Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

Not only is Ron Paul, Ben Bernanke's worst nightmare, but the Peoples' Bank of China is Bernanke's worst nightmare. To-day, Nov 12, 2010 the entire quantitative-easing done by the Fed was un-done, apparently by the PBofC selling U.S. Treasury debt, of all durations from 30 days out to 30 years.

Well, the point of QE2 was to get China to undo it. This has been about the currency war, not more QE..

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

Well, the point of QE2 was to get China to undo it. This has been about the currency war, not more QE..

I can imagine other motives for QE2, such as:

1. Keep Treasury interest rates down, so a couple hundred Trillion dollars worth of interest rate swaps don't blow up in the face of some esteemed banker.
2. Move more toxic crud off some the balance sheets of some esteemed banks onto the public indebtedness.
3. Force the U.S. Treasury to acquire as much debt as humanly possible, so our esteemed bankers can then
   1. cram the price of long bond Treasuries down (jack their interest rates up),
   2. while "convincing" the U.S. Treasury to extend the average maturity of its debt out longer, so that
   3. they can then buy those high yield long maturity Treasury bonds cheap in great quantities (with the Trillions they just stole from us), so that
   4. they can then enjoy another 30 years of clipping coupons from high yield Treasuries in a declining interest rate environment (making outstanding Treasuries increasingly valuable), while
   5. the rest of us starve.
   
   

[Starving Steve]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

Well, the point of QE2 was to get China to undo it. This has been about the currency war, not more QE..

Three things are apparent from to-day's fiasco with QE II:

1.) China is determining interest rates for America, not Ben Bernanke, and not the FOMC.

2.) If China wants a higher U.S. dollar ( hence, a lower Yuan ), China will sell U.S. Treasury debt and drive-up interest rates in the U.S;

3.) The resolution to this currency war between China and America is going to be de-flationary; i.e, the Yuan will stay cheap, and China will export to the U.S. in future, just as in the past. Nothing will change.

[blazespinnaker]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

Well, perhaps the Yuan may stay cheap, but the trade imbalance will come down. This is guaranteed. There are few things Obama, the democrats, and the republicans all agree upon - and this is one of those things.

[shiny!]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

I can find no solid evidence of this claim that the Fed's charter expires in 2012 or 2013, shiny!. I rather doubt that the Federal Reserve has a fixed term charter.

You're right; my apologies! I'm trying to verify the accuray of what I was told, but so far it looks as if you're correct.

[c1ue]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

The California 2/3 majority to pass taxes was just repealed by the enactment of Proposition 25, btw.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov...props-20101104

You might note that what you reference is the abolishment of the 2/3rds requirement for budget approval.

The 2/3rds requirement still exists for tax increases - and now exists also for fee increases.

From the article in question:

California's persistent fiscal mess is based less on poor budget decisions in Sacramento than it is on the inability to make a decision of any kind. At the heart of the problem has been the two-thirds supermajority requirement, imposed by voters in three stages. First, during the Depression, voters decided that no budget could be passed in a slow-growth year without the approval of two-thirds of the members of each house of the Legislature. Then, in the 1960s, the two-thirds requirement was extended to include all budgets in all years. Then, in 1978 as part of Proposition 13, it was applied to all tax increases as well. Proposition 25 undoes the two-thirds requirement only on budgets. It remains in place on taxes and, in fact, is now, under Proposition 26, extended to fees.

[Chomsky]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

You might note that what you reference is the abolishment of the 2/3rds requirement for budget approval.

The 2/3rds requirement still exists for tax increases - and now exists also for fee increases.

From the article in question:

Thanks for the correction.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul

Referencing http://www.henrymakow.com/mccarthy.html, is Ron Paul the Joseph McCarthy, and the Fed the American Communist Party, of our time?

If five Samoans rob my local bank, does my condemnation of that robbery and of those robbers make me anti-Samoan? No, of course not. It means I don't like bank robbers.

It's not about race, religion or whatever. It is about public morality. However the innate tendency of similar people to trust their "own kind" more than "outsiders" leads to bands of evil doers often tending to have similarities, which are then abused by fraudulent applications of political correctness to insulate themselves from proper condemnation, to misdirect proper enforcement of community norms toward some scapegoat group, and to motivate persecution and censorship of anyone who would dare speak to the truth of the matter.

It gets to the point that someone seeking to engage in honest inquiry is reluctant to speak his mind forthright, out of concern he'll bring down negative repercussions on his associates.

We get our knickers all in a twist over matters of private morality between consensual adults, but we dare not speak out loud in too plain a manner some of our suspicions as to who has been stealing Trillions of Dollars from our nation.

In case you missed it above, I will repeat. I am not anti-Samoan. I am anti-robbery.

... but I'll wager that Ron Paul's investigations do not overly focus on certain Samoans, or that if they do, his investigations and himself will be publicly destroyed, and his name left in history as a curse word for most casual viewers.

Nor, by the way, does the above mean that I necessarily hold McCarthy and Paul in equal admiration. That doesn't matter, and anyway my view is no doubt colored by what history is behind us, more than by the not yet told future before us.