THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 13, 2023
Op-Ed: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
The following Op-Ed is written and submitted by Paul Plante.
As the “Silly Season,” an apt euphemism for the presidential primary season, begins in earnest, we can expect to be barraged, as is already beginning, with a load of political propaganda from TEAM BIDEN concerning this subject of BIDE-O-NOMICS, which Joe himself, a man with a well-earned reputation as a serial liar who more and more is looked at as a CLOWN PRINCE on the world stage, because, well, let’s face it and be honest with ourselves, he is, describes as follows, this at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023, to wit:
“I’m not here to declare victory; we got a long way to go on the economy,”
“But I’m here to say we have more work to do.”
“We have a plan that’s turning things around pretty quickly.”
“’Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying ‘Restore the American Dream.'”
“That’s the American Dream.”
“That’s Bidenomics.”
end quotes
And doesn’t that sound positively grand and glorious, people?
Joe Biden, our president, as well as being the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, and CONQUEROR OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, is going to restore the American Dream by building back better to make America great again, all while fighting Donald Trump, the Republicans, the Russians, Putin, and the Chinese for the soul of America!
According to the news, Joe is taking his BIDE-O-NOMICS Show out on the road, much like a rock or hip-hop or country-western star takes a new hit single out on the road (cue Bob Seger On The Road Again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hoEc2Mi-7g ) going west this week to tout his economic gains to residents of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
With respect to the BIDE-O-NOMICS Show Tour featuring Joe Biden live and in person, Natalie Quillian, the White House deputy chief of staff who would know these things, given how important she is in the Biden autocracy, told The Washington Post while previewing Biden’s stops this week in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah that “You can expect us to highlight more groundbreakings of projects, more ribbon-cuttings, and opportunities to show the American people how these investments and jobs are reaching their communities and their neighborhoods,” and “This is a critical element of our strategy.”
But are those “investments” in Joe Biden’s INSANE GREEN DREAM really reaching our communities and neighborhoods?
That is a question that needs some exploring, and the place to do that, given the focus on protecting and promoting intellectual liberty here in the GRAND PALLADIUM of liberty known as the Cape Charles Mirror, is in the Cape Charles Mirror, this in the light of Democratic strategist Jennifer Holdsworth telling Reuters that this week’s BIDE-O-NOMICS road show could serve to counter a message spread by the nation’s right-wing media that have distorted the economy and Biden’s legislative agenda, to wit:
“As President Biden gets out there on the campaign trail, I think you’ll see that trend start to change,” she said.
But given that Fitch Ratings has just downgraded the main U.S. credit rating, drawing squeals and howls of protest from the likes of Biden Treasury Secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, who is calling it “entirely unwarranted,” which is an absurd statement given that “TOODLES” just announced on 31 July 2023 that she expects to borrow $1.007 trillion in the third quarter to pay for BIDE-O-NOMICS, which sum is higher than the May estimate by $274 billion, due to a lower cash balance at the beginning of the quarter, and expectations of lower receipts and higher outlays for the period, that while Richard Francis, a senior director at Fitch, told Reuters that the deterioration was reflected in this year’s debt ceiling fight, and the increasing polarization of both major political parties, making compromise harder to achieve, all of which is so true, and in its decision to cut the U.S. rating by one notch to AA+ from AAA, Fitch also cited a fiscal deterioration over the next three years that will increase deficits and repeated down-to-the wire debt ceiling negotiations that threaten the U.S. government’s ability to pay its bills, thanks to the hefty bill for BIDE-O-NOMICS, otherwise known as classic Democrat BORROW-AND-SPEND and the consequences to the nation and future generations be damned, so long as the Democrats get to line their pockets with government money (graft it is called) in the here and now.
And in a Reuters article titled “Biden officials protest ‘bizarre’ Fitch downgrade, cite Trump-era woes” by David Lawder on August 2, 2023, we had Biden regime officials complaining about Fitch’s downgrade of the top U.S. government credit rating, saying the group used flawed methodology and ignored a resilient economy, which is total hogwash, given that Fitch’s report cited “a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years” and said “repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management,” which of course is understatement, which statement of reality drew this retort from an unnamed senior Biden administration, to wit:
“This is a bizarre and baseless decision for Fitch to make now.”
“It simply defies common sense to take this downgrade as a result of what was really a mess caused by the last administration and reckless actions by congressional Republicans.”
Except it is not congressional Republicans who are borrowing all this money – it is congressional Democrats, which brings us to Biden’s re-election campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz telling us as follows, to wit: “This Trump downgrade is a direct result of an extreme MAGA Republican agenda defined by chaos, callousness, and recklessness that Americans continue to reject.”
And thus, people, the stage has been set, raising the question of whether as a nation and as a people, we are really stupid enough to believe a word Joe Biden and all of his lackeys and flunkeys and lickspittles are telling us about the economy and our future as a nation, so stay tuned and in a future episode of the Cape Charles Mirror, we will be right back with more on this same subject.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... s/#respond
On BIDE-O-NOMICS
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 13, 2023 AT 11:38 AM
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, BIDE-O-NOMICS, and to hear Joe Biden tell about, it is the greatest thing to come to America since the combination of pre-sliced white bread and Velveeta cheese to make a sandwich out of on those days when peanut butter and jelly just weren’t going to cut it, because BIDE-O-NOMICS, while there is a lot more work to do, so it is not yet “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” is going to “Restore the American Dream,” and people, truthfully, who in their right minds could not be for that?
Think of it, people, after all those bleak years of there no longer being an “AMERICAN DREAM” because of the extreme MAGA Republican agenda which was defined by chaos, callousness, and recklessness that Americans continue to reject, that according to Biden re-election campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz, who is the expert on these things, or he wouldn’t be Joe Biden’s re-election campaign spokesman, Joe Biden is going to restore it, to which I can only say, “sing Hallelujah and say Amen, happy days are here again and the good times are never going to end,” uh, well, so long as we all get together and appoint Joe Biden dictator for life, so he can continue his work to restore the American Dream though BIDE-O-NOMICS, all the while continuing the fight for the Soul of America while we remain stuck at this Inflection Point, because as Joe himself said at a live performance starring Joe at Flex LTD in West Columbia, South Carolina on July 6, 2023, BIDE-O-NOMICS is rooted in what always worked best for this country, which according to Joe, who would know, because he is Joe Biden and not somebody else, is investing in America, because as Joe tells us, when you invest in our people, when you strengthen the middle class, we see stronger economic growth that benefits everybody, which of course, is a little confusing, because at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023, Joe emphatically told us, “The middle class was built by the middle class.”
So, people, if in fact, as Joe himself says, and he is the president, afterall, while we aren’t, so we have to believe him, the middle class was built by the middle class, then why on earth do we need BIDE-O-NOMICS?
And while we all cogitate on that conundrum from Joe Biden over a cup of steaming coffee on this August Sunday morning, I am going to cut to a commercial break and a pause for station identification to let that all sink in, and then I will be back with even more confusion from Joe Biden, who on July 6, 2023 was quoted as saying as follows, to wit:
“And — look, former mem- — former Mayor Steve Benjamin couldn’t be here today — and you all remember Steve as your mayor — because he’s traveling with his family.”
“And it’s great to have him here — have — have him as part of our team.”
“But his mom and dad are here.”
“By the way, if you have seats, sit down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I once said, ‘Everybody take a seat,’ and there were no seats.”
“They said, ‘Biden is so stupid, he didn’t know there were no seats.’”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-832191
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, BIDE-O-NOMICS, and to hear Joe Biden tell about, it is the greatest thing to come to America since the combination of pre-sliced white bread and Velveeta cheese to make a sandwich out of on those days when peanut butter and jelly just weren’t going to cut it, because BIDE-O-NOMICS, while there is a lot more work to do, so it is not yet “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” is going to “Restore the American Dream,” and people, truthfully, who in their right minds could not be for that?
Think of it, people, after all those bleak years of there no longer being an “AMERICAN DREAM” because of the extreme MAGA Republican agenda which was defined by chaos, callousness, and recklessness that Americans continue to reject, that according to Biden re-election campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz, who is the expert on these things, or he wouldn’t be Joe Biden’s re-election campaign spokesman, Joe Biden is going to restore it, to which I can only say, “sing Hallelujah and say Amen, happy days are here again and the good times are never going to end,” uh, well, so long as we all get together and appoint Joe Biden dictator for life, so he can continue his work to restore the American Dream though BIDE-O-NOMICS, all the while continuing the fight for the Soul of America while we remain stuck at this Inflection Point, because as Joe himself said at a live performance starring Joe at Flex LTD in West Columbia, South Carolina on July 6, 2023, BIDE-O-NOMICS is rooted in what always worked best for this country, which according to Joe, who would know, because he is Joe Biden and not somebody else, is investing in America, because as Joe tells us, when you invest in our people, when you strengthen the middle class, we see stronger economic growth that benefits everybody, which of course, is a little confusing, because at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023, Joe emphatically told us, “The middle class was built by the middle class.”
So, people, if in fact, as Joe himself says, and he is the president, afterall, while we aren’t, so we have to believe him, the middle class was built by the middle class, then why on earth do we need BIDE-O-NOMICS?
And while we all cogitate on that conundrum from Joe Biden over a cup of steaming coffee on this August Sunday morning, I am going to cut to a commercial break and a pause for station identification to let that all sink in, and then I will be back with even more confusion from Joe Biden, who on July 6, 2023 was quoted as saying as follows, to wit:
“And — look, former mem- — former Mayor Steve Benjamin couldn’t be here today — and you all remember Steve as your mayor — because he’s traveling with his family.”
“And it’s great to have him here — have — have him as part of our team.”
“But his mom and dad are here.”
“By the way, if you have seats, sit down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I once said, ‘Everybody take a seat,’ and there were no seats.”
“They said, ‘Biden is so stupid, he didn’t know there were no seats.’”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-832191
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 13, 2023 AT 10:45 PM
Paul Plante says:
So, what exactly is BIDE-O-NOMICS, and when did it come into being?
Is it the same as all Joe’s other economical BORROW-AND-SPEND plans, like the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Act, or is it something new and different, and by the way, with respect to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which act got a lot of play here in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror because it doesn’t reduce inflation, it drives it, in Joe’s “Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Salt Lake City, UT” on August 10, 2023, at a Private Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Joe was dunning the assembled crowd for money, Joe was quoted as saying thusly, to wit:
“The end result of a lot of these things — and, by the way, the Inflation Reduction Act — I wish I hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.”
“And so, we’re now in a situation where if you take a look at what we’re doing in the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to make their — meet their basic needs.”
And that, people, speaking as an elderly disabled veteran on a fixed income who is unable to meet my basic needs, that claim by Joe Biden is absolute horse****, especially since on August 3, 2023, in a Reuters article titled “US services sector slows in July while prices pick up, ISM survey shows,” it was reported that the U.S. services sector slowed in July, but businesses faced higher prices for inputs as demand continued to hold up, suggesting a long and slow road to low inflation, and on August 8, 2023, Reuters had an article titled “US credit card debt tops $1 trillion, overall consumer debt little changed” by Ann Saphir where it was reported that Americans borrowed more than ever on their credit cards in the last quarter, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Tuesday, with balances surpassing $1 trillion for the first time, while on August 10, 2023, CNBC reported that the annual rate for headline inflation for July, while below expectations, actually marked an increase from the 3% level in June, and on August 11, 2023, Reuters reported that U.S. producer prices increased slightly more than expected in July as the cost of services rebounded at the fastest pace in nearly a year.
And according to recent polls, Americans are largely dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of inflation, with a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos in August 2023 finding that 60% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation, while only 34% approve, and the poll also found that inflation is a top concern for Americans, so that when asked to name the most important problem facing the country today, 22% of respondents cited inflation, which was the second most common response, after the economy in general (26%).
And there for the moment I will rest, but stay tuned, this BIDE-O-NOMICS story is live and late-breaking, so we will be sure to be back with more.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-832429
Paul Plante says:
So, what exactly is BIDE-O-NOMICS, and when did it come into being?
Is it the same as all Joe’s other economical BORROW-AND-SPEND plans, like the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Act, or is it something new and different, and by the way, with respect to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which act got a lot of play here in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror because it doesn’t reduce inflation, it drives it, in Joe’s “Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Salt Lake City, UT” on August 10, 2023, at a Private Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, where Joe was dunning the assembled crowd for money, Joe was quoted as saying thusly, to wit:
“The end result of a lot of these things — and, by the way, the Inflation Reduction Act — I wish I hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.”
“And so, we’re now in a situation where if you take a look at what we’re doing in the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re literally reducing the cost of people being able to make their — meet their basic needs.”
And that, people, speaking as an elderly disabled veteran on a fixed income who is unable to meet my basic needs, that claim by Joe Biden is absolute horse****, especially since on August 3, 2023, in a Reuters article titled “US services sector slows in July while prices pick up, ISM survey shows,” it was reported that the U.S. services sector slowed in July, but businesses faced higher prices for inputs as demand continued to hold up, suggesting a long and slow road to low inflation, and on August 8, 2023, Reuters had an article titled “US credit card debt tops $1 trillion, overall consumer debt little changed” by Ann Saphir where it was reported that Americans borrowed more than ever on their credit cards in the last quarter, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Tuesday, with balances surpassing $1 trillion for the first time, while on August 10, 2023, CNBC reported that the annual rate for headline inflation for July, while below expectations, actually marked an increase from the 3% level in June, and on August 11, 2023, Reuters reported that U.S. producer prices increased slightly more than expected in July as the cost of services rebounded at the fastest pace in nearly a year.
And according to recent polls, Americans are largely dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of inflation, with a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos in August 2023 finding that 60% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation, while only 34% approve, and the poll also found that inflation is a top concern for Americans, so that when asked to name the most important problem facing the country today, 22% of respondents cited inflation, which was the second most common response, after the economy in general (26%).
And there for the moment I will rest, but stay tuned, this BIDE-O-NOMICS story is live and late-breaking, so we will be sure to be back with more.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-832429
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 15, 2023 AT 10:19 AM
Paul Plante says:
So, people, is BIDE-O-NOMICS, a massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program in reality, based on a litany of lies with respect to what it is going to do for our nation and its future?
But what am I saying!
Of course it is.
For example, just so many days ago, in his “Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Salt Lake City, UT” on August 10, 2023, at a Private Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, we had Joe himself telling us with respect to his so-called but misnamed Inflation Reduction Act that he wished he hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.
So there is just one of the litany of lies we are going to be continually barraged with by TEAM BIDEN (cue On the Road Again by Willy Nelson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Ggp3TJjuE ) as it continues its “ELECT JOE BIDEN AND LET’S DO THIS DANCE ALL OVER AGAIN” road tour to every corner of America, no matter how rural, as TEAM BIDEN seeks to win the hearts and minds of every American out there, and while we are on the subject of Joe’s IRA, which appears to be a component of Joe’s BIDE-O-NOMICS, the miracle economical plan that is going to restore the AMERICAN DREAM, let’s drop back in time to a POLITICO article titled “Inflation ticks up again as Biden touts IRA” by Eugene Daniels and Garrett Ross on 09/13/2022, where we have some essential history underlying BIDE-O-NOMICS, as follows:
The topline finding: “Inflation rose more than expected in August as rising shelter and food costs offset a drop in gas prices,” CNBC’s Jeff Cox writes.
The overall figures: “The consumer price index, which tracks a broad swath of goods and services, increased 0.1% for the month and 8.3% over the past year.”
“Excluding volatile food and energy costs, CPI rose 0.6% from July and 6.3% from the same month in 2021.”
The detailed numbers: “Energy prices fell 5% for the month, led by a 10.6% slide in the gasoline index.”
“However, those declines were offset by increases elsewhere.”
“The food index increased 0.8% in August and shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, jumped 0.7% and are up 6.2% from a year ago.”
end quotes
And today, the price I am paying for a gallon of 89-octane gas has jumped up $.20 from the last fill-up to $4.40 a gallon, this while we read in a Daily Caller article titled, not at all surprisingly, “Biden Admin Delays Refilling Strategic Oil Reserve: REPORT” by Nick Pope on 1 August 2023, as follows:
The Biden administration reportedly opted Tuesday to not refill the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), citing market conditions, according to Bloomberg News.
The administration decided against replenishing the key emergency oil supply because it would be too expensive to do so, with oil currently hovering around $80 per barrel, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg.
The SPR remains at low levels after President Joe Biden released about 180 million barrels throughout 2022 to bring down gas prices ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections, with some experts saying it could take “decades” to replenish the SPR to peak levels.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pledged in July that the agency would replenish the SPR, but she conceded that the undertaking may have to wait until a prospective second term for Biden, according to CNN.
end quotes
The undertaking may have to wait until a prospective second term for Biden?
HUH?
WOT?
That, people, is downright irresponsible, but what can we expect from TEAM BIDEN when the only thing that qualifies Jennifer Granholm a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1987 to be Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary is the fact that she was a member of the presidential transition team for Hussein Obama before he assumed office in 2009 and then she became host of “The War Room” with Jennifer Granholm, and in 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor, and to her credit, and this is a top qualification for Joe, she won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant, while as a young adult, she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but abandoned her efforts at age 21, and in 1978, appeared on The Dating Game, another top qualification to be a member of TEAM BIDEN (cue Bob Seger – Her Strut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51c0vuLEng ) and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.
Which irresponsibility then takes us to a Washington Examiner story titled “Ex-top Biden official Jen Psaki ‘alarmed’ by poll on nation ‘failing’” by Jenny Goldsberry on 14 August 2023, where we have reality as the American people see it, to wit:
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki admitted she was “alarmed” to see the results of a poll that captured the pulse of patriotism in the nation.
The former White House Press Secretary under President Joe Biden discussed a New York Times/Sienna poll during her show Inside with Jen Psaki Sunday, which found that 65% of registered voters thought the country was moving in the wrong direction.
Out of those who answered that way, 37% reported that they believe “our problems are so bad that America is in danger of failing as a nation.”
“Today we’re going to change things up a little bit,” Psaki began the show.
“In part because I was pretty alarmed when I saw a recent poll that 37% of voters think we’re failing as a nation.”
“Failing.”
Yes, we do believe that, Jen, and there I will again pause for station identification and a commercial break, so don’t change that dial and we will be right back with Janet “TOODLES” Yellen on tour to tout BIDE-O-NOMICS and what an awesomely great deal it is in our lives.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-833270
Paul Plante says:
So, people, is BIDE-O-NOMICS, a massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program in reality, based on a litany of lies with respect to what it is going to do for our nation and its future?
But what am I saying!
Of course it is.
For example, just so many days ago, in his “Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Reception | Salt Lake City, UT” on August 10, 2023, at a Private Residence in Salt Lake City, Utah, we had Joe himself telling us with respect to his so-called but misnamed Inflation Reduction Act that he wished he hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.
So there is just one of the litany of lies we are going to be continually barraged with by TEAM BIDEN (cue On the Road Again by Willy Nelson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Ggp3TJjuE ) as it continues its “ELECT JOE BIDEN AND LET’S DO THIS DANCE ALL OVER AGAIN” road tour to every corner of America, no matter how rural, as TEAM BIDEN seeks to win the hearts and minds of every American out there, and while we are on the subject of Joe’s IRA, which appears to be a component of Joe’s BIDE-O-NOMICS, the miracle economical plan that is going to restore the AMERICAN DREAM, let’s drop back in time to a POLITICO article titled “Inflation ticks up again as Biden touts IRA” by Eugene Daniels and Garrett Ross on 09/13/2022, where we have some essential history underlying BIDE-O-NOMICS, as follows:
The topline finding: “Inflation rose more than expected in August as rising shelter and food costs offset a drop in gas prices,” CNBC’s Jeff Cox writes.
The overall figures: “The consumer price index, which tracks a broad swath of goods and services, increased 0.1% for the month and 8.3% over the past year.”
“Excluding volatile food and energy costs, CPI rose 0.6% from July and 6.3% from the same month in 2021.”
The detailed numbers: “Energy prices fell 5% for the month, led by a 10.6% slide in the gasoline index.”
“However, those declines were offset by increases elsewhere.”
“The food index increased 0.8% in August and shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the weighting in the CPI, jumped 0.7% and are up 6.2% from a year ago.”
end quotes
And today, the price I am paying for a gallon of 89-octane gas has jumped up $.20 from the last fill-up to $4.40 a gallon, this while we read in a Daily Caller article titled, not at all surprisingly, “Biden Admin Delays Refilling Strategic Oil Reserve: REPORT” by Nick Pope on 1 August 2023, as follows:
The Biden administration reportedly opted Tuesday to not refill the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), citing market conditions, according to Bloomberg News.
The administration decided against replenishing the key emergency oil supply because it would be too expensive to do so, with oil currently hovering around $80 per barrel, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg.
The SPR remains at low levels after President Joe Biden released about 180 million barrels throughout 2022 to bring down gas prices ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections, with some experts saying it could take “decades” to replenish the SPR to peak levels.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pledged in July that the agency would replenish the SPR, but she conceded that the undertaking may have to wait until a prospective second term for Biden, according to CNN.
end quotes
The undertaking may have to wait until a prospective second term for Biden?
HUH?
WOT?
That, people, is downright irresponsible, but what can we expect from TEAM BIDEN when the only thing that qualifies Jennifer Granholm a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1987 to be Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary is the fact that she was a member of the presidential transition team for Hussein Obama before he assumed office in 2009 and then she became host of “The War Room” with Jennifer Granholm, and in 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor, and to her credit, and this is a top qualification for Joe, she won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant, while as a young adult, she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but abandoned her efforts at age 21, and in 1978, appeared on The Dating Game, another top qualification to be a member of TEAM BIDEN (cue Bob Seger – Her Strut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C51c0vuLEng ) and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.
Which irresponsibility then takes us to a Washington Examiner story titled “Ex-top Biden official Jen Psaki ‘alarmed’ by poll on nation ‘failing’” by Jenny Goldsberry on 14 August 2023, where we have reality as the American people see it, to wit:
MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki admitted she was “alarmed” to see the results of a poll that captured the pulse of patriotism in the nation.
The former White House Press Secretary under President Joe Biden discussed a New York Times/Sienna poll during her show Inside with Jen Psaki Sunday, which found that 65% of registered voters thought the country was moving in the wrong direction.
Out of those who answered that way, 37% reported that they believe “our problems are so bad that America is in danger of failing as a nation.”
“Today we’re going to change things up a little bit,” Psaki began the show.
“In part because I was pretty alarmed when I saw a recent poll that 37% of voters think we’re failing as a nation.”
“Failing.”
Yes, we do believe that, Jen, and there I will again pause for station identification and a commercial break, so don’t change that dial and we will be right back with Janet “TOODLES” Yellen on tour to tout BIDE-O-NOMICS and what an awesomely great deal it is in our lives.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-833270
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 17, 2023 AT 10:19 AM
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, enter stage right, Biden Treasury Secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, who is also on tour out there in America, touting BIDE-O-NOMICS and singing its praises to the heavens, even though she has not had a shred of credibility for years now since she was Fed chief, and it is that lack of credibility that actually was her major qualification to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary along with an ability to tell outrageous lies and be unfazed by them, just as being a beauty queen was Jennifer Granholm’s main qualification to be Joe Biden’s energy secretary, because Joe wants a cabinet that he says looks like America, as opposed to a cabinet that is competent.
As to why “TOODLES” has no credibility today, we only need to drop back in time to January 14, 2016 and an article in the Salt Lake Tribune titled “Inflation? Yellen may let U.S. economy run hot” by Craig Torres, Victoria Stilwell and Michelle Jamrisko, where we have as follows, to wit:
Washington • WIN: “Want Inflation Now.”
During her almost two years as head of the world’s most influential central bank, Janet Yellen has had a difficult time driving up one thing she directly controls: inflation.
end quotes
And pay attention to that term “DRIVING UP,” because “TOODLES” was for, not against, the inflation we common Americans are beleaguered with today as she is out there touting BIDE-O-NOMICS and the mis-named Inflation Reduction Act, which according to Joe Biden himself, has really nothing to do with reducing inflation as we see in a Reuters article titled “Biden touts Inflation Reduction Act on first anniversary” by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw on August 16, 2023, where we have as follows:
WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) – U.S President Joe Biden on Wednesday used the first anniversary of his signature Inflation Reduction Act to pitch the landmark clean-energy law as an economic powerhouse to a public that remains largely unaware of its contents.
DEFICIT REDUCTION MISSES MARK
Biden and Democrats promised the IRA bill would cut the U.S. budget deficit by $300 billion over 10 years by enforcing a 15% minimum corporate tax on wealthy companies, hiring more auditors to scrutinize the tax returns of rich Americans and allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
But the tax credits have been massively popular with companies, boosting job growth, environmental benefits and the price tag.
Meanwhile, Republicans used this year’s budget standoff to peel back some of Biden’s efforts to boost tax collections from wealthy Americans.
And pharmaceutical companies have sued the administration over its drug negotiating plans.
That has upended financial projections, with analysts predicting budget deficits in the range of $700 billion to $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
end quotes
So, the deficit is not going down, it is going up, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-10-yr yields highest since October after Fed meeting minutes” by Karen Brettell on August 16, 2023, to wit:
In the longer-term, however, analysts also note that increasing Treasury supply due to a deteriorating U.S. deficit and the potential for lower demand from Japanese investors as the Bank of Japan shifts away from its ultra loose monetary policy could keep U.S. Treasury yields higher than they would otherwise be.
end quote
“Increasing Treasury supply” means that “TOODLES” is running a classic PONZI scheme (a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors), where because of high interest rates on previously-issued government debt, “TOODLES” has to issue more debt today to pay back those investors who bought the short-term debt “TOODLES” was issuing with interest rates around five percent.
And all the debt goes against the deficit – it increases it!
But let’s go back to January 14, 2016 and the Salt Lake Tribune article where we have the miserable record of “TOODLES” Yellen as a “champion” of the American people, and as you read this, keep in mind that INFLATION IS A TAX on the American people that hits the lowest economic bracket the hardest, which is what Joe Biden is referring to when he blathers on about building an economy FROM THE BOTTOM UP, to wit:
Today’s lack of pricing power stands in stark contrast to the 1970s, when a soaring consumer prices prompted the Ford administration to launch a program known as WIN — “Whip Inflation Now.”
During Yellen’s tenure, the annual rate of change on prices has averaged 0.8 percent — far short of the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.
Oil has fallen 69 percent since the end of January 2014, wages have been slow to accelerate and the dollar’s 22 percent rise has made imports cheaper.
Additionally, a host of technological disruptions — from Amazon to Uber — have helped curb pricing power.
By giving consumers information on what they’ll have to pay for goods and services, these innovations are spurring competition to keep costs low.
While these forces are beyond the Fed’s control, the risk of inflation taking too long to return to target is starting to worry central bankers.
Some officials called the decision to raise rates last month “a close call,” particularly given the uncertainty about inflation dynamics, according to minutes released Jan. 6.
Right now, the Fed’s strategy is to wait and hope the effects of cheap oil and import prices wash out.
By the end of 2018, inflation will be back on target, their forecasts say.
But the waiting game has risks.
A new, lower level of inflation expectations could become entrenched in the economy.
What’s a central banker to do?
Fed officials could forgo another rate increase in March, a possibility reflected in futures markets where the probability of no change at that time is around 58 percent.
A pause would fuel expectations of a much slower series of rate hikes than the four that policymakers projected for 2016.
Short- and long-term interest rates would drop, resulting in cheaper financing costs that could further stimulate demand in an economy where the jobless rate is already at a seven-year low of 5 percent.
Still, the strategy is riskier than it sounds.
The Fed estimates the jobless rate that is consistent with steady price pressures is around 4.9 percent.
Foot-dragging on interest rates while labor-market slack continues to diminish could mean Fed officials fall too far behind on their policy setting.
If inflation climbs faster than expected due to the pickup in demand, central bankers will have to raise rates at a quicker pace, “and that increases the risk of a recession,” said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed governor and president of LH Meyer Inc. in Washington.
Fed chairs typically steer clear of advising the legislative branch on spending.
Yet if the monetary policy lever is less effective, fiscal expansion is an obvious choice, said Laurence Ball, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
“In the short run, to boost output, we need more demand, which means we need somebody to be spending more money,” Ball said.
“The surefire way to have somebody spend money is to have the government spend it.”
For example, increased outlays on infrastructure projects could help put more Americans to work, giving them income to spend and boosting demand.
end quotes
And here we now are today, people, with the MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND program called BIDE-O-NOMICS that is driving up inflation, which Joe Biden. at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023 told us “’Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying ‘Restore the American Dream,’ that’s the American Dream, that’s Bidenomics.”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-834250
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, enter stage right, Biden Treasury Secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen, who is also on tour out there in America, touting BIDE-O-NOMICS and singing its praises to the heavens, even though she has not had a shred of credibility for years now since she was Fed chief, and it is that lack of credibility that actually was her major qualification to be Joe Biden’s treasury secretary along with an ability to tell outrageous lies and be unfazed by them, just as being a beauty queen was Jennifer Granholm’s main qualification to be Joe Biden’s energy secretary, because Joe wants a cabinet that he says looks like America, as opposed to a cabinet that is competent.
As to why “TOODLES” has no credibility today, we only need to drop back in time to January 14, 2016 and an article in the Salt Lake Tribune titled “Inflation? Yellen may let U.S. economy run hot” by Craig Torres, Victoria Stilwell and Michelle Jamrisko, where we have as follows, to wit:
Washington • WIN: “Want Inflation Now.”
During her almost two years as head of the world’s most influential central bank, Janet Yellen has had a difficult time driving up one thing she directly controls: inflation.
end quotes
And pay attention to that term “DRIVING UP,” because “TOODLES” was for, not against, the inflation we common Americans are beleaguered with today as she is out there touting BIDE-O-NOMICS and the mis-named Inflation Reduction Act, which according to Joe Biden himself, has really nothing to do with reducing inflation as we see in a Reuters article titled “Biden touts Inflation Reduction Act on first anniversary” by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw on August 16, 2023, where we have as follows:
WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) – U.S President Joe Biden on Wednesday used the first anniversary of his signature Inflation Reduction Act to pitch the landmark clean-energy law as an economic powerhouse to a public that remains largely unaware of its contents.
DEFICIT REDUCTION MISSES MARK
Biden and Democrats promised the IRA bill would cut the U.S. budget deficit by $300 billion over 10 years by enforcing a 15% minimum corporate tax on wealthy companies, hiring more auditors to scrutinize the tax returns of rich Americans and allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
But the tax credits have been massively popular with companies, boosting job growth, environmental benefits and the price tag.
Meanwhile, Republicans used this year’s budget standoff to peel back some of Biden’s efforts to boost tax collections from wealthy Americans.
And pharmaceutical companies have sued the administration over its drug negotiating plans.
That has upended financial projections, with analysts predicting budget deficits in the range of $700 billion to $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
end quotes
So, the deficit is not going down, it is going up, which takes us to a Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-10-yr yields highest since October after Fed meeting minutes” by Karen Brettell on August 16, 2023, to wit:
In the longer-term, however, analysts also note that increasing Treasury supply due to a deteriorating U.S. deficit and the potential for lower demand from Japanese investors as the Bank of Japan shifts away from its ultra loose monetary policy could keep U.S. Treasury yields higher than they would otherwise be.
end quote
“Increasing Treasury supply” means that “TOODLES” is running a classic PONZI scheme (a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors), where because of high interest rates on previously-issued government debt, “TOODLES” has to issue more debt today to pay back those investors who bought the short-term debt “TOODLES” was issuing with interest rates around five percent.
And all the debt goes against the deficit – it increases it!
But let’s go back to January 14, 2016 and the Salt Lake Tribune article where we have the miserable record of “TOODLES” Yellen as a “champion” of the American people, and as you read this, keep in mind that INFLATION IS A TAX on the American people that hits the lowest economic bracket the hardest, which is what Joe Biden is referring to when he blathers on about building an economy FROM THE BOTTOM UP, to wit:
Today’s lack of pricing power stands in stark contrast to the 1970s, when a soaring consumer prices prompted the Ford administration to launch a program known as WIN — “Whip Inflation Now.”
During Yellen’s tenure, the annual rate of change on prices has averaged 0.8 percent — far short of the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.
Oil has fallen 69 percent since the end of January 2014, wages have been slow to accelerate and the dollar’s 22 percent rise has made imports cheaper.
Additionally, a host of technological disruptions — from Amazon to Uber — have helped curb pricing power.
By giving consumers information on what they’ll have to pay for goods and services, these innovations are spurring competition to keep costs low.
While these forces are beyond the Fed’s control, the risk of inflation taking too long to return to target is starting to worry central bankers.
Some officials called the decision to raise rates last month “a close call,” particularly given the uncertainty about inflation dynamics, according to minutes released Jan. 6.
Right now, the Fed’s strategy is to wait and hope the effects of cheap oil and import prices wash out.
By the end of 2018, inflation will be back on target, their forecasts say.
But the waiting game has risks.
A new, lower level of inflation expectations could become entrenched in the economy.
What’s a central banker to do?
Fed officials could forgo another rate increase in March, a possibility reflected in futures markets where the probability of no change at that time is around 58 percent.
A pause would fuel expectations of a much slower series of rate hikes than the four that policymakers projected for 2016.
Short- and long-term interest rates would drop, resulting in cheaper financing costs that could further stimulate demand in an economy where the jobless rate is already at a seven-year low of 5 percent.
Still, the strategy is riskier than it sounds.
The Fed estimates the jobless rate that is consistent with steady price pressures is around 4.9 percent.
Foot-dragging on interest rates while labor-market slack continues to diminish could mean Fed officials fall too far behind on their policy setting.
If inflation climbs faster than expected due to the pickup in demand, central bankers will have to raise rates at a quicker pace, “and that increases the risk of a recession,” said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed governor and president of LH Meyer Inc. in Washington.
Fed chairs typically steer clear of advising the legislative branch on spending.
Yet if the monetary policy lever is less effective, fiscal expansion is an obvious choice, said Laurence Ball, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
“In the short run, to boost output, we need more demand, which means we need somebody to be spending more money,” Ball said.
“The surefire way to have somebody spend money is to have the government spend it.”
For example, increased outlays on infrastructure projects could help put more Americans to work, giving them income to spend and boosting demand.
end quotes
And here we now are today, people, with the MASSIVE BORROW-AND-SPEND program called BIDE-O-NOMICS that is driving up inflation, which Joe Biden. at a gathering of union workers at Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia on 20 July 2023 told us “’Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying ‘Restore the American Dream,’ that’s the American Dream, that’s Bidenomics.”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-834250
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 18, 2023 AT 6:33 PM
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, before we go to Joe Biden ranting and yelling about how it is not at all true that America is failing under his rule, despite a majority of the American people saying Joe is taking us in a totally wrong direction, let’s bring Joe’s treasury secretary and former fed chief under Hussain Obama, who wanted a compliant fed chief that would do his bidding with no arguments and no questions asked, Janet “TOODLES” Yellen back on stage (cue Barry Manilow, “She’s a Star” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oye5i0oxWM ) to hear what she has to say about BIDE-O-NOMICS and how good for everybody it is going to be, but first, for background, let’s go back in time to November 24, 2020, and a Foreign Policy magazine article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy, where we have the following factual background to consider, given it is this factual background that has brought us to today, and the lowering of our credit rating by Fitch, to wit:
“Out of the box” is one of Janet Yellen’s favorite phrases, her fellow economists say—as in, think outside of it.
And now the Yale-educated economist who made history in 2014 by becoming the first female Federal Reserve chairman is expected to do so again — think outside the box as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury secretary (also as the first woman in that post).
“She’s a great choice.”
“She understands that the main challenge facing America is generating growth that includes everyone, and she has an evidence-based approach to making policy,” said economist Karen Dynan, a former Federal Reserve and Treasury official now at Harvard.
“Pushing through more fiscal stimulus is going to be a high priority on her agenda.”
end quotes
And right there with that statement about “pushing through more fiscal stimulus” is when the economical system known as BIDE-O-NOMICS, a massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program the likes of which has never been before seen in our nation’s history, came into being, which takes us back to Foreign Policy, to wit:
Yellen, 74, has primarily been a labor economist academically from the old progressive tradition of believers in Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus.
end quotes
However, as we learn from “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner from The Library of Economics and Liberty, the concept of Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus as worshipped by “TOODLES” Yellen as a shibboleth has been discredited, although “TOODLES” is so conditioned to believe in outdated concepts that she is incapable of change, even when her own model of reality is so visibly and clearly flawed, which is why she was paying 5.120% interest on two-year notes on July 6, which were the highest since June 2007, which takes us back to Foreign Policy, to wit:
And many economists say she’s the right fit for the job ahead because she understands as well as anyone—especially due to her recent stint at the Fed—that the economy needs massive deficit spending right now, and that the fiscal side must rescue the monetary side, which is running out of tools.
She also understands that the national balance sheet can sustain such stimulus spending: Federal budget deficits no longer are as dangerous because low interest rates make them more manageable and private sector lending isn’t being crowded out.
Inflation is not an immediate danger.
end quotes
And there, people, was the fatal flaw in “TOODLES” extremely shallow and exceptionally stupid thinking – of course inflation was a danger, and because it was an actual danger, not a theoretical danger, to fight the inflation caused by “TOODLES” Yellen’s massive stimulus on BORROWED MONEY, the fed has had to jack up interest rates, so it is no longer a low-rate environment, and so, all of “TOODLES” Yellen’s grandiose plans for OUR future went right out the window, which bring us back to “TOODLES,” as follows:
Yellen herself has warned in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation.
end quote
Super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation, people?
What a ridiculous statement!
And as subsequent history has proven in spades, “TOODLES” Yellen obviously was not thinking clearly when she made it.
And here I am going to pause once again for a commercial break and station identification, but don’t change that dial and we will be right back with “TOODLES” out in Las Vegas arguing that the Biden administration’s economic policies have been successful and are driving a boom in private-sector investment in the United States and powering historic job growth, underscoring in her mind the importance of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, which marked its anniversary on Wednesday, to wit:
“It’s our nation’s boldest-ever climate action.”
“And it is beginning to spark an economic renaissance in communities that had been left behind.”
end quotes
That as a Daily Caller article titled “NOAA Throws Cold Water On Media Hysteria Over Earth’s ‘Three Hottest Days On Record’” by Nick Pope on 7 July 2023 told us that “numerous corporate media outlets drove the narrative that July 3-5 was the hottest 72-hour stretch ever on record, citing a computer model from the University of Maine which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has warned is not as dependable as traditional observational data,” meaning the claim of “TOODLES” is hoo-hah, and in an America Insider titled “Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’” by David Rufful on 15 August 2023, we learned that American climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology says this so-called scientific consensus on global warming is “manufactured,” arguing that this false slogan about an “overwhelming consensus” has been fueled by scientists who pursue “fame and fortune” because scientists who study man-made global warming are more likely to be quoted in popular culture while receiving celebrity-like status and lucrative grants from the federal government, which has created the “climate hysteria” among the general public that resulted in the IRA, but isn’t believed by scientists like Curry, nor myself, for that matter.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-834887
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, before we go to Joe Biden ranting and yelling about how it is not at all true that America is failing under his rule, despite a majority of the American people saying Joe is taking us in a totally wrong direction, let’s bring Joe’s treasury secretary and former fed chief under Hussain Obama, who wanted a compliant fed chief that would do his bidding with no arguments and no questions asked, Janet “TOODLES” Yellen back on stage (cue Barry Manilow, “She’s a Star” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oye5i0oxWM ) to hear what she has to say about BIDE-O-NOMICS and how good for everybody it is going to be, but first, for background, let’s go back in time to November 24, 2020, and a Foreign Policy magazine article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy, where we have the following factual background to consider, given it is this factual background that has brought us to today, and the lowering of our credit rating by Fitch, to wit:
“Out of the box” is one of Janet Yellen’s favorite phrases, her fellow economists say—as in, think outside of it.
And now the Yale-educated economist who made history in 2014 by becoming the first female Federal Reserve chairman is expected to do so again — think outside the box as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury secretary (also as the first woman in that post).
“She’s a great choice.”
“She understands that the main challenge facing America is generating growth that includes everyone, and she has an evidence-based approach to making policy,” said economist Karen Dynan, a former Federal Reserve and Treasury official now at Harvard.
“Pushing through more fiscal stimulus is going to be a high priority on her agenda.”
end quotes
And right there with that statement about “pushing through more fiscal stimulus” is when the economical system known as BIDE-O-NOMICS, a massive BORROW-AND-SPEND program the likes of which has never been before seen in our nation’s history, came into being, which takes us back to Foreign Policy, to wit:
Yellen, 74, has primarily been a labor economist academically from the old progressive tradition of believers in Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus.
end quotes
However, as we learn from “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner from The Library of Economics and Liberty, the concept of Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus as worshipped by “TOODLES” Yellen as a shibboleth has been discredited, although “TOODLES” is so conditioned to believe in outdated concepts that she is incapable of change, even when her own model of reality is so visibly and clearly flawed, which is why she was paying 5.120% interest on two-year notes on July 6, which were the highest since June 2007, which takes us back to Foreign Policy, to wit:
And many economists say she’s the right fit for the job ahead because she understands as well as anyone—especially due to her recent stint at the Fed—that the economy needs massive deficit spending right now, and that the fiscal side must rescue the monetary side, which is running out of tools.
She also understands that the national balance sheet can sustain such stimulus spending: Federal budget deficits no longer are as dangerous because low interest rates make them more manageable and private sector lending isn’t being crowded out.
Inflation is not an immediate danger.
end quotes
And there, people, was the fatal flaw in “TOODLES” extremely shallow and exceptionally stupid thinking – of course inflation was a danger, and because it was an actual danger, not a theoretical danger, to fight the inflation caused by “TOODLES” Yellen’s massive stimulus on BORROWED MONEY, the fed has had to jack up interest rates, so it is no longer a low-rate environment, and so, all of “TOODLES” Yellen’s grandiose plans for OUR future went right out the window, which bring us back to “TOODLES,” as follows:
Yellen herself has warned in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation.
end quote
Super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation, people?
What a ridiculous statement!
And as subsequent history has proven in spades, “TOODLES” Yellen obviously was not thinking clearly when she made it.
And here I am going to pause once again for a commercial break and station identification, but don’t change that dial and we will be right back with “TOODLES” out in Las Vegas arguing that the Biden administration’s economic policies have been successful and are driving a boom in private-sector investment in the United States and powering historic job growth, underscoring in her mind the importance of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, which marked its anniversary on Wednesday, to wit:
“It’s our nation’s boldest-ever climate action.”
“And it is beginning to spark an economic renaissance in communities that had been left behind.”
end quotes
That as a Daily Caller article titled “NOAA Throws Cold Water On Media Hysteria Over Earth’s ‘Three Hottest Days On Record’” by Nick Pope on 7 July 2023 told us that “numerous corporate media outlets drove the narrative that July 3-5 was the hottest 72-hour stretch ever on record, citing a computer model from the University of Maine which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has warned is not as dependable as traditional observational data,” meaning the claim of “TOODLES” is hoo-hah, and in an America Insider titled “Climate Scientist Blows The Lid Off The ‘Manufactured Consensus’” by David Rufful on 15 August 2023, we learned that American climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology says this so-called scientific consensus on global warming is “manufactured,” arguing that this false slogan about an “overwhelming consensus” has been fueled by scientists who pursue “fame and fortune” because scientists who study man-made global warming are more likely to be quoted in popular culture while receiving celebrity-like status and lucrative grants from the federal government, which has created the “climate hysteria” among the general public that resulted in the IRA, but isn’t believed by scientists like Curry, nor myself, for that matter.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-834887
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 19, 2023 AT 5:49 PM
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, getting back to miserable record of dogmatic shallow-thinking and outright failure of Janet “TOODLES” Yellen that has mired us with inflation stoked by her misguided and ill-thought-out fiscal policies, which are increasing our national debt, like so many people in Washington. D.C., starting with Joe Biden himself, never in her life has Janet Louise Yellen, born August 13, 1946, the American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021, who previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, having also led the White House Council of Economic Advisers, worked a real job in the real world in her entire life, always having been either an academic, or a political hack, and as we listen to what “TOODLES” has to say about BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is based on the old and now discredited progressive tradition of Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus, we need to not only take, but keep that thought in consideration – that when it comes to what is going on in the real world where we common folks live and function, she is totally clueless, so that when she is quoted in a Reuters article titled “Yellen says US economy on ‘right track,’ Bidenomics is driving investment, job growth” by Andrea Shalal on August 14, 2023 as saying “I still believe that there is a path to continue reducing inflation while maintaining a healthy labor market,” she is spouting mindless gibberish because over and over, the federal reserve, which is trying to reduce the inflation caused by the policies of “TOODLES,” blames that same labor market for the inflation.
Ans as to her shallow-thinking, and simply making things up out of whole cloth, as if we were all stupid and couldn’t possibly know better that she was feeding us bull****, going back to the Foreign Policy article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh, in November of 2020, how exactly was it that due to her recent stint at the Federal Reserve, “TOODLES” knew that the economy needed massive deficit spending right then, and that the fiscal side must rescue the monetary side, which was running out of tools?
Based on exactly what, how did she come up with her theory, for theory it always was, based on nothing at all other than a whim or indigestion caused by stomach gas, that is some unexplained way, the “fiscal” side, which is to say, the federal government in our system, which has no money of its own, but which must always be borrowing by selling treasury debt, essentially I.O.U’s, or promises of payment at some future date, which it has no control over the interest rates of, was needed to and was able to “rescue” the “monetary” side, which in our system is the supposedly “politically independent” federal reserve?
And the answer is that she didn’t know, and couldn’t know, because she was making that all up, knowing she could do so and never be held to account, because as a high-ranking political hack in Washington, D.C., “TOODLES” has a license to lie.
And similarly, how was it in November of 2020 that “TOODLES” also understood that the national balance sheet could sustain such stimulus spending based on her seriously flawed and very misguided thinking that federal budget deficits were no longer as dangerous because low interest rates made them more manageable, when the BORROWING to fund the stimulus itself is what has caused bond yields to rise.
And the answer is she made that all up, as well, and for proof of that assertion, consider the Reuters article “TREASURIES-Yields approach 2007 levels on bets of extended high rates” by Karen Brettell on August 17, 2023, where we have an assertion of the harm “TOODLES” has already done to our economy and our futures, which depend on a stable economy, to wit:
Fiscal and supply concerns are also weighing on the bond market.
The U.S. Treasury Department on July 31 increased its borrowing estimate for the third quarter and Fitch Ratings stripped the United States of its top credit rating, citing its deteriorating fiscal picture.
end quotes
And then there is the Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-10-year yields hold below Oct highs, Jackson Hole next Fed focus” by Karen Brettell on August 18, 2023, to wit:
Expectations for ongoing increases in U.S. Treasury supply as the U.S. budget deficit widens is also weighing on the market.
end quote
“Weighing on the market” means selling bonds which is what raises the interest rates.
And then with respect to short-sightedness, there was the bizarre statement of “TOODLES” in November of 2020 that inflation was not an immediate danger.
And there, people, was the fatal flaw in “TOODLES” extremely shallow and exceptionally stupid thinking – of course inflation was a danger, and because it was an actual danger, not a theoretical danger, to fight the inflation caused by “TOODLES” Yellen’s massive stimulus on BORROWED MONEY, the fed has had to jack up interest rates, so it is no longer a low-rate environment, and so, all of “TOODLES” Yellen’s grandiose plans for OUR future went right out the window, which bring us back to “TOODLES” in November of 2020, as follows:
Yellen herself has warned in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation.
end quote
As to those so-called “super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation,” which is a stupid statement by “TOODLES,” whose ignorance is on display here, they are detailed quite concisely by the authors of “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner in “Part I. What Happened? Chapter 1 What Hath Keynes Wrought?” as follows:
In the year (1776) of the American Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith observed that “What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”
Until the advent of the “Keynesian revolution” in the middle years of this century, the fiscal conduct of the American Republic was informed by this Smithian principle of fiscal responsibility: Government should not spend without imposing taxes; and government should not place future generations in bondage by deficit financing of public outlays designed to provide temporary and short-lived benefits.
With the completion of the Keynesian revolution, these time-tested principles of fiscal responsibility were consigned to the heap of superstitious nostrums that once stifled enlightened political-fiscal activism.
Keynesianism stood the Smithian analogy on its head.
The stress was placed on the differences rather than the similarities between a family and the state, and notably with respect to principles of prudent fiscal conduct.
The state was no longer to be conceived in the image of the family, and the rules of prudent fiscal conduct differed dramatically as between the two institutions.
The message of Keynesianism might be summarized as: What is folly in the conduct of a private family may be prudence in the conduct of the affairs of a great nation.
end quotes
And hence the massive stimulus otherwise known in here as BIDE-O-NOMICS, so stay tuned, as there is more of this sad story yet to come!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-835256
Paul Plante says:
So, yes, people, getting back to miserable record of dogmatic shallow-thinking and outright failure of Janet “TOODLES” Yellen that has mired us with inflation stoked by her misguided and ill-thought-out fiscal policies, which are increasing our national debt, like so many people in Washington. D.C., starting with Joe Biden himself, never in her life has Janet Louise Yellen, born August 13, 1946, the American economist serving as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021, who previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, having also led the White House Council of Economic Advisers, worked a real job in the real world in her entire life, always having been either an academic, or a political hack, and as we listen to what “TOODLES” has to say about BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is based on the old and now discredited progressive tradition of Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus, we need to not only take, but keep that thought in consideration – that when it comes to what is going on in the real world where we common folks live and function, she is totally clueless, so that when she is quoted in a Reuters article titled “Yellen says US economy on ‘right track,’ Bidenomics is driving investment, job growth” by Andrea Shalal on August 14, 2023 as saying “I still believe that there is a path to continue reducing inflation while maintaining a healthy labor market,” she is spouting mindless gibberish because over and over, the federal reserve, which is trying to reduce the inflation caused by the policies of “TOODLES,” blames that same labor market for the inflation.
Ans as to her shallow-thinking, and simply making things up out of whole cloth, as if we were all stupid and couldn’t possibly know better that she was feeding us bull****, going back to the Foreign Policy article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh, in November of 2020, how exactly was it that due to her recent stint at the Federal Reserve, “TOODLES” knew that the economy needed massive deficit spending right then, and that the fiscal side must rescue the monetary side, which was running out of tools?
Based on exactly what, how did she come up with her theory, for theory it always was, based on nothing at all other than a whim or indigestion caused by stomach gas, that is some unexplained way, the “fiscal” side, which is to say, the federal government in our system, which has no money of its own, but which must always be borrowing by selling treasury debt, essentially I.O.U’s, or promises of payment at some future date, which it has no control over the interest rates of, was needed to and was able to “rescue” the “monetary” side, which in our system is the supposedly “politically independent” federal reserve?
And the answer is that she didn’t know, and couldn’t know, because she was making that all up, knowing she could do so and never be held to account, because as a high-ranking political hack in Washington, D.C., “TOODLES” has a license to lie.
And similarly, how was it in November of 2020 that “TOODLES” also understood that the national balance sheet could sustain such stimulus spending based on her seriously flawed and very misguided thinking that federal budget deficits were no longer as dangerous because low interest rates made them more manageable, when the BORROWING to fund the stimulus itself is what has caused bond yields to rise.
And the answer is she made that all up, as well, and for proof of that assertion, consider the Reuters article “TREASURIES-Yields approach 2007 levels on bets of extended high rates” by Karen Brettell on August 17, 2023, where we have an assertion of the harm “TOODLES” has already done to our economy and our futures, which depend on a stable economy, to wit:
Fiscal and supply concerns are also weighing on the bond market.
The U.S. Treasury Department on July 31 increased its borrowing estimate for the third quarter and Fitch Ratings stripped the United States of its top credit rating, citing its deteriorating fiscal picture.
end quotes
And then there is the Reuters article titled “TREASURIES-10-year yields hold below Oct highs, Jackson Hole next Fed focus” by Karen Brettell on August 18, 2023, to wit:
Expectations for ongoing increases in U.S. Treasury supply as the U.S. budget deficit widens is also weighing on the market.
end quote
“Weighing on the market” means selling bonds which is what raises the interest rates.
And then with respect to short-sightedness, there was the bizarre statement of “TOODLES” in November of 2020 that inflation was not an immediate danger.
And there, people, was the fatal flaw in “TOODLES” extremely shallow and exceptionally stupid thinking – of course inflation was a danger, and because it was an actual danger, not a theoretical danger, to fight the inflation caused by “TOODLES” Yellen’s massive stimulus on BORROWED MONEY, the fed has had to jack up interest rates, so it is no longer a low-rate environment, and so, all of “TOODLES” Yellen’s grandiose plans for OUR future went right out the window, which bring us back to “TOODLES” in November of 2020, as follows:
Yellen herself has warned in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation.
end quote
As to those so-called “super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation,” which is a stupid statement by “TOODLES,” whose ignorance is on display here, they are detailed quite concisely by the authors of “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner in “Part I. What Happened? Chapter 1 What Hath Keynes Wrought?” as follows:
In the year (1776) of the American Declaration of Independence, Adam Smith observed that “What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”
Until the advent of the “Keynesian revolution” in the middle years of this century, the fiscal conduct of the American Republic was informed by this Smithian principle of fiscal responsibility: Government should not spend without imposing taxes; and government should not place future generations in bondage by deficit financing of public outlays designed to provide temporary and short-lived benefits.
With the completion of the Keynesian revolution, these time-tested principles of fiscal responsibility were consigned to the heap of superstitious nostrums that once stifled enlightened political-fiscal activism.
Keynesianism stood the Smithian analogy on its head.
The stress was placed on the differences rather than the similarities between a family and the state, and notably with respect to principles of prudent fiscal conduct.
The state was no longer to be conceived in the image of the family, and the rules of prudent fiscal conduct differed dramatically as between the two institutions.
The message of Keynesianism might be summarized as: What is folly in the conduct of a private family may be prudence in the conduct of the affairs of a great nation.
end quotes
And hence the massive stimulus otherwise known in here as BIDE-O-NOMICS, so stay tuned, as there is more of this sad story yet to come!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-835256
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 19, 2023 AT 10:45 PM
Paul Plante says:
So, people, when we read in the Foreign Policy magazine article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh on November 24, 2020 that Biden treasury secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen has primarily been a labor economist academically from the old progressive tradition of believers in Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus, what really are we even talking about?
What on earth is Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus, for example?
If we ask Google the question “what is Keynesian style stimulus,” the answer we get back is that a Keynesian–style stimulus happens when policy-makers deliberately seek to stimulate one or more of the components of aggregate demand to boost output, jobs and incomes during an economic recession, which means it is a form of government welfare that can be easily misused and abused.
As to counter-cyclical fiscal measures, they are policy measures which supposedly counteract the effects of the economic cycle, so that according to the theory employed by “TOODLES” Yellen that underlies BIDE-O-NOMICS, which itself is nothing more than massive BORROW-AND-SPEND, counter-cyclical fiscal policy actions when the economy is slowing would include increasing government spending or cutting taxes to help stimulate economic recovery.
Now, consider that John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, died on 21 April 1946, the same year “TOODLES” Yellen was born, and Keynes was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments.
One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.
His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics.
Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions, and he detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” published in late 1936, so that by the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes’s policy recommendations, and almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes’s death in 1946.
After that, Keynes’s influence started to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the stagflation that plagued the Anglo-American economies during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists, who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy, which is exactly what Joe Biden is attempting to do with his BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is Keynesian economics on steroids.
Now, to bring this forward into our times, the advent of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, sixty-one (61) years after the death of Keynes, sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought so that Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by Hussein Obama in the United States, who then appointed “TOODLES” to the position of federal reserve chief in 2014!
But, people, WHY was there a global financial crisis at all in 2007 and 2008?
For that answer, let us go to the Investopedia article titled “The 2007–2008 Financial Crisis in Review” by Manoj Singh on March 19, 2023, where we have as follows:
The financial crisis of 2007–2008 was years in the making.
By the summer of 2007, financial markets around the world were showing signs that the reckoning was overdue for a years-long binge on cheap credit.
Two Bear Stearns hedge funds had collapsed, BNP Paribas was warning investors that they might not be able to withdraw money from three of its funds, and the British bank Northern Rock was about to seek emergency funding from the Bank of England.
Yet despite the warning signs, few investors suspected that the worst crisis in nearly eight decades was about to engulf the global financial system, bringing Wall Street’s giants to their knees and triggering the Great Recession.
It was an epic financial and economic collapse that cost many ordinary people their jobs, their life savings, their homes, or all three.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
* The 2007–2008 financial crisis developed gradually. Home prices began to fall in early 2006.
* In early 2007, subprime lenders began to file for bankruptcy.
* In June 2007, two big hedge funds failed, weighed down by investments in subprime loans.
* In August 2007, losses from subprime loan investments caused a panic that froze the global lending system.
* In September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapsed in the biggest U.S. bankruptcy ever.
* When the bubble burst, financial institutions were left holding trillions of dollars worth of near-worthless investments in subprime mortgages.
What Caused the 2008 Financial Crisis?
The 2008 financial crisis began with cheap credit and lax lending standards that fueled a housing bubble.
When the bubble burst, the banks were left holding trillions of dollars of worthless investments in subprime mortgages.
The Great Recession that followed cost many their jobs, their savings, and their homes.
The 2007-08 Financial Crisis In Review – Sowing the Seeds of the Crisis
The seeds of the financial crisis were planted during years of rock-bottom interest rates and loose lending standards that fueled a housing price bubble in the U.S. and elsewhere.
It began, as usual, with good intentions.
Faced with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, a series of corporate accounting scandals, and the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate from 6.5% in May 2000 to 1% in June 2003.
The aim was to boost the economy by making money available to businesses and consumers at bargain rates.
The result was an upward spiral in home prices as borrowers took advantage of the low mortgage rates.
Even subprime borrowers, those with poor or no credit history, were able to realize the dream of buying a home.
The banks then sold those loans on to Wall Street banks, which packaged them into what were billed as low-risk financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
Soon a big secondary market for originating and distributing subprime loans developed.
Fueling greater risk-taking among banks, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2004 relaxed the net capital requirements for five investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.
That freed them to leverage their initial investments by up to 30 times or even 40 times.
Signs of Trouble
Eventually, interest rates started to rise and homeownership reached a saturation point.
The Fed started raising rates in June 2004, and two years later the Federal funds rate had reached 5.25%, where it remained until August 2007.
There were early signs of distress.
By 2004, U.S. homeownership had peaked at 69.2%.
Then, in early 2006, home prices started to fall.
This caused real hardship to many Americans.
Their homes were worth less than they paid for them.
They couldn’t sell their houses without owing money to their lenders.
If they had adjustable-rate mortgages, their costs were going up as their homes’ values were going down.
The most vulnerable subprime borrowers were stuck with mortgages they couldn’t afford in the first place.
Subprime mortgage company New Century Financial made nearly $60 billion in loans in 2006, according to the Reuters news service.
In 2007, it filed for bankruptcy protection.
As 2007 got underway, one subprime lender after another filed for bankruptcy.
During February and March, more than 25 subprime lenders went under.
In April, New Century Financial, which specialized in sub-prime lending, filed for bankruptcy and laid off half of its workforce.
By June, Bear Stearns stopped redemptions in two of its hedge funds, prompting Merrill Lynch to seize $800 million in assets from the funds.
Even these were small matters compared to what was to happen in the months ahead.
August 2007: The Dominoes Start to Fall
It became apparent by August 2007 that the financial markets could not solve the subprime crisis and that the problems were reverberating well beyond the U.S. borders.
The interbank market that keeps money moving around the globe froze completely, largely due to fear of the unknown.
Northern Rock had to approach the Bank of England for emergency funding due to a liquidity problem.
In October 2007, Swiss bank UBS became the first major bank to announce losses—$3.4 billion—from sub-prime-related investments.
In the coming months, the Federal Reserve and other central banks would take coordinated action to provide billions of dollars in loans to the global credit markets, which were grinding to a halt as asset prices fell.
Meanwhile, financial institutions struggled to assess the value of the trillions of dollars worth of now-toxic mortgage-backed securities that were sitting on their books.
end quotes
And with that history of reality graphically presented, because it is a precursor to where we are headed next, I will pause again for station identification and a commercial break, but don’t touch that dial, for I will be right back!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-835366
Paul Plante says:
So, people, when we read in the Foreign Policy magazine article titled “Yellen’s Mandate: Massive Stimulus, Assuaging Fears of Inflation, New Treasury nominee hailed as the right woman for the moment” by Michael Hirsh on November 24, 2020 that Biden treasury secretary Janet “TOODLES” Yellen has primarily been a labor economist academically from the old progressive tradition of believers in Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus, what really are we even talking about?
What on earth is Keynesian, counter-cyclical stimulus, for example?
If we ask Google the question “what is Keynesian style stimulus,” the answer we get back is that a Keynesian–style stimulus happens when policy-makers deliberately seek to stimulate one or more of the components of aggregate demand to boost output, jobs and incomes during an economic recession, which means it is a form of government welfare that can be easily misused and abused.
As to counter-cyclical fiscal measures, they are policy measures which supposedly counteract the effects of the economic cycle, so that according to the theory employed by “TOODLES” Yellen that underlies BIDE-O-NOMICS, which itself is nothing more than massive BORROW-AND-SPEND, counter-cyclical fiscal policy actions when the economy is slowing would include increasing government spending or cutting taxes to help stimulate economic recovery.
Now, consider that John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, died on 21 April 1946, the same year “TOODLES” Yellen was born, and Keynes was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments.
One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.
His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics.
Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions, and he detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” published in late 1936, so that by the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes’s policy recommendations, and almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes’s death in 1946.
After that, Keynes’s influence started to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the stagflation that plagued the Anglo-American economies during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists, who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy, which is exactly what Joe Biden is attempting to do with his BIDE-O-NOMICS, which is Keynesian economics on steroids.
Now, to bring this forward into our times, the advent of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, sixty-one (61) years after the death of Keynes, sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought so that Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by Hussein Obama in the United States, who then appointed “TOODLES” to the position of federal reserve chief in 2014!
But, people, WHY was there a global financial crisis at all in 2007 and 2008?
For that answer, let us go to the Investopedia article titled “The 2007–2008 Financial Crisis in Review” by Manoj Singh on March 19, 2023, where we have as follows:
The financial crisis of 2007–2008 was years in the making.
By the summer of 2007, financial markets around the world were showing signs that the reckoning was overdue for a years-long binge on cheap credit.
Two Bear Stearns hedge funds had collapsed, BNP Paribas was warning investors that they might not be able to withdraw money from three of its funds, and the British bank Northern Rock was about to seek emergency funding from the Bank of England.
Yet despite the warning signs, few investors suspected that the worst crisis in nearly eight decades was about to engulf the global financial system, bringing Wall Street’s giants to their knees and triggering the Great Recession.
It was an epic financial and economic collapse that cost many ordinary people their jobs, their life savings, their homes, or all three.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
* The 2007–2008 financial crisis developed gradually. Home prices began to fall in early 2006.
* In early 2007, subprime lenders began to file for bankruptcy.
* In June 2007, two big hedge funds failed, weighed down by investments in subprime loans.
* In August 2007, losses from subprime loan investments caused a panic that froze the global lending system.
* In September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapsed in the biggest U.S. bankruptcy ever.
* When the bubble burst, financial institutions were left holding trillions of dollars worth of near-worthless investments in subprime mortgages.
What Caused the 2008 Financial Crisis?
The 2008 financial crisis began with cheap credit and lax lending standards that fueled a housing bubble.
When the bubble burst, the banks were left holding trillions of dollars of worthless investments in subprime mortgages.
The Great Recession that followed cost many their jobs, their savings, and their homes.
The 2007-08 Financial Crisis In Review – Sowing the Seeds of the Crisis
The seeds of the financial crisis were planted during years of rock-bottom interest rates and loose lending standards that fueled a housing price bubble in the U.S. and elsewhere.
It began, as usual, with good intentions.
Faced with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, a series of corporate accounting scandals, and the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate from 6.5% in May 2000 to 1% in June 2003.
The aim was to boost the economy by making money available to businesses and consumers at bargain rates.
The result was an upward spiral in home prices as borrowers took advantage of the low mortgage rates.
Even subprime borrowers, those with poor or no credit history, were able to realize the dream of buying a home.
The banks then sold those loans on to Wall Street banks, which packaged them into what were billed as low-risk financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
Soon a big secondary market for originating and distributing subprime loans developed.
Fueling greater risk-taking among banks, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2004 relaxed the net capital requirements for five investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.
That freed them to leverage their initial investments by up to 30 times or even 40 times.
Signs of Trouble
Eventually, interest rates started to rise and homeownership reached a saturation point.
The Fed started raising rates in June 2004, and two years later the Federal funds rate had reached 5.25%, where it remained until August 2007.
There were early signs of distress.
By 2004, U.S. homeownership had peaked at 69.2%.
Then, in early 2006, home prices started to fall.
This caused real hardship to many Americans.
Their homes were worth less than they paid for them.
They couldn’t sell their houses without owing money to their lenders.
If they had adjustable-rate mortgages, their costs were going up as their homes’ values were going down.
The most vulnerable subprime borrowers were stuck with mortgages they couldn’t afford in the first place.
Subprime mortgage company New Century Financial made nearly $60 billion in loans in 2006, according to the Reuters news service.
In 2007, it filed for bankruptcy protection.
As 2007 got underway, one subprime lender after another filed for bankruptcy.
During February and March, more than 25 subprime lenders went under.
In April, New Century Financial, which specialized in sub-prime lending, filed for bankruptcy and laid off half of its workforce.
By June, Bear Stearns stopped redemptions in two of its hedge funds, prompting Merrill Lynch to seize $800 million in assets from the funds.
Even these were small matters compared to what was to happen in the months ahead.
August 2007: The Dominoes Start to Fall
It became apparent by August 2007 that the financial markets could not solve the subprime crisis and that the problems were reverberating well beyond the U.S. borders.
The interbank market that keeps money moving around the globe froze completely, largely due to fear of the unknown.
Northern Rock had to approach the Bank of England for emergency funding due to a liquidity problem.
In October 2007, Swiss bank UBS became the first major bank to announce losses—$3.4 billion—from sub-prime-related investments.
In the coming months, the Federal Reserve and other central banks would take coordinated action to provide billions of dollars in loans to the global credit markets, which were grinding to a halt as asset prices fell.
Meanwhile, financial institutions struggled to assess the value of the trillions of dollars worth of now-toxic mortgage-backed securities that were sitting on their books.
end quotes
And with that history of reality graphically presented, because it is a precursor to where we are headed next, I will pause again for station identification and a commercial break, but don’t touch that dial, for I will be right back!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-835366
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 20, 2023 AT 10:08 PM
Paul Plante says:
I call the Cape Charles Mirror a GRAND PALLADIUM (something that affords effectual protection or security) of our LIBERTY as a free people because the Cape Charles Mirror is the one place remaining in all of America where we common folks with no bankroll or political clout, but who are possessed of our minds and the ability to engage in critical thinking can engage in an analysis of these times we are living in, bringing in, as I am doing in here, relevant background facts, such as who was Lord Keynes and what on earth is Keynesian economics, and actual American history as it happened with respect to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 which sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought so that Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by Hussein Obama in the United States, who then appointed “TOODLES” Yellen to the position of federal reserve chief in 2014!
And thus, people, were the stimulus floodgates opened, which leads us to today, and Joe Biden’s BIDE-O-NOMICS, and “TOODLES” Yellen’s famous warning in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation, which in the light of reality today with its persistent inflation, and increasing federal debt coupled with high bond interest rates, was a very stupid “warning” from “TOODLES,” which thought brings us back to “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner from The Library of Economics and Liberty in 1998, where we have as follows with respect to the Keynesian economics which form the basis of BIDE-O-NOMICS, to wit:
“We are all Keynesians now.”
This was a familiar statement in the 1960s, attributed even to the likes of Milton Friedman among the academicians and to Richard Nixon among the politicians.
Yet it takes no scientific talent to observe that ours is not an economic paradise.
During the post-Keynesian, post-1960 era, we have labored under continuing and increasing budget deficits, a rapidly growing governmental sector, high unemployment, apparently permanent and perhaps increasing inflation, and accompanying disenchantment with the American sociopolitical order.
This is not as it was supposed to be.
After Walter Heller’s (a leading American economist of the 1960s, and an influential adviser to President John F. Kennedy as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1961–64) finest hours in 1963, fiscal wisdom was to have finally triumphed over fiscal folly.
The national economy was to have settled down on or near its steady growth potential, onward and upward toward better things, public and private.
The spirit of optimism was indeed contagious, so much so that economic productivity and growth, the announced objectives for the post-Sputnik, post-Eisenhower years, were soon abandoned, to be replaced by the redistributionist zeal of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and by the no-growth implications of Ralph Nader, the Sierra Club, Common Cause, and Edmund Muskie’s Environmental Protection Agency.
Having mastered the management of the national economy, the policy planners were to have moved on to quality-of-life issues.
The “Great Society” was to become real.
What happened?
Why does Camelot lie in ruin?
Viet Nam and Watergate cannot explain everything forever.
Intellectual error of monumental proportion has been made, and not exclusively by the ordinary politicians.
Error also lies squarely with the economists.
The academic scribbler of the past who must bear substantial responsibility is Lord Keynes himself, whose ideas were uncritically accepted by American establishment economists.
The mounting historical evidence of the effects of these ideas cannot continue to be ignored.
Keynesian economics has turned the politicians loose; it has destroyed the effective constraint on politicians’ ordinary appetites.
Armed with the Keynesian message, politicians can spend and spend without the apparent necessity to tax.
end quotes
And with that truth aptly stated, let me again pause for station identification and another commercial break, but as always, stay tuned, for there is more to this story yet to come!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-835805
Paul Plante says:
I call the Cape Charles Mirror a GRAND PALLADIUM (something that affords effectual protection or security) of our LIBERTY as a free people because the Cape Charles Mirror is the one place remaining in all of America where we common folks with no bankroll or political clout, but who are possessed of our minds and the ability to engage in critical thinking can engage in an analysis of these times we are living in, bringing in, as I am doing in here, relevant background facts, such as who was Lord Keynes and what on earth is Keynesian economics, and actual American history as it happened with respect to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 which sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought so that Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by Hussein Obama in the United States, who then appointed “TOODLES” Yellen to the position of federal reserve chief in 2014!
And thus, people, were the stimulus floodgates opened, which leads us to today, and Joe Biden’s BIDE-O-NOMICS, and “TOODLES” Yellen’s famous warning in the past decade that fiscal stimulus plans were being dragged down by super-antiquated fears of debt and inflation, which in the light of reality today with its persistent inflation, and increasing federal debt coupled with high bond interest rates, was a very stupid “warning” from “TOODLES,” which thought brings us back to “Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes” by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner from The Library of Economics and Liberty in 1998, where we have as follows with respect to the Keynesian economics which form the basis of BIDE-O-NOMICS, to wit:
“We are all Keynesians now.”
This was a familiar statement in the 1960s, attributed even to the likes of Milton Friedman among the academicians and to Richard Nixon among the politicians.
Yet it takes no scientific talent to observe that ours is not an economic paradise.
During the post-Keynesian, post-1960 era, we have labored under continuing and increasing budget deficits, a rapidly growing governmental sector, high unemployment, apparently permanent and perhaps increasing inflation, and accompanying disenchantment with the American sociopolitical order.
This is not as it was supposed to be.
After Walter Heller’s (a leading American economist of the 1960s, and an influential adviser to President John F. Kennedy as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1961–64) finest hours in 1963, fiscal wisdom was to have finally triumphed over fiscal folly.
The national economy was to have settled down on or near its steady growth potential, onward and upward toward better things, public and private.
The spirit of optimism was indeed contagious, so much so that economic productivity and growth, the announced objectives for the post-Sputnik, post-Eisenhower years, were soon abandoned, to be replaced by the redistributionist zeal of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and by the no-growth implications of Ralph Nader, the Sierra Club, Common Cause, and Edmund Muskie’s Environmental Protection Agency.
Having mastered the management of the national economy, the policy planners were to have moved on to quality-of-life issues.
The “Great Society” was to become real.
What happened?
Why does Camelot lie in ruin?
Viet Nam and Watergate cannot explain everything forever.
Intellectual error of monumental proportion has been made, and not exclusively by the ordinary politicians.
Error also lies squarely with the economists.
The academic scribbler of the past who must bear substantial responsibility is Lord Keynes himself, whose ideas were uncritically accepted by American establishment economists.
The mounting historical evidence of the effects of these ideas cannot continue to be ignored.
Keynesian economics has turned the politicians loose; it has destroyed the effective constraint on politicians’ ordinary appetites.
Armed with the Keynesian message, politicians can spend and spend without the apparent necessity to tax.
end quotes
And with that truth aptly stated, let me again pause for station identification and another commercial break, but as always, stay tuned, for there is more to this story yet to come!
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-835805
Re: On BIDE-O-NOMICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR AUGUST 21, 2023 AT 8:38 PM
Paul Plante says:
So, people, getting back to essential history here, while the 2007-08 Financial Crisis was happening, and happen it most certainly did, where was “TOODLES” Yellen (cue Shakedown by Bob Seger, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MTFJz50qc ) and what was she doing at the time?
According to her Wikipedia bio, on April 12, 2004, the Federal Reserve announced that “TOODLES” would replace Robert T. Parry as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, taking office on June 14, and while “TOODLES” was serving as Federal Reserve District president, she sat on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and was a voting member once every three years on a rotating basis, with her first being in 2006.
And then we come to the damn poor judgment of “TOODLES” Yellen with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, because during her time at the San Francisco Fed, the largest of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks in terms of population and economic output, Yellen publicly downplayed concerns about the potential consequences of the boom in housing prices, and thus, we can see that “TOODLES” Yellen could be considered a mindless and thoughtless causative factor of the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, which raises the question of why on earth she is serving in a position public trust today in our federal government, when it is patently clear that her judgment on anything is suspect, which statement is backed up by the fact that she did not lead the San Francisco Fed to “move to check [the] increasingly indiscriminate lending” of Countrywide Financial, the United States’ largest lender,” where Countrywide is considered to be one of the central villains in the crisis, with allegations that Countrywide knowingly engaged in risky loans and offered subprime loans even to those who qualified for regular loans in order to profit from the higher rates.
So much for “TOODLES” protecting the people from the predators!
Then, on April 28, 2010, to reward her for her gross incompetence with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, Hussein Obama nominated Yellen to succeed Donald Kohn as vice chair of the Federal Reserve, so that in July 2010, the Senate Banking Committee voted 17–6 to confirm her, though the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, voted no, saying “President Yellen presided over a regional housing bubble and failed to restrain the excesses,” which was what, in the mind of Hussein Obama, and by extension, his vice president, Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, qualified “TOODLES” for that high office in the first place, so Senator Shelby was simply ignored.
Then, once in, and in contrast to her predecessors, Yellen acted more independently within the institution in her role as vice chair, urging “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke and the other FOMC members to follow her preferred route for monetary policy, arguing for more forceful actions to inject money into the economy to reduce unemployment, and “TOODLES” also played a leading role in moving the Federal Reserve to announce its inflation target of two percent a year after her long campaign with Chairman Bernanke.
Then, as a further reward for her gross incompetence with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, plus her willingness to hand out gobs of money in stimulus, which is a good source of “no questions asked” graft for the Democrats, in July 2013, “TOODLES” was pushed to be named the first chairwoman of the central bank in a letter that was circulated among the Senate Democrats and had been signed by almost a third of the 54 caucus senators, who primarily represent the liberal wing of the party, and in addition, more than 500 professional economists from around 200 colleges and universities across the United States signed an open letter in support of her candidacy for Fed chair and sent it to the White House, so that on October 9, 2013, “TOODLES” was officially nominated to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, the first vice chair ever to be elevated to that post.
While announcing his decision, President Obama called her “one of the nation’s foremost economists and policymakers” and said that “America’s workers and their families will have a champion in Janet Yellen," which is an absurd statement given the role “TOODLES” played with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, but Hussein was a politician, so he had a license to lie to us, which license he used quite freely during his tenure in the white house.
Of note to this discussion, and with respect to the inflation we are seeing today, during the nomination hearings held in November, Yellen defended the more than $3 trillion in stimulus funds that the central bank had been injecting into the U.S. economy.
According to a Fed representative, on Yellen’s request, her title would be altered to “chair” rather than “chairman” or “chairwoman”, as she prefers a gender-neutral manner.
So good for Chair “TOODLES,” then, people.
But again, all of this background leads us to where we are today, so stay tuned, and the story will continue.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-836297
Paul Plante says:
So, people, getting back to essential history here, while the 2007-08 Financial Crisis was happening, and happen it most certainly did, where was “TOODLES” Yellen (cue Shakedown by Bob Seger, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MTFJz50qc ) and what was she doing at the time?
According to her Wikipedia bio, on April 12, 2004, the Federal Reserve announced that “TOODLES” would replace Robert T. Parry as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, taking office on June 14, and while “TOODLES” was serving as Federal Reserve District president, she sat on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and was a voting member once every three years on a rotating basis, with her first being in 2006.
And then we come to the damn poor judgment of “TOODLES” Yellen with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, because during her time at the San Francisco Fed, the largest of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks in terms of population and economic output, Yellen publicly downplayed concerns about the potential consequences of the boom in housing prices, and thus, we can see that “TOODLES” Yellen could be considered a mindless and thoughtless causative factor of the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, which raises the question of why on earth she is serving in a position public trust today in our federal government, when it is patently clear that her judgment on anything is suspect, which statement is backed up by the fact that she did not lead the San Francisco Fed to “move to check [the] increasingly indiscriminate lending” of Countrywide Financial, the United States’ largest lender,” where Countrywide is considered to be one of the central villains in the crisis, with allegations that Countrywide knowingly engaged in risky loans and offered subprime loans even to those who qualified for regular loans in order to profit from the higher rates.
So much for “TOODLES” protecting the people from the predators!
Then, on April 28, 2010, to reward her for her gross incompetence with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, Hussein Obama nominated Yellen to succeed Donald Kohn as vice chair of the Federal Reserve, so that in July 2010, the Senate Banking Committee voted 17–6 to confirm her, though the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, voted no, saying “President Yellen presided over a regional housing bubble and failed to restrain the excesses,” which was what, in the mind of Hussein Obama, and by extension, his vice president, Joseph Robinette Biden, Junior, qualified “TOODLES” for that high office in the first place, so Senator Shelby was simply ignored.
Then, once in, and in contrast to her predecessors, Yellen acted more independently within the institution in her role as vice chair, urging “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke and the other FOMC members to follow her preferred route for monetary policy, arguing for more forceful actions to inject money into the economy to reduce unemployment, and “TOODLES” also played a leading role in moving the Federal Reserve to announce its inflation target of two percent a year after her long campaign with Chairman Bernanke.
Then, as a further reward for her gross incompetence with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, plus her willingness to hand out gobs of money in stimulus, which is a good source of “no questions asked” graft for the Democrats, in July 2013, “TOODLES” was pushed to be named the first chairwoman of the central bank in a letter that was circulated among the Senate Democrats and had been signed by almost a third of the 54 caucus senators, who primarily represent the liberal wing of the party, and in addition, more than 500 professional economists from around 200 colleges and universities across the United States signed an open letter in support of her candidacy for Fed chair and sent it to the White House, so that on October 9, 2013, “TOODLES” was officially nominated to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, the first vice chair ever to be elevated to that post.
While announcing his decision, President Obama called her “one of the nation’s foremost economists and policymakers” and said that “America’s workers and their families will have a champion in Janet Yellen," which is an absurd statement given the role “TOODLES” played with respect to the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, but Hussein was a politician, so he had a license to lie to us, which license he used quite freely during his tenure in the white house.
Of note to this discussion, and with respect to the inflation we are seeing today, during the nomination hearings held in November, Yellen defended the more than $3 trillion in stimulus funds that the central bank had been injecting into the U.S. economy.
According to a Fed representative, on Yellen’s request, her title would be altered to “chair” rather than “chairman” or “chairwoman”, as she prefers a gender-neutral manner.
So good for Chair “TOODLES,” then, people.
But again, all of this background leads us to where we are today, so stay tuned, and the story will continue.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/op-ed- ... ent-836297