Re: The bubble had to pop

From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sat Mar 24 2001 - 09:57:34 PST


"Joseph S. Barrera III" wrote:
>
> Brian Atkins a écrit:
> > 1. He pumped up the money supply massively from 98 onwards,
> > causing the bubble.
>
> Oh come on, you don't really think THAT was the cause of the bubble,
> do you? I thought it was pure tulip-style speculation, ne?
>

It was certainly indirect, but if you print the money it has to go
somewhere, and in this case it went into the stock market. And he sat
there for years not doing much about it.

The main problem I think is that things are far different now than in
the early 1900s re: the stock markets. Now we have over 50% of people
investing in it, not to mention all the foreigners. In today's environment
the Fed needs to admit that they must manage the stock market to some
extent, since it is a direct force driving the world economy. As you can
see, when they screw up they can claim that it isn't their job to manage
the markets, but it has a direct impact now slowing down all the world's
economies.

The longer they play this game of pretending the markets have no effect
on the economy the more trouble they are going to create.

-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/



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