Down 20% from September 2006. Toyota and Honda got brutally slammed. But don't blame post-earthquake inventory shortages. They have been resolved. It's a shift in the market.
Now: quantitative models recreate thoughts, and brain signals control mechanical devices. The flash crash will look quaint, and Google and Facebook will have a field day.
Deflation phobia has broken out again, and Japan's "deflation spiral" is held up as sheer horror. So here is my experience with that horror. Alas, in one category, deflationistas have been right.
As demands to bail out Greece wash over Europe, Greek society digs in its heels, and Greek ministries just pulled the rug out from under their prime minister.
The FOMC's stated policy of creating sufficient inflation has been effective: up 36% from January 2000. But there are victims: the middle class and ultimately the economy.
"We're not doing this for the Greeks, but for us," said Angela Merkel amidst a cacophony of doomsday scenarios. It's all about propping up German banks and exporters. For the French, however, the European debt crisis doesn't seem to exist.
The White House is lobbying European governments to shut up and do something. No more disputes in public. The world is collapsing, and it's time to act boldly. Hank Paulson's extortion racket is back.
The Japanese quagmire has been getting deeper and more perilous for years, but now the unique factors that supported its catastrophic indebtedness have reversed. The endgame has started.
The media lamented the ugly housing-starts number. But for the market to heal, it should be near zero. In Japan, land prices are still declining 20 years after the bubble burst, and even the Yakuza are complaining.
President Obama's proposal to cut the deficit by x trillion dollars is another punch line in the serial joke that our political machinery has been telling us: that deficits will be "cut" in ten years, while the opposite is needed immediately.
Geithner gets smacked down, and Germany might be threatened by a populist movement to exit the E.U. For the first time ever, a clear majority of Germans no longer sees any benefits to being part of the Eurozone.
Trillionaires. Just the sound of it! It's beautiful, Ben. But without your help, we'll never get there. So, at your big meeting next week, think about us. Because the way you make trillionaires is by printing money.
Incredible that a Democrat would propose that our Social Security system should be gutted starting immediately to get an up-tick in GDP, illusory as it may turn out to be, just before the election. But President Obama's proposal to cut payroll taxes in half will do just that.
Out of one side of its mouth, our political system talks about reforming Social Security to preserve it for a few more years, and out of the other side of its mouth, it proposes to expedite its demise. Where's the duct tape?
