Trufflehunter
11:19 | 21 Nov 2009
Historically, bursting credit bubbles have always ended messily. The folks who lived through the Great Depression regretted and later eschewed borrowing more. This attitude was passed on to their children as they struggled to pay down debts.
Credit was regarded as the devil that danced in empty pockets!!
Despite the lowest ever bond yields there is no traction. It's the Minsky Moment. It's the pushing on the proverbial Keyneseian string.
Bonds are the bubble of the moment being propped up by QE. The tide has gone out an unusual distance; there is an almost eerie silence. But, in the distance there is an incoming tide of water that will devastate the unprepared, a financial tsunami.
ARTHUR COLLINGE - CREDIT
11:58 | 21 Nov 2009
It's no wonder people are pulling back from credit cards
given their current unattractive interest rates and terms.Less than 3 years ago you could get a life of balance rate of 3.9%.Now you
would be lucky to get the same for 8%. Maybe, people are just making a sensible economic decision that they
ca'nt make credit cards pay for them any longer.
EdwardC D Ingram - Quantitative Easing for all
08:55 | 22 Nov 2009
There is a lack of real understanding of how economies work or can be made to work going on here.
Quantitative easing is the creation of money through the banking system which may help and we do need to encourage people to borrow again.
But the real issue is how to create confidence and to get spending going again in the NORMAl pattern leading topermanent re-employment. People need secure income in order to increase spending and to get us out of the recession.
Failing that they need plenty of surplus income. That can be engineered but economists are ignoring this option. It needs to be done for everyone across the board and not by borrowing but by quantitative easing done not for banks but for everyone.
It may lead to inflation but that is a lesser evil and I have a well respected paper on how to deal with that issue. Besides that, one of the consequences of inflation is a rush to buy, which would be exactly the remedy needed.
And there are ways tosafeguard savings and confidence in the currency from the ravages of inflation that I have thought through. The twoissues are linked.
I have written a few papers on this and delivered the idea at university seminars where the ideass are well liked by some.
Others are scared by the ideas so they need a wider audience. In the present circumstances. May I suggest that there is no harm in listening?
Yours Sincerely,
Edward C D Ingram
Trufflehunter
16:34 | 22 Nov 2009
Edward
I agree that there is lack of understanding of practical economic understanding in Universities in the UK and USA because they ignore the Austrian School concentrating instead on Keynesian Economics almost without exception.
Honest economic growth in real terms cannot come from following Keynes; the economic growth that does occur is inflationary because of over- dependence on creation of credit and money.
Keynesianism allows politicians and bankers to abuse their powers over credit and money and that is why it is taught exclusively in this country. Borrowing and credit have got the UK into it’s current mess; it cannot help to get out. It’s like giving the heroin junkie another fix; the body degenerates and he/she keeps coming back for more until the final reckoning.
Boom and bust can be partially ameliorated by the use of Keynesian principles provided politicians do not abuse those principles. This government failed to save money in the good times so that it could meaningfully take up the slack when the crunch came. Bozo Brown’s continuous moving of the financial goal post each year to accommodate his mis guided “investment” (good old fashioned spending) is a prime example of breach of fiduciary duty. Had Keynes’s principles been followed we would not be in such trouble today.
Honest growth comes through saving and investment in productive assets; and the attendant growth in wages and salaries that result from good investment. There can be no return to the crazy idea that we can be a “consumer economy” funded by 3 bedroom ATM machines! The Austrian School teaches that savings (not borrowings) are they key to real prosperity rather than the illusion of prosperity we have had for the last 13 years.
I agree DEBT deflation is painful. Normal deflation, the gradual fall in prices of goods over time, is of benefit to society. It doesn’t suit government; but it would suit most consumers. Deflation in the outrageous cost of housing in this country should be welcomed but people have been brain washed into thing that rising house prices are a good thing!!!! Government is perpetuating the lie by blatantly trying to raise prices even further. I call this gross dereliction of fiduciary duty by government. They are more concerned about preserving themselves that following sound economic principles.