Comments on: Roubini’s Odd Reasoning

By: David Smith

David Smith — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:51:56 +0000

Yea for us. Whee.

Ain’t denial great?

By: Rebel Without a Clause

Rebel Without a Clause — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 22:40:38 +0000

Might as well get the #’s right. There’s $7 trillion in bad paper parked “off the books” at the fed’l mortgage agencies; but they (we) are paying interest on it, and it is debt. So real US debt at DC level alone is more like $23 trillion, and debt/GDP is already at Grecian levels. Roubini notwithstanding, the only thing preventing immediate dollar and Ponzi collapse is our currency’s reserve status. Impending IranWar will terminate that status.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:10:41 +0000

I do not get the sense that Roubini is saying to print more currency, i.e Fed Printing / Monetary expansion. He appears to be luke-warmly advising that things must change, but that in the very near term, “…because the US can print money to finance its deficit…” and “…in part because the US dollar is still a reserve currency…” and
“…foreign demand of China and the rest of emerging markets is financing the large US fiscal and current account deficits.”; the seriousness of the situation in the U.S. will be somewhat mitigated by the factors he mentioned, i.e. those contained within the quotation marks.

Ilana, I agree with you about the masking of reality and I believe the curtain will be drawn wide-open as surely as the Wizard of Oz was exposed by Toto. It’s simply a matter of time and no one can escape this Tsunami.

ps: for those who missed the LINK:

http://mises.org/daily/6069/An-Austrian-Defense-of-the-Euro

By: james huggins

james huggins — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:19:09 +0000

We have the hugest debt in history. How can anybody say we’re better off than Europe or anybody else. All we have to do is be able to count.

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:21:04 +0000

Debt for PRODUCTIVE purposes is part of a functioning capitalist system – e.g. issuing stock in return for Henry Ford making cars that are in demand or Merck making medicines or farmers growing food. But when government issues debt, it is for what – drones, ethanol subsidies, windmills, solar panels, food stamps, Medicare – where is the return on investment? Where is the payback? Messiah Obama, imitating the Republicans, cut the payroll tax so that the Babyboomer Socialist Insecurity is being paid with debt? How is that? Are we going to sell off 83 year old granny into sexual slavery to the Chinese? Is Hamid Karzai going to pay the debt? Where is the profit in killing jobs at Toyota to keep alive UAW jobs at General Motors? Do extra parasitical associate school superintendents pay off federal and municipal bonds?

Nevertheless, I see some point in what Roubini is saying. The dollar is currently floating on a magic carpet of ethereal bullsh*t dollar-bubble. He thinks that it “can happen” (that people will wake up and the bubble will pop) while I think it “will happen”. I think the WHEN and the HOW (explosion or steady decay) is what is unknown.