U.S. wages growing at fastest rate in 9 years as unemployment stays at 3.9 percent

Bush went along with his congresses that were approving sub-prime loans.

 

He didn't try until it was too late. And his administration, lead by him, has a lot of influence over bad actors.

 

Bush had six years and failed.

 

Who where the bad actors and what federal laws did they break? He can’t just make up law. There where lawsuit brought when his admin discovered the accounting by Fannie and Freddie

 

No, struth, you are here to answer the things you say before you ask. Show us how the GOP did not set up the prime-loan laws from 1994-2006. Show us the lawsuits brought by Bush's admin to stop it.

You can't.

The Great Recession is all GOP.

 

Congress and the WH didn’t approve any sub prime loans. The 1977 Dem congess ans Carter signed law did force banks to give them however

 

As before, everything depends on the Fed. And, like any other man-made 'god', they have 'mysterious ways' -- both the obvious, and the not-so-obvious. My gut-feel, which I admit is not based on the knowledge accumulation that I believe you have, suggests to me that the Dow will find a "true-value" bottom around 17,000. The 'DAQ? So overvalued! It's true-value? Probably around 5,000... maybe less.

Consider: the Fed has been blowing smoke into this fraud-balloon of theirs since August 2007! That's a LONG time! They launched no less than THREE "quantitative easings", and an "Operation Twist", plus lots of other 'back-office' sh*t designed to 'soften the blow' on those it chose to be 'winners' -- while it EXTERMINATED those it wanted to be 'losers'. The sun will rise on 2019 in a few days... and the Fed has a huge pile of its own crap to clean up at SOME point.

I will continue to follow your posts with great interest. You seem to be one of the few who post about the economy who knows what he's talking about.... I do wish Iriemon would post more....

 

That's not true, struth, as you well know. Bush and his Congresses were approving the loans, and they were doing nothing to stop them.

 

Bad actors were loan institutions that made loans to anybody, whether they could afford it or not. And yes, the administration could have reigned them in by auditing their books, enacting legislation. This is not worth discussing because our government's hands are not tied when it comes to immoral conduct by corporations.

 

The WH doesn’t “enact” legislation. Congress does. The WH doesnt audit private businesses books for no reason. With that said the largest providers where Fannie and Freddie, the WH did audit their books and discover their fraud accounting and ask congesss to do something repeatedly to give oversight but by that time it was 05 the midterms happened and Barney Frank took the chairmanship and ignored request

 

The Whitehouse doesn't "enact" legislation. They ask Congress to do that by having members of their party do the dirty. I guess I
have to literally spell it out for you, eh? You don't get the message easily. The Whitehouse can ask for an audit of their books by the FBI. The oversight committees rarely did the job that they were empowered to do during that time. The President just doesn't sit in his office picking his nose.

 

The GOP is for less regulation.....Less regulation means less rules and laws.....The rules were set in place to save and protect the the people who need loans....
Here we are again, and the GOP is loosening the rules again....They never learn, nor does there pathetic followers!

 

If the executive branch wants to audit a private companies books they had to get a search warrant from a judge and show probable cause of a crime. Giving subprime loans isn’t a crime. In fact dem enacted law pressured banks to give them.

The White House did however conduct oversight of Fannie and Freddie, and discover their fraudulent accounting but by the time the investigation was concluded the Dems had thrvmahorities and refused to do anything.

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

Take any group of people where money supply is controlled, begin shoveling money to "the favored" and "the favored's" influence quickly rapidly grows. That was Obama's "trickle down" theory of left wing utopia showering money on those favored by the Left, and Cortez' Green Economy thing. The Fed can impose a de facto gold standard by benchmarking against the price of gold. The current qualitative tightening that is resulting in Stock Market volatility is a return to much sounder money than we had during the Obama two terms of malaise.

Trade Wars and China

A trade war with China is so winnable that to not win it, America would have to deliberately want to lose.

Without the trade deficit we would be at 5% GDP growth, that's why the Left, The America Haters, and the anti-Trumpers are so insistent that the American Middle Class carry this MASSIVE trade deficit as a favor to the world.

China's vulnerable, first, because China runs a huge trade surplus with the U.S. For September 2018, the surplus was $34.1 billion, which would translate into over $400 billion for the year. This means China can ill afford to go tit-for-tat with America on tariffs before running out of ammunition. Trump has explicitly said so, and the Chinese know it.

Second, China is a resource-poor country. It needs a steady flow of imports of raw materials, especially food and energy, to keep its export-oriented economy running and even to feed its people. America is nearly self-sufficient and is especially so when trade within North America is included.

China trade brings us no food or energy or technological innovations. Whatever China exports to America can be obtained elsewhere. It's just a matter of cost, an advantage that China is rapidly losing.

China's third vulnerability lies in innovations. Made in China 2025 is the grand initiative of the Chinese Communist Party to basically have Chinese industries to lead the world in various hi-tech sectors by 2050. This is a laudable objective, but its premise is flawed. Basically, the Chinese plan to do this not by their own innovations but by continuing to steal technology and intellectual properties from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. As President Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro put it, "China is basically trying to steal the future of Japan, the U.S. and Europe, by going after our technology."

When U.S. trade negotiators demand that the technology theft must end, the Chinese dig in their heels. They do this for two reasons. First, Made in China 2025 is impossible without massive technology theft from the West, particularly the U.S. And second, China has built itself up as far as it has based on theft of technology and intellectual property. Perhaps the Chinese figure (or hope) that Trump is just a passing storm and soon things will reset to the good old days. That is not likely.

 

I can certainly support your contention that China definitely depends on others for food! Back when I took two semesters of Chinese history at the Univ. of Texas, we learned that only 15% of China has arable soil, and that amount has probably decreased due to land-gobbling projects of many various kinds since Deng Xiaoping.

But I take "tongue-in-cheek" the contention that, "Whatever China exports to America can be obtained elsewhere. It's just a matter of cost, an advantage that China is rapidly losing." While we could, in theory, create 'fabs' anywhere in the world to compete with China, we, too, are governed by the relentless laws of economics.

Consider one interesting fact alone -- that ALL computers (HP, Dell, all of them), from mid-level servers on down to the consumer stuff are really made by one company: Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (better known to Westerners under the anglicized name of Foxconn). It also makes the lion's share of phones and TV's.

Given enough time and money, we could, again, in theory, set up a gigantic complex of competing 'fabs' anywhere -- even here in the U. S., but in the 21st-century world, is that even feasible now? And that's just one business sector (albeit an important one) -- consumer-grade computers, phones, and TV's! Moreover, given what Korporate Amerika has invested, directly and indirectly, in thousands of offshore ventures since the fall of the Soviet Union, who would do that? It's been 'safe' for American corporations to 'offshore' everything but haircuts since the Soviet Union and the real "Communist" China faded away, but today?!

Synopsis: when the Chinese make so much of damn near everything, it's likely that they can buy whatever they need in food, commodities, and whatever else they want. Especially given the increasing successes they are enjoying with their "Belt and Road" initiatives, and the smothering control it is giving the Chinese over all the countries they 'deal' with (and subvert).

Shifting gears, I do really doubt that the Federal Reserve combine would ever have ANYTHING to do with a 'gold-standard', de facto or otherwise! Central banks like the Fed trade in fiat currencies -- not those backed by anything of measurable, intrinsic value. The Fed has always been positively allergic to the 'gold-standard'....

 

So about a 7th? Sometimes I don't appreciate our country enough.

It's much easier to replace their third world manufacturing than it is to replace America's First World consumer base. It would be much easier for us to replace them than for them to replace us. I'm sure Vietnam and so forth would love to increase their trade with us.

"WE" don't have to do squat, except buy from whoever best serves our market.

The consequences of not repaying loans to the Chinese won't be like the consequences of not paying back US loans, for third world countries.

Greenspan claimed to do so for nearly 20 years. Many expected him to pop the bubble before Gold hit $450/oz. But that was early in 2003 and he let the bubble run, I think both he and Bernanke missed how deeply overextended and vastly overpredicted their ability to deal with the aftermath of a bubble burst.

Alan Greenspan - Gold and Economic Freedom - USAGold

www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/Greenspan.html
Alan Greenspan's 1967 commentary on his preference for a gold standard, ... Credit, interest rates, and prices tend to follow similar patterns in all countries.

He said that all the Fed has to do to put the country on a quasi-gold standard is keep the price of gold within a range by tightening and easing with an eye on the price of gold.

 

Screw 'em. They invested in Chinese facilities in order to leave American Workers in a lurch, certain they would have free access to US consumer markets, and not have to pay US corporate taxes! Well, guess what? They will pay tax tariffs if they want to sell here.

Orange Man bad to Red China

A story by Reuters revealed why the elitists in Washington and the money men in Silicon Valley and Manhattan absolutely hate President Donald John Trump.

The story is, "China's industrial profits suffer first drop in three years, piles pressure on economy."

How many people's hearts sank when the DOW gained a thousand points?

How many of these fat cats are Maoists? College indoctrinated into believing America is genocidal, racist, sexist, and all things deplorable?

In their world, Red China is pure. Steve Jobs even adopted Maoist attire.

Their money's on Red China.

https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2018/12/orange-man-bad-to-red-china.html#more

But never bet against Donald J. Trump.

Reuters reported, "Earnings at China’s industrial firms in November dropped for the first time in nearly three years, as slackening external and domestic demand left businesses facing more strain in 2019 in a sign of rising risks to the world’s second-largest economy."

Tariffs work. They thought our consumers would build the military, from designs they stole from us, with which the would challenge us with equal if not superior forces.

"The gloomy data points to a further loss of economic momentum as a trade dispute with the United States piles pressure on China’s vast manufacturing sector and as firms, bracing for a tough year ahead, shelve their investment plans, executives say."

Seriously, tariffs work.

"China’s economy expanded at the slowest pace last quarter since the global financial crisis, hit by a years-long deleveraging campaign, cooling property market and a trade dispute with the United States, and is expected to cool further next year.

"The growing pressure has prompted the government to roll out a range of measures to juice up demand. In a key annual economic conference held this month the country’s top leaders said they will ratchet up support for the economy in 2019 by cutting taxes and keeping liquidity ample, while promising to push forward trade negotiations with the United States.

"At the beginning of this month, U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day truce delaying a planned U.S. tariff hike on Jan. 1 as they negotiate a trade deal."

You see, tariffs work.

Giving Red China a billion bucks a day is portrayed as patriotic while saying no is evil.

I don't question their patriotism, I know they have none.

Meanwhile, since the Orange Man said buy, stocks are up 6% in two days. NBADJT.

Never Bet Against Donald John Trump.

 

Even after the 2 day rally (because the market was way oversold) - the DOW is still down 13% from the peak in Feb. This is despite massive credit card/deficit spending. This is pretty bad by any yardstick.

Trade wars/ Protectionism is universally recognized as economically negative.

The Orange man is a bumbling stooge.

 

Seriously, tariffs work to hurt both sides. Trump doesn't take advice and makes uninformed decisions that will come back to haunt us.

 

Baloney. The US was thriving long before China was in the game. China not playing by the rules hurts everyone but China.

 

Baloney. Tariffs hurt everybody because your costs will soar. Too bad that you don't see the big picture.

 

Baloney. You are speaking in generalities to mask what you do not know. China has had much higher tariffs on imports and stolen technology for quite sometime now. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Doesn't matter. Our costs are going rise and it ain't going to be pretty. And I am not opposed to a tariff agreement with China. I
believe that we might already have had an agreement if it wasn't for Trump's tactics.

 

I have not seen any prices rising yet. You would think with all the cheap labor we would have seen prices fall in the past. It did not happen.

If you are against tariffs then you should support Trump's tactics. Trump is not putting tariffs on China for the hell of it. China has tariffs on imports. Trump would go for zero tariffs. But since this is not the case, he is pushing China to lower their trade barriers....such as tariffs.

Funny how you are upset by US tariffs but not China's tariffs.