(POL) Stimulus'ed out yet? You ain't seen nothin yet...

[ISiddiqui]

So now... you are the one disagree with the facts?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

yes, seeing companies unveil economized items at cheaper prices IS a DEFINITIVE commercial admittance to a deflationary environment

Uh... or it could be because unemployment is high and they want to sell products. In every recession you see companies have sales and cheaper prices to try to get people to spend even though they aren't making as much.

[Flasch186]

well which came first chicken or egg.....part of that cycle you point out is the deflationary feedback loop Im talking about so if you want to call it something else, fine but it doesnt change what it is, IMO. Im hoping we are able to pull the plane up but Bernanke and I are fearful of the same thing and massive inflation on the other side aint it.

[ISiddiqui]

Aside from the fact that Bernanke is considered about inflation in the future as well. And you may have missed the "every recession" part. I don't think every recession has a 'deflationary feedback loop'.

Inflation tends to go down when unemployment is up. This isn't exactly novel. It's called the Phillips Curve.

Btw, this is somewhat interesting, from a blog post last year:

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/...n_bernanke.php

It is then that the Bear team unload on Mr. Bernanke, going back to 2003 and 2004, when he was still a Fed governor. At the time, they argue, Mr. Bernanke and the rest of the Fed were far too concerned about deflation and kept interest rates at what they considered to be a far-too-low rate of 1 percent before only gradually raising them.

So Bernanke and the Fed were concerned about deflation in the 2003/04 period. In recessions, inflation falls. The central banks are concerned about the possible worst in any downturn.

[Fidatelo]

I agree with others that are not seeing deflation on most consumer goods. My grocery bills are higher, gas is slightly up and will continue to rise considerably over the next 6 months, energy costs are going up, etc. Sure, TV's and other luxury items are being blown out by stores that are desperate for cash, but I can't eat my TV and it's usefulness to heat my house is debatable.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I agree with others that are not seeing deflation on most consumer goods. My grocery bills are higher, gas is slightly up and will continue to rise considerably over the next 6 months, energy costs are going up, etc. Sure, TV's and other luxury items are being blown out by stores that are desperate for cash, but I can't eat my TV and it's usefulness to heat my house is debatable.

+1

Same caveats of not being an economist as everybody else...but inflation should be measured against items that are deemed necessary to support the current standard of living per income bracket(s).

TV's and the like are cheaper because they cost more to warehouse and keep in inventory (for an extended period) than the discounts that you might be seeing in the stores.

But items that are essential (or near essential)...like basic groceries, gas, utilities (which you could include internet, video, cell, etc.)...continue to rise.

It isn't difficult to curb inflation where the source is from non-essential demand/consumerism. The difficulty is curbing inflation that results from the weakening dollar that "forces" the essential items to increase in cost.

As far as Bernanke...I'm not sure what to make of his statements. I agree that we are likely going to come out of recession by sometime 2010...but similar to 82-84, I am concerned whether we go right back into another recession due to inflation, and the dreaded...stagflation...which I am concerned will be the result of all of this government spending.

I don't "know" that will be the end result...but my little pea-brain sure does worry that it is.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

So on the one hand Jon points out great stats to back his stance I show ones that back mine.

Actually I wasn't looking to back jack. I was just throwing up a couple of the latest figures on your market that I didn't know whether you had seen. Falls much more into the category of me getting curious about some off hand remark about some guy hitting into more double play than usual & going to see if the numbers support the impression than anything eco-political. Worrying about gas prices or unemployment in a single Florida market was way more micro than I'm usually in the mood to be.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Fidatelo

I agree with others that are not seeing deflation on most consumer goods.

In the micromarket I live in you'd be laughed out into the street if you suggested there was currently deflation going on. Inflation on the other hand, well, Ray Charles couldn't miss that.

The increase in cost on pretty much everything in the regular consumer shopping cart has been very steady here for at least two years with food (both grocery & restaurant) being the most noticeable other than the surges in gasoline. My personal favorite is storebrand cheese curls, almost doubled in price in three years (from $.79 to $1.49), branded soft drinks are up about 50% in the past year even comparing regular price to current "sale" price, almost doubled regular to regular (just saw $1.98 last night for regular price 2L Coke & Pepsi).

[SportsDino]

All right, lets get back to a definition of inflation:

Economics. a persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency (opposed to deflation ).

(dictionary.com)

Deflation while we are at it:

A persistent decrease in the level of consumer prices or a persistent increase in the purchasing power of money because of a reduction in available currency and credit.

-----

Okay, I bring up these definitions because of the keyword I see 'persistent'. To me I interpret that as prices can go all over the place, but it is the trend line that really tells whether you have inflation or deflation occurring.

So this is my first disagreement with a lot of modern 'media-hype' economists which I consider Bernanke a part of. They throw out the term deflation and inflation like candy, saying things like 'oh you'll have a couple months of deflation, and then a couple months of inflation....' they are acting as if the term describes short term events, and it does not. It is the sign of a fiscal policy screwball, the idea that they can game prices and money supply to infinity and beyond without real economy consequences. We are feeling that pain right now really frickin bad (it amplifies and obfuscates all of the things that led up to the credit crisis).

----

I'll take apart the Bernanke article later with more detailed statements (so you can bash them). Realize a generic 'Bernanke sucks' doesn't do all that much for conversation.

[Flasch186]

good point about the persistent part but I'd argue that we're not saying that we cant handle or shouldnt be willing to accept a brief period of inflation or deflation but were trying to avoid the 'persistent' part.

[SportsDino]

A small preview of one of my arguments:

The boost of the money supply could have been said to divert a real problem in October, but it was not a deflationary crisis, but rather a deliberate attempt to obfuscate prices so that markets would not panic and crush our economy.

So injecting lots of dollars might be one way to stave off a problem I will honestly admit existed. However, I go on to prove that it was not a 'deflationary spiral' and the Fed's own statements are the evidence... that they are merely continuing their school of fiscal policy games as a solution to a crisis. There is a really big (and currently popular) school of thought that you can use fiscal policy to handle all sorts of shit. Within that school, Bernanke is consistent... although I feel the bullshit factor coming off of him when he speaks which makes me doubt even he truly has faith in it anymore.

What I take offense to is the misrepresentation of the situation to the public, and of course the inevitable result of that fiscal policy school... you end up with all of the levers maxed out and you end up with a really big BOOM in the machine. The notion of the Fed deliberately causing boom/bust cycles is a dangerous truth, the time where they can play with rates and have it do anything to the economy is going to come to end and I'd rather it be during an enlightened up time where we adjust to something smarter and more common sense based, then panicing in a downswing and creating an economic atom bomb that makes a return to common sense growing economies much harder (or worst leads to mass warfare).

So anyway, hopefully that will clean up nicer when I tie it directly to the statements in his article.

[ISiddiqui]

Nitpick, the Fed doesn't engage in 'fiscal policy' games. They deal with monetary policy.

[SportsDino]

Bah, you are correct, monetary policy. Too many wires crossed in my poor demented brain (I'm freudian slipping thinking about the Obama bailout at the same time as Fed printing money). My bad, I especially deserve this after my quotes to dictionary.com,

[BishopMVP]

On Bernanke, I'm not sure what there is to comment on. He's delivered the boilerplate playbook of monetarists, but both his plans seem to be completely lacking in any specifics. Of course it's possible to curb inflation by changing the interest rate and money supply, but the devil is in picking the right one. Overall, since IMO it is much more important for businesses to have stability in their projections (whether that is inflation or deflation shouldn't matter, as long as it can be predicted accurately), all he's been doing by radically changing course and unveiling vague plans is screwing things up even more.

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Umm, wouldn't that only be true if the house was purchased for the purpose of living in as a primary residence as opposed to an investment to be flipped sooner rather than later? In other words, living in a particular house is often irrelevant vs living in some other dwelling.

I know relatively few people who looked at their current house as the former ("a house") rather than an asset and/or investment. Residences seem to be by & large considered temporary for most folks outside of those who are intentionally buying "their last house" as part of retirement or similar.

Yes, but I don't have much sympathy for someone who puts 90% of their net worth into a single, illiquid asset. Real estate is considered the safest place to invest because it's backed up by something tangible, and if the market collapses hey, you'll still have a place to live in. For people that didn't get the second part of that statement or truly thought there was no chance that their house would decrease in value or prove to be difficult to unload I don't know what to say.

Originally Posted by Flasch186

that's just not true though, McD's is lowering prices on stuff, Subway is, Coke is, etc. Most places are running larger and more frequent sales. You see it all around outside of food and energy costs (which trickle into groceries, etc.). I just asked my roomie and she said, in her life, she would say overall prices are going down on 'stuff.' Totally a grain of salt but meaningful in that it isn't just my brain coming up with it.

This simply isn't true. I work in a convenience store and companies are jacking up prices/cutting portions almost across the board. The only exception has been milk. Offering a loss-leader to get people in the door is not the same as reducing prices. The fact that you and your roommate perceive the opposite is exactly what I've talked about in the past when pointing out how the media (and peoples tendency to accentuate the negative) drives people to be more pessimistic than reality.

[Flasch186]

unless of course reality is our reality.

[lcjjdnh]

Aren't the pay freezes/cuts many firms' have instituted a sign of deflationary pressure which will, in turn, lead to more deflationary pressure?

[path12]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

This simply isn't true. I work in a convenience store and companies are jacking up prices/cutting portions almost across the board. The only exception has been milk. Offering a loss-leader to get people in the door is not the same as reducing prices. The fact that you and your roommate perceive the opposite is exactly what I've talked about in the past when pointing out how the media (and peoples tendency to accentuate the negative) drives people to be more pessimistic than reality.

Not in apparel. I can tell you that almost universally we are getting much pressure from retailers to reduce costs because it is quite clear that the consumer is choosing value (i.e. price) over any other factor out there right now.

Although stores seem crowded and people are buying things, they are buying clearance and sale items far more heavily than say one year ago. You can see this for example in the drop in profit of 50-60% by JCP and Nordstrom for 4th quarter, even though their same door sales were down only 15% or so.

[Flasch186]

well you'd think but I'd argue that it's a feedback thing:

Jobs are dramatically cut
Sellers begin to lower prices to conttinue to get purchases hurting their bottom line
more jobs get cut

...but the most important thing occurs that I think pours gas on the deflationary flame:

Consumer confidence is damaged which causes hording.

Now that being said people on the other side of this argument have shown compelling evidence to the contrary so perhaps im wrong but I'd say Sportsdino is probably on point that we're seeing 'temporary' deflation right now and I'm arguing that we need to fight it so that the temporary doesnt become 'prolonged'. Path12 just above me is on par with everything we're seeing and experiencing as well so Im not sure why anecdotally it's not showing up in statistics ALTHOUGH after reading some stuff today Im not sure that the gas will be a short term window into the inflation/deflation argument as contracts start coming into view for the summer months, the cantango comes in, and the rumor mongering of more production cuts are sticking.

In all honesty I hope Im wrong and Ive put my money where my mouth is because im F'n long the stock market and have gotten killed (havnt sold). That being said Im of the opinion that with a decent time horizon we're seeing incredible values on cash rich companies.

If the Gold trade continues it's short bear turn here I'd say that that is one tiny piece of evidence that takes that cog out of the inflation down the road argument. I have no idea though and we could see gold at 700 or 1100 shortly, although it's volatility recently is reminiscent of a more recent commodity bubble

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The only exception has been milk.

Really? Somebody needs to send my grocery stores a memo on that one (yeah, I know you said c-stores but still). I couldn't do much but stop & stare a few days back when I saw $4.69/gal for milk and realized it wasn't just a misprinted sign.

[Flasch186]

honestly, I think some of it is the stores attempt to have some sticky prices because Im generally seeing everything that seems "overpriced" like milk in your example being run on a special below what I'd expect to be an average price almost every week somewhere nearby the house. I have no evidence to back that up other than what Im seenig....AAMOF I have it right here in a mailer again this week.

[Fidatelo]

Originally Posted by lcjjdnh

Aren't the pay freezes/cuts many firms' have instituted a sign of deflationary pressure which will, in turn, lead to more deflationary pressure?

Or maybe it just leads to a lower standard of living...

[Izulde]

Food prices have skyrocketed from what I've seen, while gas has come to be relatively cheap.

The high cost of food is making it really difficult for me to say for certain that I'll drop the meal plan here at the University next year. Yeah, the food is terrible and the healthy options are so limited as to be nonexistant (I now weigh even more than what I did before I went to Spain a year and a half ago), but the per-meal price is much, much cheaper than I'd get by eating out, or, frankly, even getting groceries and making it myself.

That's how bad it's gotten.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

honestly, I think some of it is the stores attempt to have some sticky prices because Im generally seeing everything that seems "overpriced" like milk in your example being run on a special below what I'd expect to be an average price almost every week somewhere nearby the house.

For the past year+, especially the last six months or so, we're in a different sort of pattern here. It's the one where prices are jacked up beyond all reason as a "regular" price and then the items are "sale" priced back toward something vaguely resembling sanity about one week out of four. The difference is that our "sale" price is still jacked up beyond anything in surrounding markets.

Incidentally (and maybe related to this very thing), state of Georgia hits new all-time record for unemployment (since the feds standardized tracking back in the 70's) in the latest seasonally adjusted figures. Of all the metro areas in the state, only one showed zero job loss (actually gained 100 jobs out of about 88k) for Jan 09 vs Jan 08. Care to hazard a guess which one? As Madge used to say, I'm soaking in it. I think we're in such a relatively unusual situation, where the college & other governmental entities make up such a ridiculously high percentage of the jobs and they haven't been touched at all, that it's like we're in a totally different cycle than everywhere else. About the only sign we've seen of anything out of the ordinary around here is the steady closure of some old-line businesses - a nursery, a news stand, a restaurant, a men's clothing store - that were overpriced relative to the competition & survived as long as they did largely on the habits of older customers. Those folks are probably the least likely to keep overpaying with all the economic news around them & that finished those folks off. Otherwise we've lost a couple of counter service chain restaurants, both of which had terrible locations and would have been iffy to survive very long in the best of times. Meanwhile just down the street in more visible locations, new restaurants are opening, a couple of smallish commercial properties have not only opened but have been built right in the middle of all this bad economy & are both at/near capacity with tenants finishing the build out to open for business. Like I said, it just doesn't bear much resemblance to what I hear about in most other places.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

unless of course reality is our reality.

You listed 3 national brands/companies (McD's/Coke/Subway) and said they were lowering prices, and they aren't, at least at any location I have been to. $5 footlong has been around for years now and adding a new value menu item is a cyclical event at McDonalds. Then you said your roommate agreed that "stuff" was costing less. Since I read a lot of Freakonomics-type stuff, I know just how unreliable memories like this are, especially depending on if you asked a leading question. That's why I trust the statistics Jon quoted unless you can at least provide legitimate anecdotes and examples.

Originally Posted by path12

Not in apparel. I can tell you that almost universally we are getting much pressure from retailers to reduce costs because it is quite clear that the consumer is choosing value (i.e. price) over any other factor out there right now.

Although stores seem crowded and people are buying things, they are buying clearance and sale items far more heavily than say one year ago. You can see this for example in the drop in profit of 50-60% by JCP and Nordstrom for 4th quarter, even though their same door sales were down only 15% or so.

Luxury goods are where the huge markdowns are coming, but really, they're called luxury goods for a reason - they're unnecessary. It's not good for all the people who had jobs producing and marketing those unnecessary goods, but we were on an unsustainable course of overconsumption. I'm not at all sad the $800 handbags or the 56" Plasma TV's aren't selling well anymore.

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Really? Somebody needs to send my grocery stores a memo on that one (yeah, I know you said c-stores but still). I couldn't do much but stop & stare a few days back when I saw $4.69/gal for milk and realized it wasn't just a misprinted sign.

Our area is definitely higher-income than the national median, but it's dropped to $2.69 for 1% and $3.49-$3.69 for other percents. I suspect that's partially because the 1% gallon of milk and the gallon of unleaded gas are the two prices we advertise on big signs. Over at the supermarket even on sale it's $3+ and CVS is advertising $3.89 for 1% in their window half a block away which makes little sense to me. But CVS did just report a 17% increase in profits last quarter, so maybe they know what they're doing.

[Flasch186]

wow numbers today back up my position and Ill continue to stand behind it when GDP numbers and consumer spending numbers come out as bad as (and worse than) expected. Unreal numbers and they are very very scary.

[sterlingice]

I don't agree that we're headed for a deflationary spiral but since we seem to think anecdotal evidence is evidence now for the last couple pages in this thread, I'll throw in my two cents.

I'm the person who grocery watches prices in our house, not my wife. And I'm a bit of a stingy miser- my wife jokes that I might have been born in the Depression if she didn't know better. In short, this isn't one or two items that I just happened to notice. Stuff in Richmond has definitely gone down in price at the grocery store since I moved here. Tho, if I extrapolate, it's more complicated than that.

Going back to living in Kansas, I shop at basically 2 stores there: Hy-Vee and Dillons. Dillons is part of the Kroger conglomerate while Hy-Vee is an Iowa-based chain (great store). Lawrence prices were kept lower than Kansas City prices due to it being in a college town. There was some competition from a couple of discount grocery stores as well as an overabundance of stores in general.

Also, I think there's a big distinction with grocery stores in sale prices, especially if a store has a discount card, and the rest of prices. For those of you who really pay attention, you start to notice for sale prices that the same, say, 100 or 200 things go on sale about once every month and once every two months- if you stock up when they are on sale and don't buy the other weeks- you can save a pretty penny. Also, produce prices have a very significant seasonal variance to them- strawberries will be regularly priced at about $6 or $7 for a container (1 lb or 1 pt?) and you'll see them occasionally on sale for $4 or $3 once or twice during the winter but very rarely and they're often in bad shape- holdovers from the previous week or something. Towards the end of the summer, when they're in season, you're looking at maybe a whole month or six weeks where they're constantly on sale for $2-$3. Regular dry and frozen goods are kindof one category as their prices are mostly static. Then meat and dairy have a slightly seasonal bend to them, but only in so much that they tend to go up in the summer when gas prices are high and down in the winter when gas prices are lower- at least that's what I suspect is the contributing factor.

I think prices have been doing up (and portions going down) going back about 2 years ago. In summer '07, there was the start of a little price inflation, more than usual, and it was blamed on gas prices fairly high that summer. Prices never retreated and even crept up a little more until summer '08. Then prices exploded- stories of $4 gas and how much it cost to get things to market were all over the place and prices rose along with it. Also, these price raises were across the board. Frankly, I think meat and produce were most affected but dry and canned good makers saw the chance to jack up prices and lower quantities so they jumped at it.

These price hikes affected Dillons more than Hy-Vee. I have no proof but I suspect it has to do with one being a regional chain versus one being national. The national chain just had more stuff traveling longer distances. For anyone familiar with the Kroger stores- they have the discount card that practically everywhere has now. The discount stuff went up slightly. For instance, coke that would be $10 for 4 12-packs went up to $10 for 3 12-packs. Or, say, hot pockets, which used to have a sale price of $2 had a sale price of $2.50. These were substantial increases but nothing compared to some of the stuff on the shelf that went up 25% to 50% over the 15-month period from before summer '07 through the end of summer '08. So, in short, if you didn't buy the stuff on sale- you were getting hit pretty hard. Hy-Vee saw more modest increases on the order of 10-25%. They don't have the discount card so it was across the board. We changed our habits a little, but, frankly, we were in the process of moving so we didn't buy as many groceries anyways as we were trying to clean out the fridge, pantry, etc, and eat out at some of our favorite places one last time.

Then we moved to Richmond in September. Here we shop at 4 different stores depending on our needs for the week. There's a farmers market sort of place which we'll leave out because we know the prices are inflated and we only go to them occasionally. Then there are 3 chains- Ukrops, a regional high-end grocery store , Kroger, and Food Lion, a discount no-frills store.

When we got here, Ukrops had prices almost double the high prices we saw in summer '08 in Lawrence. Kroger was mostly around 50% with the sale prices being maybe 25-50% more and Food Lion was around 10-25%. Some things were the same price, but, on the whole, our food bills went up about 25% or 50%, at least, if we went to Ukrops.

Ukrops still has barely tempered their prices. I think they think they can weather this storm and keep their high(er) margins (grocery stores don't have high margins to begin with). Some of their weekly sale stuff is lower than it was when I got here but across the board they are still high. I think they're going to have to fall or risk losing a lot of business. Sure, they're high end but when your high end customers are losing jobs and taking pay cuts, they will start straying towards other places.

Food Lion's prices don't have that much to fall. I haven't really noticed a fluctuation in costs. Some of their sale stuff has been door-buster crazy low lately. But what I've really noticed is that the regular prices of a lot of stuff on the shelf is down 10% from what I've seen. That's not a lot, but it's significant for stores with really low margins to begin with. They were in the middle of a big push to spend more on their produce sections to the point where they were advertising on tv "we are increasing our produce bugets to get you the best produce" so those prices have stayed level or even gone up slightly. But so has the quality so I think that's an independent factor working there.

The place where I've really noticed the substantial changes are Kroger, who is stuck in the middle. The stuff on their shelves has also gone down a slight amount but you're really seeing it in sale prices. Some of their sale stuff, say 20 items per week, are getting down to Lawrence pre-2008 levels or lower. And another chunk of their sale stuff is around what I was seeing in Lawrence last winter, pre-summer 2008. That's somewhat alarming to me as we had a lot of sticker shock when we arrived here. It's good to be getting prices so low and we're stocking up, but it's also cause for concern in my mind.

So, yeah, the short version of all that- we're seeing some deflation here but it's at different levels. The high end store has very little, the middle grade store is seeing a lot on their discount items and some on their regular stock, while the discount store is seeing a moderate amount on their shelf stuff. That's more than enough to give me pause, tho I'm taking advantage of it every week we go to get groceries

SI

[SportsDino]

I'm doubting we are seeing deflation, but rather the price and cost cutting you tend to see in recessions where companies are competing for survival. The real test will come when supplies have been cut as far as they can be cut before you have shortages, that is when you see commodities being bid back up and prices tend to shoot up to follow (and are much slower to trickle back down after the shock).

So my concern is we hit the shortage point in some critical sectors (non-luxury goods, but things like food, and basic necessities that tend to have a low margin most of the time anyway)... and at the same time we hit the peak of our money printing cycle. When you have a lot of people with no to limited income (because they were just fired), and others with inflated income, and only so much stuff to go around... that is when you can see a massive inflation spike. My hope is that those companies manage to keep a suitable level of supply and don't cut too deeply because of an economic panic, so that we don't hit a crunch at the same time as too many people are out of work, and too many people are enjoying funny money. I really hate inflationary spirals because those have a history of destroying wealth and it never coming back.

Bernanke, being a monetary policy believer, basically threw the levers to 'inflate' because that is the tool he believed best to avert the problems of people cutting too deep in a panic. To a degree I might even be able to agree it is the right thing to do if you are in that school of thought and you see it as your only option.

However, I personally would prefer that instead of inflating a bunch of money and sinking it into bank balances, that it would be pumped into real assets and preventing negative consequences in the economy (like foreclosures, bankruptcies, and margin calls in a more direct fashion). The policies I would suggest though require more thought, effort, and time to implement, not to mention rely on people actually being competent rather than just politicing like usual. The upside though would be a much faster recovery, less money that you would have to print, and less damage to the economy's productivity, yet alone individuals losing their homes and jobs. The downside is the banks would have had one hell of a major hand slapping for being too greedy, and would not have been able to continue their gambling games (which have resulted in them losing and the economy and banks suffering for it, sometimes greed is not good if it is ignorant and short-sighted).

I am very concerned that the monetary policy tools have been stretched to the limit, and that any attempt to take the levers off of 'INFLATE!' causes another market panic that could kill off a recovery if we do happen to stumble on it through natural processes (or Obama-spending if your a staunch Democrat believer). We need business, not wild ass speculating about futures no one can truly predict. I think this may herald the stock market fading into irrelevance in the extreme case (and probably it should if it does not reform back to a finance tool with revenue streams based off of dividends as the chief long strategy).

[edit]: The gambling I am talking of is after the shit has hit the fan. Banks are still continuing to push foreclosures and bankruptcies, from what little I can tell... causing the numbers to continue to look bleaker and drive down the value of their toxic assets (and even their formerly good assets) yet further. The hand slapping would be to punish the banks for making risky loans and eliminating the clauses that they were 'banking' on by forcing mortgages to be reworked or cleaned up. Executives trying more and more risky things to keep their bonuses intact would also have to be attacked. If they didn't get massive donations from the gov, they would have had to fess up and take their medicine.

[JPhillips]

Stimulus = Slavery

"That [stimulus package] is as much a chain of slavery around our children. … It is as much a chain as ankle bracelets were as to African-Americans in the 1860s in this state. It’s just invisible. But it is a chain of death that we’re not going to escape," - Virginian Republican state senator, Bob Marshall.

[Flasch186]

nice

[JPhillips]

At least we're all eligible for reparations now.

[Mustang]

I'm far from pc, but that was pretty stupid even by my standards.

[sterlingice]

Has it been Godwin'd yet?

SI

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

At least we're all eligible for reparations now.

I'm going to buy Pee-Wee's playhouse.