As far as inflation fears that Bernanke might consider - high inflation is already here. Bernanke and the Fed and the federal Housing Authority are trying desperately to inject "cash" (overtime for the currency presses) into the financial markets to dilute the losses. As someone else wrote - the good news is that we'll be paying our mortgages with cheap dollars - which is essentially what they're doing by increasing the money supply.
The bad news is that everything else that the overwhelming majority of us (in the U.S.) buy is going up at over 10% per annum at the moment - with no wage increases to compensate - unless you recently ran Merrill Lynch - come to think of it, I guess that Sean is taking a cut, too. Point being that to speak of a 3.9% growth rate is based on their fiction of < 3% inflation. Actual inflation adjustment means that the real "growth" rate is negative. paul spencer
take away all the profits made on weapons, tazers, riot shields, uniforms, junk food manufacturers, dodgy pharma, stupid energy creation, noxious chemicals, and factor in the future costs (those precious externalities), all the Love Canals waiting to be cleaned up, and how fast is the -tumour- growth occurring?
if someone's underweight and fading away, do we celebrate weight gain in the form of cancerous tissue?
man needs work for dignity and self-expression, to repay the inevitable fact that his life was and is dependent on the work and kindness of others, but there's a heck of a difference between work tilling the fields and putting on your hazmat suit and cleaning up the spilt detritus of some previous generation's hubristically myopic lust for phantom security and transitory stock market gains.
most people would choose different lives, if they could, i believe.
how can we return that choice to people, in a way that the planet can sustain?
i would be very happy to have the answer to that question... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
