Archive - Mar 2012 - Blog entry

"This is the day upon which we are reminded what we are in the other three hundred and sixty-four."--Mark Twain

They've got to be kidding: abstinence hell is coming to Italy’s technocrat reformers and professional politicians, unless....

The real story of Germany, to be blunt, is that it is a parasite economy. Its domestic demand lags. It has a labor force with different values than most. It will live with low wage increases and low inflation. It has lured other EMU members into a currency bloc and let them run such persistently higher rates of inflation (with no criticism of it!) that Germany now OWNS any domestic demand that other EMU countries can generate. Germany is like the vampire squid economy of Europe. Now it’s kind of caught in its own huge blinding squirt of ink, since its banks have lent to these other EMU countries to finance their excessive consumption and Germany is entangled. But on the real-economy side of things, the German economy is eating their lunch, however, meager.

CA AG Kamala Harris wants to change CA from a non-judicial state into a judicial state for foreclosures. Disaster.

In the US, we instead chose to undermine capitalism and the economic cycle. In the process we’ve undermined trust in the system. Until this is remedied there will be not REAL recovery.

Ben's selling the same old crap

As Monti said, "The financial aspect of the crisis is over." For the moment. But the problems are worse than ever.

BANZAI7 WARNING: BEVERAGES, INCLUDING STARBUGS, ARE NOT RECOMMENDED NEAR THIS POST

Our feeling is that Germany is establishing a "Plan B" in place in case it needs to leave the Euro at some point. The catalyst(s) that might provoke this are the upcoming French, Irish, and Greek elections, which could see a resurgence in leftist, anti-austerity measures in these countries. Moreover, inflation is kicking up in Germany which will exacerbate tensions between it and the ECB.

Fukushima Radiation Plume Hit Southern and Central California

There is nothing highbrow or insightful about eschewing seasonally adjusted data. Zinging seasonally adjusted methodology because it is not perfect is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many people love to be critical of what they cannot - or refuse to- understand. Of course, if you do not LIKE or WANT TO ACCEPT the message in the ‘SA’ data, the NSA data may provide a refuge for the naysayer. And I suppose that is its true purpose more than people thinking seasonal adjustment is done by the anti-Christ or something.

All you need to read and more.

 The ponzi will fail, and the economy will reset - the only question is when.

How to profit by shorting fruit! I warned on this rotten berry 2 years ago & the model that I released proved quite useful!

The guesstimates have all the accuracy of a coin flip.