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all i know is i retired very nicely on that illusional growth .
Same.
Eating imaginary food, drinking fake beer, taking pretend trips all based on the illusion of growth. VR tech has really taken off, holograms have nothing on this.
And I keep trying to take a vacation, but have no time in between projects despite trying to make work go away by raising my rates. Terrible economy indeed!
the company i retired from is so busy they told me i can work as many days as i want . i told them for now i will give them a day a week instead of the 2 days a month i was giving them .
I worked off and on keeping former clients up to speed in the first year or so after I retired. There were personal as well as professional obligations involved in that. But time marches on, and so does business. Now I mostly consult with my wife regarding what the details of our next trip should look like. We'll be traveling off to exotic Washington DC later today. Hopefully, the tourist crowds won't be too bad.
You people are something else.. It's no secret that our Fed has propped up asset prices, inflated stocks and real estate with our taxpayer money. So just because you are currently benefiting from this Wealth Effect it doesn't mean our economy is growing healthy or doing good. My house alone has almost doubled in value (currently valued 4.5 million) so I should be cheerleading just like you do about this Wealth Effect???? My personal investments in the market since 2009 have grown as well but most Americans don't have that luxury and don't have extra money to invest in the market.
Using future earnings and our kids and grandkids money to prop up asset prices is CRIMINAL at best. Our economy has been dead since 2001 and Wealth Effect that you see today is a result of Economic Cancers that our Fed has created with debt and ZIRP. For every personal positive story today we have 100,000 negative ones. Homeownership rate is at multidacade low, new jobs created are mostly service sector part time jobs, homeless population has increased dramatically since 2009.
This so called recovery is a fraud and soon as rates are allowed to go back up this "Wealth Effect" in stocks and real estate is going to disappear. We are spending trillions and trillions of dollars to maintain this illusion of a recovery, but for the majority of our citizens this recovery is feeling worse then any previous recession. Enjoy this illusion while it still lasts, but nothing lasts forever, remember that!!!! We will pay a huge price for this insanity and craziness created by the Fed and Wall Street Crooks!!!!
Can you show me where or how taxpayer money is used?
Hoonose, we are enduring a massive debt bubble engineered by the FEDERAL RESERVE and central bankers throughout the world. My view is that the FED-engineered attempt to avoid the dark side of the American Dream (will not work, and will result in even more financial hardship once the attempt to INFLATE FOREVER is given up). We can see what happens when a nation uses tomorrow's money to protect today's debt, view contemporaneous Japan as an example of this, instead of letting nature regulate debt buildup by destroying such imbalances.
The FED should have begun raising interest rates in 2001, and should continue to make money MORE expensive for the next decade. Why? Because nature provides a business cycle growth season, and this growth season is ALWAYS followed by years of deflation, rest, decay, gestation, preparatory to the next growth season.
Deflation Seasons must do certain things to prepare for the next growing season:
1) raise interest rates, and change the focus and support from speculators (the driving force of the Growth Seasons) to the majority of citizens, from speculative markets to more conservative interest-rate investment.
2) pay-off or destroy toxic debt that helps to keep the economy from growing.
3) raise taxes on the wealthy to help fund an increase in social programs needed to withstand the damages to the society from the non-growth season.
I believe the FED's attempt to simulate (not stimulate) perpetual growth is a mistake that will be very costly in the long run.
Anyways, back to your original question and how is our Fed funneling taxpayer money to Wall Street (free money, loans at 0% interest), guaranteeing the same banks and entrepreneurs and ‘risk-takers’ profits by buying every US Treasury Bond no one else would buy, keeping a lid on interest rate levitation, and working with the banks to ‘guarantee’ a stock market rally. The stock market rallies since 2008 have all been purchased by the Federal Reserve using taxpayer money to generate a facsimile of a real bull market rally. These rallies will ‘peter-out’ as soon as Fed's game of financing asset inflation from the American treasury is seen for what it really is: monetizing debt through the attempted destruction of the US Dollar, which is just another asset-bubble building exercise. Funding stock market rallies, in collusion with Wall Street, is insider trading running wild. Everyone at the Fed should be investigated for crimes of graft and misuse of power. Yellen should be impeached. And Wall Street should be forced to pay back all of the free money they have received from Federal Reserve policy that ‘stole’ money from bank depositors through forced 0% interest payment policies, but also filled up bank coffers with artificial ‘bail-out’ disguised as attempts at ‘credit crunch’ medicine.
We have too much debt – and we are lying to ourselves, pretending this is not the problem. If we eliminate the Fed subterfuge, reject the smoke and mirrors, and the unspeakable lies dressed up in fancy euphemisms we will see that our glass has been filled to the top – we need to empty the debt glass. We empty the glass;
(1) by raising taxes, especially on rich Americans and corporations
(2) by cutting government spending – and, during Non Growth Cycles, during depressions, when public services are more needed than ever, this means cutting government spending on non-human support services, including military spending
(3) by raising interest rates, encouraging saving, and forcing bad debt out into the open, forcing it to be paid down, where possible, or forcing default on bad debts. The rich don’t want higher rates because they both own bad debt and will be hurt by such defaults, and they also hold bad debt and will be forced to default themselves.
The Fed should be audited immediately no matter how much enbarassment this may cause for the Fed or the government. If an audit shows that Fed officials broke the law by giving American taxpayer money to non-American banks during the trillion dollar bailouts or if they used taxpayer money to juice stock markets over the years (American or foreign markets) to prevent losses for investors (especially for Wall Street corporations) then arrests should be made, even if this means Yellen, Greenspan or Bernanke go down with the ship.
The American Treassury is not the slush fund of Wall Street high-finance gamblers. I cannot believe that I or anyone would have to make this statement.
Wall Street’s cry since the 1970’s has been: ‘Get out of our way and let us sink or swim on the basis of our own talent and judgment.” We can police ourselves, they insisted. When they failed in 2008, they did not bite their lip, lower their collective head in shame, accept their guilt and their failure, and take their medicine like men – which is what they seem to demand from ‘average Americans’ who fail – they went whining to Washington, sniveling ‘Give us another chance! Please give us a second chance!”.
Wall Street whines about having to pay taxes; pays billions to elect politicians from both parties who promise to keep taxes low and keep laws beneficial to Wall Street. When they make profits they refuse to share their profits with ‘average American’ taxpayers – they are exceptional, remember; they are ‘Masters of the Universe’; they are winners, don’t believe in losing, and never will be losers – because they are all doing God’s work.
When they do fail, they fail BIG. When they lost everything in 2008, they did not take the pain like the stolid, wounded cowboy they claim they are - they sent their lackies to the owners of the casino and BEGGED for a new line of credit, which the Top Crook gave them: free money (0% loans) coming straight out of the pockets of the ‘average” American taxpayers they so clearly abhor.
The rich, in America, should be paying higher taxes. In fact, the rich have a moral obligation to help their fellow Americans now, especially after the rich had such a free hand for decades to profiteer locally and globally and, also, have played such a pivotal role in destroying the American financial structure which is driving many middle-class families into poverty and many poor in to deeper state of financial despair.
Anyways, back to your original question and how is our Fed funneling taxpayer money to Wall Street (free money, loans at 0% interest), guaranteeing the same banks and entrepreneurs and ‘risk-takers’ profits by buying every US Treasury Bond no one else would buy, keeping a lid on interest rate levitation, and working with the banks to ‘guarantee’ a stock market rally. The stock market rallies since 2008 have all been purchased by the Federal Reserve using taxpayer money to generate a facsimile of a real bull market rally. These rallies will ‘peter-out’ as soon as Fed's game of financing asset inflation from the American treasury is seen for what it really is: monetizing debt through the attempted destruction of the US Dollar, which is just another asset-bubble building exercise. Funding stock market rallies, in collusion with Wall Street, is insider trading running wild. Everyone at the Fed should be investigated for crimes of graft and misuse of power. Yellen should be impeached. And Wall Street should be forced to pay back all of the free money they have received from Federal Reserve policy that ‘stole’ money from bank depositors through forced 0% interest payment policies, but also filled up bank coffers with artificial ‘bail-out’ disguised as attempts at ‘credit crunch’ medicine.
The Fed should be audited immediately no matter how much enbarassment this may cause for the Fed or the government. If an audit shows that Fed officials broke the law by giving American taxpayer money to non-American banks during the trillion dollar bailouts or if they used taxpayer money to juice stock markets over the years (American or foreign markets) to prevent losses for investors (especially for Wall Street corporations) then arrests should be made, even if this means Yellen, Greenspan or Bernanke go down with the ship.
Wall Street whines about having to pay taxes; pays billions to elect politicians from both parties who promise to keep taxes low and keep laws beneficial to Wall Street. When they make profits they refuse to share their profits with ‘average American’ taxpayers – they are exceptional, remember; they are ‘Masters of the Universe’; they are winners, don’t believe in losing, and never will be losers – because they are all doing God’s work.
When they do fail, they fail BIG. When they lost everything in 2008, they did not take the pain like the stolid, wounded cowboy they claim they are - they sent their lackies to the owners of the casino and BEGGED for a new line of credit, which the Top Crook gave them: free money (0% loans) coming straight out of the pockets of the ‘average” American taxpayers they so clearly abhor.
The rich, in America, should be paying higher taxes. In fact, the rich have a moral obligation to help their fellow Americans now, especially after the rich had such a free hand for decades to profiteer locally and globally and, also, have played such a pivotal role in destroying the American financial structure which is driving many middle-class families into poverty and many poor in to deeper state of financial despair.
You are telling me that you want rich taxpayers to pay more.
But you say nothing true to support that the bails used taxpayer money.
The Fed does not need taxpayer money to operate. How would the Fed even get taxpayer money?
You cannot answer because you have it wrong. Your Thesis is wrong.
The Fed creates money out of thin air, they do not use tax money. And during the 2008 crisis they helped stabilize and bail foreign banks via temporary loans and guarantees. No taxpayer money was needed and no taxpayer money was used.
The Fed does not need taxpayer money to operate. How would the Fed even get taxpayer money?
While C2BP wails about the Fed, he knows not how it works. The Fed was of course created by and reports to Congress, and if they were actually to acquire taxpayer dollars, it would have to be through Congressional appropriation. Unfortunately, the truth is that the Fed is fiscally independent. It receives no government appropriations at all. The Fed funds its activities with the interest earned from loans to banks and investments in government securities and from revenue received for providing services to financial institutions. The Fed’s goal in providing services is to generate only enough revenue to cover costs. Excess earnings (money made above the cost of operations) is annually turned over to the U.S. Treasury, and as you note, these amounts have been quite substantial in recent years, thanks in part to returns on assets acquired under the dreaded QE.
Please DO:
Stay on topic
“Let it go, let it go” – choose to ignore instead of engaging other posters who rile you
“See something, say something” – report TOS violations instead of engaging
Please DON’T:
Take personal jabs at each other
Preach at your fellow posters
Make pronouncements about who shouldn’t post on a particular thread or forum
This thread is closed.
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