Recession-Proof Economy
Recession-Proof Economy Bravo to Irwin M. Stelzer ("Whatever Happened to the Business Cycle?," July 14) for giving partial credit for our current good economic times to Mike Milken. To my venture...
...With the advent of new technologies (such as the digital television systems and satellite transmissions) there is a slim opportunity to correct the left-leaning bias...
...There is hope, however...
...Justice Souter exemplifies judicial tyranny...
...It is clear that the better choice is to add women's sports...
...nowhere is this more true than in the monetary arena...
...readers will think less of you and dismiss the criticism...
...Bruce CA...
...Yet the media elite, unable or unwilling to see the bigger economic picture, continue to pillory Milken...
...The Fed pegs short-term rates because it can set just one rate, which is its target for the rate at which banks lend money to each other on an overnight basis...
...Seriousness is for satirists...
...Is this what the American frontier has come to after 300 years...
...This unre-sponsiveness has been caused by the widely held but mistaken belief that the Fed can and should peg or "smooth" short-term rates...
...Little wonder, then, that economic growth varies so much from quarter to quarter...
...had the markets not done so, we would have experienced a repeat of the Fed-induced inflation of the late '60s and '70s...
...The "business" (and politics) of college athletics, and of football in particular, is as much to blame for the dismal state of affairs as are the zealots at the Department of Education...
...This utterance of Justice Souter violates Article I of the U.S...
...As Stelzer points out, it was Milken who freed up billions in monetary and human capital that migrated from low-tech, low-growth companies to high-tech, high-growth industries...
...Desautels Westfield, Ma Digital Systems Fight Bias There is a severe media political imbalance in America today, nowhere more so than in Washington, D.C...
...He also astutely observes that economic theory says little about cause and effect relationships in our complicated economy, which is perhaps why he fell into the trap that so many do— heaping unwarranted praise on Alan Greenspan...
...There you go...
...It should have been better...
...It is a direct challenge to the constitutionally authorized power to legislate, which is vested in the Congress...
...Begin with bison and end with Tyson...
...Worse, though, the Fed pegs the very thing that should not be pegged, for it is short-term interest rates, not long-term rates, which should respond more dramatically to economic news...
...First, don't let seriousness obstruct your mimicry...
...Eugene Delgaudio Falls Church, VA...
...May I offer a few notes for your parodist, who I assume is young and new to the form...
...That Brooks finds the Fast Company ethos bizarre really tells you just how out of touch the Beltway chattering class is with real creative energy...
...Oh, the urbanity...
...Bert Ely Alexandria, VA Beyond Parody Ienjoyed, but was a bit disappointed by, your parody of my News-Hour essays (July 14...
...The free-market-driven need to build marquee sports, and the hidden reality that football teams serve as the vehicles for many minority students to attend highly ranked schools, combine to drive other sports from the map...
...keep it light...
...With any luck, though, theory will soon advance to the point that the markets will begin to understand why it is in everyone's interest to ignore Greenspan's often erroneous interest-rate signals and instead set all interest rates...
...This perspective of the "common good" is established within the historical body of American medical and judicial precedent...
...Apparently, those explicit limitations upon federal power, which are enumerated within the Constitution, do not dissuade Souter from imposing his subjective rule over that sovereign aspect embodied within the Congress...
...Tell is too easy on the football tyranny, which should and could give more than it has...
...Thus, football's many male bodies and considerable budgets force athletic directors to add women's sports or cut men's sports...
...It shows that you remember it...
...Constitution...
...Unfortunately, we have to depend upon market-determined long-term rates to hold inflation at bay because short-term rates are not responding fully or immediately to inflation shocks, as they should...
...A smack, a snack...
...With this statement, Souter has also demonstrated his willingness to arrogate "due process of law" as stipulated within the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution...
...The results in those cultures that have chosen to sacrifice prudent judgment for the expedient pacification of some vociferous minority, or some erroneous notion of "enlightenment," may be confirmed upon an examination of the Netherlands...
...In effect, the markets saved Greenspan from himself, something he lacks the intellectual honesty to admit...
...To my venture capitalist friends in Silicon Valley, Milken is a hero...
...While Greenspan deserves full credit for dumping the economy into the last recession, whose onset he overlooked for five months, the financial markets held long-term rates high enough in 1992 and 1993 to prevent an outbreak of inflation as he snookered the markets into accepting excessively low short-term rates...
...The economy is doing as well as it is precisely because "a highly competitive market" controls long-term interest rates, not because of Greenspan's signaling of short-term rates...
...Get an idea, start a company, have an IPO, get cash, get bored—repeat...
...In his "ominous muttering," Souter states that he alone will determine our culture's fate, and that "reasonable legislative consideration" by the states shall effect no protection from his implied and overriding veto of the people's will...
...Fourth, be funny, whenever possible...
...Vincent Carroll, "Same Old Slant," June 30...
...Title IX, like most federal programs, naively mandates a top down solution destined to frustrate everyone while largely undermining the spirit of the law upon which it is based...
...Stelzer correctly observes that economic theory falls short in explaining economic cause and effect...
...Not only are the financial markets raising and lowering long-term rates sufficiently to hold credit growth in line with the economy's capacity to grow, but the markets also have become increasingly successful in neutralizing Greenspan's periodic rate-signaling errors...
...To be sure, apologists will insist that the bite was an aberration, something accidental, more acci than dental—a deviation from the Marquis de Q's rules of the game...
...That said, here's how you might have imagined my handling of the Tyson-Holyfield match...
...Of course colleges do not...
...Joseph R. Cincotta Milwaukee, WI Watch Out for Souter Regarding "Suicidal Jurisprudence" (July 14): Justice Souter opines that the majority of Americans do not have the right to defend themselves against a minority viewpoint, one which has proven itself to be detrimental to the common good...
...The federal law views each athlete as equal...
...Roger Rosenblatt New York, NY Close to Absolute Good Somebody introduce David Brooks ("The Cosmic Capitalists," July 14) to the real world...
...Of course, you call that a fight...
...Third, if your thesis is that your target's work is unmemorable, don't write a parody of it...
...By such a proclamation, Justice Souter denies the co-sovereignty of the legislative branch of our government, and is attempting to subvert its function...
...The Fed, however, is so impotent as a market mover that this overnight rate, called the Fed Funds rate, bounces wildly on a daily basis...
...We at Public Advocate think that refitting the nation's entertainment communications for digital systems gives Congress a chance to review the Federal Communications Commission's imbecility in turning Christian America's airwaves into Soho and Greenwich Village...
...But many regions of the country lack the competitive base for creating women's teams in say field hockey or rowing...
...A representative republic has little meaning if one man can subjugate an entire nation to his misguided philosophy: "To act regardless of the institutional prefer-ability of the political branches as forms for addressing constitutional claims...
...Fortunately, but almost without understanding why, borrowers and lenders of long-term capital now provide that response, but do so by moving longer-term rates in an exaggerated manner, which whipsaws those sectors of the economy most sensitive to interest-rate fluctuations...
...As a former collegiate athlete and coach I can testify to the virtues of participation and the ideals that sports encourage...
...Marc Beauchamf Falls Church, VA Irwin Stelzer properly praises the private sector and market forces for the strength and duration of the current economic recovery...
...What is a fight, if not a bite...
...Second, don't get personal...
...Call that a fight...
...Virginia Postrel Washington, DC The Football Tyranny David Tell's description of the sad state of affairs in collegiate athletics under Title IX is welcome if incomplete ("Playing Unfair," July 7...
...At that time, Greenspan and the Fed will fade into their richly deserved obscurity...
...Unfortunately, an insufficient understanding by economists and others as to how the Fed Funds market works helps to perpetuate the fiction that Greenspan actually can set short-term rates...
...Thoughtful historians, I predict, will ultimately give Mike Milken as much or more credit for creating the New American Economy as Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, or Alan Greenspan...
...Is it really necessary for a team that puts 11 players on a field at one time to carry 100-plus players on the roster...
...Aside from some New Age hokum and Dil-bert-able fad-think, true CosCaps do pretty close to absolute good...
...But as Keats wrote (or was it Shelley Winters, or Shelley Correspondence Berman): "In for a fight, in for a bite...
...Thus he helped transform Nasdaq into the world's hottest stock market and had a hand in creating millions and millions of new American jobs...
...No, this was boxing, all right—the beastly bestial contest of beast attempting to best beast...
...Cosmic capitalists are the next big threat...
Vol. 2 • July 1997 • No. 45
