Posted on 07/21/2004 6:50:12 AM PDT by Max Combined
WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress on Tuesday that he is concerned about a growing concentration of income in the United States, adding that the educational system has not created enough skilled workers.
At the same time, Greenspan said the recent rise in inflation appears to be short-lived, while warning that the central bank will become more aggressive in increasing interest rates if stronger inflationary pressures persist. He said the recovery was sustainable despite a recent "soft patch" in June. He added that inflation figures had risen but attributed much of the rise to "transitory factors" like a spike in oil prices.
"Economic developments have become quite favorable in 2004," he said.
The Fed chief created something of a surprise by agreeing with Democratic campaign statements that there is a growing gap in wages based on skill levels, with upper-income households benefiting more than any other group from the economic recovery.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
I've seen a significant rise in food prices in my area so I'm not sure what you are talking about. I remember buying milk for around $2 a gallon about a year ago and now I pay close $4, bread for $1.80 and now $3.00 for the same bread.
Home prices are not in-line with salaries in many areas so quality of life is diminished in that respect. Once the boomers start dropping off that will correct itself and we will have to rely more and more on imported labor.
Polar Opposites
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
By Neil Cavuto
What's the difference between Alan Greenspan (search) and Santa Claus? I'll tell you. None!
Yet to see all these senators tripping over themselves to praise the guy, you'd think Saint Al "was" Saint Nick. Newsflash: He's not!
Santa deserves the good press. I don't know about Al.
Santa's generous all the time. Alan's generous only some of the time.
When Santa screws up on a toy order, he makes good. When Alan screws up on a premature rate hike, he still acts like he's doing good.
Santa lives at the North Pole but doesn't mind the cold. Alan lives in Washington and just leaves me cold.
Santa's weapon of choice is a list -- he checks it twice. Alan's weapon of choice are interest rates -- he's been known to raise them more than twice.
Alan's overdone it in the past and boy did we pay. The worst you could say about Santa is he just made us "play."
Santa laughs. Alan never laughs.
Santa's a big guy. I like big guys. Alan's a thin guy. I get nervous around thin guys.
Santa says “Ho-ho.” Al's always saying “No-no.”
Santa speaks clearly. Asks, have you been good? Al never speaks clearly. Asks, have we been overly accommodative to crosswinds that are at odds with inflationary pressures building globally?
What?
Not once have I heard Santa talk about headwinds when he's flying. That's all I hear out of Al when he and his gang are hiking.
I can understand sucking up to Santa. For the life of me, I cannot fathom sucking up to Al.
So I have an idea: Bring Santa to the Fed and ship Al to the North Pole.
I'd love to see how Santa deals with bureaucrats and how Al deals with elves.
This is a normal event. But there is always places in an economy for good jobs. Right now people can go into nursing and finds lots of jobs and get dcent pay.
Consumer debt is not the same as it was 20 years ago. Loans are rarely kept longer than 7 years nowadays. Consumers are taking on a short term mentality toward purchases and are saving less.
We are facing possible deflation, currently high consumer debt levels and companies that favor foreign investment over domestic investment. All of these led to the depression and the fed knows they have to reign in some of these conditions.
And it is hard to outsource nursing and other medical care.
read later
Just as big a problem lurking in the background is the incredible amount of "unfunded liabilities" being incurred by the fedgov which amounts to over $ 50 Trillion and counting. If I understand correctly these UF's are Social Security obligations, pension fund guarantees, etc. which are increasing constantly. I'm not sure at this point of all the implications of this scenario but it seems as though it does not bode well for our future.
I was wrong.
The real problem is stupidity. Ignorance. Falt out idiocy with regard to human history.
Case in point: Your last post.
Look, we agree that mass slave-level influxes DO bring down wages for all except in the subset of slave-owners. But what has made that influx palatble? Fiat money.
Used to be called coin-clipping -- that was when it was democratic -- any knave could and did clip coins, and the elite benefited only in having more of the coins to clip, and the extremely elite did actually coin their own coins,
In every economic system folks have always grabbed adantages -- they should -- but some have always grabbed unfair advantage. Coin clippers, shippers with underweighing scales, officials selling government favors for bribes.
In every generation, for millenium! Yet somehow, in your mocking words, any sense, any wisdom gained of that very long history is absent. Ignored.
It's a trick of fiat money -- a trick of the eye, sort of.
Fiat money is coin clipping not only coin clipping in overdrive, on rocket power -- but concentrated coin clipping . Concentrating the clipping n the hand of the few.
With that mastery of theft, wholesale, massive, gargantuan theft -- they have had shipyards of oils to lay on tbe turbulent social waters that normally develop when such grand theft goes on, when such concentration of power takes place.
Education is not the US monopoly (regrettably for us). Therefore, in this country, like in any other, educated labor has to compete. One could try to lure the best brains from other countries here, and the country would benefit by it, but at slightly lower levels (i.e. for the rest of us) the competitive realities faces by educated labor cannot be denied.
According to the economists Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson, declines in the real prices of grocery food items caused a surge in caloric intake that can account for as much as 40 percent of the increase in the body mass index of adults since 1980. Technological advances in agriculture caused grocery prices to fall, the authors show, and these declines caused consumers to demand more groceries. Government policy only heightened the effect by encouraging overproduction. Journalist Michael Pollan points to a shift in the early 1970s toward direct farming subsidies as another source of the rise in caloric intake. The old system, an agricultural-support arrangement designed to discourage overproduction of corn and other storable commodities, had much smaller effects on producers’ decisions. But the new system "free[d] them to dump their harvests on the market no matter what the price."
That's OK. Hillary is going to take back all that wealth for the common good. Greenspan thinks he is smarter than the markets. GWB should have dumped this clown when he had the chance.
I see.
No wonder we are all so poor, starving to death, no money for doctors, only rags for clothing, and sleeping on the floor in our shacks. The slave owners have done clipped all our coins, using hyper-rocket drive, and stolen all our hard earned wealth.
Too bad I can't live as good as my parents did, who were kids back when we still had the gold standard. They had it made with their air-conditioned cars and houses, eating out at fancy restaurants once or twice a week, huge closets full of warm and stylish clothes, and their big and comfortable cars. Those were the good old days. If we could only reclaim them.
"Education is not the US monopoly (regrettably for us). Therefore, in this country, like in any other, educated labor has to compete."
True, but there is a big difference between the influx of unskilled and educated labor. Unskilled labor can just walk into this country and they are willing to do so, since they live better as illegal aliens in this country than they do as peasants in Central America. Most educated people are not willing to sneak into the country, knowing that they could be kicked out at any time.
The demand for educated labor is also expanding, while the demand for uneducated labor is going down, since many manufacturing jobs that use uneducated labor are going to China, where uneducated labor is cheapest. Thus there is a surplus of uneducated labor and there is not a surplus of educated labor, leading to the point of this article that the income gap between educated and non-educated people is growing.
In all that, what is household debt? Promises, eventually.
The poem, of course, tells the story of a strange piper who promises to rid the town of Hamelin of its hordes of rats. In return, the Mayor and the Council promise him a fee of 1,000 guilders. The piper carries out his part of the bargain, but when the town tries to cheat him out of his fee, the piper exacts a terrible revenge.
http://www.germanplaza.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=31&idproduct=51
No wonder we are all so poor, starving to death, no money for doctors, only rags for clothing, and sleeping on the floor in our shacks. The slave owners have done clipped all our coins, using hyper-rocket drive, and stolen all our hard earned wealth.Yet did Robert Browning summarize your statement, before you hast spake it:Too bad I can't live as good as my parents did, who were kids back when we still had the gold standard. They had it made with their air-conditioned cars and houses, eating out at fancy restaurants once or twice a week, huge closets full of warm and stylish clothes, and their big and comfortable cars. Those were the good old days. If we could only reclaim them.
155 A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;A "butt", by the way, is a wine vat, and Rhenish is a yuppie wine. Enjoy!
156 So did the Corporation too.
157 For council dinners made rare havoc
158 With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
159 And half the money would replenish
160 Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.
161 To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
Yep, it is sure a shame that we are all so much worse off now than those living under the gold standard back in 1930. But those darn puppet masters keep distracting us from noticing how bad we have it. Luckily, smart fellers like you and I are not fooled. We know the root of all evil, fiat money!
"In all that, what is household debt? Promises, eventually."
Yes, and we know that those soft hearted bankers got rich by believing in promises of repayment when in fact they have no hope of getting their money back. The fools give out cash in exchange for empty promises. I wonder why people think bankers are smart and rich. No one could ever get rich or stay rich by giving money away in exchange for promises. They must clip the coins before they lend them out.
You hast spake wisely, ye olde piper.
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