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I/we caught the first part, until we went to bed (early to bed, early to rise are we).
I knew something was going on behind the scenes, not sure what, the show put a finger on it for me (then I had to go wash that finger!)
There's never an easy answer to economics.
It's like right now I've seen price increases on locally generated items, and stupid increases...first it was "supply chain issues", now everything is marked up as everyone is jumping on the "it's inflation" bandwagon...just to soak us for more money (at least my theory).
Things, monetary wise are no different than 100 years ago... In fact with fiat currency, probably worse than then.
Oh, well, Mother Nature has been showing us lately that we (humankind) are NOT in control of...things...like we'd like to think.
Maybe it won't be Putin, kim jong Un or china who wipes us off the map...for those old enough to remember the Imperial margarine commercials..." It's NOT nice to follow Mother Nature!"
Now back to my regularly scheduled bills...oh, wait, I'm now paying next months bills.
I watched the whole 2 hrs last night. I thought it was well worth the time. They really criticized what the Fed has been doing for decades.
In a notable interview they were talking about how, with interest rates near 0%, the Feds expectation was that corporations would borrow money to expand business, thereby creating jobs and expanding the economy to the benefit both the corporations and society as a whole. Instead, corporations borrowed money for nearly no interest and did stock bybacks because that's what share holders were demanding. Meanwhile, corporate debt kept growing.
The interviewer asked,"Why would they do that? It seems growing your business would be a better use of the money, would allow them to pay back those loans, and put them in a better position long term."
She replied, "The turtle and the scorpion. It's in their nature, they can't help it. Wall Street values short term gains even if will eventually kill the company."
I watched the whole 2 hrs last night. I thought it was well worth the time. They really criticized what the Fed has been doing for decades.
In a notable interview they were talking about how, with interest rates near 0%, the Feds expectation was that corporations would borrow money to expand business, thereby creating jobs and expanding the economy to the benefit both the corporations and society as a whole. Instead, corporations borrowed money for nearly no interest and did stock bybacks because that's what share holders were demanding. Meanwhile, corporate debt kept growing.
The interviewer asked,"Why would they do that? It seems growing your business would be a better use of the money, would allow them to pay back those loans, and put them in a better position long term."
She replied, "The turtle and the scorpion. It's in their nature, they can't help it. Wall Street values short term gains even if will eventually kill the company."
I skimmed the piece last night.
*It's typical Frontline stuff. Well produced/scripted/narrated/slow burn pace.....well left of center/anti-business/misleading by intent etc.
*Keeping interest rates low 100% set the groundwork for business expansion, more jobs, low U3 etc. all of that is easily investigated. Alternatively, higher rates would have killed all of that.
*Until covid as a percentage of GDP corporate debt was only up a little since 2008 and much lower in The US than China, Japan, The Euro area etc. From '07-now The Federal Reserve says all business debt grew from ~$10.1T to $19.9T while GDP over the same span has almost doubled..........ergo the business debt thing is a nothing-burger in historical terms.
*I don't much like it either but every modern era successful economy on Earth has focused on the the short term, call the modern era any time after Smith. As Keynes said, ".............In the long run we are all dead............." IMO most of the focus on short term metics is explained by the fact that business cycles used to be fairly short.......peak to trough sometimes in three years, during the 1800s sometimes in months.
I/we caught the first part, until we went to bed (early to bed, early to rise are we).
I knew something was going on behind the scenes, not sure what, the show put a finger on it for me (then I had to go wash that finger!)
There's never an easy answer to economics.
It's like right now I've seen price increases on locally generated items, and stupid increases...first it was "supply chain issues", now everything is marked up as everyone is jumping on the "it's inflation" bandwagon...just to soak us for more money (at least my theory).
Things, monetary wise are no different than 100 years ago... In fact with fiat currency, probably worse than then.
Oh, well, Mother Nature has been showing us lately that we (humankind) are NOT in control of...things...like we'd like to think.
Maybe it won't be Putin, kim jong Un or china who wipes us off the map...for those old enough to remember the Imperial margarine commercials..." It's NOT nice to follow Mother Nature!"
Now back to my regularly scheduled bills...oh, wait, I'm now paying next months bills.
Best
We went though brutal inflationary bouts under the gold standard (middle 1916-1920 FE) and near constant short term price instability to boot. FIAT works better, much better.
She replied, "The turtle and the scorpion. It's in their nature, they can't help it. Wall Street values short term gains even if will eventually kill the company."
You know, that's kind of what seems to be going on with a lot of businesses today too. Not just newer businesses, but old established ones as well. They get a CEO who changes over the entire business to make more money, no matter how it hurts the employees or the customers, and then they walk away when the business is ruined, after they've gone through it like a fox in a hen house.
I even brought that up once here on CD and asked someone something if they would sacrifice the continuity of the business over making a fast buck and the answer was, yes, they would. I think it has something to do with the thinking processes of people today. Nowdays people value money out of all proportion to valuing a good business with a good name, keeping it going, and respecting their employees and customers.
Maybe that's why we just had a thread on customer service getting worse today.
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