To show the never ending race to the bottom on wage repression versus retail sales, we have this declaration because Walmart's quarterly profits are down.
This basic tenement, if you wish to have a large personal consumption expenditures boost US GDP, there is something called wages required.
Obtaining oil (from shale is not as simple as it sounds. The problem is how to process the shale to extract the oil (which is more like kerosene than what we consider crude oil). If you're starting with a mined product, you have to grind it up, add a heat transfer agent (water - which is in short supply in the southwest), heat the slurry to 400 - 450 degrees and hold it there for several months. Alternately you can drill hundreds - or thousands - of bore holes into the shale formation and pump the hot water from the surface and let it braise that way. However with the latter option you also have to deal with the problem of your oil seeping away. Either choice will require a huge investment in infrastructure which would almost certainly include nuclear power plants, pipe networks and associated pumps (to provide the water), and possibly desalinization plants. All of which will take years, if not decades to develop.
I did not mean to imply that this blog should do ‘birth certificates’. Rather, to imply that something as insignificant as the ‘birth certificate’ has more significance than the “lies, damn lies and statistics” that the FED puts out.
To the extent that birth certificates and such ostensively meaningless issues affect presidential elections, they are de facto a significant independent economic variable in that the president significantly affects the economy.
On second thought, maybe this blog should do birth certificates.
Does it seem we are having some mega disaster once a month these days? I don't know if anyone caught the NatGeo show where they put together home videos from those in Japan but the images are pure horror and it seems every month we're getting these major horrors and events.
On the bail outs and a host of other issues, I'm right with people bashing the Fed, and sticking the consumer financial protection agency under them rendered it guaranteed to not be as such.
That said, they do have a lot of real economists within and they rally are on target in a lot of their research/analysis...
I read them all of the time.
Then, on the entire "abolish the Fed" meme, I just look at our even more corrupt and absolutely crazy, pure economic insanity Congress and this administration doing whatever corporations want them to, and I think, hmmmmm, maybe that's not such a great idea after all.
If we had a real Congress and representation I'd be more amendable.
But EP can handle different views and when it comes to facts, keep 'em coming.
My comment (below) titled "Continued and increasing political pressure on the Fed" was intended to be in response to Robert Oak's comment "why would you believe Ben?"
Robert Oak: You or others here at EconPop have criticized the "Down with the Fed" mime, saying that after all the Fed has many good people and competent economic analysts on the payroll. I agree, but I support continued and increasing political pressure on the Fed and especially on Bernanke.
Here's an example of a good economic critic coming out of experiences at the big institutions: Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, currently professor at MIT Sloan School of Management. Here's from his recent (April 26) article at Project Syndicate (you've probably read the article) --
There are many advantages to having an independent central bank run by professionals who can keep their distance from politicians. But when the people at the apex of these institutions insist that the crisis response went well, and that everything will be fine, even as the financial behemoths that caused the crisis lumber forward, their credibility inevitably suffers.
That should worry central bankers, because their credibility is pretty much all they have. The US Constitution, after all, does not guarantee the Fed’s independence. Congress created the Fed, which means that Congress can un-create it. By assuming away the damage that highly leveraged megabanks can do, the myth of a “good crisis” merely makes political pressure on central banks all the more likely.
Yes, I would like people to be more informed about what's happening, and I recommend Econ Pop for that reason, but I think that there is a necessary and well-deserved disrespect for the Fed these days (as the Fed is represented by its ever-glorified Tsar or Chair), whether the populist reaction is well-informed and educated, or not.
My opinion is that there will be severe rate increases in 2012. Will that be timed to an election? You tell me.
That ugly behind of the Emperor without clothes must be ridiculed or we lose any claim to being a free people!
Aren't the disasters from Natural Gas Fracking, Tar Sands, Ethanol, Coal sludge slides and mountain top removal along with Mercury Rain sufficient??? To that absurd list you want to add Shale Oil??
Right now on the blog list is quite the slam on the Fed's discount window and we've been here the entire time, outraged over the protection of derivatives to making a consumer financial protection agency under the Fed, you name it.
That said, the Fed is loaded with economists and sometimes it's just plain economics they are talking about and believe this or not, sometimes these economists actually get it right.
We don't do birth certificate here, we're much too busy showing the multinational corporate/financial sector control of the U.S. political system.
"Folks, if you want the Fed to speak, it's a real good idea to listen to what they say, in spite of Bernanke's geeky nervousness".
Why would anyone believe what he says has anything to do with reality?
Like the previous article, why would anyone believe what the FED has to say?
There is more political therefore economic significance in the Obama birth certificate release than the FED news conference.
I wonder why he decided to have his first news conference at this time? It can't have anything to do with the president's reelection announcement and falling popularity, even among Democrats.
He's been saying for close to six months now (I think) that it will be 4-5 years before we return to full employment. Silly me, I figured he was leading the way and after the election, I hoped Obama would also start some straight talk about our employment mess.
Has Ben ever said "99er" in public, I wonder. I'm pretty sure Obama has not.
Very interesting about gas prices -- both his prediction and how on earth he could know. Time will tell, won't it?
Looks like we'll be paying for rebuilding and other projects that the Republicans wouldn't approve.
Oh no wait, that's Republican country down there. So the spending will be an emergency and OK. Unlike, say, 99ers who have run out of unemployment and money, which is obviously not an emergency and nothing to worry about.
Good thing we're supposed to have an above average hurricane season. That will put some people to work too.
"The price of oil is rising and almost definitely shall continue to simply because it can; no more complex explanation is needed."
There are no market factors other than a market dominated by an industry that gets what it wants the old fashioned way, it pays politicians to look the other way.
I'm in favor of an honest look at all viable alternatives. Nuclear is done, period. I'd like to know more about shale oil. There have been remarkable improvements in solar power but nothing is happening in terms of making that option a commodity. We are without a real energy debate. It's time.
Dylan Ratigan has been "back on it" lately in terms of economic/financial insanity and he has an interview with Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism as well as Josh Rosner here and it's a great interview on the history of financialization and derivatives.
There is a real issue with fracking, and frankly these oil companies, their history of environmental damage is not exactly stellar and I believe, environmental damage could be viewed as additional economic costs really.
Myself, I'm heavily Science oriented, so figuring out energy ind. that is cost effective is a key critical issue and just read yesterday the hydrogen "hype" made a technology breakthrough for fueling (to be reviewed, so much hype in these areas!)
Below is a reasonable 60 minutes segment giving some more balance.
Also, we were all over oil speculation, derivatives in 2008 but I haven't done any research into what's happening now. I thought the regions in Conflict in the middle east are not U.S. suppliers fundamentally, so is the current crisis really affecting supply or do we have more speculators piling on commodities again.
Business Week overview on fracking, it is environmentally risky at minimum.
Good idea? Doable?
Why didn't any other well known public figure suggest this years ago?
To show the never ending race to the bottom on wage repression versus retail sales, we have this declaration because Walmart's quarterly profits are down.
This basic tenement, if you wish to have a large personal consumption expenditures boost US GDP, there is something called wages required.
Walmart article where this was proclaimed.
I honest wish that the EC would nail them and put them out of business. these are corrupt enterprises that have ruined millions of lives
Obtaining oil (from shale is not as simple as it sounds. The problem is how to process the shale to extract the oil (which is more like kerosene than what we consider crude oil). If you're starting with a mined product, you have to grind it up, add a heat transfer agent (water - which is in short supply in the southwest), heat the slurry to 400 - 450 degrees and hold it there for several months. Alternately you can drill hundreds - or thousands - of bore holes into the shale formation and pump the hot water from the surface and let it braise that way. However with the latter option you also have to deal with the problem of your oil seeping away. Either choice will require a huge investment in infrastructure which would almost certainly include nuclear power plants, pipe networks and associated pumps (to provide the water), and possibly desalinization plants. All of which will take years, if not decades to develop.
Doable, but not fast.
The reason for this post was before the press conference there was a flurry of articles thinking for some reason....the press would do it's job.
I knew that wouldn't be true and of course it was not. It's about as scripted as an Obama press conference in a lot of ways.
On data, I look at economic data often and their statistics for the most part show a slowing economy, so they are not pushing any fiction.
The industrial production revisions are bothersome but I point out capacity everytime in a graph.
I did not mean to imply that this blog should do ‘birth certificates’. Rather, to imply that something as insignificant as the ‘birth certificate’ has more significance than the “lies, damn lies and statistics” that the FED puts out.
To the extent that birth certificates and such ostensively meaningless issues affect presidential elections, they are de facto a significant independent economic variable in that the president significantly affects the economy.
On second thought, maybe this blog should do birth certificates.
Does it seem we are having some mega disaster once a month these days? I don't know if anyone caught the NatGeo show where they put together home videos from those in Japan but the images are pure horror and it seems every month we're getting these major horrors and events.
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/detroit/michigan-court-of-appeals-ru...
On the bail outs and a host of other issues, I'm right with people bashing the Fed, and sticking the consumer financial protection agency under them rendered it guaranteed to not be as such.
That said, they do have a lot of real economists within and they rally are on target in a lot of their research/analysis...
I read them all of the time.
Then, on the entire "abolish the Fed" meme, I just look at our even more corrupt and absolutely crazy, pure economic insanity Congress and this administration doing whatever corporations want them to, and I think, hmmmmm, maybe that's not such a great idea after all.
If we had a real Congress and representation I'd be more amendable.
But EP can handle different views and when it comes to facts, keep 'em coming.
My comment (below) titled "Continued and increasing political pressure on the Fed" was intended to be in response to Robert Oak's comment "why would you believe Ben?"
Robert Oak: You or others here at EconPop have criticized the "Down with the Fed" mime, saying that after all the Fed has many good people and competent economic analysts on the payroll. I agree, but I support continued and increasing political pressure on the Fed and especially on Bernanke.
Here's an example of a good economic critic coming out of experiences at the big institutions: Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, currently professor at MIT Sloan School of Management. Here's from his recent (April 26) article at Project Syndicate (you've probably read the article) --
Yes, I would like people to be more informed about what's happening, and I recommend Econ Pop for that reason, but I think that there is a necessary and well-deserved disrespect for the Fed these days (as the Fed is represented by its ever-glorified Tsar or Chair), whether the populist reaction is well-informed and educated, or not.
My opinion is that there will be severe rate increases in 2012. Will that be timed to an election? You tell me.
That ugly behind of the Emperor without clothes must be ridiculed or we lose any claim to being a free people!
Just my 2¢.
Aren't the disasters from Natural Gas Fracking, Tar Sands, Ethanol, Coal sludge slides and mountain top removal along with Mercury Rain sufficient??? To that absurd list you want to add Shale Oil??
Right now on the blog list is quite the slam on the Fed's discount window and we've been here the entire time, outraged over the protection of derivatives to making a consumer financial protection agency under the Fed, you name it.
That said, the Fed is loaded with economists and sometimes it's just plain economics they are talking about and believe this or not, sometimes these economists actually get it right.
We don't do birth certificate here, we're much too busy showing the multinational corporate/financial sector control of the U.S. political system.
"Folks, if you want the Fed to speak, it's a real good idea to listen to what they say, in spite of Bernanke's geeky nervousness".
Why would anyone believe what he says has anything to do with reality?
Like the previous article, why would anyone believe what the FED has to say?
There is more political therefore economic significance in the Obama birth certificate release than the FED news conference.
Slow internet connection is my excuse.
I wonder why he decided to have his first news conference at this time? It can't have anything to do with the president's reelection announcement and falling popularity, even among Democrats.
He's been saying for close to six months now (I think) that it will be 4-5 years before we return to full employment. Silly me, I figured he was leading the way and after the election, I hoped Obama would also start some straight talk about our employment mess.
Has Ben ever said "99er" in public, I wonder. I'm pretty sure Obama has not.
Very interesting about gas prices -- both his prediction and how on earth he could know. Time will tell, won't it?
Re Recent Awful Tornadoes and Floods:
Looks like we'll be paying for rebuilding and other projects that the Republicans wouldn't approve.
Oh no wait, that's Republican country down there. So the spending will be an emergency and OK. Unlike, say, 99ers who have run out of unemployment and money, which is obviously not an emergency and nothing to worry about.
Good thing we're supposed to have an above average hurricane season. That will put some people to work too.
They should have run the story with a laugh track. It would have been an accurate take. There's no there there.
That's an excellent cleansing program below. It would be a nice gesture to find a place for Duck Fuld on the rehab team, maybe strategic consultant.
"The price of oil is rising and almost definitely shall continue to simply because it can; no more complex explanation is needed."
There are no market factors other than a market dominated by an industry that gets what it wants the old fashioned way, it pays politicians to look the other way.
I'm in favor of an honest look at all viable alternatives. Nuclear is done, period. I'd like to know more about shale oil. There have been remarkable improvements in solar power but nothing is happening in terms of making that option a commodity. We are without a real energy debate. It's time.
Dylan Ratigan has been "back on it" lately in terms of economic/financial insanity and he has an interview with Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism as well as Josh Rosner here and it's a great interview on the history of financialization and derivatives.
There is a real issue with fracking, and frankly these oil companies, their history of environmental damage is not exactly stellar and I believe, environmental damage could be viewed as additional economic costs really.
Myself, I'm heavily Science oriented, so figuring out energy ind. that is cost effective is a key critical issue and just read yesterday the hydrogen "hype" made a technology breakthrough for fueling (to be reviewed, so much hype in these areas!)
Below is a reasonable 60 minutes segment giving some more balance.
Also, we were all over oil speculation, derivatives in 2008 but I haven't done any research into what's happening now. I thought the regions in Conflict in the middle east are not U.S. suppliers fundamentally, so is the current crisis really affecting supply or do we have more speculators piling on commodities again.
Business Week overview on fracking, it is environmentally risky at minimum.
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