Three Mish Segments on Tech Ticker, on Stimulus, Retail Sales, the Markets, Alternatives
Courtesy of Mish
Yesterday I recorded three segments on Tech Ticker from downtown Chicago, hooking up with Joe Weisenthal at Nasdaq.
From Yahoo!Finance Michael "MISH" Shedock: Stimulus Will Fail Like It Always Does
There’s no hotter debate right now than stimulus vs. austerity, as folks like Paul Krugman and even Barack Obama call for more spending to fix the economy.
Michael "MISH" Shedlock is not having any of it, arguing that the financial pump has failed, and that the only way to get the economy back on track is to pursue a policy of less government, and less spending, with a special focus on reforming pensions, public sector unions, and other institutions that drain the government of its resources.
As evidence: Japan. The country has now seen multiple decades of recession despite massive pumping on both the fiscal and the monetary side.
But at least Japan hasn’t had a debt crisis yet, right? The key word there, says Mish is "YET." The fiscal situation in Japan is getting more and more tenuous, and it’s no sure thing that the market will retain its confidence in the Japanese government’s ability to finance its debt. And of course the same thing could happen here.
But for now in the US the big risk is deflation, which you can see in housing and other economic categories. Spending won’t solve this problem; actual economic adjustment is what’s needed to start growing again.
There are two more short segments that play back-to-back if you click on the top link.
Thanks Joe, that was a lot of fun.
As a followup to the discussion on retail sales, please consider Did Retail Sales Rise or Did Tax Rates Go Up?
