Larry Summers is one of the two leading choices to replace Bernanke as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2014. He is endorsed by Obama, and has previously worked for him as well as Clinton and Reagan.
Is Summers a bad choice or a good choice for this position? Why?
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Quote from Garland Greene aka the Marietta Mangler »
"Now you're talking semantics. What if I told you insane was working 50 hours a week in some office for 50 years, at the end of which they tell you to piss off... Ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
"Define Irony: Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash"
It makes no difference who the chairman of the Fed will be. The Fed is trying to slow down QE, but the current economy is entirely built from cheap money. Unwinding the Fed's ~$3.5 trillion balance sheet will almost certainly wipe out the bond market. And when the bond market collapses, so too does the entire economy.
If people thought the housing bubble was bad, just wait until the bond bubble explodes. It will make the housing bubble look like nothing.
The president has admitted that our country is bankrupt. I'm at the point where I'm hoping the chairman is someone I disagree with, so when the system collapses he'll be blamed, and then someone I like will take his place.
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Standard: [leftovers from booster drafts]
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
The president has admitted that our country is bankrupt. I'm at the point where I'm hoping the chairman is someone I disagree with, so when the system collapses he'll be blamed, and then someone I like will take his place.
A country is not a business, and a country's finances are not the same as a business', much in the same way it is not the same as personal financing. The US is not bankrupt. If the US were to go bankrupt, we would all immediately realize it as the world would basically end. The US remains solvent, will remain solvent for such time as it is the one major economic source in the world.
Trillions of dollars of debt is terrifying... if it's you who owes it. If they called that debt in on you, you would probably hang yourself. Nobody is going to call in the US debts, because if they did the world would cease to function and everyone loses.
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“A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
If the US were to go bankrupt, we would all immediately realize it as the world would basically end.
Can you elaborate on this and provide some citations? It just seems a bit over the top to claim that the US going bankrupt would somehow cause the world to end... I'm no expert on the planet, but I doubt our planet cares about money. The inhabitants yes, the planet itself, no. I could see a collapse of the world financial system happening, which would probably freak people out and result in some unpleasantness until they realize that they don't need money to survive at which point we would adapt to the situation and carry on...
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Quote from Garland Greene aka the Marietta Mangler »
"Now you're talking semantics. What if I told you insane was working 50 hours a week in some office for 50 years, at the end of which they tell you to piss off... Ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
"Define Irony: Bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash"
If the US were to go bankrupt, we would all immediately realize it as the world would basically end.
Can you elaborate on this and provide some citations? It just seems a bit over the top to claim that the US going bankrupt would somehow cause the world to end... I'm no expert on the planet, but I doubt our planet cares about money. The inhabitants yes, the planet itself, no. I could see a collapse of the world financial system happening, which would probably freak people out and result in some unpleasantness until they realize that they don't need money to survive at which point we would adapt to the situation and carry on...
First off, your being pedantic. We all know what he means when he says the world would end. He isn't being literal saying that the planet Earth will cease to exist and this solar system will go on with 7 planets instead of 8.
Second, if the financial markets were to completely and utterly fail, you would see mass chaos, especially in every city. You have to remember that any society is three missed meals away from anarchy. Imagine zombie apocalypse but instead of turning into a zombie, you are turned into a raving madman scrambling to find food for your family while people attempt to shoot at you with shotguns because they need that food too.
Hence, we are mostly safe since nobody would actually want that to happen so the US is still in a decent position.
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Truth has a liberal bias.
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Is Summers a bad choice or a good choice for this position? Why?
If people thought the housing bubble was bad, just wait until the bond bubble explodes. It will make the housing bubble look like nothing.
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
A country is not a business, and a country's finances are not the same as a business', much in the same way it is not the same as personal financing. The US is not bankrupt. If the US were to go bankrupt, we would all immediately realize it as the world would basically end. The US remains solvent, will remain solvent for such time as it is the one major economic source in the world.
Trillions of dollars of debt is terrifying... if it's you who owes it. If they called that debt in on you, you would probably hang yourself. Nobody is going to call in the US debts, because if they did the world would cease to function and everyone loses.
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
Can you elaborate on this and provide some citations? It just seems a bit over the top to claim that the US going bankrupt would somehow cause the world to end... I'm no expert on the planet, but I doubt our planet cares about money. The inhabitants yes, the planet itself, no. I could see a collapse of the world financial system happening, which would probably freak people out and result in some unpleasantness until they realize that they don't need money to survive at which point we would adapt to the situation and carry on...
I'd rather have someone who didn't lose Harvard a billion dollars on financial derivatives.
Someone who buys into bubbles less would be better.
First off, your being pedantic. We all know what he means when he says the world would end. He isn't being literal saying that the planet Earth will cease to exist and this solar system will go on with 7 planets instead of 8.
Second, if the financial markets were to completely and utterly fail, you would see mass chaos, especially in every city. You have to remember that any society is three missed meals away from anarchy. Imagine zombie apocalypse but instead of turning into a zombie, you are turned into a raving madman scrambling to find food for your family while people attempt to shoot at you with shotguns because they need that food too.
Hence, we are mostly safe since nobody would actually want that to happen so the US is still in a decent position.