COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke to Save the World?

Read Between the Lines:



52 comments:

  1. We definitely should get in there and save the world.

    It is our duty, our calling, our destiny.....

    After all, we have it from the crapper that.......

    Our global management, it reigns supreme in all of human history.

    Mon Nov 28, 04:49:00 PM EST


    With a record like that, we have responsibilities.


    b

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  2. Really, I'd say, let the Germans handle it.


    b

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  3. .


    I mentioned this a couple times before but it is the first time I've seen it mentioned in a column. And let's face it it wouldn't be the first time Bernanke has bailed out European entities.



    Nobel economist Myron Scholes first floated the idea over lunch at a Riksbank forum in August. "I wonder whether Bernanke might not say that `we believe in a harmonized world, that the Europeans are our friends, and we know that the ECB can't print money to buy bonds because the Germans won't let them. And since the ECB will soon run out of money, we will step in and start buying European government bonds for them'. It is something to think about," he said.

    This is not as eccentric as it sounds. The Fed’s Ben Bernanke touched on the theme in a speech in November 2002 – “Deflation: making sure it doesn't happen here” – now viewed as his policy `road map' in extremis.

    "The Fed can inject money into the economy in still other ways. For example, the Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt. Potentially, this class of assets offers huge scope for Fed operations," he said.


    Will The FED Save The EU?

    .

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  5. .

    For those who tout Nobel Prize winners as being something special, let's see, we have Obama, Paul Krugman, Myron Scholes the dick from Germany, and Al Gore come to mind without much prompting.

    .

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  6. Oh, it’s going to happen for sure. The pols are trying to get people used to the idea and the Europeans through NATO have been weaned on the U$A as the protector of last resort. It is the ultimate high for Obama and Bernanke wants confirmation. It shows the Chinese who is uncle. Someone has been buying a lot of EU bonds lately trying to off the bond vigilantes. Obama loves the scenario, it is right out of his playbook he used in Libya.

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  7. When is John Corzine going to be arrested?

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  8. Io was always impressed with our racket in printing one hundred dollar bills. Spend them anywhere in the World and they never returned. It was a beautiful thing, never having to balance your checkbook and no one ever cashed your check. How far behind can DR’s trillion dollar bill be?

    By time we are done bailing out Europe, the Chinese real estate market should collapse and then we can buy back our bonds from China except this time make the pricks spend their dollars in the US.

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  9. Exactly right, boobie.

    We have responsibilities.
    After exploiting the whirled for the past 65 years, after saving it the last time, it is time to belly up to the bar, again.

    In our own best interest.

    To spend neither blood nor treasure, and save the whirled, too?

    It would be criminal, not to.

    It would be a crime of omission, of which you are painfully experienced, boobie.

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  11. Those "small" countries that bounded by the US, in life expectancy, all under our umbrella.

    That the US has promoted the efforts of those countries to bridge the gap, 'tween 'them' and US, also well exemplified.

    That we are stifling economic growth in the US, while bolstering foreign societies and economies, quite evident.

    We've done it in Japan, Europe, China, Korea and Mexico.

    If we want to maintain our economic and military hegemony, well, there is no choice but to intervene, in Europe's economy.

    Or the whole "House of Cards" that is "Western Civilization" could come tumbling down.

    We in the Americas would still be better off, on a comparative basis, than those in Europe, Asia or Africa. But it would not be as nice, as it is today, to be an urban American.

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  12. Arrested for what, Deuce?

    Mismanagement?

    His corporation may be guilty of a crime, but being as it's a person, too, it'll do the time.

    Not Mr Corzine.

    The Romney Way.

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  13. We've defeated the forces of evil, militarily.

    The Soviets, they're left behind upon the dust-bin of history. Russia, losing people to Club Med and losing years off their average life expediencies. The lRussian mismanagement and their loss of human capital, instructive to those that buck the odds and ride against US.

    South Korea flourishes in it's alliances with the United States, especially when compared to their cousins to their north.

    After decades of distrust, conflict and out right war, why even Charlie Chi-com saw the light, hitching their wagon to the American engine of wealth and prosperity.


    Live long and prosper.

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  14. From CBS News ...


    ... it's not just a currency used by 332 million people that is at stake. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others have said, if the euro fails, so too does the 27-nation European Union, a rousing diplomatic success that united a continent ripped apart by two World Wars.

    Stocks soar on potential EU debt deal, holiday sales
    EU races to stop collapse; Radical plan floated
    Europe teeters as U.S. jobs report looms

    If the Euro fails, bank lending would freeze, stock markets would likely crash, and Europe's economies would crater. Nations in the eurozone could see their economic output fall temporarily by as much as 50 percent, according to UBS forecasters. The financial and economic pain would spread west and east as the U.S. and Asia get ensnared in the credit freeze and their exports to Europe collapse.

    In all, it's a scenario far more dire than even the devastating 2008 credit crunch after the U.S. mortgage debacle.

    "If Europe is contracting, or if Europe is having difficulties, then it's much more difficult for us to create good jobs here at home," President Obama said Monday as he met EU officials in Washington.

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  15. A United States of Europe, with a capital in Brussels and decisions made in Berlin?

    As experts predicted the endgame for the euro, Europe buzzed with talk of a central treasury authority for the eurozone — an idea that just a week ago would have seemed impossible.

    Unlike the United States, which has centralized institutions in Washington D.C. for raising taxes and spending, the eurozone has 17 independent treasuries with little oversight from Brussels. That would change under the fiscal union proposal being aired ahead of the EU leaders' summit in less than two weeks.

    While not explicitly backing such a move, Germany and France, the eurozone's two biggest economies, have promised to propose new measures that will make the 17 operate under strict and enforceable rules — the hope being that no country, however small, can wreak such damage again.

    The idea of fiscal union is controversial not least because it raises fears among some members that economic policy around Europe will be run by the EU's biggest player: Berlin.

    But with Europe on the brink, it may be a price that many nations are willing to accept.

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  16. Apparently China has said
    No, thanks." Now The EU is desperately looking elsewhere for a life line.

    I heard Mr. van rumpuy (one of the men Farange rails against) saying that the EU id going to strenghten itself and to "punish" intransigent members.

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  17. How far behind can DR’s trillion dollar bill be?

    deuce


    I think it was the crapper's trillion dollar coin, made out of platinum, if I recall.

    Just mint up a couple or three of those, mail them to Brussels, whole EU will sprout.

    heh

    Good ol' nasty crapper.

    The idea man.


    b

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  18. In fact, thinking about it, I'm sure it was a coin not paper as the crapper made a big deal about the government being limited in that regard. Coining up scooted around the problem, according to our genius.


    b

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  19. Hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot

    The crapper could make Brussels sprout with them coins, get it?

    I'm goin' ta bed.

    b

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  20. We're being played like chumps - again.

    The Euros have manipulated their trade rules such that "We" export very little to the EU.

    While our banks do have "some" exposure over there, the Fed can backstop them just like it did during the last crisis.

    It would be "Much" to our benefit to see the Euro crash and burn.

    By "Our" I mean, "Me and Thee."

    The Top one percent of the one percent of the one percent see it differently, though. Guess who wins?

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  21. .

    Those "small" countries that bounded by the US, in life expectancy, all under our umbrella.


    As I said, nonsense.

    It is one thing to believe in American exceptionalism quite another to believe what is good for America is necessarily good for the world, imperial hubris run rampant.

    You talk about "small countries" yet every country is "small" when compared to the US either economomically or militarily. On the other hand, Canada can't be called small geographically. Japan can't be called small economically. But these things are unimportant to the discussion. You are the one that picked life expectancy as the bogey for the benefits of US hegemony not me, another ridiculous oversimplification.

    You ignore the fact that there are many factors that go into life expectancy; DNA, healthcare services, economics, lifestyles, geographic factors, etc. Yet many of the countries of the world have taken different paths from those of the US on many of these factors.

    Likewise, there are countries like India where we have had an off-again on-again alliance for some time, the Chicoms in China where we directly opposed them for much of the past century, and Cuba where for the past 50 years we have done everything we could to destroy their economy. China and India have made tremendous strides in life expectancy and Cuba is now rated equal to the US by the UN.

    And it is not just a matter of the rest of the world catching up to the US (which to the simple-minded might support your thesis) but the US is actually losing ground relative to the countries in front of it, friends and enemies alike.

    Has the Pax American (a bit of oxymoron these days) contributed to life expectancy around the world? Probably. But to say US hegemony is the reason for increased life expectancy is simplistic at best. You can't give to others what you don't possess yourself and we are losing ground on life expectancy in a relative sense.

    .

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