Mystery Economic Theater 2012

[only_human]

Originally Posted by chalsall

But to have debt you must have lenders.

And yet, if you listen to the "news", everyone is in debt.

This (literally) doesn't add up.

Well this article says it is sitting in the currency reserves of central banks around the world, FWIW.
Where Has All the Money Gone? (The Motley Fool) and this one says that US non-financial corporations are sitting on over 600 Billion dollars: Where Did All The Money Go? Here! (Zero Hedge)
Meh! Whatever's going on is going to hurt when it stops going on. As if things don't hurt already.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by only_human

Well this article says it is sitting in the currency reserves of central banks around the world, FWIW.

Interesting... These countries must have a lot of confidence in the "green back".

Hope they don't put them all on the open market all at once....

[only_human]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Interesting... These countries must have a lot of confidence in the "green back".

Hope they don't put them all on the open market all at once....

Well Bloomberg says this: Dollar Scarce As Top-Quality Assets Shrink 42%

The dollar is proving scarce, even after the Federal Reserve flooded the financial system with an extra $2.3 trillion, as the amount of the highest-quality assets available worldwide shrinks.

From last year’s low on July 27, the greenback has risen against all 16 of its major peers. Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s Dollar Index surged 12 percent, higher now than when the Fed began creating dollars to buy bonds under its extraordinary stimulus measures at the end of 2008.

International investors and financial institutions that are required to own only the highest quality assets to meet investment guidelines or new regulations are finding fewer options beyond dollar-denominated assets. The U.S. is one of only five major economies with credit-default swaps on their debt trading at less than 100 basis points, meaning they are viewed as almost risk free. A year ago, eight Group-of-10 nations fit that category, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The greenback’s share of global foreign-exchange reserves climbed in the last three-months of 2011 to 62.1 percent, the highest since June 2010, while holdings of euros fell to the lowest since September 2006 at 25 percent, according to the latest quarterly data from the International Monetary Fund.

Foreign official holdings of U.S. government debt increased in each of the first three months of 2012, climbing by 3.24 percent to $3.73 trillion in the best start to a year since 2009, according to data from the Treasury Department.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by only_human

Well Bloomberg says this:

是否有人在這裡說中國話

[only_human]

Originally Posted by chalsall

是否有人在這裡說中國話

Well I took a class in Mandarin at El Camino College -- a local city college with a good foreign language department. I got an 'A' in it but that won't help me much when our new overlords arrive. I took a bunch of Japanese classes and some sign language too; I was interested in languages. I even took a class in Cobol there. I was curious about Cobol programmers getting stuck in that language; but the class ended up being rewarding anyway because it was my first exposure to structured language programming techniques. Strange to promote that with Cobol but life is full of eclectic oddities.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by only_human

I even took a class in Cobol there. I was curious about Cobol programmers getting stuck in that language; but the class ended up being rewarding anyway because it was my first exposure to structured language programming techniques. Strange to promote that with Cobol but life is full of eclectic oddities.

Ah, good old COBOL.

Some made a lot of money knowing that language. Fixing code which was never expected to run after the year 1999....

[only_human]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Reason: It's COBOL, not Cobol..

Perhaps CoBOL would be better yet but that just looks sick.

PS Grace Hopper sounds like a really cool person. Ahead of her time.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by only_human

PS Grace Hopper sounds like a really cool person. Ahead of her time.

Yeah.

Much like Buckminster Fuller. ("Bucky" to his friends...)

[ewmayer]

NYT article relevant to the Memorial-Day discussion:

West Point Is Divided on a War Doctrine’s Fate

WEST POINT, N.Y. — For two centuries, the United States Military Academy has produced generals for America’s wars, among them Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, George S. Patton and David H. Petraeus. It is where President George W. Bush delivered what became known as his pre-emption speech, which sought to justify the invasion of Iraq, and where President Obama told the nation he was sending an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan.

Now at another critical moment in American military history, the faculty here on the commanding bend in the Hudson River is deep in its own existential debate. Narrowly, the argument is whether the counterinsurgency strategy used in Iraq and Afghanistan — the troop-heavy, time-intensive, expensive doctrine of trying to win over the locals by building roads, schools and government — is dead.

Broadly, the question is what the United States gained after a decade in two wars...

[AES]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

NYT article relevant to the Memorial-Day discussion:

West Point Is Divided on a War Doctrine’s Fate

Thank you for posting this link. It definitely piqued my interest, having just finished reading Douglas A. Wissing's book regarding the finances and mechanics of said war doctrine.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by AES

Thank you for posting this link. It definitely peaked my interest, having just finished reading Douglas A. Wissing's book regarding the finances and mechanics of said war doctrine.

[Pedantry]I think you mean "piqued". Unless you've now longer find it very interesting.[/Pedantry]

My view, as a citizen of a country also engaged in those two wars is that we have collectively gained very little. I'm still waiting for presentation of the weapons of mass distraction which Tony Bliar assured us were ready to be used in 45 minutes and were used to justify our involvement in The War of Bush's Face

As for Afghanistan, the US are newbies and so might be forgiven for not knowing that invading that country is generally a bad idea. We Brits, and the Russians before us, have no such excuse.