[QUOTE=Prime95;310241]I get a < snip > hyper-partisan[/QUOTE]Please calmly and logically explain what I've posted that was "hyper-partisan".

[QUOTE=cheesehead;310298]One might think, judging by Republicans' common phrases, that they'd be open to compromise such as stimulus-without-more-debt that would benefit the economy. But they're not, because usually unspoken are Republicans' higher-priority (than national economic health) ideological goals to "starve the beast" and defeat-Obama.[/QUOTE]
More blinkered partisan drivel, utterly devoid of signs of original thought - unless you count "following a link" in the piece garo listed as "original". No comment on the theoretical underpinnings of Shiller's thesis, no examination of whether history-bears-this-out, just the usual [i]"...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah [b]evil Republicans! Bad!![/b] blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..."[/i]

Welcome to my ignore list, enjoy your stay, and besta luck wasting someone else's time.

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[i]I am open to suggestion from the non-ignored readership as to how much of the latest "full of sound and fury" eruption to move to the thread set aside for such useless distractions.[/i]

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Ahhh ... that's better:

[QUOTE=ewmayer;310326][I]I am open to suggestion from the non-ignored readership as to how much of the latest "full of sound and fury" eruption to move to the thread set aside for such useless distractions.[/I][/QUOTE]
My humble plea: please don't move any of it.
I think I understand why you suggest it, but the severely lowered tone of the discussion (for which I blame [I]no-one[/I]) is likely to sort itself out if you're now ignoring cheesehead and if one or two others choose to do the same as well.
In the meantime, I learn a lot from reading everyone's contributions here, being as I am a complete ignoramus myself on economy issues.

This is hilarious!
 

:missingteeth:

[url]http://abstrusegoose.com/491[/url]

This guy is funnier than xkcd (and has been for a while, IMO).

:cool:

[url=www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/04/us-usa-rhodeisland-centralfalls-bankrupt-idUSBRE88300220120904?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews]Bankruptcy saves tiny Rhode Island city, but leaves scars[/url]: [i](Reuters) - Central Falls, in Rhode Island, is close to emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that hammers its retired municipal employees but leaves bondholders unscathed, in a contrast with other recent U.S. municipal bankruptcies.[/i]

Disagree strongly with "reassuring the credit markets" and not making bondholders take a hefty haircut. The whole point of BK should be to spread the pain equitably among those who benefited most from the "fat" years. (I use quotes because it was mostly borrowed prosperity in such cases.) In fact, I say it would be a fine thing to tell the bondholders t take a hike, because we need to break this toxic dance where banks lend money to municipalities (and state governments, and federal governments while we're at it) despite obviously dubious - if not outright ludicrous - revenue and spending projections, in the knowledge that will collect a fat free up-front and when things blow up down the road, someone else will get stuck with the bill.


Couple of Ireland-RE-bubble-and-bust-related pieces:

[url=www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/world/europe/in-ruined-apartments-symbol-of-irelands-fall.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=world]In Ruined Apartments, Symbol of Ireland’s Fall[/url]: [i]DUBLIN — To visit Graham Usher’s dream apartment in Priory Hall, the most notorious of Ireland’s ruined ghost developments, is to see what Ireland aspired to be, and what it became instead.[/i]
[quote] The apartment, bought for $315,000 in early 2006, is now covered by a brick facade that looks as if some giant creature had raked it with its claws before getting bored and wandering off. There is a half-drunk bottle of wine in the kitchen, abandoned last October when officials abruptly declared the complex a fire hazard and gave its inhabitants — 256 people in 187 apartments — 48 hours to leave.

Those residents, unable to move back into houses they still have to pay for, have spent nearly a year in legal limbo, high-profile casualties of the corruption and recklessness of the Irish boom in the 2000s.

“Priory Hall embodies the craziness of the decade, where cheap credit led to houses and apartments being thrown up virtually overnight, often in entirely unsuitable areas and, in many cases, without regard to the quality of the housing,” said Dearbhail McDonald, legal editor of The Irish Independent and the author of “Bust: How the Courts Exposed the Rotten Heart of the Irish Economy.”

If Ireland’s rise was one of the most spectacular in Europe, its fall was one of the most precipitous, with a boom in the 1990s leading to a housing bubble in the 2000s that burst spectacularly when the banks fueling it threatened to collapse. In 2008, the government made an emergency decision to guarantee the banks’ debts, thus condemning the country to brutal austerity that has left it impoverished and weighed down by debt of its own.[/quote]


[url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/82c2ebfc-f391-11e1-b3a2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25LQeghwc]US investor is Ireland’s biggest creditor[/url]
[quote]San Francisco-based Michael Hasenstab, who runs the Templeton Global Bond Fund, has emerged as Ireland's single biggest private-sector creditor after aggressively buying Irish government bonds, the Financial Times newspaper reported Sunday on its website.

Franklin Templeton funds, which is mostly managed by Mr. Hasenstab, at the end of June held Irish government debt to the value of EUR6.1 billion ($7.7 billion), the FT said, citing its own calculations.

The report said most was owned by Mr. Hasenstab's Templeton Global Bond Fund.

Mr. Hasenstab said that while the fund manager might have large positions in smaller markets, they are small compared with the fund's total assets, and that it could always quickly hedge its exposure in the credit derivatives market.[/quote]
Ah yes, the reassuring promise of "being fully hedged". Because we all know that hedge counterparties never blow up.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;310326][QUOTE=cheesehead;310298]One might think, judging by Republicans' common phrases, that they'd be open to compromise such as stimulus-without-more-debt that would benefit the economy. But they're not, because usually unspoken are Republicans' higher-priority (than national economic health) ideological goals to "starve the beast" and defeat-Obama.[/QUOTE]More blinkered partisan drivel, utterly devoid of signs of original thought[/QUOTE]Perhaps if Ernst were not so biased against me, he'd have noticed that I was explaining why there's gridlock preventing the seemingly-reasonable negotiation of political compromises that could improve the economy. But I could have been clearer.

Republicans claim to want a balanced budget and to improve the economy, but at present will never agree to a compromise such as stimulus-without-more-debt that satisfies both of those goals because of conservatives' other goals: starve-the-beast and oppose-anything-Democrats-want-in-order-to-make-Obama-look-bad.

What I'm pointing out is one of the connections between politics and the economy that prevails in the U.S. at present. That isn't duplicating Ernst's contributions to this thread.

[quote]No comment on the theoretical underpinnings of Shiller's thesis,[/quote]Shiller explains the theoretical underpinnings in his article. If Ernst wants comment on those, or disagrees with Shiller, why doesn't he just comment or explain his disagreement himself?

I didn't claim Shiller is correct; I just commented on the theoretical underpinnings of political gridlock preventing any trying-out of that Shiller idea.

[quote]no examination of whether history-bears-this-out[/quote]I'd be glad to read comments on whether history-bears-this-out from someone who has knowledge about that; I don't.

I thought Ernst viewed this thread as a means of educating the rest of us about the economics on which he is so well-educated.

Is Ernst putting me on his ignore list because, at least in part, I don't happen to share his background in economic history and the theoretical underpinnings of various economic theories? If that were so, shouldn't most other readers of this thread also be on Ernst's ignore list? But that would conflict with Ernst's education goal.

I conclude that these two criticisms (theoretical underpinnings, history) of my post are straw men rather than honest reasons. I'd like to see the honest reasons.

[quote]just the usual [I]"...blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah [B]evil Republicans! Bad!![/B] blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..."[/I][/quote]Well, I'm sorry that Ernst views the economic consequences of current Republican political propaganda and ideology as only "[I]blah blah blah[/I]" rather than recognizing its significance to our current American "Economic Theater". This nation's economy could be a lot better than it is now if the Republican party would return to its pre-1970s honest budget-balancing policies.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;310380]I conclude that these two criticisms (theoretical underpinnings, history) of my post are straw men rather than honest reasons. I'd like to see the honest reasons.[/QUOTE]

Cheesehead... This is sincere, and meant to be constructive criticism... You often take things way too seriously, and [B][I][U]way[/U][/I][/B] too personally. Additionally, you have a tendency to fixate on tiny little pedantic issues rather than looking at the big picture.

Now, looking at the "bigger picture"... I personally agree with you that the US of A's Republicans are using a "scorched earth" policy against the US of A's Democrats. Whether this is purely because of ideology, or simply because they want another "turn at the trough" is open for debate -- but at the end of the day it is probably not helping those they were elected to represent.

Sadly, this kind of politics is not unique to the US of A -- it's a world-wide phenomenon.

[QUOTE=chalsall;310408]Cheesehead... This is sincere, and meant to be constructive criticism...[/QUOTE]Thank you.

[quote]You often take things way too seriously, and [B][I][U]way[/U][/I][/B] too personally.[/quote]Having _my_ posts removed from this thread and banished to another _was_ personal. In the context of forum posting, it was the most serious administrative action that has ever been taken against me.

[quote]Additionally, you have a tendency to fixate on tiny little pedantic issues rather than looking at the big picture.[/quote]Okay, I'll try to be more careful.

- - -

Note you can pass on to Ernst:

If he'll post a rational, honest explanation of why he banned my posts in May, and what he actually objects to (not stuff that doesn't add up) in my current posts, I will then be able to know what to avoid posting here.

I've just had a phone conversation with Xyzzy. He answered the main questions I had recently posed to Ernst and George, and I'm satisfied with the answers. Xyzzy proposed some ways to avoid the conflicts I've recently had in this thread, and I intend to adopt them.

Schizophrenic pair of US employment reports yesterday and today; In global-econ news, nice to know that thanks to the strenuous efforts of the ECB, Europe is saved once again. Quite a relief, that.

[b]Friday Funnies:[/b]

Couple of my favorite cartoons (both from last Sunday):

o [url=http://www.dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/60000/4000/700/164765/164765.strip.sunday.gif][i]Dilbert[/i] on the next iPhone release[/url]

o [url=http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2012/09/02][i]Pearls Before Swine[/i] on memory-foam mattresses[/url]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;305787][url=http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FXE]Whoops[/url].


This will play out the same way your Euro prediction did - lying politicians and crooked central bankers provide a few months of false hope, then reality finally asserts itself.[/QUOTE]



Will you write your "Whoops" now? Please stop insisting with your stubborn ideas about tragedy of euro (Euro was never so strong currency as it is now). Greece, as I wrote before, will not leave eurozone, it is evident now (I wrote about it when it was less evident, but still it was evident for me).
I wrote also that accepting financial aid will be disaster for Greece. Everything shows that I was right in that point too.