myiW Current Conditions and Forecasts Community Forums Buy and Sell Services
 
Hi guest · myAccount · Log in
 SearchSearch   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   RegisterRegister 
Financial Reform
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    iWindsurf Community Forum Index -> Politics, Off-Topic, Opinions
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
mrgybe



Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Boggsy, You wound me! I was not trying to twist your words...........I thought we were agreeing. The economy is improving slowly in the US, and more rapidly elsewhere.........that undoubtedly has impacted hydrocarbon pricing. However, I'm not alone in believing that the performance of the markets over the past several months, has resulted, in part, from the anticipation/ realization of Republican gains. For the first time in two years, businesses have confidence that taxes and regulation will not increase.......they like that. That's why I said the "Confidence is generally up now that Pelosi has handed over the gavel".
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
boggsman1



Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9118
Location: at a computer

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mr Gybe ..I agree with everything you just said. Why didnt you say that in the first place. I think if you were speaker of the house, and I was majority leader, the country would be much better off.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

boggsman1 wrote:
I agree with most. But, there are a lot of people who are renting, and a lot of people who are buying cheap clothing, cheap autos, cheap TVs and other electronic goods. A lot of big ticket items are less than they were 11 years ago, that is important. Inflation will come at some point, and it will be ugly, but NOT unitl we see meaningful gains in income, personal income. As long as we have slack in the labor markets, and imports flowing in from China, inflation will be a non event. Bard's main argument that Berspankys printing press guarantees runaway inflation is bunk....he's been helicoptering bags of money into the economy for almost 4 years now, and prices are flat at most at the consumer level.


You must be patient grasshopper....Are you saying that if unemployment went to 100% in the U.S., but the BRIC country economies went on a tear, that prices for basic necessities in the U.S. couldn't skyrocket?

Inflation lags bad policies. It certainly came big time after Nixon and Carter.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17742
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Following bard's reasoning, "Inflation lags bad policies." we can blame any acceleration of inflation on Bush? Keep on grasping at straws, or tell us again how the food riots in Morocco are Pelosi's fault. We've quarantined your kool-aid supply.

Mrgybe now wants us to believe that any economic growth that occurred after the November elections is because of Pelosi's departure, and any economic growth the occurred before the election happened despite her and Obama. He also wants us to believe that oil profits are modest, and we must look at return on investment for a sense of fairness. I'm surprised that he doesn't get whiplash from veering back and forth in an effort to find blame with liberals, back his fellow righties illogical claims, and flack for the oil companies. He seems to be a market guy until it comes to reducing oil company subsidies or trying to capture some of the costs they transfer to the public. I suggest that you might want to compost his analysis before you seek nutritional value.

Return on investment is an appealing argument at the surface. But I would submit that not all economic activities should be looked at in the same way. Trends and risk are pretty important. Looking at ROI, some have said that the airline business has never made money over it's entire industry. ROI for grocery stories is miniscule. Farmers are notoriously land rich and cash poor. Perhaps we need to dig a little deeper, and look at the value of the underlying assets, whether they are increasing or decreasing in value, and the degree of risk.

For the oil industry, the industry has embraced exploration and development as the biggest source of profit. I won't pretend to have mrgybe's knowledge of the internal economic thinking, but if BP is going to report income in 2010 despite the spill, we can guess that in most years that part of the business is pretty lucrative. The refinery business is pretty tame, and capital intensive--but pretty low on the risk side. The price of oil just keeps going up, and will continue to do so, except briefly in severe recessions. So with fixed capital, much of it fully depreciated in the older refinery inventory, they can count on increasing revenues with very low risk.

Now I am not arguing for lower prices on energy--it is futile in the long term where it is being tried (mostly in oil-producing countries) and leads to inefficient behavior. I think that energy is undervalued, and the increasing price will accelerate de-carbonization of the economy. Nor am I claiming to have mrgybe's knowledge of the industry. He will continue to provide us with nuggets of insight. But because of his deep biases and selective analysis of background, we are going to have to pick those nuggets out of buckets of partially digested horse food.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 4:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting dialogue

So, if a large reason that the dollar is weakening (Euro not so great either) is the debt level, could an argument be made that a tax on gasoline to pay down the debt have some merit?

Wouldn't this increase the value of the dollar, especially with the oil producers, since demand for oil would also, likely, be reduced?

Of course, the energy intensive industries, such as cement and steel production may require tax credits to offset some of this fuel tax.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 5:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One obvious source of funds being considered to pay off the debt is being debated on TV as I type. It's been done successfully in quite a few countries including Argentina and Hungary, and the target cash pool in the U.S. happens to darn near match our $14T debt. Every one of you will get down on your knees and thank the GOP if this idea gains traction in the White House: it's government confiscation of every private retirement account ... our IRAs, our 401ks, etc. Not that Roths are ironclad, but I did convert my Thrift Savings Plan and regular IRAs to Roths partly to put them one step further away from the Democrats.

Silly? So were the ideas of nationalization of Fannie & Freddie and most of the auto, banking, and insurance industries plus the confiscation of the SS lockbox.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anybody who thinks welfare isn't a vote-buying scam funded by the American taxpayer should answer this question:
Who has more disposable income ... a single mom with two kids making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) or a two-parent family of four (that same family plus Dad) earning $60,000 a year."

BZZZZZZT ... wrong!

A few excerpts from http://tinyurl.com/459f8da include:

• You can do as well working one week a month at minimum wage as you can working $60,000-a-year, full-time, high-stress job.

• If you add $24,262 a year for three disability checks, the lowest paid welfare family would now have far more take-home income than the $60,000-a-year family.

• Even Chinese communists must work to eat. We do not.

• Americans who EARN their money are subject to drug testing. Welfare recipients, including cheaters, are not.

Why are most of us fools working so hard?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
windoggi



Joined: 22 Feb 2002
Posts: 2743

PostPosted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 9:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:

Why are most of us fools working so hard?


us?

_________________
/w\
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Why are most of us fools working so hard?"


Come on dude, from past comments that you've made here, it's my understanding that you've been retired for over 22 years. Why pretend otherwise.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    iWindsurf Community Forum Index -> Politics, Off-Topic, Opinions All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Page 6 of 6

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum

myiW | Weather | Community | Membership | Support | Log in
like us on facebook
© Copyright 1999-2007 WeatherFlow, Inc Contact Us Ad Marketplace

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group