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To: foobeca
I don't know how you can say that Greenspan did not overstimulate the economy.

Forgive me, but this expression is completely nonsensical.

Overstimulating the economy can be worse than doing nothing at all.

???????

Even he admitted that there's some serious distortions in the economy.

You don't appear to understand the meaning of the words you use. Distortions are deviations from a norm or a given, well-defined set of circumstances. What is the norm for an economy? What distortions are you talking about and in what parameters of the economy?

These distortions were caused the by excess money and credit created by the Fed. SO, now you are claiming that A, which you are unable to define and speak about in a completely nonsensical way is caused by B. Causation is difficult to establish even for well-defined quantities.

Why don't you read something and study the issue. The scientific method dictates that one reserves judgment until sufficient evidence is collected. You pass judgment not only in the absence of evidence but without even understanding what the issue is.

89 posted on 10/08/2005 7:41:07 PM PDT by ExitPurgamentum
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To: ExitPurgamentum

What do I mean by overstimulate? The Fed uses monetary policy to stimulate the economy. It does this through the creation of credit (Fed Funds rate), and the printing press. If the Fed goes too far in stimulating the economy, it creates inflation. This is Econ 101. The Fed. Funds rate dropped to 1% and the money supply has increased by 50% since 2000. How can that not be going too far?

You have to be blind not to see that the dot com speculators left the stock market in 2000 and got into the housing market. At the same time, the Fed lowered the Fed. funds rate down to 1%, which is essentially free money, which caused mortgage rates to plumment. The low rates and decreased lending standards helped feed the housing bubble.

The artificially low interest rates made available a nearly limitless supply of money for borrowing in the housing market. That distorted the housing market and caused prices to go up.

What else could have caused the price of housing to go up 50% on a nationwide basis since 2000? Incomes since 2000 are pretty flat. You can't explain it with illegal aliens, they can't afford to buy houses.


95 posted on 10/08/2005 8:13:33 PM PDT by foobeca
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