Fading Power at the Fed?

In many popular models of the economy, monetary policy works by exploiting the existence of prices that cannot adjust quickly in response to shocks. If all prices are perfectly flexible so that all markets clear at all points in time, and there are no other problems, then monetary policy has no effect on real variables such as output, and this is true in virtually all reasonable models of the economy.

When prices aren't perfectly flexible, when they adjust sluggishly, inflation can impose costs on some agents in the economy. For example, when wages are fixed, an increase in the price level lowers the purchasing power labor income. The same thing happens to people on fixed incomes, e.g. retirement payments.

But economic agents do not stand by idly while shocks to the price level impose costs on them. Wages can be indexed for inflation, and often have been since the 1970s. Fixed income payments can become unfixed with cost of living adjustments that keep their real values constant. If fixed interest rates on loan contracts are causing unanticipated redistribution of income from lenders to borrowers, then create variable interest rate contracts that move with the inflation rate and offer insurance against this problem. Is committing to prices in catalog's that are printed months in advance a problem? Exploit technology and put the prices online where they can be easily adjusted. Whenever agents experience large costs from inflexible prices, they do what they can to increase their flexibility.

So I wonder if monetary policy will slowly run out of rigidities to exploit as, one by one, agents who have been hurt by price rigidities use technology or other means to to overcome them (and this is also true for other types of market imperfections, e.g. incomplete information).

Should we worry that monetary policy may lose effectiveness over time? Not if our models are correct. In fact, this would be desirable. If all prices are perfectly flexible, markets will behave optimally on their own and there would be no need for the Fed to intervene to stabilize the economy. Presumably, there would also be less chance for error when entire markets rather than a vote of twelve people determines the course of the economy.

Of course, as the current crisis shows, price rigidities aren't the only possible problem the economy can have, so there would still be a role for the Fed to play, but I do wonder if the power of monetary policy to impact the economy will diminish over time.

Comments

[Bruce Wilder]

Mark Thoma: "If all prices are perfectly flexible, markets will behave optimally on their own and there would be no need for the Fed to intervene to stabilize the economy."

I don't think there's anything to worry about. Inflexible prices are a feature, not a bug. The whole economy is largely organized around administered prices. Huge sunk cost investments in credentials, skills, organization, brand name, and dedicated equipment give the economy a structure, and ensure that plenty of resistance exists to re-allocation in response to changes in income, a large component of which is rent or quasi-rent.

Inflexible prices are necessary to the administrative organization of production and distribution. This has been increasingly so, since before Rockefeller transformed the oil business. Price rigidity is a limitation of information technology, but, rather, a necessity for information management.

[hari]

From a purely political economy perspective, monetary policy is here to stay...and may be get even more critical as we dig deeep into globalization and its consequences.

Price stability is the fundamental mantra of ECB. Because it assumes, from a macropolicy perspective, that prices are generally the opposite of anything but fixed phenomenon. Globalization not only introduced comparative advantage (in export pricing) and (relative) competition, but also magnified the policy constraints to OECD countries.

[hari]

Have you noticed how reticent Bruce Wilder has become (of age!) to mount on his famous *soapbox*?

I suggest there is simple reason for it - specially for us oldtimers who have witnessed a lot of paradig-matic changes in our life's. The one we're just now embarking on I'd call it (using HRCs arguments on NAFTA) as irrational gobel-di-gook and whatnot -> leading to a much more Protectionist trade and (maybe) also industry policy under her.

Barack is a genuine cosmopolite (with cousins in seven continents, he said!). I can't see him pandering willy-nilly to trade protectionism, per se. McCain won't either....

[paine]

mark
i admire your bold and naked explorations in this post

i wish you had time for more such
none of the usual clever loop holing and off setting words

more like ...well delong at his most boorish
(and most useful )

take the straight off implications of this line:

"... I wonder if monetary policy will slowly run out of rigidities to exploit .."

my take
monetary theory has exploited price stickiness way too long

and its in fact its ten million
modeling " place holders "
simulative of realistic results
but empty of plausibly motivated actions

sticky quantities exist too at the phenomenal level
and at least some degree
of "less then perfectly swift and accurate"
adjustments
in either and or both
the p and q dimensions
can't really be avoided

and yet my deeper sense of the 'ting ooon sack'
keynes grabbed at in his GT
wasn't about kinematics per se
but conflicting property interests

as much
about the sudden clench
the sudden paralizing action
of the hand of the creditor class
on the mommentum of the limited liability
for profit firms
thru the precise but now hopelessly crunched
mechanisms of an existing
but post train wrecked
and thus essentially irrelevent
credit structure

as irrelevent
going forward
to the best operation of "the system "
---like all sunk costs---
as it is the non plus ultra
of its individual agents

the contradiction embedded in the system
emerges from the workings of the system itself

the non optimal by the book guidance
at these points where the system needs to toss out all the books
declare a jubilee
" burn the records"
ie the cob wed chests of numbers
we must worship only because
this is what motivates
incentivizes the systems agents

improve info on
the balance sheets
the accounts r and p
debt structures
the whole panjamdrone
of paper choke effects
and my gut sez the system seizes up even faster
not out of panic and uncertainty
but the profound awareness of insolvency ... bankrupcy

purvasive
loses realized ...big time

a sudden wave of
"stop the music folks
i just took a huge beating here "

the after math
means
the slow output reducing
"work out phase "

sorting out
who owes what to who
since who did what to who
all the sunken treasure diving
who has and who hasn't ...the means of payment
where is that means of payment
who goes under who to jail etc etc

more and better info more and better forecasts
more and better trans[arency
more and better and faster adjusting
of prices purchases and outputs .....
simply builds the speed of the system
while increasing the cataclysmic effect
of the self inflicted next crisis

face it

the systems dominant players
are faustian folk
they push beyond safety
even as safety offers more
risk always offers
even more still

[paine]

bw gets my point
and in spades

what i don't see
in doc bruce's institutional vision
is
where the on going system's
stage by stage self sublation is heading

to wax 1848 ish

the step by step from crisis to crisis
abolition
by means of various new forms
of social expropriation
of all privately held
socially productive property

[reason]

Paine said the magic word, balance sheet. There you have it Mark, that is why monetary will still work. Interest rates may be indexed, but debt principles never are!

[robertdfeinman]

I always look at the "might makes right" framing of a situation. Take the case of labor (especially in the US). During the 1970's labor still had enough power so that it was able to compensate for much of the inflation of the period. I don't think this is true any more. The history of the past 20 years shows that even where organized labor still exists (say the UAW) it is mostly relegated to slowing the loss of jobs and benefits.

The result has been the lag in earnings and wealth accumulation by the working classes over the period. If we get the kind of inflationary burst that I've been anticipating the situation for labor will get even worse.

I think the examples cited by Mark Thoma are important, but they generally favor the business sector - which still has most of the power in transactions. Walmart can changes prices as quickly as 15 minutes. Adjustable rate loans maximize returns for lenders, not borrowers.

If the Fed has ever worked on the part of its mandate to help full employment, I'm not aware of it. It is an undemocratic organization run for the benefit of banks, and perhaps it is time that its organizational structure be reformed, but there seems to be no constituency promoting such ideas.

I'll keep harping on my latest theme, the basic problem is that our democracy isn't operating properly. The people have too little actual political power. This is obscured by the election rituals which take place every few years, but don't really change anything. The majority of incumbents get reelected and the majority of those who do get elected are from a narrow demographic sector. In fact as the cost of running for office keeps going up, the chances of an average person winning high office keeps going down.

I think the average campaign for a congressional seat is now approaching $1 million. Only big business can provide this sort of funding and those who get elected then owe their backers favors.

If you want to put an economic spin on the issue then a good question would be: are weak democracies as economically efficient as strong ones?

[paine]

"If all prices are perfectly flexible so that all markets clear at all points in time..."

assume the can openner and damn it
suddenly the cans disappear

"best possible markets"
in this nth best
of all possible market worlds
never clear

[paine]

job markets and credit markets
are not marshall markets

[reason]

Mark,
there are two markets and one quasi-market I know of that never clear quickly at equilibrium prices (the job-market, the housing-market and the marriage market). The reason is that the asymmetrical information problem is intractable for unique products and long-term relationships.

[paine]

"If the Fed has ever worked on the part of its mandate to help full employment, I'm not aware of it."

certainly true figuratively

at least
since the truman "give back "

ie

in and of themselves
the strategic interests of the wage earning class
count for zero among the members of ...
"the governing board "

It is an undemocratic organization run for the benefit of banks, and perhaps it is time that its organizational structure be reformed, but there seems to be no constituency promoting such ideas"

[paine]

"... the asymmetrical information problem is intractable for unique products and long-term relationships"

i prefer the simpler
clear as a bell ringing at mid nite
indispensible motivational visions
in a zillion job toiling bill paying heads
of joining the ravenous hords
of the job lessly idled
and credit wise nyet ed

the shut out class

[paine]

"this is true in virtually all
reasonable models
of
the economy "

reasonable models of spot market exchange

but not of production or of ...money

[paine]

mark's little tease

question:
"Should we worry that monetary policy may lose effectiveness over time?"

answer :

" Not if our models are correct. In fact, this would be desirable"

reason:

" If all prices are perfectly flexible,
markets will behave optimally on their own"

result :

" there would be no need for the Fed to intervene to stabilize the economy"

[Inflation]

"So I wonder if monetary policy will slowly run out of rigidities to exploit as, one by one, agents who have been hurt by price rigidities use technology or other means to to overcome them..."

Some agents protect themselves from inflation in ways that decrease systemic efficiency. Other vulnerable agents are unable to protect themselves adequately, creating real pain. These effects are generally ignored as trivial, but they are not.

[paine]

no secret

i attempt to attack social policy
from the lower middle left

is this below quote
in concert ???

"vulnerable agents are unable to protect themselves adequately, creating real pain. These effects are generally ignored as trivial, but they are not "

nope

ain't it ain't just SSI indexing

on the whole
putting aside
the zero sum intra stratum shifts

the prole bottom does better
in inflationary periods
then the silk hat top

relatively speaking of course

and in the royalists'
dream stage
deflation...the bottom does...well
watch any sob series
on the GREAT DEP

the wind that calls itself "inflation"
blows at us --intentionally or not--
from the upper right

[vimothy]

"the prole bottom does better
in inflationary periods
then the silk hat top"

Really?

[Bruce Wilder]

paine: "job markets and credit markets
are not marshall markets"

Oh, heck, the market for canned soup ain't a marshall spot market. The market for a McDonald's hamburger -- not!

Where's the economy headed? If we knew that, we'd be there already. (Stole that line via Crooked Timber)

The dominant economic task driving the economy's organization is not allocative efficiency, it is the control of error, and the higher development of the economy is more elaborate and sophisticated and precise control.

Progress in the development and elaboration of control is necessarily a five steps forward, three steps back kind of progress, because every advance in precision reveals new sources of fragility. We skate faster on thinner ice at greater risk. We learn to take off, before we can begin to practice landing.

We develop the internet, and discover the computer virus and phishing. We reduce knock with lead in gasoline, and create an inner city crime wave a generation later. Hairspray and refrigeration lead to management of the ozone hole. Human beings used to talk about the weather, but now we have to manage the climate to survive. The entire "natural" world is about to be turned into a vast network of managed parks and farms.

Crisis and collapse are the consequences of the emergence of new, more precise forms of organization, just as the tension between centralized power and de-centralized power plays out constantly. The exercise of greater power calls forth the exercise of greater countervailing power. Conflict at one level calls forth management at the next higher level; the failures and constrictions of management at higher levels calls forth countervailing power at the periphery, spurring de-centralization.

The industrial revolution impelled the conquest of the world, natural and political, but the task of managing the conquest followed. Commonwealth followed colonialism; the United Nations followed world war.

The single most profound fact about economic organization in the 21st century is that the advance of communication and computational technology (and molecular biology) is making monitoring and control cheap for the first time in history.

The trend has been clear for a long time. The 19th century and 20th century advances that made mass communication possible had their impacts. But, we are truly in a Brave New World, where it is possible to trace everything in real time. Nobody can know the implications. Many of the rules we have, were made in full knowledge and expectation that the rule would not be observed, that exceptions would be made in practice, that the real system would evolve in parallel, but separately from the official system -- in many areas, we rely on draconian punishments to make up for rarely catching the scoflaws. And, all power calls forth countervailing power. As the power to detect and monitor grows, the power to defraud and hide grows concomitantly. Identity theft skyrockets. Don't want Congress investigating? Crash your mail server.

The resource allocation challenge is to sink greater and greater investment into managing and controlling our machines and our systems. Always we make the private investments in the expectation of profit and recovery, and mistakes are made, with financial consequences; and, always, some of the plutocrats and vested and powers-that-be resist making the public investments.

The economics of the op-ed page, financed by the plutocracy, with its simple-minded "smaller government" and "lower taxes spur growth" is completely ass-backwards for our moment: progress from here requires higher, more progressive taxes, more social insurance, more public investment, new institutions to manage every thing.

[Cynthia]

Very well said, Bruce! And if you keep posting comments like this one, I'll never need to post a comment here -- ever again.

[Eric Dewey, Portland OR]

Interesting. On a micro level, here's a link to a recent paper that discusses moves being made in the banking industry to adopt more flexible price optimization strategies similar to those use by the airlines.

http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2008/161-2008.pdf

This can be seen as a demonstration that "economic agents do not stand by idly while shocks to the price level impose costs on them".

Part of what was happening in the mortgage mess is that costs for lenders were substantially reduced by technology - usually by reducing the due diligence performed on borrowers, but also, and perhaps more importantly, just thru the use of risk scoring as an initial sorting mechanism for product pricing.

Much of what's happening in banking today seems to be an overreaction to what could be termed "pricing failures" (because of a failure to understand the true costs imposed).

Isn't the real question behind Mark's post about the incentives of each party to a transaction based on their understanding of the price trend at the time of transaction? The only way monetary policy works is by adjusting the cost of funds for lenders. If there's so much liquidity around, as seems to be the case recently, that lenders can ignore the Fed's attempts to stimulate by lowering the cost of funds, then does the Fed have any real power?

I think the answer will only be seen when the Fed reverses course and begins raising rates.

And is it possible that raising rates might actually be more stimulative than lowering them?

We do seem to be thru the looking glass here...

[keno]

A bakeneko will haunt any household it is kept in, creating ghostly fireballs, menacing sleepers, walking on its hind legs, changing its shape into that of a human, and even devouring its own mistress in order to shapeshift and take her place. When it is finally killed, its body may be as much as five feet in length. It also poses a danger if allowed into a room with a fresh corpse; a cat is believed to be capable of reanimating a body by jumping over it..

http://geocities.com/k7e7n7o/

keno

[Hedging is Not Synonymous With Flexibility]

"So I wonder if monetary policy will slowly run out of rigidities to exploit... If all prices are perfectly flexible..."

Do not equate inflation hedging with price flexibility. Inflation hedging drives prices one way, up. Prices are inflexible on the way down. Case in point, housing. Amy average American hedged inflation by switching from deferring consumption via bank savings accounts to building home equity. Prices went up just fine, but are sticky on the way down. The market cannot clear.

Investors bidding up the price of commodities to hedge inflation is not price flexibility. It does nothing to clear the market for consumer goods, and does nothing to promote increased productivity. Bidding up prices to hedge inflation is a non productive activity.

Flexible prices freely move down as well as up to clear markets.

[Bruce Wilder]

HinSwF: "Do not equate inflation hedging with price flexibility."

A fair point. The attenuation of risk associated with "sticky prices" involves a fair amount of hedging, even in very low inflation environments. Mostly, it is accomplished against ownership of high rent resources.

[paine]

hey hedge

price system relies on relative prices not absolute prices

if there's some spooky moving floor
under present absolute prices
then to allow max flex
the de facto ceiling must rise enough
to allow for fairly efficient and swift
relative price adjustments eh ??

price shocks like crude oil presents from time to time
ned a certain temporary acceleration
in the ceiling rise rate

wanna insure the system don't touch off
a wage profit spiral ??
implement a big firm MAP

a market anti inflation program
for firms
large enough to influence
market wide prices

[flow5s]

A healthy economy has both upward and downward price flexibility. We don't live in one. Businesse's response to a downswing in the economy is to lay off workers, not by decreasing prices or reducing pay rates, etc.

The principal "engine" of inflation - is of course, the volume of credit (new money) created by the Reserve and the commercial banks, plus the expenditure rate (velocity) of these funds.

The transactions concept of money velocity (Vt) has its roots in Irving Fischer’s equation of exchange (PT = MV), where (1) M equals the volume of means-of-payment money; (2) V, the rate of turnover of this money; (3) T, the volume of transactions units.

The “econometric” people don’t like the equation because it is impossible to calculate P and T. Presumably therefore the equation lacks validity. Actually the equation is a truism – to sell 100 bushels of wheat (T) at $4 a bushel (P) requires the exchange of $400 (M) once (V), or $200 twice, etc.

Inflation is a chronic across the board increase in prices. And the evidence of inflation is represented by actual prices in the marketplace. The “administered” prices would not be the “actual” market prices were they not “validated” by monetary flows(MVt)-- using the transactions concept of money.

[flow5]

.0.64............0.20............0.51..Jan
.0.23...........-0.41...........-0.49..Feb
.0.05...........-0.18...........-0.15..Mar
-0.03...........-0.09...........-0.13..Apr
-0.11...........-0.08...........-0.12..May

We have had negative rates-of-change for real-gdp the beginning of this year. May is the bottom. All rates-of-change after May are positive. So after the FOMC meeting interest rates will rise.

[paine]

"Bidding up prices to hedge inflation
is a non productive activity "

this is at best a very x ray telescopic
view of the involved agents actions

a sudden reinforcing craze
to buy ever pricier house lot
with borrowed money
is not really about
a better store of wealth
ie a pure inflation hedge
in fact a hedge is an off set
ie
not betting on the level change
in the purchasing power of a buck
calls for an indexed security

sure" the equity "
such as it was
out performed an idexed t bond these last ten years

in fact who's to say
it still won't over the next ten years ???

then again a ten year
real lot value stag
looks more likely
so the t bond with index
is more likely to appreciate faster
over the next n periods

so where does this lead us ???
then the rate of general lot values

[Bruce Wilder]

paine: "the prole bottom does better
in inflationary periods
then the silk hat top"

vimothy: "Really?"

Certainly, that's been the pattern for the last 300 years or so, but then for the last 300 years or so, the underlying, non-monetary, secular trend has been toward lower real cost of final product.

If the the real cost of key commodities and resources are rising due to increasing scarcity, instead of falling due to higher productivity, cheaper and faster transport, and so on, I have to wonder if that pattern will reverse.

It is not the directional delta of monetary value that does the proles dirty, it is the secondary effects of inflation/deflation on risk and on the prospect for a full-employment equilibrium for the economy as a whole.

Deflation is heck on the underinsured and the marginally employed, and a favored tool of the plutocracy for that reason. Liquidate, liquidate, liquidate, the plutocrats cry gleefully, never hesitating even in the face of their own carnivorous cannibalism.

But, historically -- and you have to go back pretty far in history to see this in full flower -- the plutocrats have had their uses for inflation, as well. I have to wonder whether we are at the dawn of such an epoch, one where inflation-for-plutocrats will become the default option.

[paine]

"A healthy economy
has both upward and downward
price flexibility.
We don't live in one"

who ever did flow-chart ??

err a healthy economy sure
but
an up/down full flexer ???

no way

and so your omni flex capacity
is not necessary for "health "

thank god

[paine]

bruce w
your very fine
long post above
fairly anchors u
as a guy
having more fun focusing
clearly and with insight
on the whole damn
self morphing social process
and the amazing light show
of zigs and zags
of deluded aims and unintended ends
bereft of any hope
but thru a placebo effect

for u there is no careful if mysterious workings
of a plan
no higher guidance of our acts
carrying us forward ....and surely not upward

there's an older school of course
a school of prophetic ministry
---like rev j wright---
from time to time
judgement days arrive in this genre

i find that notion

---even as it remains
only a figurative gig---

very comforting

----------
btw
i'm most
entertained by the unobserved
class based constraining factors
that betray
class neutral
"best for us all"
plans and intentions

example :

my favorite part
of the c manifesto
the catalogue
of
class by class specified
false socialisms

[paine]

"the plutocrats have had their uses for inflation"

case in point

the great war inflation of 1915- to 1919

[paine]

" The economics of the op-ed page, financed by the plutocracy, with its simple-minded "smaller government" and "lower taxes spur growth" is completely ass-backwards for our moment: progress from here requires higher, more progressive taxes, more social insurance, more public investment, new institutions to manage every thing."

it occurs to me
how similar you are bruce
to the minds inside fdr's
original brains trust

but this time
its not
a national pira we need
not a national ira

a national post industrial recovery act

i see tattoo shouting

" it's the plan boss ...the plan "

[paine]

On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding.

[paine]

This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the pre-established harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all-shrewd providence, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.

[Winslow R.]

"In many popular models of the economy, monetary policy works by exploiting the existence of prices that cannot adjust quickly in response to shocks."

Not IMHO.

Look at monetary policy as a parallel to fiscal policy.

MONETARY TAX
The monetary 'tax' is the difference between what the Fed charges and pays on reserves. Very simple. Given privatized monetary policy, most of the 'tax' is collected by private savers.

Monetary policy restricts an economy just as fiscal policy restricts the economy, by placing large 'taxes' upon it.

[Frank]

Just to be precise... Many standard monetary models (e.g. money in the utility function, cash-in-advance, shopping time, search) feature short-run monetary non-neutrality even with flexible prices.

[Mark Thoma]

But if they are costly, even those (e.g. shopping time, cash in advance) can be overcome with technology.

[Lafayette]

MT: When prices aren't perfectly flexible, when they adjust sluggishly, inflation can impose costs on some agents in the economy.

It would seem that prices are never perfectly flexible, they do not change radically overnight. They adjust slowly (or sluggishly) if other economic variables are constant, which is rarely the case. Besides, some prices are far more flexible than others. Oil prices for instance are changeable daily, whilst labor costs change over much, much longer periods.

And, oil has a repercussion on the rest of the economy far greater than other factors. Where it is a major component of energy costs, then the effect on prices is profound. Without productivity increases, its impact is profound. And productivity enhancements are not obtained by waving a magic wand -- they happen rather spasmodically.

I am no great believer in models. They predict the future based upon the present, and the present is simply a snapshot of the present that alters in time. A model that would predict the future ideally would include variables that change also in the future. But, how does one predict that variability correctly? I doubt that one can, in fact. We're just guessing in the dark.

The most impact on economic variability is unforeseen and unforeseeable externalities, that is unforeseen factors that upset the economic dynamic. This often comes in the form of human decision making, either by a government administration or by economic agents. This inept administration and the subprime mess are good examples. [Though the subprime debacle was one that DID affect all parties whilst changing prices (the rent of money), radically and virtually overnight.]

How do you predict such externalities in an economic model? Human nature that leads to chaos is very unpredictable, but also very real. Though our economic models assume it is fairly constant when viewed in terms of propensity to consume.

Methinks.

[Lafayette]

BW: that the real system would evolve in parallel, but separately from the official system

I find it difficult distinguishing the two.

This happens typically when industrial/financial powers mingle with the elected powers-that-be. This administration, with its inbred cronyism, is a prime example.

But it has been a practice going on for a very, very long time. We ask supposedly talented people to "serve the public interest" in some post in Washington, only to find them later back in industry, or K-street, employing their well-oiled connections on Capitol Hill to further their careers or business interests.

Whatever happened to public probity, where people served with a true intent to attend to affairs of state without any personal interest whatsoever. Gone with the wind.

This political class stinks to high heaven. We can do better.

[hari]

You are beginning to sound as a broken record... and also perhaps playing on wrong speed to boot!

[hari]

I might decide to send you a *refresher* from my wine celler to pick-you-up in desolate France!

[Lafayette]

hari: You are beginning to sound as a broken record.

Then just stop reading my comments. It's a no-brainer.