ERICOPOLY

Well if there's no debt overhang than why are people using gas savings to pay down debt in a low interest rate environment? Also just because retail sales have been strengthening lately doesn't mean that the economy is not still demand constrained. If the economy is not demand constrained then why do you have low inflation in a zero interest rate environment? Why is anyone even mentioning deflation? Is demand falling or flat if sales are rising? Despite paying down debt, no less. They are buying more AND paying down debt. Must be terrible out there.

The US doesn't have consumer debt overhang in the way that matters -- monthly payments. Lately retail sales have been strengthening which must speak to the lack of demand right???

The US government could stimulate the economy by requiring employers to give paid time off: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2013/08/13/paid-time-off-forget-about-it-a-report-looks-at-how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries/ People spend more money when they are sitting at home bored and need something to entertain them.

Actually, the multiplier from the shale boom might have been rather large. Instead of the oil being purchased from OPEC and other exporters, it was purchased from a new US shale producer. So the money spent on shale oil ricocheted around within the borders of the US instead of being sent overseas. Instead of buying oil from OPEC and losing all of the dollars in the process, you just have your left hand pay your right hand to use the oil that you've got buried in the backyard. No leakage unless the shale oil producers in the US are foreign owned.

And don't forget that 21% of US oil is imported... none of that money made it into the US shale boom: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/forecast-2015-imported-oil-will-make-just-21-us-consumption The drop in oil prices on that 21% is pure stimulus.

Compare $160 to what gets spent eating out: The average American family spends $225 a month eating away from home – dinners eaten out, quick snacks grabbed, and coffees ordered and consumed on the run. http://www.thesimpledollar.com/trimming-the-average-budget-eating-out/

I found this a moment ago -- I don't know if it takes more time for gasoline prices to catch up with oil prices or not: Implied spot prices for some major gasoline markets in November and December are already trading at around $1.25 a gallon, according to Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/11/6-reasons-gas-prices-could-fall-below-2-a-gallon.html

Yes but 7 years ago it was 2008 and can we talk about the headwinds of what transpired during those years of epic collapse if we're going to talk about the tailwinds from shale? It's not 2008 anymore and things are not collapsing. And there is no more shale tailwind. Where does that leave us?

The commoditized companies -- those are the ones who moved their manufacturing to China a long time ago, because they couldn't protect their margins. Chinese manufacturing has been so cheap for so long that we've been through this cycle already. So are there any of them left here in the US to get hurt by this? What I'm looking for here are companies that will be firing their US workers -- if we already went through that phase, then the US workers will not be hurt by this devaluation. Therefore they keep their jobs and their pay, buy cheaper (deflated) commoditized Chinese goods from Walmart, and have extra disposable income left over to spend (stimulative). That's what the Chinese want, right? They want the overseas consumer to have extra money to buy more things from China. But the US consumer will also spend more in restaurants. Or on whatever. Also, if finished goods from China are cheaper, we buy more of them -- doesn't that provide any support for the pricing of the raw materials inputs that go into those goods?

What are the implications for the price of imported Chinese beer?

I thought US manufacturers (the domestic ones) were the ones making those widgets in Chinese factories. Is Apple going to pass along the IPhone manufacturing savings to US consumers or will they just report fatter margins?

Using this 2013 data... https://www.quandl.com/collections/economics/exports-as-share-of-gdp-by-country 13.49% of US GDP is exports vs 30.08% of Canada's GDP is exports

Okay, so... the Chinese goods on US store shelves will be cheaper now. Therefore people who buy those goods have more remaining money in their pockets to spend at Chipotle, or Starbucks, or pretty much anywhere. So shouldn't a whole raft of companies benefit from this, other than Fairfax? A US company who manufactures in China will spend less to get his product onto US shelves and it will also sell for that much less -- same profit though right? So where do US workers have their incomes hurt because of this, and if their incomes are the same and by habit they spend it all, well then many companies will benefit since the cost of their Chinese purchases will take less out of their wallets.

China devalued by 1.9% and the Aussie is down 1.6%. Pretty close. Wow!

I think our economy would collapse if commodities like oil/steel/etc skyrocketed in price. I mean, imagine if commodities tripled in price overnight. Consumers would go into shock. The funny thing is that we are faced with the reverse and it has people even more terrified. Such a funny world.

Since people are so certain of what communism is... go tell Plato that he needs a linguist to tell him to stop talking about communism of wives. http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/political-science/platos-theory-of-communism-including-2-forms-of-communism/40134/ Plato! That's not communism! I'll reiterate that what you think of as communism is the implementations that you've been exposed to. Read the section on "communism of property": Plato’s communism of property is in no way related to the modern communism or socialism because there was no mention of socialization of the means of production. Plato’s approach was mainly concerned with one factor of produc­tion, that is, property that has to be socialized. This should be eye opening -- that communism can be applied in some areas and not others. So a thing like an estate tax can be a form of communism of property (a mild form) but that can exist without being alongside every facet of communism as you know it. In that sense, it can be a relatively less communist society as compared to a fully communist society. Even in Plato's idea the artisans were allowed to have a controlled range of varying amounts of property, whereas the rulers had to surrender theirs. In our own United States, the incomes of the politicians are relatively small (the President of the US for example might earn less than a typical CEO despite his great important role as one of the "rulers"). Limiting the incomes of the rulers is borrowing a bit from Plato's ideals of communism. And controlling the incomes of the artisans is a bit like progressive taxation.

Here is an article for you that dares to call China "not very" communist. Hmm... sounds like they believe it's on a spectrum. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/how_communist_is_china.html

I indeed think that the concept of 100% free market is exactly the same nonsense as Communism. They are both fictitious non realistic ideas. That's why they have to be spectrums in order to be useful in the lexicon. Nothing can be labeled "communist" because there is no pure communism observable everywhere. Hence the reason why I put it on a spectrum... But beware... don't dare point this out or people will jump all over you like RB did for me. Relative communism isn't inherently bad -- you are taking parts that you like (sharing of fruits of labor) but still providing incentives (letting people retain a portion of their income, which amounts to a lot of money if they have a large income). So why the pissing match over the term? It's just the same coin as relative capitalism, but nobody gets pissed about that term even though it implies something that isn't true capitalism (and the parts that aren't capitalism are the communist parts... but shhhh... nobody is allowed to talk about that).

Why is "pure capitalism" an acceptable thing to say... I've seen several times on this board people refer to comments like "in pure capitalism"... blah blah blah... That's obviously a reference to the idea that capitalism lies on a spectrum from very pure to hardly exists. Yet you guys all believe that communism is only 100% or bust? I'm not getting the disconnect here. Explain. It's clearly not 100% or bust. It's also a spectrum. This is weird twilight zone stuff -- you really think it's a 100% thing? Is somebody a 100% Democrat? Is somebody a 100% Republican? Have you ever met somebody like me who takes some from one party, and some from another, and yet takes other things from other parties and forms a conglomeration of viewpoints? Take the best of each one and yet identify with none of them 100%? Well, you've just met your first -- me. I think you guys are hung up on the word "communist" because you grew up watching Red Dawn and listening to Ronal Reagan. Does it read better if you replace every reference to "relatively more communism" with "relatively less capitalism"? Does that eliminate the "bias" for you? Ironically, who is showing bias here??

Dude. Seriously. What's up? Tell us what's wrong. Don't keep it in. :) Communism is a unique concept in the sense that ALL is commonly shared. As in 100%. Saying that governance system X is 76% communism makes as much sense as saying someone is 76% pregnant. Of course with the natural language you can say whatever you want as long as it is grammatically correct but than it is just political talk. Why not compare it to 100% free markets? Bias. Point me to where it is defined as 100% -- I can do it for you... it's at the end of the spectrum. Is capitalism 100%? Yes... at the other end of the spectrum. In between? Lies the spectrum. That would be a two dimensional spectrum where we're only talking about capital and not political decision making issues (the democracy thing vs centralized decision making without voting). It's like you are saying there are only rainy days and sunny days. And thus there is only "bias" if you believe there are also exist cloudy days that don't rain and that also don't have sunshine... correct? Thinking in absolutes is lack of bias? I don't think so. Pshaw... I can't believe I have to point out that there are grey areas in between the absolutes. You know better than that.

Ironically, social democrats who believe in making decisions "in common" (aka: voting) are in a sense relatively more communist than Soviets who believed in centralized decision making (no voting, no sharing of decision making). Think outside the box about what communism means. Everybody sharing. Communal living. "Commune"ism. Did the Soviets really share? Were they communist?

You sound angry. You should read my comments again in the morning. I feel like perhaps you have emotional ties to the usage of the word coomunism based on what you've experienced in life from how the word has been reserved for given implementations. But those states that we've mislabeled as absolute communists really aren't pure communists. They have non-communist tendencies. Making things even across society is a communist ideal, and progressive taxation is on that spectrum. It's not a bad thing to acknowledge it as on the spectrum. It's just a realization that sharing ever greater amounts of your income in common is a progression towards sharing all of it. And don't you feel that sharing all of it is communism? If not, then what word do you have for total communal sharing?

You are taking an implementation of communism and saying that is what it is. Communism isn't China and it isn't Soviet Union, but elements of what they did are shades of communism. It's like arguing that there isn't relative capitalism. Of course there is. There really are no absolutes in life as we know it. You live somewhere in between keeping everything for yourself and sharing everything with others. It's relative, it's a spectrum. 0% tax rate is less communist than 99.99%. That makes California relatively more communist. Why do you think communism is a negative term? Too much "Red Dawn"? Forget Emilio Estevez for now and ask what's wrong about sharing and why "social democrat" is more acceptable?

The root word of communism is "common". Fruits of labor and production are enjoyed "in common". Assets are enjoyed "in common". Now, if I go out and work in California and they take 50% of income as taxes, then I am getting a relatively higher share of my income per capita than everyone else (they divide the other 50% equally amongst themselves). But that is relative communism. Under absolute communism I would get an equal pro-rata share as everyone else. It's a sliding scale that depends on how much of my income can be kept to myself. And how much of my assets they get to take back to the community every year (property taxes).

Communism is not a continuum but a single state where all of the productive assets in the economy are publicly owned. What you're thinking of are social democracies. You know those awful places like France, Germany, and Sweden that have longer life expectancy, higher quality of life, and higher worker productivity than the US. I didn't say "absolute" communism, I said "relative" coomunism. A social democracy is on the relative spectrum. Our real property ownership works like a lease -- stop paying your property tax and get evicted. It's not true ownership if you can't hang on to property that was bought and paid for. It's a form of relative communism. You have to pay a continual fee in order to occupy it, which is a lot like leasing something you already "own" from the community -- hence the reference to "commune" ism. Relative, not absolute. It's a spectrum.