Re: [NYT] Slowdown at Home Spells Risks Abroad for Bush.

From: ThosStew@aol.com
Date: Mon Jan 08 2001 - 07:16:33 PST


In a message dated 1/7/2001 7:24:33 PM, adam@KnowNow.com writes:

>"The sharp slowdown here alarmed the Fed so much..." Huh? Wasn't the
>Fed all but forcing this slam-on-the-breaks with six quick interest rate
>hikes?

yup, and all of us stupid enough not to pay heed to that and oil prices
deserve th4e losses in our portfolios--never bet against the Fed, as they say

I'm interested by the speed of this--it seems as if the economy just walked
off a cliff--or that's what we're bong told. Anyone remember, from Peter
Senge's Fifth DFiscipline or from having seen it done, "The Beer Game"? In
which An abrupt change in demand takes several weeks even to be noticed, and
then roils inventories (and causes a minimicroeconomic recession)?

Here's my theory: We perceive economic activity as coming in waves, cycles,
uptrends and downtrends. It is, of course, actually a colleciton of
particles, not waves--overstock hgere, layoffs there, bites and bytes of
eventoids.

As the economy's clock time speeds up, we see the quanta more precisely--we
perceive events rather than waves. We will, I think, see faster upjumps and
downfalls, rather than slow upswings and downswings. We will not have soft
landiings, We will have abrupt ones.

But the cycles will also be shallow and short.

T



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