GOP may OK tax increase that Obama hopes to block

[Havakasha]

No, Schiff just predicted hyperinflation in 2011, interest rates at 6% for 10 year notes in 2011 and
got his stock market predictions wrong. He is a doomsday specialist who has been saying much of the same things for a number of years running. He is bound to be right on ocassion. Totally pathetic that you cant admit how wrong he has been on so many of his predictions. I know you would rather not address it then admit it.

Still havent commented yet. Got to jog my memory. Sorry.
Whose quote was "cherished program". It wasnt clear from your post.

[SiriuslyLong]

Do you are don't you want an extension of the payroll tax break for social security?

Schiff doesn't talk about aliens lol.

[Havakasha]

Ah, I think you dont want to discuss Schiffs predictions do you?
Is he still one of your favortie economists? I cant seem to tell. Hysterical.

Krugman is not selling stock newsletters by selling doomsday scenarios. He also didnt
believe we should have defaulted on the debt.

Did you agree with Schiiff on the debt default. I think i asked you about a week ago and still
havent heard an answer. Puzzling. l0l

I loved Krugmans Alien story.

[SiriuslyLong]

Krugman is a journalist. Schiff is a broker. Get it?

So, are you for or against a continuation of the social security payroll tax break? I believe I asked you this minutes ago, yet you seem to gravitate toward deflective topics........... Puzzling.............

[Havakasha]

You told me Schiff was an economist and you sent me his book to read. You thought he was great.
I think its an important indication of your belief system. We are discussing economics afterall

Nothing deflective about talking about Schiff. What is truly deflective is you not admitting how many predictions he has got wrong.
I believe you called him "courageous" for predicting that either gold will be $12,000 or the Dow will be 1,200 within 3 years.
I called that irresponsible nonsense.

I think the payroll tax holiday should be extended another year.

Are there any other candidates besides Ron Paul that you are looking on favorably these days?
I asked you a week ago and you didnt answer. Notice i didnt get all nasty and uppity and insist
that you answer within a half hour. Courtesy please.

[SiriuslyLong]

You told me Schiff was an economist and you sent me his book to read. You thought he was great.
I think its an important indication of your belief system. We are discussing economics afterall

Nothing deflective about talking about Schiff. What is truly deflective is you not admitting how many predictions he has got wrong.
I believe you called him "courageous" for predicting that either gold will be $12,000 or the Dow will be 1,200 within 3 years.
I called that irresponsible nonsense.

I think the payroll tax holiday should be extended another year.

Are there any other candidates besides Ron Paul that you are looking on favorably these days?
I asked you a week ago and you didnt answer. Notice i didnt get all nasty and uppity and insist
that you answer within a half hour. Courtesy please.

I figured. Funny how you flip flopped on this since December. Funny how you want the "Bush Tax Cuts" to end today, but you want to short change social security for another year because it is a democrats idea. Pathetic.

No, all the candidates suck. They are politicians after all.

Yes, the Schiff book was indeed very interesting. It introduced me to an economic theory I hadn't known. That's called learning. It's astonishing that a self proclaimed "progressive" would be against learning, or maybe it's that the material being learned flies in the face of your dogma? "Courageous", don't recall that.

[Havakasha]

i want the Bush tax cuts to end on the wealthy and not the middle class. You werent implying i wanted them to end on everyone were you? i have stated this many times so i am susupicious that you were trying to leave readers with a mistaken impression.

Even weeks later you are still not willing to acknowledge all the predictions that Mr. Schiff got wrong. Im not opposed to learning. I just thought his book was very badly written and based on his support of the U.S. defaulting on the debt and all his other zany
and inaccurate predictions i have formed an opinion that he is a bit of a shyster.

Still dont know if you agree with his opinion that it was good to default on the debt? Still wanted to hear if there any other candidates for President that you are thinking favorably of.

I am pretty certain you called his prediction that gold would be $12,000 or the Dow 1,200 within 3 years "courageous".
Why dont we both double check when we have time.

[Havakasha]

I was wrong. You called it a "bold" prediction. Sorry.
Of course i disagree completely with that characterization.

[SiriuslyLong]

"I just thought his book was very badly written and based on his support of the U.S. defaulting on the debt and all his other zany
and inaccurate predictions i have formed an opinion that he is a bit of a shyster."

Dude, the book is well over a year old. You got it long before the "default crisis" and his "zany inaccurate predictions."

Here, I'll accomodate you regarding defaulting on the debt. I'll feel a hell of a lot better when this goes in reverse: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Get it? So how long do you think it will take to make this thing go backwards? I'm not saying "no debt", just "managable debt". When will it START to reverse? That's all I want to know - WHEN? Right now, it's same old, same old with seemingly little consensus on how to make it go backwards.

Or should all nations simply ignore sovereign debt? It's all funny money anyway? Can the debt clock go up forever without a consequence?

Getting back to Schiff, he wrote Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse, in 2007. Unfortunately, I read it in 2009. Other than gold pumping, the book was frighteningly spot on about what HAD HAPPENED. If you don't believe me, go see for yourself. It was truly alarming to know that someone knew what was going to happen, and yet nothing was done to prevent it. This is why I can look past a few silly remarks which amount to nothing more than hyperbole.

[SiriuslyLong]

Here is a Washington Post reveiw of the book I sent you. Consider it a Readers Digest condensed version.

HOW AN ECONOMY GROWS AND WHY IT CRASHES
By Peter D. Schiff and Andrew J. Schiff
Wiley, $19.95, 256 pages

“How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes” makes economics fun and accessible. Best-selling author and 2010 U.S. Senate candidate Peter D. Schiff and his brother Andrew J. Schiff, communications director of Euro Pacific Capital, convey the often intuitive ideas of economics through an engaging, fictitious story richly illustrated with amusing cartoons.

The current economic path of the United States, some argue, is unsustainable. Americans understand this, yet many have been misled into believing that economics is hopelessly complex and the country would be at sea without a paddle if the government weren’t around to sort through the mess.

The Schiffs seek to provide readers with a “basic tool kit for cutting through the economic clutter” by sharing a revised and updated version of “The Fish Story” that their father, Irwin A. Schiff, presented in the well-known illustrated book “How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn’t.”

The story begins with three men on an otherwise deserted island who, in order to survive, have to spend all their waking hours catching fish with their bare hands. Eventually they develop nets and other fish-catching devices that enable them to devote their time to various other pursuits. Immigrants arrive, and the economy becomes increasingly complex.

Because of their universal value, fish are soon used as money. There is increased specialization of labor, and those who own capital, such as carts or saws, employ those who don’t. A bank is created that provides a safe place for people to keep their money and provides loans for promising projects.

At the end of each chapter, the Schiffs provide real-world take-aways from the story. The authors explain how the interest rates charged by today’s banks are affected by the “federal funds” rate set by the Federal Reserve, an institution they say is not above being influenced by politicians who seek to make the economy look better on the surface by making loans and mortgages accessible. Also a factor, they say, is that debtors who want to pay low rates form interest groups, but savers don’t join together to make their voices heard.

In the story, the Republic of Usonia is formed to protect against domestic thugs and foreign invaders, with only those who pay taxes getting to determine how taxpayer dollars are spent. However, the government starts getting more creative after politicians find they can get elected by promising to fund various projects, all the while claiming that costs will be offset by the benefits of job creation. According to the Schiffs, many economists use this same reasoning to conclude that natural disasters are economic stimulants.

The Schiffs emphasize time and again something many already understand deep down - that prosperity comes from production, not from spending. “What if you spent $1 million but bought nothing but air? How would this benefit society?” they ask. Yet the jobs created from government stimulus money are more obvious to the public than the jobs that would have existed had those resources remained in the private sector.

To make up for the difference between expenditures and revenue, the government has to engage in what the Schiffs correctly refer to as “generational theft.” The authors argue that by selling vast amounts of our government debt to foreign governments such as China, we temporarily alleviate our economic problems, but the country is pushed closer to the day when other countries will have had enough of our dollars and the government won’t be able to pay for our extraordinary debt without massive inflation or huge tax increases.

Since 1976, the United States has consistently imported more than it has exported. Such trade deficits are naturally self-correcting because they cause the country’s goods to become less expensive, which, in turn, makes demand for them increase. Yet, the Schiffs explain, we have been able to run consistent deficits because of our “monetary good fortune” of having the dollar accepted as the international exchange currency and the Chinese government not allowing the value of the yuan to increase relative to the dollar. The authors rightly warn of the economic downturn to come when these advantages inevitably end.

Meanwhile, in the story about Usonia, the government issues more and more paper notes redeemable for one fish. To make the government’s fish reserves keep pace, the officials drastically reduce the size of the fish through some clever cutting-and-gluing techniques. Eventually, after people start catching onto the fact that the fish they get back from the bank are smaller than the ones they deposited, they become less interested in saving and instead want to spend their money as quickly as possible to avoid losing purchasing power because of rapidly increasing prices.

With less money saved, there’s also less money to be lent out for promising businesses or other economic projects. The effects of inflation in the United States are the same, although the decreasing value of the dollar isn’t quite as obvious to Americans as shrinking fish would be.

In considering the causes of the recent recession, the Schiffs note that it’s difficult to overstate the impact of the housing boom, which they say was brought about by politicians who sought to make housing loans accessible to all.

The authors blame the government for using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee housing loans to unreliable borrowers. Economic resources, they say, were being diverted from better uses, and people were buying homes they clearly could not afford. Although incomes barely changed between 1997 and 2006, house prices increased by an average of 19.4 percent per year.