But tomorrow we start work on the fortified compound.
Democrat Braintrust Update … as though you needed one more reason to stock up on ammo.
Captain Capitalism makes some adjustments – “to get a real feel for how much money is being printed you have to compare it to GDP, the amounts of goods and services we’re producing;”
Hey, Teach, don’t you have some anti-oriental cross burning to go to?
The whole world has debt up to it’s eyeballs , what better way to diminish it than a nice bout of inflation , Watch those savings people -we are about to be robbed.
I find it gratifying that conservatives are finally getting what Ron Paul has warned about for 8 years…the overactive Fed printing presses making fiat currency unbacked by tangible reserve value.
In a nutshell it ain’t frational reserve gold backing this massive currency expansion…it’s the government putting a promisory mortgage on confiscating larger and larger portions of the nation’s future productivity (income taxing)…is this beginning to sound less like the tin foil hat conspiracy it was dismissed as 2 years ago when Paul held the Fed’s feet to the fire to find out what the reserve to circulation ratio was?
I feel sorry for you if your savings or investments involve USD. But it’s not like you weren’t warned far in advance.
Hmmmmph. And here I thought we’d never see “stagflation” ever again.
oh well. Having a functioning economy was nice while it lasted…
Philboy:
You haven’t answered MJ’s challenge.
He said “I assume, then, that you’ve agreed with the Conservatives’ practice of applying their surpluses (massively) to the national debt for the past three years.”
You brought up the National debt, don’t be a chickenshit. Answer MJ, don’t skirt the issue. Be a man.
Anyone still thinking that this financial crisis is some garden variety recession that will rsolve in a couple years is crazy. We are going to see a lost generation like in Japan, probably worse, that lingered decades after their real estate melt down.
philboy, we tried public works projects in the Depression and at the end of the day the horrific unemployment numbers never budged because new private sector jobs were never created. It’s ludicrous to think that all of the newly unemployed from the financial, real estate, retail and tech sectors are going to be pouring concrete and welding metal at new infrastructure jobs. Public infrastructure stimulous packages aren’t going to work. Saving GM to build cars no one wants to buy won’t work either. Getting rid of the bad paper still held by banks, cutting losers loose in failed industries and a permanent tax cut to individuals and businesses will help.
Obama and the Dems own this mess now. So far, their best ideas have all been tried and failed in the past. We are in unchartered waters here. Can the Empty Suit come up with one innovative original thought in his life? I doubt it.
Phil you are not making sense.
Do you support debt repayment?
“Besides, surpluses are a fiction when one is sitting on a massive debt that must be serviced.”
I’ll take that as a yes.
Do you support a stimulus package?
Well if you are a Liberal or Dipper I suppose that is a yes; therefore, Harper is doing exactly what you’d have him do right?
Lets not forget that Barney Frank is completely innocent, that the Clintons and Walmart did not truss up the US and deliver it to China, that Jimmy Carter did not try to cut himself into Iranian oil deals and when refused pulled the plug on the Shah, that Democrats never received any funding from Fannie and Freddie after padding those organizations with cronies, that Hillary never tried to take the healthcare portfolio while unelected.
Let’s hope that never changes.
a bit of history
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/files/1873Panic.pdf
philboyd: “You can’t put lipstick on that conservative pig.”
Something we can agree on. Racking up $64B in deficit in 2 years is disgusting. However, if the LPC/NDP/BQ hadn’t pulled their little stunt in December, tomorrow’s budget might have been conservative; we’ll never know.
Now they’re going to throw money at problems knowing full well it will do absolutely no economic good. It won’t even do any political good – we know Layton is going to vote against it sight unseen, Iggy will grouse that it’s either not enough or it’s too much and Duceppe will say it’s an affront to Quebec.
philboyd is reminding me what it’s like to argue with the morally retarded.
Jesus f’in’ Christ, boyd, do you even know what the money supply IS????????
The discount rate in the US is controlled by the Federal Reserve (also called “the Fed”), which is NOT responsive to the national government unless the Fed Chairman decides to be. Historically, they usually decide to be, but the early 80s were a notable exception. The Fed Chairman back then was a fellow named Paul Volcker, and he was primarily responsible for what we now refer to as “stagflation” in the US. The tussle between Volcker and President Reagan was all in the news at the time. If you remember it, I’m guessing you’re hoping very badly nobody else here does. Oops, sorry, you lose.
You also need to be a bit more careful which interest rates you throw around. “The interest rate in the USA in ’82 was 21.5%” refers to what rate, precisely? Certainly not the Fed discount rate that you quote just a few moments later; the highest it reached was 14.00, in May of ’81. It was back down below 12% by July of ’82.
The current rate is neither the fault of GWB, nor of Alan Greenspan, who resigned as Fed Chairman in early 2006. It’s mostly the doing of Ben Bernanke. Bush probably agreed to some of the current policy, although I’m sure Bernanke has been consulting with Obama’s economic advisors at least since November.
If you want a sort of general recounting of the policies that led to the current problems, check here: http://bit.ly/11B0u. Bush is partly at fault, Congress is largely at fault, Clinton and Carter are partly at fault, ACORN is partly at fault, the Fed is partly at fault, and a bunch of greedy investors and home buyers are in the mix as well. Your attempt to pin the entire thing on Bush and a Fed chairman who retired two years ago marks you as a truly brainless partisan. The partisans with brains would at least have gotten the Fed chairman right.
Healthcare IS NOT an essential service! It must be privatized top down. My dentists is worth many times more than a doctor, just proved it to myself last week once again.
Do you support debt repayment?
Yes I do. I support fiscal prudence in good times and bad.
I also support taking responsibility for ones actions, unlike many here who want to give conservatives a pass.
It’s the coalition’s fault, it’s jimmy Carter’s fault, it’s barney frank’s, trudeau’s, bill clinton’s, tommy douglas’s…etc…sheesh.
Some people are so convinced of their point of view that they refuse to let facts get in the way. Sheeeeesh! indeed.
pillboy wrote: “Hey, Teach, don’t you have some anti-oriental cross burning to go to?”
Only in your imagination sport.
(Don’t tell me you’re sharing a brain with Hedy Fry!)
Yes, dude, it is their fault. You nailed it on the head. Too bad we can’t impale them on the fence poles.
Sean M., I will try. You begin by trying to remember what your grandparents did after the depression.
Stock up on canned goods and rice and dried beans, when you buy your children clothes look for sales and stock up on larger sizes. Keep some money hidden in your home in case there is a run on banks.
This summer plant a victory garden, and learn to can your fruits and vegies.
Some things we can’t get away from and that is our cars if there are no bus routes. Keep your car in tip – top condition. Lock in your mortgage for five years when it comes due.
Buy a couple of oil lamps and lamp oil.
Learn to enjoy the simple things in life.
Captain Capitalism does not count for the incredibly shrinking perceived money that were in the circulation (de-leveraging).
The other question on inflation is where the money will flow? While consumer staples and utilities should inflate, other asset classes can continue on vicious deflationary path.
“Learn to enjoy the simple things in life. ”
Does that include Philboy?
Consider the ongoing turmoil in Iceland to be the canary in the coalmine. How close are we to a devastating domino effect within the larger western banking community?
It’s a good time to know you have some land in the country for a plan “B” – another great reason to live in Saskatchestan!
Kate,
Could we have a separate post for discussing how to deal with the oncoming train wreck?
Dolly,
Thx. Home is paid for. Getting credit cards paid down. We’re on an acreage so a big garden is coming this summer. Going to start stocking up on non-perishables that I find on sale. Getting the wood-burning stove installed as there’s lots of fire wood.
Deficits after taxcuts beat deficits after spending.
But anyway, Canadians are getting what they asked for. If it is coming reluctantly or with strings attached then praise be to the financial gods.
I will wait and see what they announce…apparently some of it is already causing heartburn, matching funding. seems the municipalities and others were looking for grants. Of course the fact that municipalities are provincial creations seems ot be forgotten.
So are we going to hear about the both sides of the track argumen now, that there is a fiscal imbalance with the federal government being rich and that the cons have gone into deficit.
If the muni’s want part of the GST then let them say they will harmonize with the GST and then have the provincs pass what they need to pass to put it in place. If Harper was soooo bad in cutting GST then the provinces or Muni’s could have filled the vacated space.
But there are too many anti poverty, anti war, anti american, anti western rallies, conferences and seminars to attend and run rather than run a big city properly.
LOL. Jeez, I think the hysteria is reaching fever pitch. Looks like it’s time to buy again.
I remember back in the late 1970’s or so, when we had a very serious economic downturn. I was in my teens, somewhat precocious financially, and was so worried about financial survival that I took most of my newspaper and catalog delivery income and bought gold and silver. I even made a bit of money before the Hunt brothers’ scam to corner the silver market was foiled.
The sky was falling back then. Housewives and little old ladies headed to their local branch to buy 10 and 5 gram gold bars, Krugerands, and gold Maple Leaf coins.
I still have all the ones I bought: a few 20 Oz bars of silver and a few small bars of gold. Let’s put it this way… Right now my return for those investments is far less than 1% annually compounded. If I had put the money in the crappiest of GICs, I would have done 10 times better.
The more people freak out and panic, the more I’m sure that we are close to bottom.
And I find that curve a big disingenuous – it seems to imply that all that extra money is being printed. But not really – I think that the money in discussion includes loan guarantees from the Fed. If no one is loaning, then there’s not as much extra money as the graph suggests, and if they are lending, then the guarantees probably won’t be required.
Remember the real-estate bubble burst of the late 1980’s that we would “never recover from”?
Remember that the tech bubble was going to destroy North America’s economy.
And remember how the failure of US steel was the sign of the failure of the US as an industrial power.
Things change. Everything evolves. No doubt times are tough, probably tougher than any time in my lifetime, but I place more faith in American drive and ingenuity than in any other force in the world. All bets look bad at this point, but any fool selling US dollars needs to tell me a safer bet.
If you buy US dollars, you are betting on Americans. If you don’t, then who are you betting on? Europe? The Middle East? China (with its impending demographic implosion)?
And how many thousands of dollars can you store your mattress and what will they be worth with a couple of years of perfectly possible 22% Trudeau-like inflation?
Meh.
Only in your imagination sport.
Right, Teach, you’re from Vancouver, so you know of what you speak.
Sean m: Survival – get out of paper money. Buy gold and silver & keep it in your possession. These are real money & will keep their value thru good times and bad. If you have spare cash, venture into some precious metals stock and food related stocks.
Note that if word gets around that you have food stashed when all around you are starving, you may need to invest in something that will keep the riff-raff from stealing it.
Capt Capitalism charts dont say what he thinks they say. Other than the one statement that they hover around 6%.
BUT
his link to inflation isnt there. In fact you have falling amounts of money as a % of GDP from the 50’s throgh to the 80’s….yet the great inflation was in the late 60’s through to the late 80’s, finally killed in the recession of the 90’s. So that seems to contradict some of the statements.
None of the above though says you wont get some kind of inflationary burst, at some point, from this firehose spewing money all over the place.
You have to make up for the 2 – 3 trillion of losses in the US mtg market alone.
The only fix is hyperinflation. Something they do in Kenya and Indonesia. And that does appear to be our goal.
Sean M, you will be fine.
My husband and I lost a home and business back in the 80’s when the interest rates went through the roof. Time was tough, we had 5 young children and started over like newlyweds. We got through that, bought another home in time and educated the kids. We didn’t have any savings left, but we ate – slept under a roof and came out of that stronger and our marriage intact. Fortunately my parents taught me how to be frugal and that helped. My husband being an electrician found work.
We aren’t going to have a depression but even in the 80’s it felt like it.
Lori – thanks for inserting some sense into these apocalyptic scenarios. Sheesh, it seems some of you are rejecting an AGW apocalyptic future and instead believing in a fiscal meltdown.
It isn’t happening; it isn’t going to happen, but restructuring MUST occur.
It isn’t simply the fault of the US ‘everyone must own their own home’ socialist mantra of Clinton et al; this is happening world wide. What we are seeing is a restructuring of the global economic framework. It had been at one time, grounded firmly in the West (USA/Europe) with links from this Home Node stretching elsewhere. But all output and input rested in this Home Node.
Now, we are seeing multiple ‘Home Nodes’. We now have China and India. And we’ll be seeing more of Brazil and that part of the world as emerging middle classes over the world move into production and consumption roles. So, the economic framework of interactions, wheels and deals, is becoming more complex, with many interactions, cross-links and so on. This requires a restructuring and restructuring always includes destructuring.
The world won’t end; the lights won’t go out; we won’t end up having to can our own fruits and vegetables (though there is something quite satisfying about this); and there’ll be a new economic boom when this restructuring settles down.
This doesn’t mean that there weren’t serious flaws, errors and greed taking place; that there wasn’t fraudulent lending (and there always is); poor regulation and lax lending.
But there has to be a structural transformation that focuses both on national economies and their operation in the global economy. This will take time and political will. Above all, political will, to acknowledge that we are in a global economy and the old singular dominance of the West is no longer valid.
Lori…depends on time scale. If you start with decentralization of Byzantine Empire all events you experience in your life time are merely a noise. One thing it can be learned from history that it repeats itself including steady occurrence of events that had never taken the place before. Internet is one of these events and soon will be under attack by those who would like to keep the status quo. If I may digress, Kate ironically is on progressive side of history..heh.
The bear markets last in months (31-37,with outside chance of 63-72), the economic depressions in decades (1,2,3). There was an interesting period in U.S. and global financial history between 1873 and 1893. However, the magnitude of today’s problems calls for even greater economic, social and political transformation then in the times of steam engine.
Perhaps a little less partisanship is needed here.
This started back in Clinton’s time with his brilliant move to deregulate banking which enabled the likes of Price Waterhouse to merge with banks. BIG MISTAKE. Look what happens when you deregulate and let them go ad-hoc.
What we are witnessing now is a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich in the form of bank and other “bailouts”. At least the US is more transparent about it. How many of you know that Harper moved $75B to our banking systems? And this amount isn’t even included in the fiscal deficit.
Of course, for all the griping the Libs did about the Americans, they copied the exact same formulas during Chretien and Martin’s reigns, setting us up for disaster. So you can thank Mulroney, Thatcher, Clinton, Bush, Chretien, Martin and Harper. Especially Harper.
As an economic major, he had to have known the risks and his attempt at creating political turmoil in order to divert our attention from this impending disaster is disgusting and no matter what your political affiliation, you should feel very very betrayed.
So now that we know the deficit is actually in the range of $155B, do you feel in better shape than the US now??
The US is insolvent. They owe over $53 trillion dollars, versus a GDP of about $8 Trillion.
We aren’t in any better shape than them. By the time Harper piles on this huge tax burden called “stimulus”, we will be insolvent too. We are already at a 75% debt to GDP burden before the load on of another $155+B added. And that doesn’t even include the ponzi pension fund which we all know is broke.
Et… yea, people will fall in love, trade and fight wars, but who would thought they will do this over the Net? Plowing the garden seems like healthy reaction:)))
However, one of characteristics of historical transformations is disruption of food supplies. It may not affect every region equally, it may create much bigger problem in the cities. When banks collapse, when manufacturers go out of business, while bankruptcy would be impossible for razor-sharp margin grocery stores like your local Safeway, Sobey’s or Kruger ?
Pillboy shhhh! Grownups are talking.
Aizlynne – Harper has been in power for merely two years. I’m sorry, but much as you would like to pin the blame for this global economic situation on him, that’s invalid.
What Harper is doing with this current budget, is ‘removing’ the billions that he put into paying down the federal debt over the last two years and putting almost all of that money back into circulation to tide the country over the slowdown as the restructuring takes place.
I disagree with your claim that what is occurring is a ‘massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich’. There’s no evidence of that. Instead, what we are seeing is an expansion of the middle class from its former location in the West, to the rest of the globe, particularly in India, China and S. America.
The GDP of the US is 14.58 trillion. The public debt is 60.8% of the GDP. Rather different from your figures. (CIA web site).
xiat – sorry, I don’t get your claim that an historical transformation includes disruption of food supplies. I don’t see why this should happen. I can understand transformation of the methods of production but that doesn’t necessarily disrupt the supplies.
ET – I do worry that there will be a portion of transfer of middle class wealth to the super wealthy and privileged – many middle classers in the US are right on the edge – and price inflation and increased taxation could hurt them badly (taxation on the state level, most of us forget that states are going broke from lack of corporate revenue)
Also – agree re not having disruption of food supplies – unless the US implements an updated Smoot-Hawley tariff act. (Actually, don’t really know about the latter statement, but I wanted to use “Smoot” in my comment)
ET
While I see your point about restructuring, I will agree with X that there is a “redistribution of wealth” happening right now. Fell free to correct me where I’m wrong.
Printing money is simply the process of devaluing your currency(supply and demand). If the chart is accurate then we are printing money at a very fast rate and I suspect that this money is the same money that will stimulate the economy. Now if you consider how the money will be distributed it is likely it will be along the lines of population (ie. 40% to Ontario).
So there you have it. Everyone’s assets lose value and the stimulus is distributed proportionately to the population; or, a redistribution of the wealth from western Canadians to central Canadians.
Actually, deficits are over-spending.
erik larsen – my view, which has nothing to recommend it as valid, is that when a system restructures in the way that the global economy is doing, the first phase of restructuring is that the ‘energy/mass’ (ie wealth, wealth-producing capacities) does set up a wealthy sector of the middle class.
Nothing wrong with that; indeed, it is necessary, for this set of the middle class function as wealth-creators for the rest of the population. They develop the industries, services, etc.
That is, rather than the government setting up the wealth-producing system, ie, the economy, of the nation, you have a Set of wealthy individuals, who are part of the middle class in that they’ve developed their own wealth…and this Set develops the businesses, the industries.
Then, below them so to speak, in terms of wealth control, are the medium size businesses; then the small businesses.
You need ALL three sections in a robust middle class capitalist economy.
So, if a nation has, for example, drifted too far into a socialist wealth distribution system, where the working individual’s money is taken in heavy taxes and redistributed to non-wealth producing citizens….this can’t be maintained.
Equally, it is unproductive for a government to enter into industrial development for the basic reason that a government industry is always socialist rather than capitalist. In other words, it is immune to the marketplace. A government industry can produce useless goods (like our CBC) and yet, it must still be funded by the taxpayer.
So, money must be retained by the private sector, and a nation that has moved too far into socialism, with the majority in the ‘middle middle class’…must restructure this population to enable a strong, yet not too large, UPPER middle class. This Upper Middle Class is the Key Investor Class of a capitalist society. This class makes a lot of money and invests it in long term industrial and risk-taking infrastructures. The majority of the population, who are middle middle class, don’t have that surplus and can’t take those long term risks.
My point is that we require wealthy people for a robust, non-governmental interfering economy!
Everyone owes to the banks. As soon as everyone accumulates some equity in grossly overpriced real estate, the banks tighten a noose and many go bankrupt. The banks now own devalued real estate. They loosen a noose and real estate shoots up. The banks re-sell it. Repeat as many times as neede. Here’s the recipe for the economic cycles.
Why are CDSs and the interest rate never mentioned in regards to the economic crisis. The sub-prime crisis on its own would have been enough to cause an economic downturn, but it was not the only factor leading to this mess whatsoever. Actions by Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Greenspan, greedy banks, lack of regulation, etc. coupled with the world markets clamoring for a decent return on their investments is what caused this problem. It’s a massive problem going back years and years that spans political parties and geographical borders.
It’d be lovely to lay the blame on one person’s shoulders (especially someone like Bernie Frank who looks and sounds like a muppet), but the problem is much bigger than that.
Deregulation did not cause this. The fact that we have centrally planned banking systems caused this. It’s called the FED and the BoC and the BoE, etc. When our central banks kept interest rates at very low rates for years two things occurred. The first was that banks lent to riskier and riskier clients because they had too much money. The second is that investors chased yield through riskier and riskier investments because they had too much money and treasuries were not yielding enough.
The second massive culprit was guaranteeing loans. Fannie and Freddie have been a disaster. The CMHC will be as well. The CMHC has about 8B of capital to cover 600B of real estate loans. Do the math. It’s scary.
The third are deficits which all policitians are responible for. We are responsible as well for tolerating them.
If we want to fix things we need to stop blaming free markets and take away our governments’ credit cards.
pillboy talks about “ideological tax cuts”. As though the concept of leaving citizens with the fruits of their labour is “idealogical” but the thought that governments have an inalienable right to tax the hell out of the citizens thus effectively making them slaves to the state is not “idealogical”.
Sorry, pillboy but I am not the least bit convinced by your featherweight logic.
Charles – I agree with everything you wrote with the exception that deregulation did not play a role in the economic crisis. I don’t believe completely deregulation is possible, so in the meantime we need to make due with what we have. And what we have did not fulfill its obligations.
How are investors to know if an investment is risky if it’s given a AAA rating, the same as gov’t bonds? That’s where the industry failed us, and that’s where the gov’t failed us.
You do a good job of explaining how Greenspan helped contribute to burning trillions upon trillions of dollars, though, which isn’t getting enough attention around here…
Charles – I agree on the gov’t cuts. In fact, the gov’t should cut itself by 50% or more.
Ed – REAL stimulus would have been to give Canadians the money to either pay off debt, purchase things, get a better education, etc.
Instead, $75B at least is going into banks. And you are telling me that this isn’t a transfer of wealth from you — the taxpayer, to the bank — who made GREEDY decisions by getting into hedge funds that no one is responsible for checking??
And how come no one is blaming these rating agencies that screwed people out of their savings? S&P executives should be arrested for rating bonds AAA that they knew were BBB at best.
As for Harper — he has turned his back on any sense of conservatism in order to save his job. Don’t make excuses for him. I stopped doing that months ago. If you think about it, he has quietly committed us to eternal slavery by committing us to a huge number of labour hours in order to transfer wealth from us to those undeserving, and who are by in large well off.
What I find equally disturbing is the lack of outrage by Canadians. I guess when hyperinflation hits us hard, then perhaps more will rise up in anger.
And we haven’t even started the discussion about the effects of peak oil and population growths.
“If we want to fix things we need to stop blaming free markets and take away our governments’ credit cards.”
You green blooded, inhuman… can take your logic back where you came from!
Very off-topic, SORRY, but I have to complain somewhere, now CBC is saying that Harper must have been inspired by Obama, as he appears to be cooperative and collaborative in this new budget.
Time for my technicolour yawn (ie liquid laugh, ie vomit)
” . . . tomorrow we start work on the fortified compound.”
Well, I don’t own any unregistered firearms so I can’t help there. Somebody else will have to do that heavy lifting. On the other hand, I’m really handy and fit. I’m a plumber, electrician, carpenter and sheetmetal mechanic. Plus, I can move gravel truck loads of material with a shovel and a bucket.
Just tell me when and where.
After seeing the Captain’s normalized (money/GDP) graph I feel a bit better about the regulators.
They are predicting that banks will be slow to give out loans. That will decrease the money supply (M2 and M3): exactly the wrong thing to do to an unstable economy. They want to pre-empt a recession by compensating for a decrease in bank-created money with an increase in government money.
Specifically, they want to counteract the panic mob who would hide their money in mattresses.
Take a look at the normalized graph. The money supply (M0) has taken a jump, but only to 1950 levels. This isn’t Zimbabwe territory. It is just enough stimulus to spark a little inflation and give some pain to the mattress mob: and that’s a good thing.
With regard to the MSM’s reference to Harper, that Coalition, which was started by Layton and Dion BEFORE Harper’s ‘fiscal update’, indeed, they started it immediately on losing the election – now, the same MSM told us that it was an example of, heh, ‘cooperation and collaboration’. And an example of a blatant rejection of democracy and the rights of the electorate.
No, I don’t blame Harper. This fiscal downturn is hardly due to him, aizlynne – no one individual has such a global power! And no, what he’s doing is not about ‘saving his job’. He has, however, acknowledged that Canada is a centralist, not left, not right, population. His government has to re-present their economic desires – which are ‘centralist’.
He’s been guiding the country into a decentralized federation rather than the centralist system of the Liberals and NDP of the 1960-80’s. Trying to make it more democratic, ie, the Senate and other tasks – but it’s not easy since the current MPs and Senators reject losing their power and privileges. And he’s focusing on strengthening the private economy, ie, medium and small businesses.
Nonsense – none of us are moving into ‘eternal slavery’ (how’s that for hyperbole!); and no, we aren’t giving money to the ‘undeserving who are well-off’. I’ve yet to see money transfered to the wealthy. Perhaps you should explain rather than just state this. Why are the wealthy ‘undeserving’? Don’t you think that their hard work at, say, developing a business, an industry, etc, has merit?
Population growth? What’s your problem with that? Or are your concerns about the aging ‘boomer’ population? Again, how about explaining rather than just stating your opinion without any evidence.
BTW, are you still a little shaky on the details of the graph and, say, how it compares to M2? Now is a great time to brush up on money supply (mercifully brief).