Don't worry, Greenspan is already pushing for more stimulus and QE.

You betcha they gonna announce it real quick.

And I bet all those people with new jobs at McDonalds (in the service industry) are happy with their minimum wage with no benefits... they are happy they won't pay taxes because they are too poor...

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they are happy they won't pay taxes because they are too poor...

Another QE and they won't even be able to afford that cheeseburger they're making...

Que screams from the rafters for QE(n+1). Lather, rinse, repeat.

Bullish.

The 21st of December cannot come fast enough.

so does it come to a day that the banks via gov say they own us peasant gravol for food? DUMP THE FED IMPEACH OMAMA

It's Recovery Summer 3 - The Re-Election!
Coming soon to a former republic near you.

The Dow should be +200 on this report.
Good economic data-> The recovery is underway-> Markets up.
Bad economic data-> More QE on the way-> Markets up.

Ben will need to do QE3 fairly soon if he wants a nice ramp up of the Markets by Election day.

The fed is stuck in a mode of forever QEing. Even with artificially historically low rates the economy is de-bubbling (wait until the dollar bubble burst).

Anything to prevent rates from going up due to all the debt and future obligations. Once rates start going up again stocks go down and the debt becomes painful.

So the print our way out mentality keeps going until inflation is just out of control and it's crushing.

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Ben will need to do QE3 fairly soon if he wants a nice ramp up of the Markets by Election day.

Well with oil prices @ 105/barrel he's stuck between a rock and a hard place! If does QE3, oil prices skyrocket upwards, if does nothing the economy tanks!

I have a theory, not really my own as others share it, that as technology comes along it's going to increasingly make the bottom tier employment positions more and more worthless. For example, is a Walmart cashier who can be replaced in part by an automated-checkout machine adding much to the economy? What's really the net impact of this person making their money vs simply sitting at home on benefits? They just have little to really add.

If that theory is sound, it's possible that we're moving toward it now. Manufacturing in the US is not doing terribly--its employment is. Its future growth will be in great part via automation. And until then, the low tiers can be replaced with outsourced jobs.

We know that unemployment now greatly biases to those at the bottom. So, does the economy in generally really care if unemployment is 5.5% or 7.5% if we're only talking about the lower tiers? Can it not march forward irrespective of their jobs?

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I have a theory, not really my own as others share it, that as technology comes along it's going to increasingly make the bottom tier employment positions more and more worthless. For example, is a Walmart cashier who can be replaced in part by an automated-checkout machine adding much to the economy? What's really the net impact of this person making their money vs simply sitting at home on benefits? They just have little to really add.

We had robotic checkers at the local WalMart for a couple of years.

They were recently removed.

I presume the problem was ultimately that the system resulted in too much shrinkage (theft) that was basically impossible to stop, and as such they put cashiers back in place instead.

I liked them as they were often faster than the humans, but it appears that getting the shopper out of the store and their money in the till faster also came with an unacceptable increase in losses and thus on balance the humans were cheaper.

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Another QE and they won't even be able to afford that cheeseburger they're making..

Ben is beholden to the financial elite and couldn’t give two ****s about the middle/lower class. He will QE until there is no one left to make the ink for the printing press. Knowing the patient is brain dead, his prescription is to keep us on a life support rather than pull the plug. I suspect that Ben just wants to make it through this election period where he can pass the ****-sandwich to the next guy or gal and quietly ride off into the sunset.

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I have a theory, not really my own as others share it, that as technology comes along it's going to increasingly make the bottom tier employment positions more and more worthless.

Poodle – I am with you and believe technology is a net destroyer of jobs. I recall reading a story about an entire car manufacturing plant located in Brazil that can produce an automobile without the presence of a single person. It is completely automated - soup to nuts.

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"Well with oil prices @ 105/barrel he's stuck between a rock and a hard place! If does QE3, oil prices skyrocket upwards, if does nothing the economy tanks!"

They will have more show trials on 'those evil speculators' who will be completely to blame.
Look how the Fed dodged all responsibility for the Arab Spring (caused mostly by poor people who could no longer afford food).

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Manufacturing in the US is not doing terribly--its employment is. Its future growth will be in great part via automation. And until then, the low tiers can be replaced with outsourced jobs.

Its employment is also going to the temporary workers = replace that $60k, 30 year experienced guy with a $10/hr, no benefit receiving dud and products start to suffer too.

Yep. We're ****ed.

Either way (with more QE or without). They do more QE and the middle-class cannot afford gas/food then the price/demand theory comes into play and crashes the economy.

Either way I hope in the (future when someone asks me, "Who are you?" I don't have to look at them and say, "Me Max".

PS.

I think a more succient way of putting my thoughts is this.

I think that the end of all this looks like a deflationary depression and like Karl says the longer TPTB play these games (QE, etc) the bigger the deflationary depression will be. I am a long-term investor/guy who does not know WHEN/WHERE the end is. Therefore, I choose to not even play the game. They can QE and inflate for the next 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 -10 - 1 million years but I know that the laws of math wil not allow it to go on forever and since I am 38 I WILL see the end in my life.

Got good health? (In reference to the other Tickers on Healthcare)

Every job i apply for i am competing against hundreds qnd hundreds. Not having a $200k degree in performing arts or some other crap puts me at the bottom of the list apparently... Its sad. 11 years of management and it helps nothing. Im going to have to end up working at walmart for minimum wage. Its depressing.

I've been hearing the end is near in a few weeks or months for years now.

Smacktle, me too. I've been saying ``this can't go on much longer'' for decades now.

The end is near, until suddenly it's behind us. Germany in 1935 probably thought that thousand year reich talk was plausible - certainly there was no reason to think the end was near. After all, things were looking up economically, and Germany was the most civilized, most progressive country in the world. By 1945, the end was behind them, and they were bartering for cigarettes and potatoes in the ruins. By the time the end was upon them, it was far to late to prepare for it.

I'm guessing that the U.S. is a bit past the ``Germany, 1935'' stage.

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And I bet all those people with new jobs at McDonalds (in the service industry)

Actually, I think jobs at McD's are "Manufacturing." No Sarc.

I don't believe Ben understands accounting. Neither do most of the rest of the people. QE replaces interest bearing securities with non-interest bearing cash. The purpose of cash is to make transfers, thus its sole purpose is to provide financing for banks that can't finance themselves out of the market. I am seeing doomsayers like Porter Stansberry turn around and recommend buying bombs like Citi and BAC. His claim to fame seems to revolve around telling people to buy JDSU just before people ran it to the moon. It quickly fell back to earth and still lies there 12 years later.

At this restaurant where I currently sit, there is a broker fleecing a woman and her old man out of their savings. I think there are ownable stocks out there, but it is highly unlikely these poor folks are going to end up in them. I suspect the stocks that are involved in the transmission of natural gas are quite possibly worth owning, but I am sure their debt structure would be worth looking at, including how much they had off balance sheet. Recall ENE was a gas transmission business that got into something they didn't understand.

This entire economy is living off accounting tricks. I was just reading Pater Tenebrarum's acting-man.com, a post last Friday. In it, he went into the accounting tricks banks are using to show profits. Seems they took gains on the reduction of the value of their own debt, then turned around and quit using the tactic, once the price of their debts recovered. Then they took profits lowering their reserves for losses. How do they get away with reporting this to the public? This entire article is worth reading and I am going to post it to my Facebook page. It goes into how the governments, including ours, are going to spy on us to make sure the banks and the government people get their pound of flesh from us.

http://www.acting-man.com/?p=16576

Lastly, Smack, things have gone to hell. It is all being covered up with lapping debts and other illegal accounting tricks. The interest subsidy to bankers is in the range of $500 billion and the government is getting the same amount. It is coming out of our pockets.

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Actually, I think jobs at McD's are "Manufacturing." No Sarc.

Yeah, I read/heard the same thing. McD's jobs are actually classified as manufacturing jobs.