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The Banker Who Was God
The Banker Who Was God
From this week's Market Shadows Newsletter, The Banker Who Was God (6-23-13).
American writer and cartoonist James Thurber wrote, "The Owl Who Was God" in 1940, long before the Chairman of the Federal Reserve would become the de facto ruler of the world’s financial system. It begins as a typical fable about relationships among animal characters. “Once upon a starless midnight there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by, unnoticed. ‘You!’ said the owl. ‘Who?’ they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness.”
The owl soon demonstrated accidental highness and gained a reputation as the greatest and wisest creature of the region. He could see in the dark and answer all questions. Except for a particularly observant fox, the neighborhood animals became intoxicated with the owl’s splendor and selected him as their leader.
The animal fan-club blindly trusted the owl and followed him everywhere. “He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance... So they followed him wherever he went and when he bumped into things they began to bump into things, too.
“Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him. Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl. ‘There’s danger ahead,’ said the secretary bird. ‘To wit?’ said the owl. The secretary bird told him. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ he asked. ‘Who?’ said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. ‘He’s God!’ cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying ‘He’s God’ when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.
"Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."
[Source: James Thurber, Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated (New York, 1940), pp. 35-36.]
Last week, Bernanke spoke about the possibility of ending quantitative easing (QE) earlier than originally anticipated if warranted by a growing economy. The stock market reacted negatively, bonds sold off and yields spiked up. In Don’t Fear the Taper, we surmised Bernanke may talk the taper, but ultimately cannot risk soaring interest rates and a falling stock market.
Lee Adler of the Wall Street Examiner pointed out that the Fed is lousy at predicting how the economy will do, anyway. “Bernanke said today that the taper will depend on the economy sticking around the Fed’s forecasts. The problem is that the Fed has never been able to forecast the economy correctly. It hasn’t even been able to forecast present conditions correctly.
“This is true not just of the aggregate FOMC forecast, but of each individual member surveyed. The Washington Post covered this issue today. I wrote a report on this in 2010 covering the period of 2007 to 2010. I think the market woke up today to just how clueless, delusional, manipulative, and incompetent Ben Bernanke really is." (Fed Will Taper If Economy Goes As Forecast--Uh Oh! Fed Sucks At Forecasting.)
James Howard Kunstler commented on the Fed’s dilemma, “If the Fed were to reduce its purchases of this debt paper, nobody else would buy it. The reason the Fed buys the quantity it does in the first place ($85 billion-a-month) is that nobody else would touch it at the offered zero interest rates. The US Treasury and the mortgage bundlers could only sell the stuff if they paid higher interest rates. But the US government would choke to death on higher interest rates because its aggregate debt is so huge and the scheduled interest payments so gigantic that a one percent increase would destroy even the fantasy of economic equilibrium.” (James Howard Kunstler's Mid Year Digest)
Read the entire Market Shadows Newsletter, The Banker Who Was God (6-23-13)
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Fed this, Fed that, personally I'm Fed up.
Well at least no one thinks Obama is a god. Its not like he proclaimed it live on TV. Oh wait...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOpa_zuC4vg
But doesn't that make him the anit-Christ? Oh I guess I should (like he says) be still.
No he is not the anit-Christ.
And yeah he was declared a god, then after eating a feast at the Taco Bell he trusted a fart in his white robes.
"Mommy when I did that in public you spanked me when we got home."
Great Stuff Ilene. Love the Thurber moral, "You can fool too many of the people too much of the time".
Perfectly illustrates what the FED does and what some Forcasters such as EWI and Co. never understood.
Afterall, they said the FED does not matter. Hello. Yes they do, for they have Fooled the People again.
Article saying that the collapse of AIG a few years back, threatening US economic collapse, might have been an intentional crime by the bankster now appointed to head the Bank of Israel
« AIG Collapse Player Appointed Bank of Israel Governor
Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that Jacob Frenkel had been appointed to be the next Governor of the Bank of Israel.
Netanyahu forgot to mention Frenkel’s involvement in the collapse of USA’s insurance giant AIG.
This outstanding Israeli economist and patriot was Vice Chairman of AIG while it collapsed. He claims to have failed to predict the sub-prime disaster. He can say that to a senatorial committee; he would never dare to mention that to an Israeli. The State of Israel would have benefited from the fallout in a myriad of ways as it did from the collapse of its own banks.
once he was parachuted at the very top of AIG, he forgot all his studies and was unable to recognize a simple bubble-scheme. Frenkel, go tell the story to an American. Don’t try it with one of your former Israeli-slaves. The collapse had been engineered; maybe from outside America.
Shortly after the collapse, Frenkel left AIG. Things were left to cool down for a while, and now, Netanyahu had done everything to thank Frenkel, who got back his fiefdom as the main banker of the Zionists »
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/06/24/aig-collapse-player-appointed-ba...
Failure is in the eye of the beholder. If the failure was part of the agenda, they are really a success.
Frenkl did his job, he just didn't do it for those that were paying him.
It's called 'revolving door' and has been practiced here in these united states for a long time.
or as the Japanese famously call it "the descent into heaven." messy business indeed...but we go with the friends we start with usually. "branching out" as they say is forever the challenge "lest we become stale in thought and deed." and stale we have become. this is a great article and for those long the bond markets like me "this was a truck indeed." i gotta say i'm not disappointed one reason being philosphical--i can't say i believe in free market capitalism and then when i get it upside my head start complaining about the lack of government support--but the other reason is that i truly do believe "foundation-ally" that business and political/economy fundamentals are sound in the USA. i've strayed from this reservation intentionally...wrongly it would appear... because i believe in forward looking the money making "outlier" positions can be discovered. these things are not without great dangers and i've said that here. for anyone wondering what i meant now they know. the Chairman is in my opinion more powerful now than he ever was when he was "merely dispensing product." he's now shown he can withhold it as well...no, he has not been run over by a truck but we sure have. HIS actually. having said that it can at best be said that believing in such a "sound money" approach as the Chairman is now executing on is still just an act of faith. there are no guarantees indeed that "the economic forecasting team" is in any way right about the recovery "and now is/was the time to do this." who wouldn't prefer a Fed that never roiled the entire global marketplace?!!! but indeed that is in fact what he has done. the best i can say is we'll see what tomorrow brings and "always trade on liquidity." the idea that what has happened in the treasury market these past six weeks...let alone six days...is somehow indicative of a healthy economic recovery i won't even bother criticizing it's so ridiculous and patently false. i've lived and been employed in healthy economies ever since i was a kid...and this economy is the worst ever. i find it ironic that of all the "radical Presidents" we could have elected we've discovered Wall Street's most favorite one ever. I still think it's the Clinton's fault somehow..."running interference" and all that other shit. But still...you know, hey bro...sometimes you just gotta go out there and start arresting people. you're the expert in your poll numbers of course but...dude, if you happen to be pondering between tokes on your doobie..."now is the time."