/down markets.  That helps the NEW HOME sales.

Psssst...Carrick:
It certainly doesn’t require the “expertise” of a beat reporter like Marty Wolk to digest our information for us.

Despite your degrading title for Wolk, it also doesn’t take someone with a PhD to explain things to the rest of us, especially me.

Oh, and Bat: I’m not saying it’s a down market.  I’m just explaining that, even in that case, builders can find ways to move their inventories.

And if we get one more call from an India-based call center asking if we want to refi our home....

Diane:

Despite your degrading title for Wolk, it also doesn’t take someone with a PhD to explain things to the rest of us, especially me.

Hey, Einstein!

“Beat reporter” is standard lingo in the journalistic trade.  Nothing degrading about it.  Get educated.

diane kids, ...it also doesn’t take someone with a PhD to explain things to the rest of us, especially me.

You have a hard time recognizing and accepting reality. It’s damn near impossible to explain anything to you. Your mind is made up and that’s that. Anybody who witnessed your incessant claims that “FICA score” is a correct term can attest to that.

Likwid: It’s damn near impossible to explain anything to [Diane].Ha!  You’re telling me.

I guess it’s all that “real world” experience we lack.

Diane,

In the 44 comments posted after your insinuation that “Clinton’s name will be coming up here,” the former president was mentioned twice.  In one comment, Mickey noted that Presidents Reagan and Bush (41) set the stage for the economic expansion that continued well into Clinton’s term in office.

In the second instance, Carrick, no fan of Clinton at all, notes that Carter presidency was such a disgraceful display of “incompetence” that it made Clinton “look like a bright light bulb in comparison.”

Neither remark is the sort of gratuitous slam you anticipated.

Perhaps, if you would take a break from blithely insulting everyone who doesn’t acknowledge your self-styled righteousness, and patting yourself on the back with such smarmy consistency, it might occur to you that you are at least as prone to error, misstatement, and poor judgment as anyone else here.  At which point some of us just might consider judging your remarks on their own merits, rather than dismissing them out of hand simply because of their source.

In the 44 comments posted after your insinuation that “Clinton’s name will be coming up here,” the former president was mentioned twice. In one comment, Mickey noted that Presidents Reagan and Bush (41) set the stage for the economic expansion that continued well into Clinton’s term in office.

In the second instance, Carrick, no fan of Clinton at all, notes that Carter presidency was such a disgraceful display of “incompetence” that it made Clinton “look like a bright light bulb in comparison.”

BatOne, thanks for the unexpected kindness in making my point for me.  It did come up.  I wasn’t going to rub it in, but now that you mention it.

By the way, your smarmy attempts to belittle, either overtly or discreetly/subliminally/with little faux witticisms, etc., speaks universes about your underyling character and lack of self-confidence.

“Beat reporter” is standard lingo in the journalistic trade. Nothing degrading about it. Get educated.

Carrick on June 29, 2006 at 10:40 PM

Get educated says the Internet PhD.  And yet he obviously uses the term ‘beat reporter’ in an insulting manner by using ‘expertise’ (in quotes) ahead of the title as a slur.  What a really stupid dufus.  PhD Guy:  Your IQ needs to catch up with all that book ‘learnin’.

It certainly doesn’t require the “expertise” of a beat reporter like Marty Wolk to digest our information for us.

Carrick, I understand that your ‘educated’ friends here didn’t pick that up, but an ‘uneducated’ naturally extremely bright person like myself is someone you just can’t get anything past, so best quit trying, whatsay?