In 2001, Ben Bernanke earned the nickname Helicopter Ben, after a talk he gave at the National Economists Club. The title of the talk was “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn't Happen Here,” a reference to the spiral of disinflation, leading to economic stagnation, leading to outright deflation, that gripped Japan for over a decade after the collapse of its real estate and stock bubbles.
Bernanke, then a Federal Reserve governor – now its chairman – argued that this spiral of economic destruction could be prevented in the United States:
Virtually all economists agree that disinflation and deflation are caused by a shortage of dollars in the economy. The majority agree that such deflation is accompanied by a rise in unemployment. If inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, then deflation is too few dollars chasing too few goods. As a side effect some of those goods are never caught. No one buys them, their producers lay off workers and unemployment rises.The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.
But, Bernake said, we need not let it happen here. The problem is – we are.
The economy is contracting, inflation is falling, wages are stagnant and we are dangerously close to outright deflation. The spiral has come home to America.
Intimidated by inflation hawks, however, Ben Bernanke said, “I have rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy.”
That’s true Fed speak, so let me see if I can parse it out for you.
The economy is being dragged down by the spiral of ever lower inflation. As banks and businesses see inflation fall, it only increases their incentive to sit on the cash they have. As I mentioned before, if we reach outright deflation then they can earn a profit simply by stockpiling money in vault. Every year as prices fall the money locked in that vault would become more and more valuable.
However, money locked in a vault does nothing to support economic growth. It does not fund new investments, new workers or new products. Without that base of new investment or new spending, prices fall further, goods are discounted more deeply and the deflation spiral worsens.
We could power out of such a spiral by raising inflation expectations. The Fed could promise that any decline in prices today would be met by an equal rise in prices tomorrow. Any business considering sitting on its cash would know that know that this is a losing proposition. What it gains by taking advantage of disinflation today, it will lose when exposed to re-inflation tomorrow.
Making this plan work, however, requires that the Fed be willing to produce catch-up inflation -- a short period in which inflation would be higher than normal, so as to make up for the current period were inflation is lower than normal.
At a talk this weekend, Bernanke, however, "rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy."
That is, he has rejected the idea of catch up inflation. He has rejected using the Fed to power out of the spiral. He has decided to let it happen here.
We can only hope that time will bring back the Bernanke of yore.
Karl Smith is an assistant professor of economics and government at the University of North Carolina and a blogger at ModeledBehavior.com.
1:24 p.m. | Updated Correcting number of restaurants in partnership with GrubHub.
GrubHub.com, a search engine for restaurants that deliver food, has raised $11 million to expand to more cities.
The company is hoping to use the new round of venture capital – its third in six years – to reach more users who want meals delivered to their doorstep, but without the trouble having to sift through a pile of take-out menus and making a phone call.
Benchmark Capital led the latest round of funding. Previous investors also participated including Origin Ventures, Leo Capital and Amicus Capital. Over the years, GrubHub has raised a total of $14.1 million.
The company, based in Chicago, faces a long list of competitors in an industry that has yet to reach much of the country. Most services cover only a limited number of cities and even less of the suburbs. Some charges delivery fees. Challengers to GrubHub include SeamlessWeb, Delivery.com, Eat24hours.com and CityMint. Waiters on Wheels offers a variation in which it handles the delivery instead of the restaurant.
GrubHub works like this: Users enter their address to find restaurants nearby that deliver. They can also search by cuisine like Chinese or pizza. Users look at the menus online and then place an order. The restaurant takes care of the delivery and payment.
GrubHub is free for consumers. The company makes its money by charging restaurants a commission on orders and in return, the restaurants that pay appear higher in the search results. “Restaurants are doing well cooking food but they need some help in the technology space,” said Matt Maloney, GrubHub’s chief executive.
Around 4,500 restaurants have teamed with GrubHub so far. An additional 8,500 restaurants appear on the site, but users must call them rather than ordering online.
Mr. Maloney said that GrubHub would double the number of cities it serves by the end of next year to 26. The company is available bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Orders placed through GrubHub are expected to rise from $70 million this year to $150 million in 2011, Mr. Maloney said.
Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist with Benchmark, and who led its investment in GrubHub, said that the sales figures might seem small now, but that he expected the restaurant industry to increasingly move online in the coming years. He cited the example of companies in other industries like Southwest Airlines, Ticketmaster and OpenTable, the restaurant reservation service that Benchmark also invested in.
“All of these industries have gone from zero percent to 100 percent,” Mr. Gurley said before pointing to restaurant delivery. “This one is starting to move, and we see no reason why it won’t follow the same pattern in maybe 20 to 30 years out.”
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
In 2001, Ben Bernanke earned the nickname Helicopter Ben, after a talk he gave at the National Economists Club. The title of the talk was “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn't Happen Here,” a reference to the spiral of disinflation, leading to economic stagnation, leading to outright deflation, that gripped Japan for over a decade after the collapse of its real estate and stock bubbles.
Bernanke, then a Federal Reserve governor – now its chairman – argued that this spiral of economic destruction could be prevented in the United States:
Virtually all economists agree that disinflation and deflation are caused by a shortage of dollars in the economy. The majority agree that such deflation is accompanied by a rise in unemployment. If inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, then deflation is too few dollars chasing too few goods. As a side effect some of those goods are never caught. No one buys them, their producers lay off workers and unemployment rises.The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.
But, Bernake said, we need not let it happen here. The problem is – we are.
The economy is contracting, inflation is falling, wages are stagnant and we are dangerously close to outright deflation. The spiral has come home to America.
Intimidated by inflation hawks, however, Ben Bernanke said, “I have rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy.”
That’s true Fed speak, so let me see if I can parse it out for you.
The economy is being dragged down by the spiral of ever lower inflation. As banks and businesses see inflation fall, it only increases their incentive to sit on the cash they have. As I mentioned before, if we reach outright deflation then they can earn a profit simply by stockpiling money in vault. Every year as prices fall the money locked in that vault would become more and more valuable.
However, money locked in a vault does nothing to support economic growth. It does not fund new investments, new workers or new products. Without that base of new investment or new spending, prices fall further, goods are discounted more deeply and the deflation spiral worsens.
We could power out of such a spiral by raising inflation expectations. The Fed could promise that any decline in prices today would be met by an equal rise in prices tomorrow. Any business considering sitting on its cash would know that know that this is a losing proposition. What it gains by taking advantage of disinflation today, it will lose when exposed to re-inflation tomorrow.
Making this plan work, however, requires that the Fed be willing to produce catch-up inflation -- a short period in which inflation would be higher than normal, so as to make up for the current period were inflation is lower than normal.
At a talk this weekend, Bernanke, however, "rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy."
That is, he has rejected the idea of catch up inflation. He has rejected using the Fed to power out of the spiral. He has decided to let it happen here.
We can only hope that time will bring back the Bernanke of yore.
Karl Smith is an assistant professor of economics and government at the University of North Carolina and a blogger at ModeledBehavior.com.
1:24 p.m. | Updated Correcting number of restaurants in partnership with GrubHub.
GrubHub.com, a search engine for restaurants that deliver food, has raised $11 million to expand to more cities.
The company is hoping to use the new round of venture capital – its third in six years – to reach more users who want meals delivered to their doorstep, but without the trouble having to sift through a pile of take-out menus and making a phone call.
Benchmark Capital led the latest round of funding. Previous investors also participated including Origin Ventures, Leo Capital and Amicus Capital. Over the years, GrubHub has raised a total of $14.1 million.
The company, based in Chicago, faces a long list of competitors in an industry that has yet to reach much of the country. Most services cover only a limited number of cities and even less of the suburbs. Some charges delivery fees. Challengers to GrubHub include SeamlessWeb, Delivery.com, Eat24hours.com and CityMint. Waiters on Wheels offers a variation in which it handles the delivery instead of the restaurant.
GrubHub works like this: Users enter their address to find restaurants nearby that deliver. They can also search by cuisine like Chinese or pizza. Users look at the menus online and then place an order. The restaurant takes care of the delivery and payment.
GrubHub is free for consumers. The company makes its money by charging restaurants a commission on orders and in return, the restaurants that pay appear higher in the search results. “Restaurants are doing well cooking food but they need some help in the technology space,” said Matt Maloney, GrubHub’s chief executive.
Around 4,500 restaurants have teamed with GrubHub so far. An additional 8,500 restaurants appear on the site, but users must call them rather than ordering online.
Mr. Maloney said that GrubHub would double the number of cities it serves by the end of next year to 26. The company is available bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Orders placed through GrubHub are expected to rise from $70 million this year to $150 million in 2011, Mr. Maloney said.
Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist with Benchmark, and who led its investment in GrubHub, said that the sales figures might seem small now, but that he expected the restaurant industry to increasingly move online in the coming years. He cited the example of companies in other industries like Southwest Airlines, Ticketmaster and OpenTable, the restaurant reservation service that Benchmark also invested in.
“All of these industries have gone from zero percent to 100 percent,” Mr. Gurley said before pointing to restaurant delivery. “This one is starting to move, and we see no reason why it won’t follow the same pattern in maybe 20 to 30 years out.”
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
In 2001, Ben Bernanke earned the nickname Helicopter Ben, after a talk he gave at the National Economists Club. The title of the talk was “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn't Happen Here,” a reference to the spiral of disinflation, leading to economic stagnation, leading to outright deflation, that gripped Japan for over a decade after the collapse of its real estate and stock bubbles.
Bernanke, then a Federal Reserve governor – now its chairman – argued that this spiral of economic destruction could be prevented in the United States:
Virtually all economists agree that disinflation and deflation are caused by a shortage of dollars in the economy. The majority agree that such deflation is accompanied by a rise in unemployment. If inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, then deflation is too few dollars chasing too few goods. As a side effect some of those goods are never caught. No one buys them, their producers lay off workers and unemployment rises.The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.
But, Bernake said, we need not let it happen here. The problem is – we are.
The economy is contracting, inflation is falling, wages are stagnant and we are dangerously close to outright deflation. The spiral has come home to America.
Intimidated by inflation hawks, however, Ben Bernanke said, “I have rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy.”
That’s true Fed speak, so let me see if I can parse it out for you.
The economy is being dragged down by the spiral of ever lower inflation. As banks and businesses see inflation fall, it only increases their incentive to sit on the cash they have. As I mentioned before, if we reach outright deflation then they can earn a profit simply by stockpiling money in vault. Every year as prices fall the money locked in that vault would become more and more valuable.
However, money locked in a vault does nothing to support economic growth. It does not fund new investments, new workers or new products. Without that base of new investment or new spending, prices fall further, goods are discounted more deeply and the deflation spiral worsens.
We could power out of such a spiral by raising inflation expectations. The Fed could promise that any decline in prices today would be met by an equal rise in prices tomorrow. Any business considering sitting on its cash would know that know that this is a losing proposition. What it gains by taking advantage of disinflation today, it will lose when exposed to re-inflation tomorrow.
Making this plan work, however, requires that the Fed be willing to produce catch-up inflation -- a short period in which inflation would be higher than normal, so as to make up for the current period were inflation is lower than normal.
At a talk this weekend, Bernanke, however, "rejected any notion that we are going to try to raise inflation to a super-normal level in order to have effects on the economy."
That is, he has rejected the idea of catch up inflation. He has rejected using the Fed to power out of the spiral. He has decided to let it happen here.
We can only hope that time will bring back the Bernanke of yore.
Karl Smith is an assistant professor of economics and government at the University of North Carolina and a blogger at ModeledBehavior.com.
1:24 p.m. | Updated Correcting number of restaurants in partnership with GrubHub.
GrubHub.com, a search engine for restaurants that deliver food, has raised $11 million to expand to more cities.
The company is hoping to use the new round of venture capital – its third in six years – to reach more users who want meals delivered to their doorstep, but without the trouble having to sift through a pile of take-out menus and making a phone call.
Benchmark Capital led the latest round of funding. Previous investors also participated including Origin Ventures, Leo Capital and Amicus Capital. Over the years, GrubHub has raised a total of $14.1 million.
The company, based in Chicago, faces a long list of competitors in an industry that has yet to reach much of the country. Most services cover only a limited number of cities and even less of the suburbs. Some charges delivery fees. Challengers to GrubHub include SeamlessWeb, Delivery.com, Eat24hours.com and CityMint. Waiters on Wheels offers a variation in which it handles the delivery instead of the restaurant.
GrubHub works like this: Users enter their address to find restaurants nearby that deliver. They can also search by cuisine like Chinese or pizza. Users look at the menus online and then place an order. The restaurant takes care of the delivery and payment.
GrubHub is free for consumers. The company makes its money by charging restaurants a commission on orders and in return, the restaurants that pay appear higher in the search results. “Restaurants are doing well cooking food but they need some help in the technology space,” said Matt Maloney, GrubHub’s chief executive.
Around 4,500 restaurants have teamed with GrubHub so far. An additional 8,500 restaurants appear on the site, but users must call them rather than ordering online.
Mr. Maloney said that GrubHub would double the number of cities it serves by the end of next year to 26. The company is available bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Orders placed through GrubHub are expected to rise from $70 million this year to $150 million in 2011, Mr. Maloney said.
Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist with Benchmark, and who led its investment in GrubHub, said that the sales figures might seem small now, but that he expected the restaurant industry to increasingly move online in the coming years. He cited the example of companies in other industries like Southwest Airlines, Ticketmaster and OpenTable, the restaurant reservation service that Benchmark also invested in.
“All of these industries have gone from zero percent to 100 percent,” Mr. Gurley said before pointing to restaurant delivery. “This one is starting to move, and we see no reason why it won’t follow the same pattern in maybe 20 to 30 years out.”
eric seiger
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
Public Domain books are a gold mine if done correctly. There are so many ways to use them that a publisher could be making money all the time. The concept is simple, redistribute works in public domain, but the key is how you do it. This article will focus on creating E-books and print-on-demand books. We will walk step-by-step on how to do it without it costing you a fortune.
Step 1
Locate Public Domain Source. Most people use Gutenberg, which has the largest collection with over 30,000 books in the public domain. The U.S. government is a big source of public domain materials that cover just about any topic. A smart move is to make sure that the material you are using is not saturating the market online for free. But, there is a way around that; by changing the content to fit your niche, it makes it a new peace. For example, The Art of War has been published with all kinds of niches like business. By reducing the target audience, it helps the cause.
Step 2
Research how to present the book. The least expensive way is through an E-book. But it, you use online print-on-demand services; there should be no problem with costs.
Step 3
Make a good design for the book. Depending on the size of the book, you could use LuLu, Create Space (in partnership with Amazon), or your own program to design the book.
Step 4
Price the book to the market: You could issue it for free, if it is a book that a lot of people have republished, but it is recommended that you have something waiting in the wings to sell to that group of buyers. The rule is , the more technical the book, the more expensive. But regular books are being sold for around $25 for around 300 pages.
Step5
Distribute the book. If you have a mailing list, or know how to market, you can sell the book. By having an ISBN, you can list it with the major bookstores online, such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon. CreateSpace issues an ISBN, but does not work off Amazon. Lulu charges about $99 for one, so if you plan on publishing more than one book, you might want to get a publisher's ISBN. A publisher's ISBN costs around $275 for ten. Single ISBNs are not sold. Also, for each title being published, a bar code may be needed. Those run around $25. The benefit to getting a publisher's ISBN is that you own the numbers. Plan ahead, because it takes about two weeks to get ISBN's unless you pay extra..
ResourcesGutenberg
- Lulu Publishing
- How to Obtain Public Domain Books
- ISBN
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<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
<b>News</b> Flash! Chris Christie's got junk in the trunk | The Daily <b>...</b>
Christie critics turn to weightiest issues when attacking governor.
Cee-Lo Green sings 'Fox <b>News</b>' on 'Colbert Report' - The Dish Rag <b>...</b>
With William Shatner and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow taking a stab at “F*** You,” Cee-Lo Green shows them how it's done.The musician appears on Comedy Central's...
Wednesday Morning Fly By: NHL and Phantoms <b>News</b> - Broad Street Hockey
Today's open discussion thread, complete with your daily dose of Philadelphia Flyers news and notes... Remembering Pelle Lindbergh: [Flyers Faithful]; Looking at Peter Laviolette's impact on the Flyers: ...
eric seiger
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