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| Religious Books -- Not Fundamentalist! |
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The Fundamentalist Xtians should not be allowed to hijack the language of Christianity. They are at least as much heretics to Christianity as the Arians and Gnostics of early Christian days.
Biblical inerrancy is not possible.
The books both above and below show the limitations of language and the impossibility of Biblical Inerrancy.
How can language be misused? Using General Semantics, this book was Written to explain Nazi propaganda and still used as a textbook
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| Books - Popular Math, Post Enlightenment & Science |
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This book explains why the above books on Christian Fundamentalism are politically important in America today.
Modern Society measures risk & predicts possible futures. The book below is a higly readable history of insurance, statistics and modern financial instruments.
Compare this to religion, in which it is presumed that the perfect society was known in the past and all that is necessary to do is to return to that perfect society.
Fascinating, highly readable and fun book on modern mathematics and its limitations. If you are interested in ideas, this is your book!
This is a collection of Hofstader's Scientific American articles. Again, a very fascinationg and highly readable book, requiring no mathematical background. (Buy it used - it is one of the books that will keep disappearing.)
Older, very fascinating book on mathematical ideas. Did you know there are three kinds of infinity?
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| Tuesday, March 18, 2008 |
| Economics and politics of the Fed fund rate |
The most recent changes in the Federal Funds rate by the Federal Reserve demonstrate clearly that Alan Greenspan screwed up with his long series of rate increases that started in February 2005. The timing of that start is significant because it is only to months after Bush was reelected in part on the basis of no recession in 12004. It is clear that historically every time there is a recession during a Presidential election year, the Party of the incumbent President is removed and replaced by the candidate of the other party.
Greenspan, fully aware of the effects of the economy on Presidential elections, increased the federal funds rate in 2000 (making a Bush election over Gore more likely) and then lowered the Fed funds rate in 2004 so that Bush would be reelected. The evidence is in the timing of fed fund rate changes.
Note the years in blue which are election years, and the years in yellow which are the year after. In 2000 Greenspan was making the economy more difficult in order to defeat the Democrat. In 2004 he was making it better to elect the Republican.
In 2005 Greenspan knew that the low interest rates had created the housing bubble, so he was trying to stop the bubble. The continued into 2006. Greenspan was still trying to correct the problems he had created in 2001 through 2004. In early 2007 CountryWide, the nations' largest mortgage lender, announced in early Spring that the collapse of the housing bubble was causing economic problems. The result was the credit crunch that became obvious to everyone by Summer 2007, but which they thought could be isolated in just the mortgage markets. We now know that was living in a fool's paradise.
Intended federal funds rate 1997 to present| Year | Date | Rate | | 2008 | March 18 | 2.25 | | January 30 | 3.00 | | January 22 | 3.50 | | 2007 | December 11 | 4.25 | | October 31 | 4.50 | | September 18 | 4.75 | | 2006 | June 29 | 5.25 | | May 10 | 5.00 | | March 28 | 4.75 | | January 31 | 4.50 | | 2005 | December 13 | 4.25 | | November 1 | 4.00 | | September 20 | 3.75 | | August 9 | 3.50 | | June 30 | 3.25 | | May 3 | 3.00 | | March 22 | 2.75 | | February 2 | 2.50 | | 2004 | December 14 | 2.25 | | November 10 | 2.00 | | September 21 | 1.75 | | August 10 | 1.50 | | June 30 | 1.25 | | 2003 | June 25 | 1.00 | | 2002 | November 6 | 1.25 | | 2001 | December 11 | 1.75 | | November 6 | 2.00 | | October 2 | 2.50 | | September 17 | 3.00 | | August 21 | 3.50 | | June 27 | 3.75 | | May 15 | 4.00 | | April 18 | 4.50 | | March 20 | 5.00 | | January 31 | 5.50 | | January 3 | 6.00 | | 2000 | May 16 | 6.50 | | March 21 | 6.00 | | February 2 | 5.75 | | 1999 | November 16 | 5.50 | | August 24 | 5.25 | | June 30 | 5.00 | | 1998 | November 17 | 4.75 | | October 15 | 5.00 | | September 29 | 5.25 | | 1997 | March 25 | 5.50 |
(Source Federal Reserve.)Labels: economics, Federal Reserve, Greenspan, Recession |
posted by Richard @ 6:22 PM   |
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