First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out....

Heh.

I have no idea what the total current market value of U.S. government holdings are. I doubt there is an inventory anywhere that comes anywhere close to reality.

I would bet with certainty, though, that even if we held a fire sale tomorrow, it would only bring us back to debt levels say, 5 to 10 years ago.

And the reality is, even in that unrealistic scenario, it wouldn't be used as a launching point to create some fiscal order. You see the posts on this thread. It would just be used as a 5 or 10 year reprieve to keep living in la la land.

That said, I am totally on board with what you are suggesting, for other reasons. Whatever the actual number is -- it is capital that is not being utilized efficiently, and no matter how you slice it that is a drag on the economy that hurts all of our standards of living.

 

Actually, cran, what I typed was a narrative that told how we got to the 2007/8 collapse, and from there to today.

Talking about the past, and how I believe it created what OWS is upset about, isn't a prediction. It's the past.

What did you think of the narrative I gave? It was kind of what I was looking for. If I am wrong, tell me why and how.

You always ignore that when I respond to you. ... and then tell pivot to what I "predicted."

Fine. If you want to take the part that you focused on as a prediction, I will gladly turn it into one -- try to put a timetable on it, if I can -- and we can make a friendly wager. I'd be totally on board with that. Tell me what my prediction was, as you see it, because I am not quite sure -- a stock market collapse when the Fed balloon pops, perhaps?

I can't predict the future with accuracy. I can point to fiscal and monetary policy and make cause and effect suggestions. But predictions? I stay away from them, because even if I am right about what I suggested, markets are pricing mechanisms and there is no set timetable for how long it can take for that mechanism to get to where it wants. Which is why I stay away from them.

But since you seem hung up on me making a prediction, I'll do it for you. Just tell me what you think I am predicting? Do you want me to reach and put a number on the S&P sometime in the next two years, for example, and take a flyer just for fun if you want a wager? Then you can really tell me I predicted something.

For what its worth, you had people like Jim Rickards, James Grant, etc. saying everything I say to you on here for years leading into 2007 and 2008. And what I am saying today, parrots exactly what they are shouting into the wind today. Go look for the Youtube videos of Peter Schiff (Peter Schiff was right is what you can type in) getting laughed at by financial pundits on the financial news channels when he was spelling out the coming housing collapse in 2005 or 2006. Just because it took until 2007 for the pricing mechanism to work through the lunacy, doesn't mean that he didn't see a cause and effect at work with an eventual outcome likely.

I may be wrong. But at least I am trying to substantiate what I am saying. Telling me that I am wrong (because when I post, you read it as a "prediction" and that "prediction" as you saw it doesn't come true in 4 months), doesn't help me much. Tell me why the narrative I gave you is wrong. Then you can actually set me straight.

 

I thought you were better than that, cran. My bad.

Peter Schiff has made way more money than you will ever see -- including in bullion (He was putting his clients there when it was $200 an ounce based on what he saw coming out of our central bank).You'll just tell us we need more centralized authority over everything -- our governmental spending, our credit markets, our money supply. Without having a clue about what Peter Schiff has said at any given point in time. ... You're laughing too hard at him because he's a joke.

All of the centralized authority, the debt spending, has been working out for us, right? A prediction!

Not that ignoring what he actually says, and attacking him personally, is anything except someone who has nothing substantive to say, so they will attack the person instead of what they are saying.

I am not the press agent for Peter Schiff. There are a lot of things I don't like about his personality. He's a self promoter. But he's pretty dead on when describing the effects of monetary and fiscal policy.

For anyone who really wants to see what I was talking about:

What a crank. I wonder if Cranberry was the guy who was doubled in stitches laughing at him halfway through.

EDIT: For anyone genuinely interested. Here are some others:

The second link is long, and I don't imagine too many on here will sit through him, but it was him in 2006 laying out the coming housing market collapse to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

But it's all irrelevant, and it might not be worth at least listening to what he is saying now, because his dad is Irwin Schiff.

 

Who gives a shit if the Fed tapered, cran?

They are still buying up $65 billion of assets a month and adding to a $4.5 trillion balance sheet. Do you have any idea what that means?

Everything they have said is bullshit and markets are primed right now to start ignoring them. The promise of monetary heroin isn't enough at some point.

The economy is in shambles -- job growth is anemic -- so the taper (and they are still buying up $65 billion of assets a month -- rigging markets!) wasn't because the monetary stimulus has worked. It's because it HASN'T worked. What it has done is create a $4.5 trillion balance sheet, and growing, in an ineffectual attempt to rig interest rates so they don't rise.

When the Fed -- oh no, a prediction (I will bank on this one, though)! -- tries to unwind that, there are going to be no buyers for those bonds. Marked to market they are insolvent. And they are going to send interest rates through the roof and the misery it causes will have you calling for new populist regulations to stop the rich boogeymen.

The Federal Reserve realized it created a mess that it can't get out of. THAT is why they have tapered. They are trying to stop before making it even worse at this point.

And with that. ... one of two things (a prediction!) is likely to happen now (which is why Schiff figured there is no way they could taper i.e. -- they had backed themselves into a corner with two bad choices). The stock market that those asset purchase sent into a bubble is going to crash without the monetary heroin, and that has been the "economic recovery" (The temporary resting place for the monetary inflation, not the broader economy).

And our economy is only slipping toward a recession -- without ever having gotten a recovery. So 1) The Fed will be back in to increase the asset purchases by the summer (just as they did when QE1 ended, and QE2 led to QE3). Or 2) More likely, since QE3 was a disaster that created a Fed balance sheet that they are petrified to expand any farther (they never intended for it to get here), they will have to come up with a new QE scheme that has them trying to manipulate markets to keep our economy from crashing. My best is that we have reverse repos coming -- actual negative interest rates, that pay banks to take the money.

You don't seem to understand that they are making this shit up as they go.

Each scheme has been less and less effectual as a "stimulus." Which isn't even what I am arguing. Maybe they bought time. They just made the eventual payback worse.

I am talking about the collateral effects. Interest rate manipulation (to create the illusion of permagrowth) caused what happened in 2007/2008. What we are doing now to try to keep from having to deal with the effects is pushing everyone to risk assets. We are repeating the mistakes, but to a more dangerous degree. And the debt has just increased and the Federal Reserve has backed itself into a corner.

If you really think we are set up for anything good. ... well, I hope you are right. I also think you're also being blissfully ignorant.

All of my "predictions," as you see them, don't just have me making wild predictions. I try to explain the cause and effect I see it. If I am correct in that cause and effect, we are going to have a worldwide currency crisis, and I am not talking about a decade from now. We're at the tipping point already, and really there isn't a way to reverse course anymore, so within three to five years, I hope you are remembering this thread.