Greenspan's baby boomer warning falls on deaf ears

[StuckinBFE]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15057690%255E2703,00.html

(What the hell are we doing to our economy?)

[Vincardog]

1. What do you mean 'WE' pale face?

[hadrons]

2. Greenspan's deaf, but he ignored his own warnings

GOP hack

[tsuki]

3. I am listening. Will be out of debt completely at end of month.

I have a feeling that hard times are ahead.

[xxqqqzme]

8. my plan for the same reasons

hard rain gonna fall.

[Career Prole]

4. Hell, we listen! Seems like Greenspan's the one with a hearing problem!

Greenspan told Congress in 2001 we'd all make out like bandits under shrub's tax-cut "plan", so any day now when the money starts a-pourin' in from that we'll be able to pay all those awful overdue bills. Check your notes, Chairman!
Besides, Cheney 'n Rove say deficits are good, so let's enjoy 'em like we should be. We're not being very appreciative.
:sarcasm:

[ClarkUSA]

5. How about writing to this reporter and tell it like it is?

The Aussies have Rupert-Murdoch news, now. G'Day!

[orwell]

11. Hack

Greenspan is nothing more than a partisan hack, an Ayn Rand fundie who perceives his role as protector of the great American debt bubble - Sir Allan, our knight in paper armor.

When Gore faced fairly certain election in 2000, the great Greenie commenced a relentless raising of interest rates to pop the Clinton "bubble", thereby saddling the Gore candidacy with rising disease among the voting population about a careening stock market and rising interest rates. As soon as the Supremes issued the Gore v Bush ruling, shazam, interest rates began to fall. Suddenly "inflation" was no longer "operational." Now Greenie would rise to the rescue to deliver the "soft landing" to his shiny new Rethug administration. So much for the "independent' Fed.

So now that the "boy king" has been re-throned, suddenly "Sir Greenjeans" starts squawking about the deficits. Why? Well just in time to fuel support for "privatization" of SS and heavy growth clamps on social spending. Get the picture?

So we of the great religion of the "free market" trust all of our economic future to a Politburo style central bank that bases its "monetary policy" on a temple of "wise men" who serve private banking interests. Where are all the free market howls about this form of central planning. You will hear none, as this sort of wealth redistribution relies on "big gubmint" and private "social engineering."

The game is almost over however. There is a large counterforce developing out on the horizon, from the very socialist/communist economies we once labeled as "enemies of the state." Russia, India, China, the Asian tigers, Latin America, and to a lesser extent the EU, are preparing to slip the economic noose
around the US neck. Why not? We supplied them the rope, the scaffold and the crimes against humanity as motive.

Any last words?

[paula777]

19. In your opinion, what is the time frame on this collapse?

6 months? 1 year? 5 years?

[54anickel]

23. Big money has no party allegiance, and neither does the Fed.

Gore wasn't the target of the hikes - wage earners were. The two party system is a fallacy - a simple diversion to keep the working class occupied and at each other's throats. Big money backs a favorite pony on each side of the partisan fence.

:tinfoilhat: It's been speculated that Carter was the last dark horse to slip through their gate - he was never meant to win - and they've patched that gate since. Of course he was easy for them to take down and ended up being the perfect scapegoat for the economic upheaval they would stir up as they set up the deal with the House of Saud for the petro-dollar. Some say Dean was headed for that same "gate" as Carter and that was why he was destroyed so quickly.

Anyway, enough tinfoil. Here's an article I posted in the SMW thread regarding those interest rate hikes you claim were directed at Gore. Greenspin could/should have increased margins to prick the bubble but, having the best interests of big money at heart, he instead raised the interest rates.

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/Issuebriefs_Ib136

snip>

Wages - the Fed's real target
Given the absence of inflationary signals, the lack of historical precedent, and the Fed's disinclination to target the stock market bubble directly, it does not appear that preventing an outbreak of inflation - at least as most Americans would understand the term - is the root motivation behind the Fed's recent interest rate increases. Rather, it seems to be aiming at preventing wage increases.

The Fed's defenders would of course argue that that is exactly how one prevents "wage-price" spirals from taking off. But as economist Jamie Galbraith has pointed out, every episode of accelerating inflation since 1960, with the exception of the lifting of Vietnam-era price controls after Richard Nixon's re-election, were led by prices, not by wages.

The current effort to slow down the economy, therefore, appears to be targeted at weakening the bargaining position of labor vis-à-vis capital. Indeed, throughout this economic expansion of the 1990s, we have seen a shift of market incomes from wages to profits. This shift has been so pronounced that economist Jared Bernstein has calculated that, even if labor costs were to accelerate to rising 1% faster than productivity (as opposed to their current slower growth rate), it would take four years before wages and profits went back to their respective shares in the decade of the 1980s.

It is reasonable to ask the following: if the expansion of profits and the subsequent reallocation of income from labor to capital that occurred throughout the 1990s did not by itself raise inflationary concerns, why should a potential swing back to labor's favor?

The Fed is unlikely to enlighten us. But it is obvious that Federal Reserve Boards have historically considered themselves defenders of the interests of those who invest for a living as opposed to those who work for wages. This one is no exception.

snip>

Greenspan himself has said on several occasions that job insecurity has been a significant factor in limiting labor's earnings during the expansion and thus adding to profits and the profit expectations that have fueled the stock market. From this perspective, raising interest rates to raise the unemployment rate, as opposed to targeting margin requirements, insures that labor's share remains depressed even as the financial markets are forced to undergo a correction.

[tedzbear]

6. He wants the middle class to forfeit their Social Security trust fund...

...to pay for the deficit. God forbid we demand he give up his Bush tax cuts.

[shanti]

16. you mean

the "deficit" that just fell into * and friends' pockets??

[toopers]

17. Do you really believe that there is a "trust fund"?

eom

[Javaman]

7. Tinfoil hat time...

One, it appears as if the repukes know that economy is going to tank so they make sure all the tax breaks go to the rich, so when the economy busts, they will have plenty of cash on hand to survive.

And two, although things have greatly changed since 1929, a few things seem bizarrely familiar. For instance, the wild market swings from day to day, week to week, also, and pardon me if this is tinfoil hat stuff, but I'm beginning to believe that as the market appears to be tanking, moron* calls his buddies in to have a huge buy to boost it. But then that only lasts a day or so because the economy really does suck and there is only so much buying they can do before the reality kicks in. He is trying so desperately to have the private accounts for SS, that he's willing to do what ever it takes to make it look good.

[genieroze]

10. There are more of us than there are of them, desperate times call

for desperate measures. What are they gonna do when the rioting starts, call in the overstretched military?

[xxqqqzme]

9. "I fear that we may have already

committed more physical resources to the baby-boom generation in its retirement years than our economy has the capacity to deliver,"

I wasn't aware of such a commitment. I didn't know I was doing so well.

[Marthe48]

12. middle class and poor will lose everything

other industrialized nations have social programs that work and fiscal health to boot. The so-called leaders of the US are miserly, greedy, cruel, inhuman bastards. Middle and lower-income life-styles are sustainable, its the greedy rich/powerful who use up exploit, destroy. They don't want to reach the bottom of their deep pockets, so they are going to take what doesn't belong to them and to hell with whomever it harms.

What is the most expensive meal you've ever bought? the most expensive car, clothes, furnishings? Think about that then, read about the excesses of the greedy --we're not talking pre-depression era, we're talking pre-revolutionary France--

[Megahurtz]

13. Interesting comments from a member of an Administration

who is fighting to bring the Baby Boom back.:eyes:

[RobinA]

14. So.....

I voted for Clinton, Gore and Kerry, but now I'm supposed to support social security reform that will hurt me (and everybody else) in order to mitigate the damage of tax reform that I didn't vote for and that didn't help me. Fuggedaboudit.

[sinkingfeeling]

15. Greenspan pulled this scam in 1983 and people will probably fall

for it again. Back then the rate of taxation for SS went up and the early-retirement benefit was reduced, and the age of full retirement began to increase. This plan was to build up the surplus in the SS trust fund for the 'baby-boomers'. What it really did was pay for Ronnie's tax cuts!

[happynewyear]

22. can't teach an old dog new tricks

you may very well be on to something there! Worked in the past, can't think of anything new, so give it another shot before he is OUt as Fed Chair.

What a Greenmonger he is! Greenspin will leave one nice legacy that I wouldn't want pinned on my head. What a nightmare America has become. What a hack (and a shill) is right!

:grr:

:dem: :kick:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

18. Who publishes this paper?

Rupert Murdoch.

[xchrom]

20. greenspan's warning -- what a fuck-up.

the guy is a shameless shill for the united corporate dominion.

he supported these rediculous tax cuts -- there's no way the economy is going ''boom'' enough to off set the holes we've dug.

we export less than ever.
more places arounbd the globe don't want what we do export.

he supports the continuing ''displacement economy'' we're shackled with because the religously insane made a deal with the united corporate dominion and has agreed to be their slaves if can get the country morally their way.

greenspan is INSANE.
living his randian dream to the fullest.

[Mountainman]

21. Hey Arty, get rid of the tax cuts for the wealthy and pay back the trust

fund.

No one listens because Greenspan is a hack for Bush.