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Dear Ben, Please Print us More Money
Dear Ben,
Please print us more money. We want you to prop up the stock market. Everybody knows it's a Ponzi scheme that will collapse without your support. You don't want us to end up like Bernie Madoff's clients. No, Ben, we love Ponzi schemes. We get in early and get out before they collapse. That's why we're rich. The bad thing is that they sometimes collapse before we can get out. But you already bailed us out twice in the last couple of years through printing trillions of dollars. Why not a third time?
That will also keep the bond-market bubble inflated. We have to admit that you've done an excellent job there, hands down. Negative real yields all the way up the yield curve! Awesome. Now if you could just print a few trillions and buy up the sovereigns from the PIIGS. Euro crisis over. End of story. And we'd get richer because we'd sell them to you at face value though we bought them at fifty cents on the dollar.
And why not forever? Just keep printing. Because as soon as you stop, stock markets will crash again, and credit markets will seize, and then we're back on this awful ride to hell.
Of course, it'll cause inflation, which is good. You yourself said that. You stated many times that you want inflation. In fact, you said that one of the goals of the Fed, after propping up the markets, is to create inflation. So stick to it, Ben. Don't slack off suddenly just because some cowboy threatened you.
Inflation, in conjunction with your near-zero yields, has all sorts of benefits. For example, it will eat up the Social Security trust fund, whose $2 trillion balance is invested in treasuries. Fixed-income investors, retirees, and everybody who has any savings will also be demolished. And homeowners. But don't worry. They won't figure it out. They don't get a statement every month that shows how much inflation cost them. It's a quiet way of stealing from them, and it'll impoverish them over time, but it'll make us, the recipients of the money you print, richer.
You see, Ben, we can charge higher prices for our goods and services. And even if we have to pay more for raw materials, we look good. Our inventories increase in value, and we can claim sales jumped 10% because we raised prices by 10%. Analysts dig that.
Recently, Ben, you've done a decent job on inflation. In July, we were running at an annual rate of 6%. Not bad. But you need to preempt any cooling off. So keep printing.
Now, we're not talking about wage inflation. Oh no. We have to keep wages down. We need cheap labor, or else we'd have to send these jobs to China—which we're doing anyway. And not just to assemble iPhones. Heck, our lawyers in India are doing the same work as our local lawyers for one-tenth the pay. So, if our local lawyers want to be competitive.... Just think how much more profit we could make if wages collapsed!
Real wages have been declining for ten years and fell another 1.7% since July 2010. But that's not enough. So get with it, Ben. Print more. And don't worry about the wusses out there who say that choking the middle class like that will put us into a permanent recession. Just get the banks to loan them lots of money so they can buy our stuff, and when the loans blow up, you buy them from the banks at face value. Full circle, Ben.
The trillions you've printed and handed to us, well, we put them to work, and we created jobs in China and Mexico and Germany, and we bought assets, and it inflated prices, and now we're even richer. We're proud of you, Ben. Think of the influence you have. And not just here. Around the world, Ben! Look at the Middle East and North Africa. See the food riots, rebellions, and civil wars it caused? Thousands of people died and entire governments were toppled.... Oh, wait. That's a bad example.
And then there is Congress. We invested in them through campaign contributions and other mechanisms to get them to spend trillions of dollars every year on our products and services, and they even started a few wars, and it made us richer—without taxing our companies or us. It's a wonderful system.
But the deficits have become so huge that they exceed what the Treasury can borrow. So we're glad, Ben, that you stepped up to the plate and printed enough money to monetize the deficit. But Ben, you can't just stop now! You've got to keep at it. Or else, the whole system will blow up. Well, it'll blow up anyway, but we don't want it to blow up now. So, Ben, you don't have a choice. Otherwise, we'd lose a lot of money in our schemes, and nobody wants that.
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"It was perfect." As Johnny Depp kept saying in the movie "Blow", right up until they threw his ass in jail for good.
Or as Bubbles from The Trailer Park Boys said about Rickys latest genius failsafe plan to grow 10,000 weed plants and sell it to the prison guards...'Sure Rick its a perfectly safe plan and we're guaranteed not to get caught, right up until we get caught again'.
When does Ben get tried for treason? <Maybe that is why more than afew Fed Governors are now going on record against QE2 and QE3.
Many people around the world have died already from his reckless policies....and I fear that many more will as well, when China and Russia call in the debts or ask for collateral in Gold.
Hey wait a minute isn't that what Finland just do to Greece?
The Ninjas are Coming!! The Ninjas are coming!!! Look out Ben!!!
Ben Bernanke, Send Me Some Green!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqSfnH51KX8
happy zh bday to me biachez
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
-Mises
I just referenced that it my reply to Truth in Sunshine. It's coming, bitchez, sooner than we think...
What i find interesting about the USA is what work we can't export to "cheap labor" can be solved by "importing the cheap directly." how creative! how come i didn't think of that! wake me up when WW III has begun in earnest.
That's sickening. Goodnight
Outstanding, outstanding article, that puts the slime up front and center.
We're being slimed.
Thanks to Richter for this amazing piece.
This should be stapled to The Bernank's forehead.
Thanks. And thanks for quoting and linking my article elsewhere on ZH. Now, where did I put that dang stapler? Ever since I entered the paperless world, I can't find anything anymore.
I agree- it lays out exactly what the Chairsatan has done, and the crack up boom will be laid at his (and his congressional and executive enablers) feet.
The guy down the street just bought all his kids new I-Pads for school. Two got new cars. I asked him how he can afford it and he smiled,"I just stopped paying my mortgage like evryone else. I can live here years for free before they throw me out."
The New American culture is emerging.
Now when they knock on your door. Demand for the original mortgage, foreclosure documents and ask for the original which most probably they can't reproduce cuz it was robo signed.
For more Illegal Foreclosure Epidemic read some more.
http://www.nationofchange.org/illegal-foreclosure-epidemic-1313418502
Now when they knock on your door. Demand for the original mortgage, foreclosure documents and ask for the original which most probably they can't reproduce cuz it was robo signed.
For more Illegal Foreclosure Epidemic read some more.
http://www.nationofchange.org/illegal-foreclosure-epidemic-1313418502
foreclose on someone's home, an authorized bank employee must sign the foreclosure document, swearing that the facts in it are true. But that requires hiring people to review each case. To avoid that cost, they take an illegal shortcut by signing the name of someone who has not read the document and might not even exist.They are wily bankers, and the only lesson they ever seem to learn is that shortcuts can be profitable — as long as you don't get caught. But, once again, they've been caught rushing through foreclosures, using the same old scam called "robo-signing."
To foreclose on someone's home, an authorized bank employee must sign the foreclosure document, swearing that the facts in it are true. But that requires hiring people to review each case. To avoid that cost, they take an illegal shortcut by signing the name of someone who has not read the document and might not even exist.
They are wily bankers, and the only lesson they ever seem to learn is that shortcuts can be profitable — as long as you don't get caught. But, once again, they've been caught rushing through foreclosures, using the same old scam called "robo-signing."
To foreclose on someone's home, an authorized bank employee must sign the foreclosure document, swearing that the facts in it are true. But that requires hiring people to review each case. To avoid that cost, they take an illegal shortcut by signing the name of someone who has not read the document and might not even exist.
They are wily bankers, and the only lesson they ever seem to learn is that shortcuts can be profitable — as long as you don't get caught. But, once again, they've been caught rushing through foreclosures, using the same old scam called "robo-signing."
To foreclose on someone's home, an authorized bank employee must sign the foreclosure document, swearing that the facts in it are true. But that requires hiring people to review each case. To avoid that cost, they take an illegal shortcut by signing the name of someone who has not read the document and might not even exist.
They are wily bankers, and the only lesson they ever seem to learn is that shortcuts can be profitable — as long as you don't get caught. But, once again, they've been caught rushing through foreclosures, using the same old scam called "robo-signing."
To foreclose on someone's home, an authorized bank employee must sign the foreclosure document, swearing that the facts in it are true. But that requires hiring people to review each case. To avoid that cost, they take an illegal shortcut by signing the name of someone who has not read the document and might not even exist.
This is actually a very important investment perspective. Do squatters help high tech?
...or does high tech help squatters? I think so.
Both good points. Let's say both?
Seems the inevitable balance is returning to the system. Housing stock overvalued, currency weakened, real wealth generating capacity offshored = mortgages unaffordable. So, people stop paying mortgages, and don't maintain houses, and the price of a neglected home drops. More renters emerge, but they're broke. So, landlords don't maintain rental property. Buyers have less cash, so no-one maintains a home even if they're hoping to sell. The nominal value of housing stock falls. Mark to market.
I don't know how it can be any other way. The housing stock can't be liquidated and sold to China. Well, not most of it, barring trailers and a small number of prefabricated units. Maybe a decade or two from now, we have equilibrium. Low rents, low mortgages, worn out housing. I could be wrong. I'd love to know what other ZHers think - will there be a massive crash, or a slow slide? (I'm not looking to move! This is just so fascinating.)
If they can't produce a legitimate note, they may not even be able to throw him out. The MERS system has screwed hundreds of years of property law/chain of title.
Good for your neighbor- not so good for the banks, or the neighborhood.
Yeah. He stopped mowing his lawn. The neighborhood is turning into one of those "suburbs to slum" stories. I am renting here too but I take care of my rental. I sold three years ago ...would NEVER buy now....not until this entire fiasco clears the air---probably for another 3 to 5 years at least. Too risky now and prices will continue to fall...more proof as shown by my neighbor.
Your too optimistic. Japan took over 20 years. We have about 10 in so far.
We are Worse than Japan Now.
If this lasts 20 years, I'll eat my hat. Japan could do its thing because it was able to, for the most part, exist in a bit of vacuum (or at least was a small enough part of the larger system that the system could make adjustments and maintain the perceived normalcy). As we do our thing, we export inflation globally. We are creating powder kegs everywhere. Chain reactions to come. All sorts of narratives will be created to explain why WWIII started... they'll sound reasonable enough. But it's the central bankers... it's always the central bankers.
Kill the market or kill the currency...maybe Ben should be called 'Sophie'.
I don't know if it's an either/or proposition. I think it's both. It's just a question of which one comes first. Given the current path, I'll go with currency.
I tend to believe that both of you are still thinking in old paradigms. What were the war objectives of Nazi Germany & Imperial Japan? To use their superior technological capabilities in order to expropriate critical resources for the maintenance & well being of their respective empires. Hell, Hitler even went so far as to draw up plans for his master capital, in which all vassal states would pay tribute.
Can someone please explain to me how the USA is any different? Does money/debt and/or markets really matter if we control, by military force, the world's critical assets? I mean, does anybody have to really work stateside if we can force others to work/provide for us? What are their alternatives? What's the cost to us? A few guys killed each week while in theater? Who even knows about that, what with the media lock down?
The real brilliance is, we didn't come straight out & say, like Germay/Japan, that we're better than everyone else, so there. No, we played the ultimate victim card, ie "why do they hate us"? IOW, we're **defending** ourselves! Sheer brilliance I say, bravo.
Rather than focus on money/markets, I would suggest one should consider how to survive a tryanny. Nothing is going to change until someone else steps up & challenges us, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. So the price manipulations will continue, soon to be following by supply regulations. After that comes restrictions on access, etc.
As someone else pointed out on an earlier thread, the US is now fully entering the Soviet phase.