The big "R" and "An interesting quote", ... no?

[Ed Goertzen <egoert@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All:
Merry Christmas and many wishes for a happy and healthy and prosperous New
Year.
Here's the "interesting quote I'm passing on.

"Come the millennium, month 12,
 In the home of greatest power,
 The village idiot will come forth
 To be acclaimed the leader."
 -- Nostradamus, 1555

I'm sure all of you need no intro to Nostradamus.

John Wrote:
===and my comments follow===

    The credit and low interest requirements to contain
    any US recession, especially to keep unemployment
    at continuing record lows, may well be supplied by
    the Fed in a joint effort with Bush and Congress to
    spend enough on defense and other priorities,
    (including energy supply and environmental needs,)
    to justify Republican luck in the recent election.

    Alternatively, we will elect a Democratic Congress
    in 2002.

    The inflation rate that may accompany recession
    avoidance and control will be substantial -- say 5%
    even though anything less than hyperinflation is
    preferable to 10% unemployment.

    The idea of a federal capital budget can be
    revived  to make "deficits" attractive.  If Bush
    and his Texas team keep the Clinton prosperity
    alive with tax reduction and military spending
    (followed by other necessary public spending,)
    the Republicans will have become Democrats
    as quickly as Clinton's "pay off the debt"
    turned Democrats into Republicans.

    The economics of burst share price bubbles is
    being met by the politics of "don't let the decline
    of private paper wealth contract what fiscal
    boldness can expand -- and be sure to have
    the blame for any initial pain fall on the guys
    who made it happen".

    "President" Alan Greenspan is really to old
    to be remembered as just another frightened
    Paul Volker. If he does less than his duty now
    his glory vanishes as though he'd never been
    born.

        John Gelles

My comments:
***When the interest rate has fallen to zero, how will lowering the
interest rate be possible?
I expect that all the funds that were stashed away, (CA. RRSP's) "tax
exempt or deferrd" to encourage savings, will be  allowed to be withdrawn
tax exempt.
***The Strategic Arms Agreement that Putin visited Can and Cuba to pray
that it be retained will probably be abrogated with much face saving
propaganda. Powell is a Hawk that advocates diplomacy and war as a last
resort "unless war is quicker and less costly."

***During the interval between the two great wars, international treaties
were signed to limit military (naval) expenditures (read: economic pump
priming) particularly in the building of battleships.
Deficit spending is always permitted, even approved, by the great banking
houses if it does not improve the net wellbeing of the population. A
borrowed standard of living is allowed since it can be cancelled or
repossessed. The word "Bond" has more than one meaning.

***It was Lenin who said, "if you want to eliminate the middle class, grind
them between the twin millstones of inflation and taxation."

***There are many kinds of inflation. There's "stagflation" where there is
high inflation and high unemployment.
***Then there's "cost push" inflation. That's where the interest cost of
borrowing (due to inflation) forces the rise in the CPI that causes strikes
and the demand for wage increases is then said to cause inflation
***Then there's "demand pull" inflation. That's when the increased
borrowing and spending by corporatiions puts purchasing power in the hands
of workers before the goods produced can be marketed. The excess purchasing
power is spent on ever scarcer existing goods, increasing the CPI,
identified as inflation.

***There is no way that the money that was printed, created etc by the
banks to inflate the stock market can be kept restricted to the stock
market. Some of it is bound to be "cashed in" and transfered to the "real
goods" market, creating excessive demand. The only sector that can absorbe
that amount of new credit is the real estate sector. We (CA, ON.) are
experiencing the beginning of the "boom" of increased prices. Same there?

And a very Happy Christmas to All!
Ed Goertzen