Cost of living crisis. What crisis?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick

You're mistaking my pointing out the facts that Schiff has been wrong on everything for 6 years and Armstrong is a criminal fraudster  for character assassination.

The character assassination bit is my opinion of people who listen to them. Those people are naive, ignorant idiots.

[IC1967]

You're mistaking my pointing out the facts that Schiff has been wrong on everything for 6 years and Armstrong is a criminal fraudster  for character assassination.

The character assassination bit is my opinion of people who listen to them. Those people are naive, ignorant idiots.

Again you don't argue a case. You rant on about personalities. Seems to me you are resorting to this tactic (yet again) because you know I'm right again and you can't argue sensibly against my point  of view (yet again).

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick

I've given you a whole list if things that Schifc has been wrong on for the last 6 years. I could double, treble and quadruple that list. Point me to one major economic issue that he's been right on. That's not character assassination. That's pointing out that the man has been demonstrably wrong on every major issue since the financial crisis hit. Yet for some bizarre reason, naive, ignorant idiots still cling to his every word.

Armstrong has a similar rap sheet of demonstrably wrong predictions. But in his case, it's almost forgivable. After all, the man is a raving lunatic.

[IC1967]

I've given you a whole list if things that Schifc has been wrong on for the last 6 years. I could double, treble and quadruple that list. Point me to one major economic issue that he's been right on. That's not character assassination. That's pointing out that the man has been demonstrably wrong on every major issue since the financial crisis hit. Yet for some bizarre reason, naive, ignorant idiots still cling to his every word.

Where in this thread have I mentioned Mr Schiff? I'll tell you. Nowhere. Why on earth you are doing a character assassination on him only you seem to know. You are going off at a tangent yet again and failing to argue against what I am saying. We all know why you are doing it. It's because you've nothing useful to contribute to the debate. You know I'm right and you can't disprove it much though you would like to.

[IC1967]

I'd like to see a character assassination job on BST, have you got the b*llocks to do it

I thought you were his friend. Look, Billy has has many severe batterings off me so I have taken pity on him and don't want to inflict any more pain. I'm amazed the man keeps coming back for more. I'll give it to him, he's a fighter. Unfortunately he is now so punch drunk he just doesn't know when he's beaten.

[Glyn_Wigley]

I'm still trying to work out whether we're going to have disastrous deflation or monstrous inflation. We can't have both but Mick's predicted both in this one thread...

[BillyStubbsTears]

Glyn

Watching right-wing economic arguments over the last 6 years has been like watching blindfolded war criminals in a vat of acid. Incessant wriggling and squirming as they try to figure out what is going on in an environment that they don't understand. And whilst you know you should feel some humanitarian compassion for them, you get guilty pleasure from watching their discomfort.

They start off from the premise that govt intervention in the economy must be a bad thing. Because...well because it just HAS to be, so there.

So, when they see Govts pumping money into the financial system, they know, they just KNOW that this means we'll get hyper-inflation.

But we don't. Just as the Keynesian analysis predicted. Because when you're at the Zero Lower Bound, monetary policy has lost its grip and loose monetary policy does not lead to inflation.

But the right wingers can't accept that. Because it would mean that Govt intervention might not have disastrous consequences. And they know, just KNOW that that cannot be right. Because...well, just because.

So they develop another crackpot theory. That we are really in the grip of massive historic deflationary pressures, because....yeah, demographics will do. (It is one issue which may produce deflationary pressure, but only one of many. But it'll do for our purposes now.)

So the message becomes: We MUST have deflation. It is what the economy naturally needs. And evil Govt policy through QE is preventing this.

Whatever the empirical evidence, the belief of rightwingnutjob.com is that Govt intervention is evil. And whether the consequences of this evil behaviour are hyper inflation or deflation, the outcome is always the same. Get into gold.

It has all the hallmarks of a millenarian messianic cult. You can see why it appeals to the intellectually stunted, naive and vulnerable.

[River Don]

The thing is to me, governments, except perhaps German ones will always favour inflation. Even in the EU now, where they are sliding into deflation QE is on the cards.

But look at the story underlying the money, ignore what's happening with paper/electronic money.

We have a globalised economy. The global population is still rising. Large parts of the global population are consuming more as they industrialise and motorise.

Global oil supply is flat. Americans are driving 20% less than they would have been had the graph held to trend pre 2005. Some of that will be down to using more efficient vehicles, a lot of it is just driving less. It still hasn't affected the price of oil, that missing consumption has gone East.

We see food inflation as people in the east change their habits and eat more meat, have you noticed the price of beef, pork and lamb? And Americans use corn to make bio ethanol. They've just opened a massive new plant near Hull to convert grain into fuel now too.

For the last 6 or 7 years we've seen inflation. We have inflation now, except the government don't like to include inflationary things like housing in the numbers.

There are deflationary signs too, worrying ones, people cutting back, consuming less but overall I think were in for more inflation for the foreseeable future.

[Glyn_Wigley]

The thing is to me, governments, except perhaps German ones will always favour inflation. Even in the EU now, where they are sliding into deflation QE is on the cards.

All governments aim for inflation at around 2%, as that's the best rate of inflation for economic growth to occur. And that's O-level stuff, so even Mick might be able to get his head round that one..! If he wasn't too busy throwing the whole textbook out of the window, of course...

[IC1967]

I'm still trying to work out whether we're going to have disastrous deflation or monstrous inflation. We can't have both but Mick's predicted both in this one thread...

I'd be grateful if you could show us where I've predicted monstrous inflation. Thanking you in anticipation of you not being able to. An abject apology will be instantly accepted.

[IC1967]

Where in this thread have I mentioned Mr Schiff?

I'd be grateful if you would answer the occasional question. An abject apology will be instantly accepted.

[IC1967]

But we don't. Just as the Keynesian analysis predicted. Because when you're at the Zero Lower Bound, monetary policy has lost its grip and loose monetary policy does not lead to inflation.

What you leftie nutjobs always do is quote Keynes. You only ever quote the spending money side of his crackpot theories. You never ever mention the fact that during the good times money should have been put to one side to pay for the bad times. No. All you ever bang on about is spend, spend, spend. Mr Keynes would turn in his grave if he could see the way you abuse his theories.

[IC1967]

S

o the message becomes: We MUST have deflation. It is what the economy naturally needs. And evil Govt policy through QE is preventing this.

My message is that deflation is inevitable, not that we must have it. We're going to have it whether we like it or not. QE will not prevent it. It will merely delay it and when it does happen the consequences will be far worse than they would have been had we not bothered with QE.

[IC1967]

All governments aim for inflation at around 2%, as that's the best rate of inflation for economic growth to occur. And that's O-level stuff, so even Mick might be able to get his head round that one..! If he wasn't too busy throwing the whole textbook out of the window, of course...

Answer this. Why is inflation falling every month despite the BoE trying to keep it well above 2% to inflate away the debt? They are shocked (in secret) that inflation is falling. They don't want it to fall. There is nothing that they can do though. They've already thrown everything they can at the 'problem' and there is nothing left. Deflation here we come.

[Glyn_Wigley]

I'm still trying to work out whether we're going to have disastrous deflation or monstrous inflation. We can't have both but Mick's predicted both in this one thread...

I'd be grateful if you could show us where I've predicted monstrous inflation. Thanking you in anticipation of you not being able to. An abject apology will be instantly accepted.

Because when the markets wise up to full horror of the unsustainable size of our national debt, sterling will take a real pounding.

A currency losing it's value is what inflation IS. There is no other definition, so there's your cast-iron prediction right there. So you can shove an apology up your own abjectness.

[IC1967]

A currency losing it's value is what inflation IS. There is no other definition, so there's your cast-iron prediction right there. So you can shove an apology up your own abjectness.

So according to you, when a currency loses it's value, monstrous inflation follows. You don't qualify this statement (as usual) by saying how much the currency has to fall before we get monstrous inflation.

Is it 1%? Is it 10%? Is it 20%? Is it 25%? Is it even higher?  I have stated that sterling will in the future take a severe pounding. You in your simplistic way have then put 2 and 2 together and come up with 5. You say that because I've said this, that I have predicted monstrous inflation. No I haven't. I've predicted deflation.

Assuming we'd all agree that a fall of 25% in the value of sterling would be the equivalent of it taking a severe pounding, then according to you we would see monstrous inflation. Let's be clear, this is what you are attributing to me but in reality it is your view not mine.

Let me clearly state now that you are totally wrong (as usual). Unlike you, I will back up what I say (as usual). We have a very recent historical precedent. In 2007 the pound was worth over 2 dollars. One year later it's trade weighted value against a basket of currencies was down by more than 25%.

Now, I'd call that a severe pounding. What happened? According to you we should have had monstrous inflation. We didn't. Inflation did rise a little, but this could in no way be described as monstrous. Despite the pound still being well below it's 2007 value against the dollar inflation is now falling! We are heading towards deflation!

You really don't have a clue what you are on about. Leave economics to experts like me and stop making yourself look daft. I'd have thought you'd have learned your lesson before after I have totally taken you apart in all other previous debates. But no. Just like Billy, you seem to enjoy a good battering. Well that's up to you. If you can take it, I can dish it out.

http://www.economist.com/node/12814762

[Glyn_Wigley]

We have a very recent historical precedent. In 2007 the pound was worth over 2 dollars. One year later it's trade weighted value against a basket of currencies was down by more than 25%.

There you go comparing apples and oranges again. if you're going to start with one factor of measurement, stick to it from start to finish because those two snippets of info can't be directly compared but you seem to think they can.

[IC1967]

There you go comparing apples and oranges again. if you're going to start with one factor of measurement, stick to it from start to finish because those two snippets of info can't be directly compared but you seem to think they can.

Is that the best you can do? Pathetic. You produce no evidence to back up your argument. I do. Right, here's even more evidence that shows you haven't got a clue what you are on about whereas I consistently prove myself to be the finest economist bar none.

In 2008–09, sterling registered an even larger depreciation against the US dollar than in its 1967 devaluation, the 1976 IMF crisis and its 1992 exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In the empirical academic literature, it has become the accepted custom to define a currency crisis as a year-on-year fall of 25% or more against the US dollar. Using this criterion, there has only been one sterling crisis in the past 50 years and that occurred between March 2008 and March 2009 when the value of the pound fell by nearly 30% against the US dollar. In trade-weighted terms, the decline was the biggest since figures were first calculated in the early 1980s.

This large depreciation was driven partly by concerns about the sustainability of the public finances.

There, is that enough evidence for you that we suffered a 'monstrous' decline in the buying power of sterling but didn't suffer 'monstrous' inflation. If that doesn't totally scupper your argument I don't know what does.

Just get that abject apology written and let's move on. Hopefully other readers of the forum will soon forget what a fool you've made of yourself and you can slowly start to try and rebuild a little bit of credibility.

Be warned. You've done your reputation immeasurable damage and this process is likely to take many years. In future I'd think twice if I were you about going up against me as there is only ever one winner.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Glyn

Leave the lad to his fantasy world. The rightwingnutjob world that future historians will despair of. The world that makes its ideological conclusions first, then finds evidence to support them.

As I said yesterday, in rightwingnutjob world, the massive monetary loosening in 2008-10, just HAD to lead to hyper inflation. There was no possible option. Every rightwimgnutjob said so at the time. Mick v2.0 copied and pasted most of them.

Keynesian economics said clearly that monetary loosening (whilst welcome) was not going to stop a prolonged economic slowdown if Govt spending was reined in. The rightwingnutjobs said that couldn't happen.

Well, we had one of the most clear cut natural experiments in economic history in 2010-13. The UK and EZ reined in Govt spending much faster than the USA. The UK and EZ flatlined. The USA grew strongly.

Neither saw hyper inflation.

To any rational being, that is as close to a conclusive test of competing economic theories (not that the rightwingnutjobs actually HAD a theory) as you'll ever see. M

But no. The rightwingnutjobs couldn't possibly be wrong. It couldn't possibly be that reducing Govt was a horrific mistake. There HAD to be something else.

Demographics! Of course, it was demographics. The greeting of the Baby Boomers must be it. That must be leading us naturally and inexorably towards DEflation, not INflation as they had been saying previously. Mick himself found some astonishing evidence about this around 2012 (co-incidentally, just as the better-known rightwingnutjobs were coming up with the same idea). Unfortunately, Mick lost the evidence down the back of the sofa and never managed to ecsin what it was.

But Deflation it is. And deflation caused, irresistibly by demographics. Not in any way whatsoever caused by either fiscal or monetary tightening by rightwingnutjobs in power.

Except...


...well, there's another natural experiment going on. The Swedish Riksbank has been taken over by rightwingnutjobs. They have increased interest rates. They have convinced the Govt to reduce public spending. The result? They have become the first really strong EU economy to go into outright deflation.

And it's got f**k all to do with demographics. The Swedes never had a 50s-60s baby boom. They gave had a steady increase in population and workforce. Their workforce has increased by 15% in the past decade and is forecast to grow strongly for the next 15 years.

But they are in deflation. Now. Not because of some crackpot demographics argument. Because of straightforward text-book economics.

Not that the rightwingnutjobs will listen to it. They have astonishing evidence that normal economic theory no longer applies. If only they could remember where they left it...

[IC1967]

Glyn

Leave the lad to his fantasy world.

Pathetic. Can't he defend himself? Obviously you don't feel he can so you have waded in by going off at a tangent again and not mentioning the main point of my previous post. That being that a currency devaluing by a monstrous amount does not necessarily lead to monstrous inflation as Mr Wigley asserted.

I produced hard irrefutable facts to back up what I said. Mr Wigley didn't and neither have you (as usual).

[IC1967]

Keynesian economics said clearly that monetary loosening (whilst welcome) was not going to stop a prolonged economic slowdown if Govt spending was reined in.

All this Keynesian claptrap is really starting to make my piss boil. Keynes was a crank of the highest order and his theories are pounced upon gleefully by leftie nutjobs and politicians that will use any excuse to borrow and spend money to buy votes.

Let's have a look at some recent history. The subprime crisis in America. To contrast the blatant differences between proper economics and Keynesian prescriptions, the following two prescriptions were offered early in this century:

Here is what Paul Krugman (Billy's hero) and the most prominent advocate of Keynes 'theory' said in 2002.

'To fight this recession, the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that....Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble'.

Here's what a the so-called rightwingnutjob senator Ron Paul said in 2003.

'Like all artificially created housing bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they otherwise would have been.'

We all know what happened next.

It was proper that one of these men should have won the Nobel Prize in economics. It just happened to be the wrong one.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick

Old habits die hard eh spadger? When you run out of ideas, paste someone else's

http://www.economicnoise.com/2014/02/28/true-economic-villain/

At least the person whose ideas you've stolen there has the same midis operandi as you. As in, selectively mis-quoting in order to try to score a point, as you regularly do, you pathetic fool.

Go have a look for yourself what was in Krugman's original article. It's well enough known and you can find it easily enough. Go have a look what your cut and paste job hid in the ellipses. And then change the habit of a lifetime and engage what passes for your brain before you post again.

[IC1967]

A bit annoyed are we that Mr Krugman and Keynes have been found out. Here is more evidence that Krugman did cause the housing bubble in America that eventually devastated the world economy.

http://archive.mises.org/10153/krugman-did-cause-the-housing-bubble/

[IC1967]

I'm still waiting for that abject apology Mr Wigley. Come on man, get on with it.

[IC1967]

I could also do with an abject apology off you silly Billy for always extolling the virtues of Mr Krugman when I have conclusively proved he was the one that caused the subprime crisis in America by persuading politicians to follow the half baked ideas of Keynes. Come on man, get on with it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick. I have to admit, I am utterly unable to argue with you.

I need to drown my sorrows. Do you have any tips on the horses?

[IC1967]

I have to admit, I am utterly unable to argue with you.

I need to drown my sorrows. Do you have any tips on the horses?

At last you admit total unequivocal defeat. About time too. Your life will now be much less angst ridden. The grinding of teeth while you sleep will now also be a thing of the past.

As for the horses I can give you and anyone else who wants to know a guaranteed method of making money from them. All you need to do is back a horse at higher odds than you lay it and you will make a profit regardless of whether it wins or loses. It's a technique known as arbing. My fortune has predominantly been made from this system.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Fascinating Mick.

I've heard of arbing, but never tried it. You get very small net odds as I understand it. What stakes do you advise using?

[IC1967]

Look, stop going off at a tangent to try and divert attention away from your total loss of the economic argument.

The way I do my arbing is different to most people. My way is more profitable in the long run. I only collect if the horse wins. If it loses I break even. That way I make a much bigger profit. As for stake size I would imagine I am far wealthier than you so my size of stake would be a total irrelevance to you. I'd have a word with the wife first and see if she'll let you have a go with very small stakes.

From what I've seen of you I don't think you have the iron will power like what I've got to stick to the system. I could see you becoming a compulsive gambler and losing the little that you have.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick.

That was unnecessarily spiky.

You told me not three posts ago that you would give us a guaranteed method of making money. You didn't seem concerned then about the post going off at a tangent. I'm not trying to divert attention from anything. I've told you that i am unable to argue with you, so you have won.

 I'm just asking what your experience is of arbing in practice. So as to make sure that I don't make any mistakes if I try it.