achieved bloatware: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

CANCER IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM A SELF INFLICTED ...

I like this comment that Megan Mcardle makes in a recent piece in The Atlantic?because it raises some important points:

?But it is not true that loads of debt is just fine as long as you?re borrowing in your own currency, except in the trivial sense that a government which borrows in its own currency can always resort to hyperinflation. ? This is rather like saying, ?Don?t worry about that cancer?you can always shoot yourself!? If you take too much advantage of the benefits of borrowing in your own currency, pretty soon you have trouble borrowing in your own currency, which means that practically, the distinction is not necessarily as strong as some people pretend.?

Now, from an MMT perspective, there?s a lot wrong in this paragraph (and her article in general). ? But the hyperinflation comments always intrigue me*. ?It is the default fallback diagnosis for the debt fearing crowd (and still carries a great deal of merit in economic circles despite the persistent predictions over the last 5 years, which, in my opinion, are among the very worst predictions in the annals of economic history).

I am, as far as I know, one of the few economic researchers who has pointed out the fact that hyperinflation is a distinctly different type of death than a debt based ?money printing? death (see here for details). ?This is a fascinating finding because it shows a distinct problem in the process of economic analysis. ?It appears to me as though the field of economics suffers from an inability to ?connect the dots? and properly diagnose the causes of particular economic outcomes. ?Much of this is grounded in misunderstanding the monetary system and working from a convertible currency perspective. ?But it?s also skewed by political biases. ?When we combine this convertible currency myth with political bias we get a toxic stew that leads to very poor conclusions.

We can take the hyperinflation meme as a good example of this. ?Hyperinflation has VERY specific causes even though the mainstream has tended to conclude that hyperinflation is just really high inflation. ?I can?t even tell you how many times I saw charts of the Fed?s balance sheet in 2008/2009 accompanied by ?money printing? headlines that concluded with hyperinflation predictions. ?Of course, this wasn?t inflationary because banks don?t lend reserves, but this myth of the money multiplier coupled with anti government political perspectives concluded that the end result had to be disastrous inflation. ?Shockingly, we still hear these hyperbolic warnings to this day even though the myth of the money multiplier has been exposed for all to see in recent years?.

When I went back to study various historical hyperinflations I found some striking similarities in the cases. ?Hyperinflation is not merely high inflation or a collapse in confidence, but is actually due to very specific?severe?exogenous shocks with very real and provable transmission mechanisms. ?The explosion in money supply is almost always the result of these exogenous shocks. ? Historically, these events have been:

Collapse in?productivity?or lack of economic stability due to lack of productivity.
Rampant government corruption.
Loss of a war.
Regime change or regime collapse.
Ceding of monetary sovereignty generally via a pegged currency or foreign denominated debt.

The most interesting conclusion from this research is the fact that the monetary phenomenon (what most economists and researchers conclude as the cause of hyperinflation) is actually the response to these exogenous events. ?The point is, cancer is a very different type of death from a self inflicted gunshot wound. ?If this were the field of medicine and we were concluding that all deaths are bad because they result in the same outcome, we?d be doing our colleagues and our patients a great disservice by making such an obvious conclusion. ?The real meat behind such a finding is in discovering its true cause so as to be able to discover and avoid future outbreaks, save lives and generate a more prosperous world for ourselves and our fellow man. ?But in the field of economics the analysis seems to break down once a preconceived bias has been met and some self interest has been verified. ?Unlike the field of medicine, the so-called ?experts? are acting largely on self interest as opposed to the interests of their patients or fellow man. ?I guess money has a way of doing that to people. ?We are, after all, acting in the self interests of ourselves in most economic endeavors. ?Economics might not be a science, but that doesn?t mean it can?t be approached rationally, objectively and without bias. ?Self interest need not poison the well we all drink from?.

This lack of objectivity has been persistent in recent years and it?s had deeply negative ramifications. ?I would argue that the diagnosis of our current crisis as a banking crisis in 2008 (and not a household credit crisis) was among the worst in economic history. ?And this hyperinflation meme has the potential to be equally destructive. ?You can?t expect to understand the risks to a system if you can?t even differentiate between the potential threats to the system in the first place. ?And if you can?t differentiate between the various causes of death and what the transmission mechanism is for the ultimate disease then you can?t be expected to diagnose or even aid the patient in avoiding or recovering from the disease in the first place?.?Dismal science? indeed. ?It need not be quite so dismal though. ?Unfortunately, eliminating biases, politics, self interest and age old mythology is easier said than done?.Perhaps even impossible when forced to combine money with the ?greater good??.

*I?ve created a new hyperinflation resource page which can be found here. ?

Source: http://pragcap.com/cancer-is-very-different-from-a-self-inflicted-gunshot-wound

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A Missouri five-and-dime holds its own with novelties

One of the last five-and-dime stores in the United States can be found in Branson, Mo., where variety and novelty keep customers coming back.

? A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.?

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Sitting on Branson?s historic square, a store harks back to an era when families loaded the station wagon and drove to town on Saturday. The store sells ?dry goods? from decades past such as ?sewing notions,? 1940s starlet paper dolls, dainty handkerchiefs, wax lips, and lye soap.

This year, Dick?s celebrates its 50th anniversary. It?s one of the last five-and-dime stores in the United States.?

Started in 1961 by Dick and June Hartley, the store is now run by their son, Steve, who continues his late father?s dream of offering a shopping experience as entertainment. Dick?s woos customers with more than 180,000 different items and novelty d?cor, such as an extensive framed arrowhead collection and more than 100 World War II-era signed aviation prints hanging from the ceiling.

?You have to have heart and a passion to set yourself apart from those box stores because you can?t compete with their prices,? says Mr. Hartley, who left corporate life in 1993 to join the family business.

Computers don?t track inventory. Instead, clerks working the floor closely watch what sells and what doesn?t. They ask customers what they like. The store is chaotic and lively.

A grandfather shows his grandson a bag of American-made glass marbles, a potato gun, and a yo-yo. Down another narrow aisle, a tourist fills up a vintage wood, cloth, and metal shopping bag with holiday bubble lights. Still another customer peruses the store?s 250 board games and 30 feet of jigsaw puzzles.

Dick?s prides itself on obscure items. Hartley scours trade shows for hot sellers such as the 1950s perfume ?Blue Waltz,? cinnamon toothpicks, cap guns, and 20 styles of hair nets in 1960s packaging that sell for 89 cents.

?We will keep that dime-store image, fully assorted and fully stocked,? Hartley says.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Co7r7r1ps4Y/A-Missouri-five-and-dime-holds-its-own-with-novelties

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Bomber hits Iraq military base, 11 dead: officials (Reuters)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? A suicide bomber struck a military base in the Iraqi town of Taji Monday, killing at least 11 people in the latest attack by insurgents attempting to undermine the government.

It was the third major attack in the last five days and underscored the fragile state of Iraqi security as Washington pulls its remaining 14,500 troops out by year-end, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

The attacker detonated a bomb at the entrance to the base, which houses a jail holding al Qaeda, Mehdi Army militia and other prisoners, officials and security sources said. Taji is 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

"We heard a big explosion we thought it was a rocket, but we heard on our radios that it was a car bomb targeting the main reception area for the jail," guard Mushtaq Kadaim said. "When we arrived at the scene there was no car, and the wounded people told us it was a suicide bomber."

"There is a lot of damage to the place and many cars are burned. The flesh of the victims is stuck to the front of the cars and nearby walls," he said.

Five guards and four civilian employees, plus two people visiting relatives at the jail, were among the dead, he said.

Violence has dropped sharply since the peak of sectarian slaughter in 2006-07. But Iraqi security forces still struggle to contain daily attacks by Sunni Muslim insurgents tied to al Qaeda and rival Shi'ite Muslim militias.

The Baghdad security operations center put the toll at 11 dead and 17 wounded. Police and hospital sources said 11 were killed and 19 wounded.

Militants launch scores of bombings and other attacks every month. According to official government figures, 161 civilians were killed in violence in October, the highest toll of the year, along with 97 police and soldiers.

Iraqi and U.S. military officials have said Iraq may see an increase in attacks as American troops depart. Soldiers and police are frequent targets.

Saturday attackers struck two areas around the Iraqi capital, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 20 others. In the southern oil hub of Basra Thursday three bombs exploded in a busy market, killing 21 and wounding 80.

The town of Taji, the site of a major Iraqi military base, was hit by bombers in July, when two blasts in the parking lot of a municipal government building killed at least 28 people and wounded scores of others.

On November 14, seven rockets landed in or near the U.S. military's Kalsu base near Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, wounding two Iraqi civilians living near the base, local police said.

(Reporting by Kareem Raheem; Editing by Jim Loney and Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_iraq_violence

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