Posted on 02/25/2011 11:30:01 AM PST by FromLori
If you listen closely enough, you can hear the stagflation storm brewing across the economy. It’s the sound of rising prices and weak economic growth conspiring to create the Federal Reserve’s worst enemy.
Friday’s lame GDP print exemplified where we’re heading, with the economy gaining just 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 no matter how much government economists tried to talk up the robust corporate balance sheet and supposed gains in employment.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
This will be the new old media talking point. It’s oil prices. It has nothing to do with a $1.4 trillion deficit or the Fed’s money printing party for the past three years. The president can’t be expected to control oil prices, can he? So none of this is his fault.
... and it’s also austerity (spending cuts) brought to us by those mean Republicans.
Jimmah redux.
Jeff Cox meet stock market. Up 77.
But we went to war in Iraq for oil...
The misery index was initiated by economist Arthur Okun, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960’s. It is simply the unemployment rate added to the inflation rate. It is assumed that both a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation both create economic and social costs for a country. A combination of rising inflation and more people out of work implies a deterioration in economic performance and a rise in the misery index.
President Time Period Start End Change
Richard M. Nixon 1969-01 - 1974-07 7.80 17.01 9.21
James E. Carter, Jr. 1977-01 - 1980-12 12.72 19.72 7.00
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953-01 - 1960-12 3.28 7.96 4.68
Barack H. Obama 2009-01 - 2011-01 7.73 10.63 2.90
Lyndon B. Johnson 1963-11 - 1968-12 7.02 8.12 1.10
George H.W. Bush 1989-01 - 1992-12 10.07 10.30 0.23
George W. Bush 2001-01 - 2008-12 7.93 7.49 -0.44
John F. Kennedy 1961-01 - 1963-10 8.31 6.82 -1.49
William J. Clinton 1993-01 - 2000-12 10.56 7.29 -3.27
Gerald R. Ford 1974-08 - 1976-12 16.36 12.66 -3.70
Ronald W. Reagan 1981-01 - 1988-12 19.33 9.72 -9.61
Harry S. Truman 1948-01 - 1952-12 13.63 3.45 -10.18
“The fact that the Fed’s massive money printing effort is the progenitor of global food riots completely escapes (Bernanke),” Michael Pento, senior economist at Euro Pacific Capital, said in a blog post. “As more damage is done, the Fed will use the resulting contraction in GDP to justify a third round of quantitative easing—further harming the GDP.
“Unfortunately, the viscous cycle of stagflation will grow more acute with each iteration of the Fed’s love affair with counterfeiting. Countries that make the mistake of continuing to peg their currencies to the US dollar will suffer more inflation and more destabilization. Since it will be hardest for the US to ditch the dollar, our hopes are dimmer.”
Except for that little matter of him shutting down oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. There may be some out there who will remember that, if reminded, in 2012. When gasoline is flirting with $7/gal.
The poor growth number would be a decrease if it weren’t being supported by inflation and if it didn’t count government borrowing as growth. We never started to get out of the recession, we’re just spiralling in. Stagnant job growth is also a net negative, as growth is required to just stay even with the increasing population.
The federal government keeps telling us that we only have rising prices, not inflation. They think that we’re idiots.
Did you see the other new Fed talking points? lol Recovery...
http://usawatchdog.com/the-low-inflation-rate-lie/
I’ve been saying for a while it was a two fer the Fed’s monetization of our debt allows obamas spending to continue and it helped set the middle east ablaze.
There’s more then one way to control the food :)
The stock market is going up because of the weakening dollar. If I have Swiss marks and the dollar weakens against it by 25%, then I instantly see things priced in U.S. dollars as a bargain. I will step in and buy at a discount. And even if I drive up the dollar value of those stocks by 20%, the folks selling to me realize a 5% decrease in buying power.
That's the way it works. If inflation jumps to 10% (and its already halfway there), expect the markets to at 10% to their normal movement.
The fact that we didn’t get any oil out of Iraq was the biggest failiure of them all. I’m still pissed that the American people got nothing out of the war. No spoils, no revenue, no territory. Nothing.
And the state-run media will be reminding us every hour on the hour about how the DJIA is going through the roof and that it's all because the markets love Obama and his agenda.
The Fed itself created this inflation in commodities.
The GDP number is not real. If you back out the government spending using money that they borrowed then GDP is negative by a huge amount. That spending game cannot continue, and will stop abruptly when it does.
The word “stagflation” recalls what it felt like waking up on Wednesday, November 5 in 1980. Thirty two years is a long time to wait for a reprise, but I think it’s coming.
Well the Feds not fooling anyone..
Discount deflation
Commentary: As far as markets are concerned, inflation’s already here
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rising-prices-sweep-away-deflation-fears-2011-02-22
“Except for that little matter of him shutting down oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.”
I don’t think Gulf exploration has much effect on world oil prices. It’s a commodity.
But it has a big effect on the US balance of trade, US jobs, and funding of terrorism. Each barrel of oil pulled out of the ground in the US, instead of in a terrorist state, is a barrel pulled out by a working American, is money we don’t have to pay to Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, and is money that is unlikely to go for funding terrorism.
Rush mentioned an article, today, that claimed that the US would be the 8th largest oil producer if Obama would open off shore drilling in ALASKA.
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