Obama slams Republicans for threat to blow up entire economy

[cronus]

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/10/1 ... FM20131016

Asian stocks take cover as U.S. default looms

(Reuters) - Asian stocks marked time on Wednesday with nervous investors cautiously optimistic or just hoping that frantic talks in Washington to avert a U.S. debt default could lead to a deal before the Oct 17 deadline.

U.S. senate leaders are continuing to negotiate legislation to raise the nation's borrowing authority and provide temporary government funding. Lawmakers said a deal was close, but there were still details to be worked out.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.2 percent, having drifted in and out of positive territory. Still, it remained not far off a five-month peak set on Tuesday.

Tokyo's Nikkei eased 0.2 percent, while Australian and South Korean shares were flat. Hong Kong shed 0.4 percent.

U.S. S&P 500 e-mini futures rose 0.5 percent, recovering most of Tuesday's losses.

Until an outcome is reached, markets will be extremely choppy, said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in Melbourne.

"Nerves will be playing on traders' minds as they will continue to be on U.S. political headline-watch," he added.

Hopes of a breakthrough weighed on the safe-haven yen, allowing the dollar to climb 0.3 percent to 98.43. The euro advanced 0.2 percent to 133.11 yen.

That helped the dollar index, which tracks the greenback's performance against a basket of currencies, hold its ground at 80.495, not far off a one-month high of 80.703 set on Tuesday.

Commodity traders were reluctant to do much, leaving copper, U.S. crude and bullion little changed. Copper last traded up 0.1 percent at $7,250 a tonne, while U.S. crude was flat at $101.26 a barrel. Spot gold was also steady at $1,280.76 an ounce.

RESILIENT

If Washington doesn't reach a deal by October 17, the government will by law no longer be able to add to the national debt, and will have to rely on incoming revenue and about $30 billion in cash to pay the nation's many obligations.

That money is expected to run out quickly and Washington would start missing payments in the weeks ahead. A global financial crisis could follow if investors decide that U.S. debt, used as collateral for trillions of dollars in financial deals, no longer provided adequate security.

(continued, rush for the exits...approaching)

[Seth]

I know I'm howling into nothingness here, but venting is venting.

We're never going to have a stable federal government as long as one party refuses to understand our monetary system and the federal gov't role in it.

Our federal gov't is not a business, not a household, not a subordinate government. The federal gov't should and it must create and destroy money in order to put our national economy's productive capactities to work. If capacity is idle, it must create money by printing cash or bonds (and spending that cash or bond proceeds) or cutting taxes. If capacity is reached, to prevent inflation it must destroy money by paying off bonds, burning cash, or raising taxes.

This is basic macroeconomics 101, and should be required of anyone holding federal office.

Republicans and their base seem to live in a budgetary land appropriate to households, businesses, and subordinate governments. For such, 'what we can afford' is related to tax revenue. But for the federal gov't, 'what we can afford' is related to our idle capacity, not our ability to collect tax revenue.

The reason the US federal debt pays the lowest interest rate in the world is because the US federal gov't has the ability to print money to repay the debt, and that money can be used to buy goods and services in the US. If we were constrained by tax revenues, borrowers would demand more interest.

But I fear the Republicans refuse this most basic understanding of reality, and we're doomed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us/po ... .html?_r=0

Oh horseshit. It's the job of commerce to engage idle capacity using the free markets. This is pure Keynesian propaganda, nothing more.

[pErvinalia]

The "invisible hand" of the free market is a myth.

[Seth]

The "invisible hand" of the free market is a myth.

Worked fine for a couple of hundred thousand years till Marx and Keynes came along.

[pErvinalia]

And didn't those kids like slaving away and dying in the mines. We need MOAR of that sort of thing!!

[Seth]

And didn't those kids like slaving away and dying in the mines. We need MOAR of that sort of thing!!

And you think Keynesian economics gives a fuck about kids in mines? Just ask Stalin how much of a fuck he gave about kids or anyone else that got in the way of his Keynesian ideals of central planning and control. Or ask any of his victims. Oh, wait, you can't, they're all dead.

Keynesian economic theory has absolutely nothing whatever to do with workplace safety, child labor laws or anything else. In fact, pure Keynesian economics would not mind exploiting children or anyone else if it resulted in full employment of economic capacity. Such things are political and social matters, not economic theories.

[pErvinalia]

Keynesianism = Marxism? Ok.

[Seth]

Keynesianism = Marxism? Ok.

Did I say "="? No.

You're trying to evade again. You claim that free markets = child slavery. Prove it.

[JimC]

This is not looking good.

What's bad about it?

Nothing, if you like the idea of a government being crippled, your nation being a laughing stock, and the sheer glee of the Chinese...

[Warren Dew]

Oh horseshit. It's the job of commerce to engage idle capacity using the free markets. This is pure Keynesian propaganda, nothing more.

I could tell that without bothering to read the quote, based just on the source.

[cronus]

Nice exponential graph supplied by the BBC (UK Plc) makes it easier to see where 'merica (deadbeat nation) went wrong....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24543581

[Clinton Huxley]

Potential credit rating downgrade from Fitch. Meanwhile, China signs currency swap deal with the European Central Bank, assets regional leadership over the Asia-Pacific area and ponders a "de-Americanised" world.....

Took external forces (World War 1) to torpedo the British Empire, though it limped on for a little while. The US seems intent on self-harm.

[JimC]

There are strands of American thought that would like to retreat behind a "fortress America", snarling occasionally at the rest of the world...

[cronus]

There are strands of American thought that would like to retreat behind a "fortress America", snarling occasionally at the rest of the world...

A mythical Hollywood America is no place to retreat to when everyone but everyone is packing gnus and ammunition to be friendly with neighbours. I predict carnage once the intravenous injections of Chinese goods & distractions is noticed to be missing.....lots of angry unemployed truckers and lots of blood on the streets.

[Clinton Huxley]

There are strands of American thought that would like to retreat behind a "fortress America", snarling occasionally at the rest of the world...

Indeed. I see one of the potential candidates for the next EU Foreign Affairs wallah is calling for a beefed up European defence policy, sans America, as the US becomes less able and willing to intervene. Blighty, of course, will do its best to scupper this as nothing must affect our slavish adherence to the US. Bad choice, to my mind, as the UK (with France) could be in the driving seat of a purely European defence policy.

The multipolar world......