NP - The Fed's Priorities

[Paul Mackin]

On 8/6/2012 6:19 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
>> Yes, of course, time is needed, but what about the irreparable harm being
>> done by Congressional inaction on spending to prop up state and local
>> jurisdictions?   Teacher layoffs,  law enforcement, health care,
>> infrastructure maintenance, etc. The short term is important too.
> I agree. And the Fed, though it must keep its political statements
> blunt, has, in its reports to the gov., warned the congress that the
> Fed has a limited mandate, and limited power levers, that it has not
> quite exhausted all of the fixes it can try, but it has done, at this
> point, all it can, without taking unacceptable risks to the long term,
> to address the short term sufferings and the irreparable harm being
> done to regions, sectors, states, workers. Surely this is important
> and not in anyway divorced from the longer term objectives. The Fed
> has regional representation, and it is not ignoring any region or
> state or sector. It can not because the damage, as you suggest, will
> hurt the economy now, and later.  But it is not congress. The power of
> the purse, when all politics is local, and the president is to be
> decided in a few short months, is most powerful when it does nothing
> but point fngers and collect cash.

Alice dear, I don't know exactly what this says, but it doesn't sound 
like agreement.

P
>
>
>> The central banks of the U.S. and Europe want more government action and are
>> waiting for it to happen, and waiting and waiting.  In the U.S. there is no
>> excuse.
> The Fed can not force the Congress and the President into a deal. The
> excuse, for the politicians,  is politics.
>
>
>> The p-list has one resident physicist and maybe a couple three musicologists
>> but we got a whole shitload of economists.  Why can't we come up with
>> something the dismal science will be proud of?
> So, on Saturday we had a party for my husband and hs geography
> friends. Many work for the govt here or fro the govt-oil company. I
> asked why so many doctors of geography (geology to Americans, for most
> of these folks work with rocks and oil platforms) can not lower the
> price of all these flex-fuels. In Brasil you can choose from several
> fuel options at the gas station. They laughed, of course. Then,
> everything got lost in translation as they told joke after joke about
> the govt and its corruption and ineptitudes.
> As for economics, I make it my business to erradicate financial
> illiteracy wheneer I get the chance, but I never feel all that certain
> about my lessons. Perhaps I should stick to grammar.
>