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Bob Janjuah: "We Are Trapped In Some Sort Of Horrendous Keynesian/Monetarists' Nightmare...."
By Bob Janjuah
We are trapped in some sort of horrendous Keynesian/monetarists Nightmare....
Maybe its the return of sunshine, maybe its because I have moved back into my lovely 'new' home after 6mths of renting & refurbishment, it may even be because I have accepted that my beloved Liverpool FC now needs some dramatic and radical 'surgery' if it is ever to be a real force again. Whatever it is, the net effect is that I have spent an awful lot of time 'reflecting', just thinking abt the world, watching the world 'get on with it', and listening to our policymakers and their buddies in the media, in the lobby groups and in the financial sector. My conclusion? Well, I am fast coming round to the idea that (A) I am an idiot (cue the applause!) and that (B) Kevin G may have been right all along.
First, it must be made clear that Kevin and I neither have nor 'have had' any disagreement abt the issue of sustainable REAL private sector grwth in the WEST. We don't see any. Yes, a bounce from the extreme weakness of late 08/early 09 was to be fully expected. In fact the 2 of us were cheerleading this view way back in early 09 - and were being criticized for this view. Kevin's work also made clear that one 5%+ GDP data point, driven by inventory, was certain - he thgt it would be Q3 09 but it ended up being in Q4. However, we both have felt and feel that the prvte sector is in the middle of a long multi-yr period of balance sheet repair, and that the questions re sustainable real 'growth' could/can only be answered once we strip out and/or see the abatement/absence of UNSUSTAINABLE government largesse/bailouts/handouts etc. To us, once you strip away the policymaker and his period of peak effectiveness, where we are now much closer to the end rather than the beginning, what is left to take grwth forward is not very much at all.
When calling myself an idiot and suggesting that Kevin may have been right all along, I refer of course to the key themes I have been talking abt for nearly a year now: Sovereign Creditworthiness; and The Great Battle between Voluntary Austerity & Deflation, vs Involuntary Austerity, Inflation/Stagflation, Serial Bailouts, Debt & Debasement. I do not intend to go thru a repeat/rehash of these themes - see my previous comments for that. What is important is this: After the disaster of the 18/24mths culminating in March 09, which nearly saw a complete collapse in the global financial system and the global economy on the precipice of utter multi-yr depression, I had, STUPIDLY it now seems, assumed that policymakers and alike would (A) learn lessons, (B) get serious abt reform and regulation, and (C) not do anything to repeat the primary mistakes that lead to the said disaster. Namely too much debt, too many global imbalances, too much moral hazard, and the belief that the only good economic policies are the ones that encourage and promote reckless spending, reckless leverage, and which view reckless asset bubbles as symbols of success.
I had assumed, after doing what it took in late 08 and early 09 to avoid global depression and systemic financial system collapse, that policymakers & their buddies would see the light and realise that the only path to long term success for the problem economies (US, UK, most of Europe, Japan, etc) would be a period of Austerity, Balance Sheet repair, Deflation, Real Structural Economic reform and Serious Financial System/Accounting regulation/reform. This path is NOT the easy path near term, but it is the ONLY path for ensuring the long term health and success of the problem economies, as well as ultimately the ONLY path which will both successfully iron out the grotesque global imbalances and help ensure the long term success of the global economy.
SADLY, during my period of reflection, I have come round to the view that we have missed this golden opportunity. What instead I am seeing is a desperate attempt to re-write history ('there was no bubble', 'rates too low for too long had nothing to do with it', 'it's all just the fault of a bunch of greedy traders', etc etc) AND at the same time it is clear global policymakers and their buddies, whilst jaw-boning us abt 'exit' and 'austerity/fiscal repair', simply do NOT mean what they are saying - in other worlds, they are talking 'responsibly' but are acting IMHO in a reckless and irresponsible manner. And in my book actions ALWAYS speaker far more clearly and far louder than (cheap) talk.
As part of this self-reflection I have thgt a lot abt the old truism, which is as true now as it has always been, that MV = PY. That, in essence, the level of high powered 'money' multiplied by money velocity equates to nominal growth. In particular I have reflected upon the post-07 multiple factor increase in high powered money at the Fed and others, the observation that the V of M IS returning, and in particular I am now clear that the Fed et al have no interest in, and would find it almost impossible anyway, to successfully and PRUDENTLY calibrate its 'reduction' of M as V picks up. In fact, it seems clear from recent action that the Fed et al will prefer to keep M too high for too long, in the course of which we will see bubbles and Ponzis which will make the 08 unwind seem like a walk in the park. Folks will dispute the 'pick-up in V' part of this discussion. But ask yourself this - are you more or less WILLING, and more or less ABLE, to borrow money personally now vs 12mths ago. The answer is obvious and clear I think, certainly on ABILITY, and arguably so on WILLINGNESS.
Of course I have also been thinking abt the argument that we in the West have excess capital, human and non-human, which means we cannot have an inflation problem. I think this may all be utter rubbish. Why? Well it seems clear that, (for example) in the US, Capacity Utilisation rates, the levels of long-term unemployment (both standalone & as a % of total unemployment) and CPI inflation are ALL not only closely linked, but also the l-t trend in the US is clear. Namely that the peaks in Cap Ut rates required to give (say) 5% annualised headline CPI in the US have been on a declining trend since the 70s, AND the labour market in the US is far less efficient than it used to be (a function of the US becoming a service sector economy and a 'skilled labour' economy over a 40yr period where the investment in school education has been sharply declining). All of which means that perhaps, whilst there is excess labour, it is the wrong type of labour based on required skills/education. And whilst Cap Ut at 73% may imply lots of excess capital stock overhang, perhaps economist have underestimated the scrappage cycle and the levels of obsolete but not yet scrapped capital stock. We may only be 2 Cap Ut points away from a serious inflation problem, not 7! Also, in the context of labour, lets not forget that President Obama, and esp. folks like Reid and Pelosi are clearly very keen to EUROPEAN-NISE the US labour/benefits/welfare state system. ALREADY, the current administration has made it far more attractive than 2 - let alone 20! - years ago to be a long term unemployed person thru increased benefits etc. The US is catching the European disease and something that was and is again a big problem in the UK also - that it is, for many folks who lack the required skills/education, far more attractive to be 'permanently' unemployed and on benefits, rather than working in unskilled jobs.
The Greece bail-out, the goings on at the IMF involving the huge build-up of 'new bail-out' reserves, and all the talk in the UK abt fiscal repair based on fantasyland 'efficiency gains' are the latest evidence that policymakers EVERYWHERE have no appetite to be brave, to be strong and to do the right thing. It seems that it is clearly too painful to do anything else. Instead, policymakers EVERYWHERE seem to have decided that the only way out of the hole is MORE DEBT, MORE DEBASEMENT, MORE BAILOUTS, ugly INFLATION and/or even uglier STAGFLATION, FAKE AUSTERITY, ZERO STRUCTURAL ECONOMIC REFORM, & MINIMAL REGULATORY REFORM.
We are trapped in some horrendous Keynesian/monetarist nightmare, where policymakers, aided/abetted/advised by their buddies in the media, in the lobbyist cabal and in financial system, have YET AGAIN decided to go down the route which merely delays the problem/pushes it down the road, but which virtually guarantees that when the NEXT bubble collapses (I assume it will be the Global Government Debt/Bond Bubble and/or the Global Fiat Money/Paper Money/FX Bubble), there is NO pleasant way back.
When this next bubble collapses, those of us living/working in these problem economies will realise, too late of course, that WE are the new emerging markets. And no, I don't mean the next China, instead my reference is to Argentina back in the late 90s/early 00s!.
So if (as it seems to me) - even though we are agreed on the weak sustainable grwth outlook for the UK US Japan & Europe - that I WAS wrong and that Kevin is right on Austerity and the Reflation Trade, that policymakers will simply keep on behaving recklessly by loading on more debt and blowing more and bigger bubbles until the point of market and/or taxpayer revulsion, then this has some very clear 'asset allocation', and other, implications:
1 - Paul Volcker - it seems to me you were used by President Obama as a tool of political convenience post-Massachusetts. It seems to me that there is no real policymaker will to implement genuine reform/regulation - the lobbyists and the financial sector's players seem to have taken care of that. As you are one of my heroes, can I please suggest that you tell the President to find another tool, and please go enjoy your well earned retirement away from the beast that is Washington.
2 - Reform/regulation is all the chatter post SEC/Goldman. I have no view on this specific issue at all, but I do see this whole issue as having a broader side-effect - it serves Washington as a smokescreen against that chrge that prgress on real reform and regulation has been at a pace that would embarrass a snail on sedatives. As the policymakers in the West have clearly decided that MORE debt and MORE bubbles are the only way forward, whereby wealth is transferred from those who have been prudent and saved, to those that have been reckless and who have levered up and speculated, via inflation, then we should not be at all surprised at the lack of zeal on the issue of reform and regulation.
3 - Citizens of Germany, Finland etc - Oh Dear! You have, IMHO, been sold-out by your leaders domestically and at the European level. All your hard won wealth, success and competitiveness is now, it seems, going to be used as a CASH COW to bail-out countries that had decided to go down the easy money/debt/don't pay any taxes route. Is this what you really signed up for when the European project was being put together (assuming you had a choice!!). You should feel deeply disappointed in (and perhaps even disgusted by) your policymakers as you, your wealth, your competitiveness and your successes have been SOLD OUT for the sake of bailing out a country which historically has been a serial defaulter. Be prepared for the next guy coming cap in hand.
4 - For me, if I am right abt what I have written so far I have, long term, ABSOLUTELY NIL desire to own any EUROS or to own any BUNDS....why own BUNDS when you may as well own Greek Govvies - same risk, big pick up!?!?!!?...This is what the EURO and EUROZONE has become - the Greek bailout ensures that everyone in the club will be 'dumbed down' to the level of Greece. A truly sad day for Germany/Northern Europe.
5 - On this, it seems that the market is going to wait for Greece to actually get some IMF/EU cash into its coffers before it is convinced. Once this cash turns up, certainly 'out to 3yr debt' - the bit covered by the IMF/EU - looks likely to rally. How long it rallies for and how far is a moot point. I think it is virtually certain that Greece will not be able to deliver on its fiscal promises and therefore what this all really comes down to is 'at what point does the German electorate and domestic leaders other than Merkel say 'No Mas''. Nobody knows for sure. But to me the biggest nonsense around is that the whole EUROZONE project will fail if Greece is NOT bailed out and allowed to default. On the contrary, the failure of the EUROZONE is GUARANTEED if Germany 'opts' out. And the credibility of the EUROZONE would be GREATLY ENHANCED if Greece were allowed to default/restructure. After all, membership of ANY club only has value if the club rules are adhered to. Any club that does not enforces its own rules and which instead 'forgives' (BAILS OUT!) those who knowingly and repeatedly break these rules is, frankly, a JOKE and an embarrassment and not a club worth joining UNLESS you are looking for handouts/'arb-ing' the club (and its rules).
6 - More generally, it is clear to me that in the UK, US, EUROZONE (x-periph!!) & JAPAN, owning govvies is a total disaster on anything other than on a short term trading horizon. The global policy solution to the Credit Crisis is now clearly MORE DEBT, MORE FX DEBASEMENT, MORE BAILOUTS and MORE INFLATION, so why own any govvies other than for trading purposes. The same applies to the currencies/fiat money of these 'blocs'. I think the next big trend in govvie mrkts in the UK US EUROZONE is to expect bear flatteners - the shrt end of curves will wear all the inflation repricing risk, whereas very long (10yr+) maturities will do relatively better. I think we could see 2yr US UK EUROZONE out by 200bps over the next 6/9mths, with 10yrs out by perhaps 'only' (!!) 50/100bps. The bigger risk is parallel shifts higher in yield curves across the curve. Urgh!
7 - On bonds, and whilst the real underlying prvte sector trend is one of deflation, policymakers have decided this is undesirable and therefore INFLATION is their sole motive. They also feel they can, over the long term, fool the investor community into believing their 'talk' of exit and into believing that some uber-narrow and 'convenient' measure of inflation is enough to fool us all into to think that there is no inflation risk. Thus they can carry on debasing and adding debt ad nauseam. All fine of course until inflation becomes TOO OBVIOUS to deny. At that point - and this may be mths/qtrs off - this game ends horribly badly with deflation the end trend, but not before a horrible inflation/stagflation spike. And at which point we will all again see the exploded bubble we have (again!) been part of, wittingly or not. When this bubble bursts, I really do think 08 will look like a picnic. I will also be curious to see who the scapegoat is next time, as clearly policymakers will not of course accept their central role. After all they have a 'great' track record on this issue.
8 - My loathing of paper 'assets' out of these economies also applies to credit and equity. Clearly however some excess credit spread provides some inflation offset/protection - esp. in HY and distressed, and in equity land there is also some inflation protection, up to a point. So net net I can see SOME reasons to hold such risky assets - after all, the WHOLE POINT of Western policymaker 'policy' is to blow up these speculative bubbles, with total disregard for both the fundamentals and for the inevitable consequences of exploding bubbles. HOWEVER, once the inflation genie really takes hold - and it may be some mths/qtrs away - risky assets like credit and equity will get crushed too. Our work last yr told us the sweet spot for equities re CPI in the US was between abt 1.5% (headline annualised) and 3.5% - a very narrow window!!
9 - IF I am going to be forced to own paper assets I want to focus on quality, on global big caps (debt & equity), and on strong balance sheet developing economy stks, where the focus should be on DOMESTIC grwth/growing domestic demand.
10 - What I really want to own in a world of reckless policy, debasement, more debt, inflation etc, are PHYSICAL ASSETS like Gold, Oil and PRIME PROPERTY. I can see GOLD @$2k/oz in the next yr or so, Oil north of $100, and when I say Prime, I really mean SUPER PRIME - location and quality are key.
I still hope, for the sake of the long term, that I am wrong and that Voluntary Austerity and Deflation will be enacted sooner rather than (too) late(r) in the problem economies. However, it is clear that over the last 6/9 mths I have let my view and vision get coloured. I let my HOPES (for Voluntary Austerity) and my still total BELIEF that this is the only way forward for long term success, colour my judgement. I have been blind to the reality - that our leaders and their buddies care little abt the long term and that all that seems to matter to them are short-term 'fixes', short-term popularity gains, more bubbles and more debt, whatever the consequences for inflation/stagflation and fiat money. We seem to be stuck in an era where policymakers only understand more debt, more deficits, & more debasement. This IS gonna come back and savage (forget 'bite') us real hard unless our policymakers turn abruptly towards Voluntary Austerity/Deflation. As I've said before, we do NOT have the luxury of time here - it is simply not feasible to continue on the current policy paths for much more than a few qtrs. We do NOT HAVE years. And the longer we wait, the worse the unwind will be.
All of the above is of course a longer term focus. In the shorter term, more trading focus:
As per my last cmmt of over 6wks ago, S&P has rallied and is in spitting distance of my 1220 target. I think we can see 1220 over the next few days, BUT I would now - tactically - be reducing risk. Why? Well firstly because we have had lots of 'good' news over the last 2mths, esp. around grwth & Greece (yes, good news!..or aren't bailouts good news anymore?!?!), but also because I think that over the next few weeks bond yields are going to breakout into a higher trading range (say 4.25% 10yr UST yield +/- 20bps) as we collectively realise that reflation is the only game in town - whatever the consequences!! For me the initial breakout will be enough to knock up to 10% off global stocks over and May, which in turn shud set up the next bubblicious buying oppo.
Bottom line though re the trading outlook is that the BULLISH call from early March has abt run its course with upside S&P price targets pretty much hit - 1220 should be hit in the next few days but I think this is the tail of the rally from the 1040 early Feb lows. From here, over the next mth/6 weeks, the trading theme is MORE BEARISH with higher bond yields and S&P off by maybe 10%, say from 1120 to very low 1100s.
Cheers
Bob
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Social Security: Third Rail of Politics :: Voluntary Austerity : Hemlock Smoothie with a Caffeine Charge.
Ahhhh yes, the Hemlock Smoothie.
Reminds me of this exchange from one of the classics of modern cimema; 1985's "Real Genius":
Mitch: What are you doing?
Chris Knight: Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
good quote Rusty - great movie too.
To paraphrase another ancient Greek:
"Is Bernanke willing to prevent inflation, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh inflation?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him Fed chairman?"
Volcker IS a tool. Wasn't he Fed chairman when the can was kicked down the road back in 1980?
Obligations to pay in gold are coming due, maybe Larouche is right after all.
Im not sure why I feel the need to defend PV, as he is a few years past his expiration date, but no, he didn't "kick the can".. He jacked rates to snuff out runaway inflation, which is exactly the opposite of current KTC policy.
The high rate "episode" from the early 80's was part of the long term plan to condition the sheeple.
Volker is a Trilateralist / Bilderberger and therefore should not be allowed to influence anything.
Correcto.
Volker was the Fed Chairman who was independent enough to raise rates and kill the Jimmah Caarrter inflation. It was painful but had to be done. It made Reagan's job a bit harder though.
"It made Reagan's job a bit harder though"
Did it really? Wasn't it right after this episode that S&L regulations were relaxed so that these banks could become "more competetive"? And we now know how that chapter ended. If you believe there was no connection between what Volker did and what ensued as far as "policy goals" (deregulation) you are missing the big picture.
Puuuuhhlease...".Jimmah Caarrter inflation."?????
Get serious, dood! You've gotta be with the Financial Services Roundtable, righto???
You conveniently forget about that leetle financial adventure known as the Vietnam War???
Or perhaps you've forgotten about silly stuff, oh like, economics, finance, math, and that ever important subject, a-rithmetic????
Reagan....he was that fellow dood who signed Executive Order 12615, to establish the Office of Privatization to get the ball rolling for the dismantling of the American economy?
Now, while I'm no fan of Carter, I do believe in credit where credit is due, and Reagan's passage of the Depository Institutions Act, as well as those most heinous tax cuts for the ultra-rich, and the installation of Supply-Side Economics (Voodoo 101), certainly began the process of the establishment of the Forever Plutonomy.
You sure do have trouble with the facts, my man Augustus!
Yeah, reagan really had a tough job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTcL6Xc_eMM
Reagan, Regan, Stockman, Drexel with Mikey, Portfolio Insurance to hedge away the risk. The good old days, I wish I could figure out what's changed except for the clowns.
That is the coolest video on youtube.
Also, he had something in his nostrils before and after that quote, "You're going to have to speed it up."
Corporate takeover, 'Merca. BET YOUR BOTTOM DOELARR.
Worse, he was the one who perpetuated "too big to fail" by insisting Continental Illinois be bailed out when the FDIC wanted to shut it down.
Uh, as I remember it, Con Ill was closed down. There was an FDIC that was responsible for transferring assets and deposits in an orderly manner. But it was gone. And it had been one of the country's banking leaders. Crammed with loans originated from a shopping center bank in Oklahoma, IIRC.
Crammed with MBSes by your man who was later recruited by the boys at Enron for a most similar purpose....now what was that dood's name? Flatow?? The CFO at Con Ill?
Uh, wrong, learn some history.
http://www.erisk.com/Learning/CaseStudies/ContinentalIllinois.asp
"By May 17, regulatory agencies and the banking industry had arranged billions of dollars in emergency funding for the stricken giant. And in a move that remains controversial almost 20 years later, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation tried to stem the bleeding away of the banks funds by extending a guarantee to uninsured depositors and creditors at the bank giving credibility to the notion that some banks should be considered too big to fail."
And according to Bill Seidman in his book, it was Volcker who forced the FDIC to prop up the bank, the FDIC wanted to liquidate it and wipe our the uninsured depositors.
Volcker is the father of Too Big To Fail.
Here's some more.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=5957
"In 1984, Washington created the first “too big to fail” commercial bank, Chicago’s Continental Illinois. With Volcker at the Fed’s helm, the Reagan administration feared that the economy couldn’t withstand Continental’s failure, because the bank’s reliance on short-term debt markets could cause disruption.
Washington stepped in and guaranteed all of Continental’s creditors, not just insured depositors -- a watershed.
Volcker went before Congress and said that the decision was not a precedent. But markets knew otherwise."
Interesting, but you would have to agree there is a difference between jacking up one bank and the entire economy, as is the case today. Intellectually the arguments are on the same side of the equation, but to suggest that PV is the same as a result seems a bit far fetched to me. Dont get me wrong, i feel no love for any of these guys, but i can honestly say if he were fed chair, specifically in the earlier part of this decade, things might be different.
oh Dear, more knashing of teeth, wallowing about in utter dismay, wailing and self flagellation..oh the humanity!...oh the wasted space & time...
I don't know why you are all junking marvin ??!! All one ever reads from Janjuah is this pitiful crap about how wrong he has been, how sorry he is blah blah blah. There is not 1 original thought in this piece....it is half baked intellectual masturbation dressed up as strategy.
The guy is a fraud
Only hope is the Tea Party movement.
yea, to make the final collapse come quicker. Banksters prefer tea over coffee, and the tea party will defend them to the (ugly collapsing) end.
What are you talking about?
Point being that most 'tea party" supporters want to limit government spending, bailouts and see that the money they pay in taxes gets spent wisely. They want to see a move towards balanced budgets and recognize the current path is not sustainable. They want the big spenders voted out.
Now, if your agrument is that without federal deficits the economy is fucked, that I can agree with.
You're in that cohort of completely and easily flamboozled clowns....those who accept the term "exotic instruments that nobody understands" ---- and then when the nonMedia reframes it to "bets" you fully accept the newest reframing.
Attention, clowns and fellow clowns, the banksters OWN the government, the US congress is completely corrupt and bought-and-paid-for, and following the likes of Dick(head) Armey, Marshall Langer or his relative Andrew Langer (Marshall Langer was one of the original architects of the offshore tax haven concept, for anyone still ignorant of that factoid) and Neutered Gingrich.
And if you be so concerned about the tax money spent wisely, you'll pay a bit more attention to those clowns you allow to manipulate you so easily.
Predatory capitalism is dead.....but stinking up everything in its death throes.
Perhaps you should think about a little anger management therapy. Just saying the government spends too much - not saying they tax too little. Not commenting on the merits of wall street bankers --
They spend too much AND tax too much. Get them the hell out of the way. They are nothing more than proven, useless go-betweens and corporatist leeches.
yeah sure tea party will save our sorry asses, can you say controlled opposition? "every revolution has only resulted in the furthur consolidation of power" (or something like that).- camus
A People’s History of Koch Industries: How Stalin Funded the Tea Party Movement
And Jesus was at fault for the Crusades.
Well said, trichotil, well said!
Indeed, a strategy which ALWAYS is successful with the Ameritard!
Yup, if the Republicans (the extremist wackadoodles) are against it, "we" (meaning the right-wingers who now refer to themselves as Democrats) must be for it.
So, they are against the privatization of taxation and the mandatory purchase of private health insurance, which has, and continues, to be on a premium raising spree these past few years, so "we" must be for it (wonder whatever happened to that "public option"????).
They are against the latest financial markets scam, cap-and-trade, so the fools must be for it -- even though it has NOTHING to do with the lowering of pollution indices.
Controlled opposition -- the strategy of those of practise control fraud.
Hope is all you'll get. This time it's Obamanable. Before that Bushwhacked, The Clinton gang, Bushwacked 1, Regonomaical, Get Carter, Ford He's a Jolly Good Fellow. When are you thick-heads gonna run out of hope? Fucking bottomless pit of delusions. You've been butt-fucked and bitch-slapped by the lot of them. When are you going to get it?
Oh, do ya THINK, Bob?
Gee, and it only took you two fucking years to figure it out.
I am Chumbawamba.
No kidding, what is funny is the guy who wrote "The Creature From Jekyll Island" got this scene exactly right so far.
If you haven't read the book, I will go right to the punchline - hyperinflation.
Got gold?
Got pussy?
I hear you mother is putting out.
Americans – especially conservatives – delude themselves when they express the view that it might be possible to restore constitutional government. How would this happen? Who would enforce the Constitution? Why would the federal government ever give up its monopoly of constitutional interpretation and return to the pre-1865 world where all three branches of government were often given equal weight in constitutional interpretation, as well as the citizens of the free, independent and sovereign states? The central state murdered hundreds of thousands of its own citizens in order to achieve this monopoly status, and it will never just give it up.
It is the Washington establishment, which includes its media lapdogs like Joe Klein, that is guilty of sedition. The legitimate "authority" of the state is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. It is the Washington establishment that has abandoned that legitimate authority and granted to itself essentially unlimited powers. Therefore, there can be nothing more patriotic and "American" than opposing everything the central state proposes doing that would expand its scope and powers in any way. Without any kind of constitutional constraints or meaningful citizen control, the federal government is nothing more than another criminal gang, as Murray Rothbard often said. The fact that it is a very large gang does not make it any more legitimate. The TEA Party protesters and all others who oppose the oppression of the central state should ignore the puerile rantings of the Joe Kleins of the world and remind themselves of what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence when he said that men
"TEA Party" activists claim that they are Taxed Enough Already. That’s not good enough. If they took their own rhetoric about constitutional government seriously, they would recognize that what is needed is at least a 90 percent reduction in federal taxes, not merely being satisfied with being taxed "enough already."
Since such a tax reduction is not likely to be achieved with the cooperation of the Washington establishment, no matter who is elected president, the only real prospect for success is to take seriously the words of Thomas Jefferson, author of America’s Declaration of Secession from the British Empire, and organize numerous peaceful secession movements. Let them have their ACORN/Democratic Socialists of America-inspired, socialist utopia on the Potomac. The rest of us can watch with great amusement as they ruin their small society, impoverish themselves, and turn it into a Third-World swamp, which is what Washington, D.C. started out as several hundred years ago.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo184.html
I am Chumbawamba.
Aren't tea party activists called 'tea baggers?'
Careful. Fedz are out today. This means you.
Only the envious Tea Cuppers.
yeah, by people who like denigrating the last vestiges of participatory democracy.
In the pursuit of government: For the People, By the People, just where in the constitution is the word: Democracy, mentioned. Just name one Patriot who fought or died for "Democracy". Name one instance where the battle cry was DEMOCRACY. Now what is that statue on that oddly named island called? The Statue of Democracy?
Democracy........ phhhhttt.
One man's tool utilised to dominate another. A group of elitist's tool used to hoodwink a nation.
FranSix,
Only those with homosexual leanings,call them that...........
Very good Chumba. It was indeed ole Honest Abe who eviscerated the Constitution in the name of saving the Union. Ironic that his great admirer is now known as Honest Obe.
P.S. Did you really do Christina Romer?
More ironic is that the north gave back many of the 'gains' to the south during the next recession and ended 'reconcilliation' without really reconciling anything.
Naaah....I almost tried his mother, but she had a nasty five o'clock shadow (and it was 10:00 AM).
Excellent comments/remarks, big guy, and to Bob I have but one thing to say:
If you've yet to figure out that credit derivatives are the weapons of choice to rig and manipulate the markets (oil, energy, commodities, precious metals, etc.) and that they will never relinquish them until they have a replacement for sucking everything dry, you are simply another douchebag.
Got that?
Chumbawamba,
It is the Washington establishment, which includes its media lapdogs like Joe Klein, that is guilty of sedition. The legitimate "authority" of the state is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. It is the Washington establishment that has abandoned that legitimate authority and granted to itself essentially unlimited powers. Therefore, there can be nothing more patriotic and "American" than opposing everything the central state proposes doing that would expand its scope and powers in any way. Without any kind of constitutional constraints or meaningful citizen control, the federal government is nothing more than another criminal gang, as Murray Rothbard often said. The fact that it is a very large gang does not make it any more legitimate. The TEA Party protesters and all others who oppose the oppression of the central state should ignore the puerile rantings of the Joe Kleins of the world and remind themselves of what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence when he said that men
Yeah, sounds good, but doesn't fly...
Talk about loaded with a bunch of right-wing propaganda!
The Tea Partiers are all pawns knitting their own nooses. They don't give a rat's ass about going after the banksters or the plice state (militarism), they just want to punish the lowly "scum" around them, hoping all the while that they (Tea Partiers) will be lifted above that "scum" (perhaps to the very level of the banksters and other true "scum").
Tossing in crap like ACORN and "socialists" is perfect inflamitory trickery.
The US has one of the lowest tax rates in the industrialzed West. It's the greedy rich who are getting these folks to protect Their (greedy rich) asses! Stupid pawns!
Anyone who really wants to be educated on how it all works needs to read Chomsky rather than the babble that protects the rich...
I do believe there is a lot going on that We The People are just not aware of currently, not only on a National level, but also Internationally in regards to the USA. But I am only posting this extension, a more complete view, of what was highlighted in the previous post. IMHO, there is a degree of panic and fear at high-levels, and it may very well be connected to the added words highlighted below. You know it doesn't take a lot to understand, its just been very well kept hidden from The People---paste below taken from here,
http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/ :
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
[[[ just checking to learn how to edit, bold, underline, etc. It didn't show in my last post ]]]
which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
Yeah, someone send this to Mish, too.
Sh*tlock will do a regular good job of cut and paste. I was stuck watching a tv interview of the moron. He was asked about market direction. His prediction - 30% probability it would go up, 40% chance it would go down, 30 chance it would move randomly but stay the same. What a brilliant prognosticator / money runner.
Dude, with 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, the US has essentially moved far left of your average European welfare state ... over here they start pushing you out to workfare programmes before you hit a year. In the US these days you just sit at home and pretend to look for "suitable" work.
The game is over.
1. When I was unemployed, I would have been happy for ANY work, "suitable" or not.
2. Most employers (at least here in the US) will not consider hiring anyone who remotely appears to be "overqualified" (i.e., they're not 'suitable').
The end result is that work for which I'm well-qualified and "suitable" simply does not exist and employers will not hire me for lesser jobs because I'm "overqualified." So what do you expect me to do? Would YOU be willing to hire me?
The ONLY choice I had was to "sit at home" and try to find "suitable" work.
I have reasons for everything I do and don't to too, and it is always someone else's fault.
Take a temp job ... it's good for the psyche, you can often walk out the door at 5 pm with no guilt whatsoever, you meet interesting people, and sometimes (after hearing often the phrase "What are you doing temping?") it grows into a full time gig. Been there, done that.
N.A.M. alert....N.A.M. alert (that's as in National Association of Manufacturers)!
Of course, according to you slime, there are no American workers left, so all jobs must be offshored, and foreign scab workers must be imported under endless visa programs, and the refugee programs must continuously be increased in number ceiling, and hands off that illegal slave worker program in the human trafficking organizations.
The Alarmist, Agreed, but the problem is there are no jobs.
Why not?................not from lack of need, but from fear of what's coming, and the isanes rise in cost's for new hires..
If all these radical policies and taxes were not in the pipeline, we would have been out of this Depression long ago.
Personally, I have put off over $50 in purchases, just since Obama was elected....I stll have the needs, and the want..but NEVER under this clowns regime. Never.
If all these radical policies and taxes were not in the pipeline, we would have been out of this Depression long ago.
If you are so divine that you know that for a certainty, why didn't you pick the winning lotto number and split the 250 million with the meth addict?
If all these radical policies and taxes were not in the pipeline, we would have been out of this Depression long ago
Massive debt, unsustainable infrastructure, rapidly declining energy and other resources, and you claim that it's only a numbers game/issue, that reducing taxes will somehow fix this?
Thanks for playing!
The Alarmist, Agreed, but the problem is there are no jobs.
Why not?................not from lack of need, but from fear of what's coming, and the insane rise in cost's for new hires..
If all these radical policies and taxes were not in the pipeline, we would have been out of this Depression long ago.
Personally, I have put off over $50k in purchases, just since Obama was elected....I stll have the needs, and the want..but NEVER under this clowns regime. Never.
Awesome piece but the random vowels that are missing from various words is rather distracting.
I got halfway through and couldn't finish it.
I feel like I'm being texted at.
If anyone's too damned lazy to spell properly and use vowels where appropriate, then I'm not going to bother reading them. How can I expect them to get the financials right if they can't even master the English language?
What a lazy sack of shit.
Hears an grenade in ur direktion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK5TNcmEmg
Now THAT'S what I call an austerity program!
I agree. He must think his shit doesn't stink and he's too important and too busy to write out complete words. I can hear him saying "you know what I meant".
More like; u no ? I mnt.
Stopd @ abt half way mk.
I agree. Is it really that fucking hard to spell the word ABOUT? He wrote abt ABOUT 20 times. Does he have an issue with vowels?
"prgress on real reform and regulation has been at a pace that would embarrass a snail on sedatives."
late contender for line of the month
Couldn't read it. I have a co-worker that drops vowels in some of his words he types and it drives me insane.
Does grwth really save that many keystrokes over growth?
I did end up reading it and it was painful, but insightful.
The ZH drum must continue to be beaten lest everyone get caught up in the magical market thinking.
If one is a "hunt and peck" typist it's easier to leave out vowels. At least the consonants are in place. As a junior in high school I took typing class -- you could do that back in 1966. It was to meet chicks, but the offshoot was a skill for typing which has served me well. The chick-hunt was successful as well. I'd recommend learning to type to anyone. It leaves the brain free to think and write simultaneously.
I am baffled as to why anyone with a computer today would still have to hunt-and-peck.
Are you saying that voice recognition is the only way to go? I tried that a few years ago but the "teaching" curve was too steep. I type pretty fast... As long as there are keyboards there will be hunt-n-peckers.
The battles are all being lost, for just now.
Government has committed to siding with the financial sector, hopelessly seduced by the promise of personal gains and gifts.
The banks will not be broken up; they know they need to block any new creation of banks if they are to impliment the excessive fees and charges they want to levy in perpetuity, and prolong the cartel.
Rounds 1 and 2 to the bad guys.
Come about Round 6, we might start turning the tide.
It all depends on how much of the paper the odious sh*ts think they can convert into gold, oil, water and other 'secure' mineral assets and syphon out of the system (before they start fighting each other in earnest).
Greece -save yourself. Walk away from the Euro now. This bailout is purely to save the German & French banks, not you lot. Do you want an internal devaluation of everything, or an external currency devaluation? Stop piddling around and bring back the drachma. That will bring all the PiiGsUKing issues to a head.
theprofromdover,
Exactly, already Portugal, Spain, etc, are waiting in the wings...
The BEST thing that could happen would to let Greece go under.
The BEST thing that could happen would to let Greece go under.
Not for paper sellers it wouldn't!
Government has committed to siding with the financial sector, hopelessly seduced by the promise of personal gains and gifts.
That anyone could believe otherwise, and at any time in US history, is a complete mystery to me. I mean, a country founded on genocide, unequal rights, all sanctioned by rich white men, that this was somehow legit?
Good god, people, this is the oldest game in town!
Voluntary austerity. That's a good one. Like graphic novel, reality tv, shared responsibility... gonna add it to my list.
government integrity
military intelligence
federal reserve
sophisticated investor
Free trade
Free markets
Homeland Security
Representative Democracy
regulatory reform
I thought it was more of an oxymoron, like "government assistance."
Sometimes it's best not to look too closely at how the sausage is made. Just put it in the oven and enjoy!
However, if Europe does implode its going to take everything with it for while.
Maybe we should track put activity on the Big European banks as a way to see if the wheels are going to fall off the cart.
We are in Naples, Italy now. A dump.
Does our future look like this?
Most Mexican border towns are a lot nicer than Naples. And yes, you are looking at your future.
Good piece, thanks for sharing it.
Edit: Bloomberg declares inflation dead. We're saved!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqpASviGyLQc&pos=3
Bond Traders Declare Inflation Dead After Yields Fall (Update2)
wonder if bloomberg employees & bond traders wouldn't mind sharing which midtown delis they frequent, cuz the last one i went to wanted to charge me $1.50 for a small poland spring.
SWR,
these people are like royalty, they must never shop for themselves, and we know they have more cash than they can spend, so they are totally blind to facts.
Inflation for food , and fuel, (esp food) is well over 10% from a year ago in my area,( more like 40-50%) and fuel is up 33%+.............
"Instead, policymakers EVERYWHERE seem to have decided that the only way out of the hole is MORE DEBT, MORE DEBASEMENT, MORE BAILOUTS, ugly INFLATION and/or even uglier STAGFLATION, FAKE AUSTERITY, ZERO STRUCTURAL ECONOMIC REFORM, & MINIMAL REGULATORY REFORM."
The solution is simple, the Fed must die, and the US government must be deconstructed/rolled back to its beginnings and core values via state convention and/or revolution (ideally peaceful, but violent works too). The system is too broken too be fixed. We either take charge of its deconstruction, or we let TPTB demo/reconstruct our country in a way that is beneficial to them.
"I still hope, for the sake of the long term, that I am wrong and that Voluntary Austerity and Deflation will be enacted sooner rather than (too) late(r) in the problem economies."
Austerity? For what I ask? To pay back the usurious insidious Wall St/Central Bank protection racket? I think not. If by austerity you mean a singular wiping of the slate clean of the banker oligopoly, a re write of the US government, and thus doing away with the false promise of entitlements.... I'm with you. If by austerity you mean paying more taxes, working harder, and fully accepting our situation as debt slaves under the current regime... then I think you should go.... I won't say it.
We throw out the political whores, we burn out the financial terrorists/rapists/arsonists, we default on the debt created by the two aforementioned parties, and we reform our government under the guiding light of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We must have a renaissance, a rebirth.
I personally believe that our Federal government must be 4-5 branches in size, and an electoral process open to all parties. 1. Executive 2. Legislative (add term limits) 3. Judicial 4. a seat of monetary policy by and for the people 5. citizen oversite with the power to go anywhere, see all, and investigate all. I am also not against setting a floor below which we do not let our citizens fall beneath in terms of health care and access to the necessities of life (water, food, shelter). If you are willing to work, or have lived a life of service to your fellow citizens a person should not be left out in the cold by ones village. However, entitlements as we know them are disgusting, and there is no fix short of full demolition of "the system".
There are no solutions while the Fed, Wall St, and DC exist in their current forms. It is time for revolution, a turning of the wheel, and I urge any and all to find a way to do so in any way they can. The status quo is in its death throes, either we write our future history or it will be written for us.
how about another fake russian revolution/christian holocaust instead? the usual suspects win again. they got nukes, we don't; endgame.
http://www.rense.com/general86/realholo.htm
Very well said.
Crab Cake:
I agree.
Crab Cake,
Good write up, w/ the minor exceptions of TWO things left out.
Exec Branch( NO PDD's,unless PUBLIC, NO EO's, that affect any branch except the Exec),and NO LIFE appt's for the Judiciary...........
the only people who have enough time to read a piece this long are the unemployed
I read it laughing and shaking my head. I hope there is still time, but I sure dont see any "changes" on the horizon. I love hearing from the talking heads on tv "there is no inflation" yet prices are increasing "do to the recovery". The fed CAN NOT raise interest rates, not because of stopping "the recovery", but because if they do, the US cant service its DEBT! Get someone to say that on tv.
While mindlessly checking my emails this morning I had CNBC on in the background. Some gourd-head was complaining about how it was the Government's fault that the meltdown occurred. He says the Gov't policies caused the first domino to fall. Not one of the talking-heads (Mark Haynes presiding) even proposed the weird concept that perhaps there should not have been any dominoes in the first place. It is accepted dogma that the system is unstable -- we just blame the guy who tips the scales. How screwed up is all that? And these guys trade with other peoples' money.
'"there is no inflation"'
Yup, and relatively more importantly, there is NO media, and there is NO economy....
+1
I also believe Benny is trying to control inflation by controling the amount of lending, rather than interest rates. This is why he needs control of the banks, and GS and JPM get the nod, since they created the Fedres to begin with. Will the rest of the world and their money supply play along?
Hamurobby:
It reminds me of my son's Harry Potter movie where the characters become fearful when mentioning: "he-who-shall-not-be-named" (i.e., Voldemort). In our case, you are right on target mentioning our Voldemort, that is, debt service after rates rise. Let's just go through this one more time time for the heck of it: (1) The Fed has pushed the nominal short rate to about zero (the target is 0 to 25BPs). (2) It has engaged in 'quantitative easing' in an attempt to keep longer nominal rates and mortgage rates as low as they can force them to be. (3) In the process they have more than doubled the monetary base, yet claim it isn't a problem. (4) Normally #3 would end in accelerating and eventually massive inflation, but the beneficiaries (mostly, the TBTFs) have put a great deal away with the same entity causing it (i.e., as 'excess reserves). (5) In addition, the fiscal federal authorities are running deficits greater than 10% of doctored output numbers (i.e., undoctored they are higher); and expects the Fed to 'monetize' these (while the Fed claims they will not). Virtually all thinking humanoids know, wink, wink, that these deficits are with us for the foreseeable future (i.e., no matter what the federal budget hacks/experts opine). (6) In addition, the federal government just enacted what is probably the largest socialization in U.S. the history, if not the planet's (i.e., in economic terms; and which is likely to cost more than was initially reported), and there is other economic and other silliness on deck (e.g., 'cap & trade', amnesty, etc.). Thus, the real government load is greater than formal numbers show. Sure, it's all good, but wait, what if debt has real consequences? Ignore the curtain folks, step away from that curtain, debt must be good, what could go wrong? Maybe interest rates go up? Maybe inflation can happen when the economy goes down? Hey wait, what happened to Argentina when inflation was raging? No, inflation is good right? Inflation spurs demand right, or is it demand spurs inflation? Anyway, what could go wrong?
In the final analysis, I think von Mises and friends are correct: it isn't so much a Keynesian/Monetarist nightmare as the expected result of silly and destructive monetary, fiscal, and other government and related policies since around the early 1970s. Payback is a bitch.
"I had assumed, after doing what it took in late 08 and early 09 to avoid global depression and systemic financial system collapse, that policymakers & their buddies would see the light and realise that the only path to long term success for the problem economies (US, UK, most of Europe, Japan, etc) would be a period of Austerity, Balance Sheet repair, Deflation, Real Structural Economic reform and Serious Financial System/Accounting regulation/reform"
Who are you kidding? Not only does the government owe more than $12 trillion dollars, they have about $108 trillion dollars in obligations to handle.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
There is NO WAY that the government will ever pay off these debts and obligations thru taxes. That means an eventual default, or they print the money up devaluing the dollar.
Reform will not solve the problem. Austerity? Balance Sheet repair?? Our system is totally corrupt. Understand that.
+ 120 quadrillion
Should Obama's picture be on the trillion dollar bill? I'm leaning toward Bernie Madoff.
I think the Rothschilds and Rockefellers need some notes with their portraits on them.
They have what they want. But if you mean as in a "Wanted" ad for the masses to know who to go after, then I am all for it!
http://www.buyinggold.co.uk/images/goldbarrothschild240.jpg
http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/images/goldbarrothschild100gramssamuelmonta...
http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/images/rothschild50gramgoldbar16barsquare40...
http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/images/1954morocco500dirhamsgoldrev400.jpg
Louie De Palma
"We Are Trapped In Some Sort Of Horrendous Keynesian/Monetarists' Nightmare...."
Well, at least that's better than being trapped in some sort of Brave New Orwellian nightmare... oh, wait, nm, already there; I just got yelled at for J-Walking from a speaker in a street sign in Fishguard, Wales.
Speaking of Orwellian Tea-Baggers:
"Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things as they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow rich very much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions." - Eric Blair
Which is part of the problem, no?
But a true Orwellean Metro Tea Cupper cannot get enough free lunch. Even Obama with all his stash and stuff cannot fill a true Tea Cupper.
lol@ jaywalking. butter knives locked behind bars in department stores amuses me as well.
Now why don't you guys fix your deficit by siezing all royals lands, jewels and other assets, and stop paying a bunch of inbred buffoons to fly around the world to go to cocktail parties.
'Cause I can't excise this damn microscope they've had implanted up my ass...
To get a sense of how fucked we are, I highly suggest attending and/or observing a large-scale social event, such as a baseball game, music festival, etc. If you take the time to observe the various behaviors & actions, you might find it hard to conclude any differently than Mako, who rightly labels us 'hairless apes'.
The point of this comment is not to stand apart and claim that others are stupid & clueless. No, the point is that once in a crowd, (every)one tends to lose sight of important markers & facts (reality) and just go with the flow. From this perspective, it's quite easy to see how policy makers literally manipulate perception no differently than Oz. The key is to establish a sense of well being that 'someone is in charge and looking out for our best interests'.
There will be no end to this course of action until the very system itself collapses from excess. Right now, the entire world is running up the last charges on the tab - we get the supposed benefit, while stuffing the next generation with the bill. The next generation will grow up and realize that not only will they not get any benefits, but that they will be expected to pay our bill. Right! LOL
I could see a new religion being formed from this experience. Years from now, we will be mythic representatives of evil. A heroic doG figure will emerge as their savior who will lead the movement to repudiate the debt & liberate all of mankind.
So we can compose "Obama, Superstar" to the tune of "Jesus Christ, Superstar?"
Hold back, you're a bit early on that nomination... I think that will be reserved fro Sarah Palin, the "True" <wink> <wink> people's candidate! (think Ahmadinejad [President - figure head only] with the powers of the Supreme Leader [true decision-making authority]).
Yes we are.
We will not emerge if things continue on present course.
...which virtually guarantees that when the NEXT bubble collapses (I assume it will be the Global Government Debt/Bond Bubble and/or the Global Fiat Money/Paper Money/FX Bubble), there is NO pleasant way back.
I don't want to go back. Let them have their party. If the illusion that all is well works who am I to complain?
The illusion of strength in the commercial banking sector and weakness in the sovereign bond markets, when nothing could be further from the truth, has gained a strong foothold with the extensive short covering rally.
If governments are required to throw trillions at the commercial banking sector the world over and engage in quantitative easing solely to keep these entities afloat, and this after the largest bankruptcies in history, I would say that its rather the corporate bond market that's at risk, than a main street economy that manages to continue functioning regardless of whether the risk cartels have fleeced their last from the housing market and have turned to the public sector to bite the hand that feeds it.
Its really a matter of perspective after all, isn't it?
My point was, go back to what? Some other (supposedly better) period of time when the fed gangsters controlled the monetary system? Just when would this ideallic time be? The eCONoME has always sucked under their oppressive reign.
But where would you like it to go?
Proof if ever it was required that the ongoing case against GS regarding John Paulson's hedge fund is the modern equivalent of prosecuting Al Capone for spitting on the pavement is confirmation that the US govt is now run for the benefit of GS ,JPM et al in the following article.They will be allowed to trade and if they win they keep the profits,if they lose,the taxpayer picks up the bill - so a continuation of the bailout for perpetuity. But they will be supervised and prevented from gambling excessively by the FED,
Q.But who owns the Fed?
A.GS,JPM etc!!!. From Bloomberg:
"Government Guarantee
The Dodd bill will establish a set of companies that will be implicitly established as too big to fail, or TBTF. These firms will, according to Plosser, have an advantage: “when stock and bondholders of TBTF firms win, they profit, but when they lose, they become eligible for a government bailout.”
This will lower the cost of capital for the firms so designated, since lenders will understand that the U.S. government will be there should calamity ensue. If you lend to a little guy, you lose if he runs into trouble. If you lend to a big guy, you get your money back from taxpayers.
Over time, the big banks will get bigger and bigger, as they capture business from smaller firms that don’t have the benefit of the implicit government guarantee.
For Goldman Sachs, that is the good news. The bad news is that there is a cost associated with becoming one of the government’s favored financials. The Fed will be granted almost unlimited power to micromanage systemically important institutions. If the Fed believes that a firm’s actions increase the risk of a financial meltdown, then it can order a halt. But even this eventually will be a net positive for the bottom line."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aATP..yenY9c
they put the Fedres together after the financial crisis of 07, in 1910. You have to love how these little tidbits manage to not get brought up one hundred years later. It will be legal out in the open looting. I wonder what the fourth central bank will look like?
The Fed Reserve just sent the US Treasury something on the order of $50 Bln from the income of 2009. The conspiracy theories are nonsense.
sure did .
let me print a zillion . and i will send you a few billion .
always pay the tribute. even if it means sticking a gun in the head of the payors ,
the fed runs on a (hidden ) cost plus . lol
The whole monetary/fiscal policy gamble since 08 rests on maintaining the global political status quo. If it shifts suddenly then the pyramid will crumble.
Current monetarists learned all their lessons and did all their homework in the laboratory of the late '70s and early '80s. They haven't modified anything since then. Think about that. The prevailing forces and the lay of the land in the US at that time were radically different from now. Some, in fact, were exactly opposite. Therefore current policies are based on false assumptions. The US is locked into a desperate charge into a future that will prove illusory and policy may need to change abruptly. How soon and how abruptly, you ask? That, friend, is the big question.
Volcker was the hammer used to facilitate the crushing of family farmers. Burns was used to blow the ag bubble sky high with easy money, while the government encouraged farmers to take on heavy debt and move to capital and energy intensive farming. Farmers have been a perenniall Wall Street enemy. Volcker's Fed just played its part.
latest version was the debt capture of Farmland Industries--banks got their money back, Food, Inc. split up ops, and maybe even GS walked away with fertilizer operations. 600,000+ family farms oops.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/business/facing-huge-debt-large-farm-op-closing-down-farmland-industries-battled-major.html?pagewanted=1
Thanks to former Monsanto lawyer, Clarence Thomas, our farmers can toil for the Monsanto monopoly. These aspects are only beginning to be questionned in documentaries.
Well said! Well said, ussa!
And let us not forget how many more Monsanto lobbyists Prez Obama has installed in his administration (a bunch!). And now with former Monsanto lackey in charge of the World Bank, game over!
LITERALLY serfs to monsanto. vomit.
Volker didn't destroy the family farmer. They ceased to be the small family operation when they signed that $2,000,000 note to buy the three farms next door. Land speculation got a bunch of them.
Fuck em. I wanted to be a thatcher when I grew up, but there weren't any thatched roofs left to thatch. Nobody is paying me not to thatch roofs and I am not asking them to. One is not entitled to farm subsidy just because one owns 200 aches. Just another subsidy you won't hear the tea-baggers complain about.
The "crushing" of small(er) farms started during the Nixon administration. Ag secretary Earl Butz established the policy of "get big or get out." All meant to dump those socialist ag programs established under the New Deal era.
The rich corporatist types now what's best for us! So much so that they have actually resorted to socialism in order to bail out their failed schemes...
we need a two dollar system. M1 or hard currency, should trade against notational, speculative and margined investment dollars. If people realized that the capitalization the stock market has added in the last year was only worth about 1/10 of what the currency is worth, they would see this rally for what it is. (gold and paper currency are synonomous for this purpose, and maybe they are anyway)
the problem in the first depression was a destruction of hard currency. physical money ceased to exist. Bernanke may be willing to throw credit out of helicopters, but he can't monetize that credit. If the Chinese were to repatriot their UST holdings, that might be a good thing. Of course printing money is inflationary, and thats' the problem isn't it, the government is trying to reflate the economy,while real money continues to disappear.
The one thing about these bubbles is that each time, a small amount of the excess is extracted as cash, and if you do it enough times, like sisyphous, you might succeed in actually increasing the money supply enough that the economy can get moving. But typically in such boom and bust scenarios most of the leveraged gains are lost.
How many phony leveraged dollars would it take to buy one sweat dollar? A lot I think.
Here is a awesome interview from the real news outlining the new global currency regime
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...
End the Federal Reserve.
It is the single greatest threat to domestic "terrorism" in three generations.
That entity of secretive, unaccountable, self-preservationists is stealing absolutely everything you own whether you care to acknowledge it or not.
Lies, lies and lies. It's all to protect the corporate, none for the "people" (suckers)
The tool of the Federal Reserve is your government.
While I too detest the Fed, I still have to wonder what happens when we such activities are then under direct purview of Congress, you know, the same folks who fell for WMD, the same folks who set up all of this to begin with? (eliminating regulations and then not enforcing the remaining regulations)
Interesting point. The lesser of two evils, perhaps?
"The past, far from disappearing or lying down and being quiet, has an embarrassing and persistent way
of returning and haunting us unless it has in fact been dealt with adequately."
Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Winner
"IF I am going to be forced to own paper assets I want to focus on quality, on global big caps (debt & equity), and on strong balance sheet developing economy stks, where the focus should be on DOMESTIC grwth/growing domestic demand."
Thats what I'm saying. I am not saying this to be fascist, I say this just because I think that is what the fascists HOPE to accomplish. Do not let them! Buy silver!
Interesting. If you read this post just so, it almost looks like some sort of code, doesn't it?.
Know what else is interesting? When I google searched," def: janjuah", guess what comes up? Nah, you've just got to go see for yourself.
Pop star Julia Alexandratou's sex tape gives Greece a welcome break from debt crisis blues:http://www.onenewspage.com/news/World/20100316/9198584/Pop-star-Julia-Al...
If you wanyed to form a cozy club of people who don't understand the markets and are always puzzled about stuff then BJ should be your president.
The US political system runs on a 4 year cycle - except when you consider the "mid terms" it basically becomes a 2 year cycle.
Where's the political will, the incentive to take the "long hard steps" that will make a real difference long-term?
All it will get you is a lost election, or effective loss of power after a losing mid term.
The career politician is all too aware that their survival depends entirely on appeasing the ignorant masses - not supporting or taking any painful long term action.
Now consider that no politician wants to go into an election without "the people" having 1st enjoyed some good times for at least a year... and where does that leave you??
Anything that takes much more than about 12 months to have some rosy, cheery effect on the masses is politically unpalatable, cause you sure as hell don't want angry unhappy people going to the polls.
Voluntary austerity is meaningless. The system made the services untennable.
If you want a state that can provide social services, you can't be in this MONETARY system.
With an American credit system, you don't need voluntary austerity, and you need not borrow from banks creating a bigger hole.
It's not a free lunch either. It's not perfect, and in the switchover, certain things will fail, and some people will lose their bets. Some pensions that bet will lose.
But austerity from cutting social services only has one reason. Bankers.
They tell you, you can't afford it. They tell you, you HAVE to borrow from THEM to pay for it. That's complete BS. Only to keep a monetary system going is austerity 'needed'. But why force austerity for a crappy system? Thus it IS NOT neccessary. You have an alternative, that allows you to create real dollars, and not have to borrow from banks to do it. You then don't have to worry about floating all your debt, because you aren't borrowing from banks, and letting the 'free hand of the market' dictate the rates. The gov't can set those up, and did before the federal reserve.
It's why Ron Paul is 1/2 exactly right, and 1/2 dead wrong. Austerity is idiocy. If someone promotes austerity to 'solve' anything, they're not see the bigger, real picture.
We need not keep this imperialist monetary system alive. If you want to keep it, austerity will be the rule, and it won't change a damn thing, or correct a woefully broke system.
Good luck pushing austerity, when it's 100 percent bs that you need to. 100 percent certain that it won't change anything. 100 percent certain the system will still crash.
You could cut social spending around the world to 0. Absolute 0, and it still wouldn't save the system from crashing.
The author better think a little more. They have a lot right, but forgot the BIGGEST issue. That only in monetarism do idiots falsely believe austerity will save them from ruin. The ruin is guaranteed. The austerity is by choice. Either directly, or failing to fix the problem.
The answers have been there since BEFORE lehman bros. Some people should understand that. Then push for that. But because these same banksters have riddled everyone's brain with bs for at least 40 years, or you're whole life, you turn down the solution because they said so.
LaRouche has the answers. They are not perfect, but they are realistic. Global Glass/stegall
American Credit system
Nuclear power (next 0-30-50 years)
Fusion power (30-50 year apollo style program)
Real space program
Infrastructure
Education
It's about creating REAL things, and not Paper. Monetarism is all about paper, and will force you into austerity to create paper.
At this point every should be saying, stop the monetary world, I want off. Or else put in piss poor solutions that will make everyone within the laws pervue, suffer.
Your choice, you DO have one, even if you don't realize it. Austerity is a choice, and it's the WRONG one.
quality paper
Charmin
Scott's
alway there to get the job finished