Economy Trump calls for negative interest rates

[jx820]

Trump is challenging the federal reserve, and you think he is ignorant for that? Wow, you should educate yourself.

It's not THAT he's challenging them, it's HOW and to to do WHAT. He's begging for a fire sale on US currency in a desperate attempt to prevent the impending recession.

 

[jx820]

Interest rates on something with no value. Impressive magic being used here

I disagree with you a lot, but damnit I like the cut of your jib.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

He's proposing the abolition of controlled interest rates as they exist independent of a basal standard like gold. Per "juiced", I think he's arguing the Fed shouldn't be imposing an artificially low interest rate value on our currency for a protracted period of time because at some point fighting natural currency fluctuations will trigger a rubber-band effect in the market that can no longer be constrained by a central authority. Here's a wonderful and concise article on what's at stake here:
https://www.barrons.com/articles/th...e-for-lowering-rates-back-to-zero-51562751000

These are traditional economic ideals espoused by conservative economists. Ironically, while the prog article that's been cited numerous times in this thread presents the reasonable argument by Fed bureaucrats against political oversight, they themselves embraced the same policy of managing a real inflation target proposed by Rubio, for example, modeled on the ECB. At some point most agree it must come up, but neither party wants to be party on the throne while this occurs. Since timing is the porridge in these modern times, I'm humored to needle anyone who suggests this is a matter of partisan hypocrisy regarding interest rates. At the most insane end, you have Cruz and Paul, who effectively want to end the Fed, and return us to a time when inflation was wholly dictated by market fluctations. Yet, on the other hand, you have the majority of conservative economists & politicians who have traditionally advocated for modest rates; so long as those rates aren't an extraordinarily unprecedented control imposed on a collapsed economy.

So Cruz wasn't complaining about low interest rates when he brought up single mothers struggling to pay for hamburgers and electricity, he was only complaining about "artificially" low interest rates for a protracted (which he didn't define) period of time? I think you're quibbling.

 

[hillelslovak87]

@Fawlty what was the trick to get past the wsj paywall?

He paid

 

[JohnnySagebrush]

https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-letter-qe2-2010-11

Several GOP members wrote a letter critical of QE 2. Suppressed interest rates were part and parcel of QE, you’d be hard pressed to make the argument that their criticism wasn’t critical of low interest rates.

 

[IGIT]

ya but @Madmick is not going to desist and take the L.

I went back and read all the examples, even though I recall the history and there simply is no denying all the republican backlash against the 'low interest rates' during the Obama term. As Jack Savage says, it should not even be a point of debate. Maybe you can argue they never meant it and it was just blatant politicking but you cannot say they were not saying it.

This is the most blatant TDS we've seen where he is desperate to spin every example given as 'oh well they may have been referring to low interest rates in that rant but what they really were taking issues with was...'

and Mick is in too deep now so there is no chance he'll concede.

hiya MikeMcMann,

regarding @Madmick, i'm just curious if Tulsi Gabbard represents his "ideal" candidate, from a policy perspective.

there's been a pretty wide gamut of candidates from the Democrats. i find it interesting that he's enthusiastic about someone who has backed AOC's "Green New Deal" and Mr. Sanders' proposals on healthcare.

Madmick is pretty much a lefties' lefty, if that's the case.

i didn't know that 'til now.

- IGIT

 

[LangfordBarrow]

Nobody cares about budget deficits and trade is fine.

What a joke, trade is fine, wars are only bad when they involve troops.

 

[7437]

Jesus Christ dude. Get a fucking life.

He screamed on a political forum, no one caring.

 

[Fawlty]

@Fawlty what was the trick to get past the wsj paywall?

Just use web archive, web.archive.org or similar, I think they pick up wsj but not certain

 

[Ruprecht]

So Cruz wasn't complaining about low interest rates when he brought up single mothers struggling to pay for hamburgers and electricity, he was only complaining about "artificially" low interest rates for a protracted (which he didn't define) period of time? I think you're quibbling.

There was division in the Republican ranks. You can see the line drawn on the vote to confirm Yellen.
It was mostly the libertarian/"vulgar libertarian" wing that was heavily against her (and her policy of maintaining low interest rates). Although it included Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions and Marco Rubio.
Likewise with the thinktanks crowing about it.
Of course that was all the rage at the time, with the Tea Party etc.

 

[Rod1]

Cruz is arguing to abolish the Fed, there, not against any specific inflation rate policy. He also represents the wing of libertarian outsiders when he voices that economic strategy (as owed to Paul).

Yeah, this is an example, but this is also an example of why Kasich is regarded as a centrist. He criticizes an artificially low interest rate policy is incentivizing investment for the wealthy, but not necessarily translating into higher wages (despite that the cost of everything is going up anyway).

I'm going to assume that you simply didn't read this link.

None of them are true scotsmen, i agree.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

More from Cruz:

"Printing money by the trillions is dangerous, and working people need real economic growth to get their lives back on track," Cruz said in a statement following the vote. "Janet Yellen has said she intends to continue current Fed policy, which may help Wall Street but is leaving Main Street with higher prices for gas and food, near-zero interest rates for savers, and stagnation for small businesses that aren’t growing or hiring."

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/pol...objections-of-cruz-cornyn-other-gop-senators/

 

[Madmick]

We can cite (Merriam-Webster) - to (Dictionary) - just (Vocabulary) - about (Wiki) - any (Cambridge) - dictionary (LDOCE) - anywhere (Collins) - to verify that the usage was incorrect and that he was, as usual, carelessly using words in a way to seem smart, but ended up showing he's a moron. Hell, in fact, the only documented usage from that list that would be facially proper (see #3 of the Wiki link) would completely change his intended meaning to say that @sabretruth was easygoing and affable.

Not the definition I invoked., and here are those online dictionaries right on cue. The word is also used to describe people who are easily misled or manipulated due to a lack of mental wherewithal. That's why Eve was described as the "facile consort" of Adam in one of the OED's cited historical examples from Milton's Paradise Lost: because she dumbly listened to Satan's suggestion forwarded as the snake. This is interrelated with the primary denotation extended to the person. You fail to comprehend how elastic this word is-- it's conceptual breadth. The adjective form usually describes arguments, acts, or ideas, but people are nouns, too.

• 1. Easy, now especially in a disparaging sense; contemptibly easy.
  
• 4. Lazy, simplistic (especially of explanations, discussions etc.). [from 19th c.] quotations ▲

This can extend to the speaker as I cited in the unabridged definitions as either someone who reads & thinks comprehensively with ease, or alternatively, contrarily, as someone who thinks or reads with too shallow, simple, and easygoing an approach. Here's a recent example from The National Review covering a paper written by a UCLA historian who criticized the right-wing:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/good-bad-stanley-kurtz/
I kid you not: Jacoby’s main complaint is that the book is well written, which supposedly proves that conservatives are superficial....Yes, Jacoby admits, “these conservatives are best at puncturing liberal, especially academic, balderdash.” “On the basis of this volume, conservatives are excellent writers–and facile thinkers. Perhaps the two go together.”

Here's another recent example from the renowned journalist Robert Fisk:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/25/the-hypocrisies-of-terror-talk/
"I despair of that generic old hate-word, “terror”. It long ago became the punctuation mark and signature tune of every facile politician, policeman, journalist and think tank crank in the world."
Is he describing those group(s) as deft operators with a nuanced understanding? Perhaps, but of course his chief aim is to describe them as opportunistically reductive thinkers.

This makes sense if you paid closer attention to those roots described in your own links. It is a term rooted in an etymological duality:
Did You Know?
Would you have guessed that "facile" and "difficult" are related? They are! "Facile" comes to us through Middle French, from the Latin word facilis, meaning "easy, and ultimately from facere, meaning "to make or do." "Difficult" traces to "facilis" as well, but its history also involves the negative prefix dis-, meaning "not." "Facile" can mean "easy" or "easily done," as befits its Latin roots, but it now often adds the connotation of undue haste or shallowness, as in "facile answers to complex questions."

This is why you must refer to the sentence for context, and not the other way around, but you were too eager to dispense a lesson in the comprehension of a word you yourself do not adequately comprehend.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Not the definition I invoked., and here are those online dictionaries right on cue. The word is also used to describe people who are easily misled or manipulated due to a lack of mental wherewithal. That's why Eve was described as the "facile consort" of Adam in one of the OED's cited historical examples from Milton's Paradise Lost: because she dumbly listened to Satan's suggestion forwarded as the snake. This is interrelated with the primary denotation extended to the person. You fail to comprehend how elastic this word is-- it's conceptual breadth. The adjective form usually describes arguments, acts, or ideas, but people are nouns, too.

• 1. Easy, now especially in a disparaging sense; contemptibly easy.
  
• 4. Lazy, simplistic (especially of explanations, discussions etc.). [from 19th c.] quotations ▲

This can extend to the speaker as I cited in the unabridged definitions as either someone who reads & thinks comprehensively with ease, or alternatively, contrarily, as someone who thinks or reads with too shallow, simple, and easygoing an approach. Here's a recent example from The National Review covering a paper written by a UCLA historian who criticized the right-wing:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/good-bad-stanley-kurtz/
I kid you not: Jacoby’s main complaint is that the book is well written, which supposedly proves that conservatives are superficial....Yes, Jacoby admits, “these conservatives are best at puncturing liberal, especially academic, balderdash.” “On the basis of this volume, conservatives are excellent writers–and facile thinkers. Perhaps the two go together.”

Here's another recent example from the renowned journalist Robert Fisk:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/25/the-hypocrisies-of-terror-talk/
"I despair of that generic old hate-word, “terror”. It long ago became the punctuation mark and signature tune of every facile politician, policeman, journalist and think tank crank in the world."
Is he describing those group(s) as deft operators with a nuanced understanding? Perhaps, but of course his chief aim is to describe them as opportunistically reductive thinkers.

This makes sense if you paid closer attention to those roots described in your own links. It is a term rooted in an etymological duality:
Did You Know?
Would you have guessed that "facile" and "difficult" are related? They are! "Facile" comes to us through Middle French, from the Latin word facilis, meaning "easy, and ultimately from facere, meaning "to make or do." "Difficult" traces to "facilis" as well, but its history also involves the negative prefix dis-, meaning "not." "Facile" can mean "easy" or "easily done," as befits its Latin roots, but it now often adds the connotation of undue haste or shallowness, as in "facile answers to complex questions."

This is why you must refer to the sentence for context, and not the other way around, but you were too eager to dispense a lesson in the comprehension of a word you yourself do not adequately comprehend.

Wikipedia could use this.

 

[Andy Capp]

Hmm, no. Mick did his usual copy and paste barrage meaning to appeal to the authority of the sheer volume of his text, despite the fact that, even for those centuries-old uses, most didn't apply at all and none applied well. You may be trying to be pedantic, but in actuality you're just wrong. And you are, despite claiming to be annoyed with the derail, derailing further in order to weirdly flex.

We can cite (Merriam-Webster) - to (Dictionary) - just (Vocabulary) - about (Wiki) - any (Cambridge) - dictionary (LDOCE) - anywhere (Collins) - to verify that the usage was incorrect and that he was, as usual, carelessly using words in a way to seem smart, but ended up showing he's a moron. Hell, in fact, the only documented usage from that list that would be facially proper (see #3 of the Wiki link) would completely change his intended meaning to say that @sabretruth was easygoing and affable.

Also, I think Langford was being sarcastic. I somehow doubt he really believed that Madmick was using a word incorrectly or archaically on the off chance someone would pick out that word to point out the incorrect usage.

Only I'm not wrong. It took me about 5 seconds to confirm it. But that's the point. It's debatable and not really worthy of rejoicing over either way. I already crushed that squirrel's nuts so I think you are just sour it wasn't you. Whether that's true or not, this is the most pointless Sherdog debate since greasegate but I have to add that when a thread is this totally fucking derailed, my comment on that is not making it any worse.

 

[Madmick]

Wikipedia could use this.

I can never tell if you're insulting me with this persuasion. You're a slippery one, Cubo. You're like W. dodging flying shoes. LOL.

IIRC, the last time you suggested this was when I pointed out why the Colorado and California legal marijuana markets have experienced such widely varying revenue windfalls. The few who have tried to argue with my analysis there have insisted it has more to do with Colorado's weather, not the entrenchment of the black market. I rejected that, and there's more evidence to substantiate my thesis. Reports coming out of British Columbia indicate they're suffering from the same lethargic legal sales as we're seeing in the California market.

None of them are true scotsmen, i agree.

<[analyzed}>

Cruz is crazy. In the case of Ryan, Rubio, and a few others they wanted to keep inflation low, but they opposed the employment-focused half of quantitative easing. So the notion that we do more when there are no interest rates left to cut isn't a foreign consideration to the Fed-- not even in recent years. If the point of this thread is to show that Trump (and the goons he has surrounded himself with) is a flip-flopper there are a hundred tracks up and down that beach. This was proven long ago. If the point is for the left to call for higher interest rates I find that strange given that as late as 2015 we were already supposedly out of the recession. So, again, there is little basis to accuse these other Republicans of hypocrisy because the economy in 2010 was not at all like what it is today. They're inverted, however strangely so, on what to do in strong versus weak economies, but in both cases, they aren't focused on employment.

It will be interesting to see how those still active like Rubio respond to this-- if they respond at all.

*Edit* Here's a fascinating piece from The Independent that gives this strange alchemy a lot more thought than merely piling on Trump or Republicans based on past cautionary rhetoric in dissimilar economies. It points out the Democrats haven't been terribly consistent, either, if nitpicking, and it finds a rare ally for Trump's economic advisers in....Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019...-consensus-on-interest-rates-an-illusion.html

On Wednesday, in a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walked through the Fed’s repeated reductions in its estimate of the natural rate of unemployment — a figure that’s important, because it informs how the Fed decides whether we’re at full employment and therefore whether it might need to raise interest rates in order to contain inflation.

Ocasio-Cortez noted the Fed thought, in 2014, that this figure was 5.4 percent. They cut the estimate until it fell into the low fours, and now actual unemployment is 3.7 percent. And yet, even by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s admission, we manage to have unemployment that low without a “hot” job market that produces rapid wage growth. Is it possible the Fed had erred in these past estimates, Ocasio-Cortez asked?

“Absolutely,” responded Powell.

The implication of this exchange — that the Fed has systematically misjudged the relationship among interest rates, inflation, and unemployment for years — has gone rapidly from an unpopular view to a consensus one. Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow praised Ocasio-Cortez for her observation.

This is a welcome shift, but it’s worth asking how durable a shift it is, given the asymmetrical way in which the two parties approach economic policy.

From a cynical perspective, you might expect the party in power to favor low rates even when they are inappropriate, since they can boost the economy in the short term even when they pose undue inflation risk. On the other hand, you would expect the out-of-power party to call for higher rates, to constrain positive economic trends that threaten to bolster the president politically.

Indeed, this is something Democrats tend to suspect was happening when Obama was president and conservatives routinely decried the Fed as too loose, printing money, debasing the dollar, propping up a “fake economy” and such. Yet Democrats have continued to drift in a dovish direction on interest rates even though they have lost control of the presidency. It’s hard to find Democrats defending the modest campaign of rate hikes the Fed was actually implementing until the end of last year, let alone demanding more rate hikes.

The Republican shift on monetary policy is easy to put in a cynical frame. When a Democrat was president, they were for high rates. Now that a Republican is president, they want low rates. This state of affairs looks like a straightforward example of what Jonathan Chait calls “the hack gap.” And I do think this is part of the picture, but not its entirety.

The conservative voices who have gained influence in the last couple of years urging a more dovish rethink of monetary policy — for example, commentators like Scott Sumner, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Karl Smith — were trying to talk the hawks off the ledge long before Trump became president. Their ideas, plus the actual experience of setting interest rates at zero for a decade and not experiencing high inflation, seem to have influenced the views of conservative policymakers associated with the Fed, like Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari, and arguably Powell himself. The timing here supports the idea of sincere changes in views: Kashkari, for example, was already critical of rate hikes in 2016, before Republicans knew they would gain the presidency.

The hacks are still around, of course. Steve Moore, Herman Cain, and Judy Shelton, each of whom President Trump has sought to place on the Federal Reserve Board, have all in the past held extreme hawkish views, including support for a metallic currency standard. They have not provided a convincing account of their dovish conversions. And congressional Republicans, who use to routinely excoriate the Fed for excessive ease under Obama, are now barely a presence in monetary-policy discussions at all. It is very easy to see them all snapping back to a loud, hawkish position under the next Democratic president, even if policymakers like Kashkari have changed for good.

The risk for liberals is building a regime where political conditions support appropriately accommodative monetary policy under Republican presidents but not Democratic ones. So, for people on both the right and left who genuinely favor a more balanced approach to monetary policy and want to see it endure, the question is how to strengthen the emerging consensus and make it more robust against changing political incentives.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I think a key part of the strategy has to be encouraging and reinforcing the already-underway shift in perspective within the central bank.

This puts the US policy in stark contrast to the EU approach, naturally.

 

[hillelslovak87]

I can never tell if you're insulting me with this persuasion. You're a slippery one, Cubo. You're like W. dodging flying shoes. LOL.

IIRC, the last time you suggested this was when I pointed out why the Colorado and California legal marijuana markets have experienced such widely varying revenue windfalls. The few who have tried to argue with my analysis there have insisted it has more to do with Colorado's weather, not the entrenchment of the black market. I rejected that, and there's more evidence to substantiate my thesis. Reports coming out of British Columbia indicate they're suffering from the same lethargic legal sales as we're seeing in the California market.

<[analyzed}>

Cruz is crazy. In the case of Ryan, Rubio, and a few others they wanted to keep inflation low, but they opposed the employment-focused half of quantitative easing. So the notion that we do more when there are no interest rates left to cut isn't a foreign consideration to the Fed-- not even in recent years. If the point of this thread is to show that Trump (and the goons he has surrounded himself with) is a flip-flopper there are a hundred tracks up and down that beach. This was proven long ago. If the point is for the left to call for higher interest rates I find that strange given that as late as 2015 we were already supposedly out of the recession. So, again, there is little basis to accuse these other Republicans of hypocrisy because the economy in 2010 was not at all like what it is today. They're inverted, however strangely so, on what to do in strong versus weak economies, but in both cases, they aren't focused on employment.

It will be interesting to see how those still active like Rubio respond to this-- if they respond at all.

I can say for certain, in WA the black market is strong. When I grew legally I came in contact with soooooo many people who worked at I-502s and were siphoning off product to sell on the BM. Hell, the crew that worked at this place before I got there would be hand trimming with big coats, and just pocket buds, taking like 5 lbs a month. The diversion of licensed product is still a huge problem. I mean, this place I worked at got shut down because my boss decided to start diverting. I had to watch all 400 plants I basically worked on alone be cut down, along with every single piece of product we had, which again, I basically worked on alone.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I can never tell if you're insulting me with this persuasion. You're a slippery one, Cubo. You're like W. dodging flying shoes. LOL.

IIRC, the last time you suggested this was when I pointed out why the Colorado and California legal marijuana markets have experienced such widely varying revenue windfalls. The few who have tried to argue with my analysis there have insisted it has more to do with Colorado's weather, not the entrenchment of the black market. I rejected that, and there's more evidence to substantiate my thesis. Reports coming out of British Columbia indicate they're suffering from the same lethargic legal sales as we're seeing in the California market.

Total compliment, rest assured.

That does sound right, and thanks for the refresher.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I can say for certain, in WA the black market is strong. When I grew legally I came in contact with soooooo many people who worked at I-502s and were siphoning off product to sell on the BM. Hell, the crew that worked at this place before I got there would be hand trimming with big coats, and just pocket buds, taking like 5 lbs a month. The diversion of licensed product is still a huge problem. I mean, this place I worked at got shut down because my boss decided to start diverting. I had to watch all 400 plants I basically worked on alone be cut down, along with every single piece of product we had, which again, I basically worked on alone.

Nothing some negative interest rates couldn't cure.

 

[hillelslovak87]

Nothing some negative interest rates couldn't cure.

I'll settle for an aluminum bat, and 5 minutes with my former boss. He's owed me around 8500 for a year, and he's getting kneecapped if I ever see his punk ass. You wouldn't believe how much the guy talked about being a man of your word, only to ghost me when his decisions fucked us.

Oh, he also went to Trump University