Then it all went bad in July with the great mike masters inventory liquidation that brought down the energy half of the s and p and started the route in the stock market that accelerated what had been a gradual drop in demand as consumers and businesses crawled into their foxholes.

It’s easy to fix- payroll tax holiday and $300 billion to the states on a per capita basis and it’s as if it never happened.

But no one with any authority gets it, so it’s gotten a whole lot worse than it had to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJ7LM3iyNg

Warren I was not following your views before the crash, did you believe it would be this bad?

:(

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_dsDz145J_A&refer=home

(who here said the fed was in control?)

By Belinda Cao and Judy Chen

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — China should seek guarantees that its $682 billion holdings of U.S. government debt won’t be eroded by “reckless policies,” said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the central bank.

The U.S. “should make the Chinese feel confident that the value of the assets at least will not be eroded in a significant way,” Yu, who now heads the World Economics and Politics Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in response to e-mailed questions yesterday from Beijing. He declined to elaborate on the assurances needed by China, the biggest foreign holder of U.S. government debt.

China may voice its concerns over U.S. government finances and the potential for a weaker dollar when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits China on Feb. 20, according to He Zhicheng, an economist at Agricultural Bank of China, the nation’s third-largest lender by assets.

“In talks with Clinton, China will ask for a guarantee that the U.S. will support the dollar’s exchange rate and make sure China’s dollar-denominated assets are safe,” said He in Beijing. “That would be one of the prerequisites for more purchases.”

“The government will be a net buyer of Treasuries in the short-term because there’s no sign they have changed their strategy,” said Zhang Ming, secretary general of international finance research center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “But personally, I don’t think we should increase holdings because the medium- and long-term risks are quite high.”

A decline in reserves “isn’t likely because of China’s huge twin surpluses,” Yu said. China “should diversify its reserves away from U.S. Treasuries if the value of China’s foreign- exchange reserves is in danger of being inflated away by the U.S. government’s pump-priming,” he said.

“China can also use this opportunity to get a promise from the U.S. not to make inappropriate requests on bilateral trade and the Chinese yuan,” Lu said. “We can’t afford more yuan appreciation as the economy is facing a serious slowdown.”