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Paul Singer Slams The Fake World: "Fake Growth, Fake Money, Fake Jobs, Fake Stability, Fake Inflation Numbers"
Excerpted from Elliott Management's Paul Singer letter to investors,
FAKING IT
Nobody knows when reality will overtake the rhetoric, lies, phony statistics, wishful thinking, fake prices and tiresome poseurs pretending to be world leaders. The situation is universal, a consequence of incompetent leaders and careless (or ignorant) citizenry. Global problems are continuing to mount, along with the risk that the consequences of years of bad policies and inept leadership compound (as sometimes happens) in a short window of time. Let us start by unpacking some current examples of fakery, and then try to explore the consequences.
Monetary policy.
Either out of ideology or incompetence, all major developed governments have given up (did they ever really try?) attempting to use solid, fundamental policies to create sustainable, strong growth in output, incomes, innovation, entrepreneurship and good jobs. The policies that are needed (in the areas of tax, regulatory, labor, education and training, energy, rule of law, and trade) are not unknown, nor are they too complicated for even the most simple-minded politician to understand. But in most developed countries, there is and has been complete policy paralysis on the growth-generation side, as elected officials have delegated the entirety of the task to central bankers.
For their part, the central bankers are proud and delighted to be providing the primary support for the global economy. Their training for this role took place in the decades before the 2008 financial crisis, when central bankers (led by “The Maestro,” Alan Greenspan) “deftly” headed off crisis after crisis. These policy responses “worked,” we were told, and they promised a new era of fine-tuning, moderation in markets and complete control of the economy by central bankers. The words in quotes are meant to be ironic, of course, because in fact, the Federal Reserve Board’s moves disguised hidden – but serious and real – future costs, which came due in 2008. The ensuing crisis introduced the term “moral hazard” (not meant to be ironic) into the mainstream, meaning that risks were taken by financial institutions and others seeking private reward, while the costs of the risks were borne primarily by the taxpayers. Central bank manipulation of prices and risk taking has become the norm over the last six years, because it is so hard for investors to see the downside. QE and ZIRP have been “free,” as far as most people are concerned, in terms of stability, asset price and economic growth, and economic recovery. “Free” in this context means devoid of future countervailing negative consequences. Unfortunately, this particular magic bullet is illusory – the negative consequences are in the early stages of revealing themselves.
Among the worst consequences of the delegation of responsibility from political leaders to central bankers has been the increasing arrogance of the latter group and their inability to understand the rapidly evolving nature of the world’s major financial institutions. Prior to the crisis, central bankers were unable to understand the risks that were building up in the global financial system and the economy. They did not see the 2008 collapse coming, nor did they perceive how fragile the system had become, or that the major financial institutions had become the largest and most leveraged hedge funds on earth.
This lapse was a catastrophic error, not just of execution but also of theory and structure. During the 2008 crisis, the central bankers (rightly) applied standard (more or less) responses to financial collapse (flooding the system with liquidity and reducing interest rates), which of course truncated the crisis and stabilized the system. But their inability to understand the financial system, or to take responsibility for their massive failures in causing/allowing the crisis to occur, has resulted in a seriously deficient economic recovery phase. Central bankers do not understand that it was their tinkering, manipulation, bailouts and false confidence that encouraged and enabled the insanity that led to the fragility and collapse. Partially as a result of that misunderstanding, the developed world has doubled down on the same policies, feeding the central bankers’ supreme self-confidence. Political leaders have been content to stand aside and watch the central bankers do their seemingly magical and magnificent work.
The believers in the wisdom of this central-banker-centric economic world have been crowing and gloating that those (like us) who have raised concerns about the risks posed by the post-crisis, monetary-dominated policy mix (inflation, distortions, growing inequality, lower growth) are just “wrong” and should apologize for a “massive error.” This, shall we say, “Krugmanization” of a substantial portion of the economics profession and punditocracy is in its triumphalist phase, and whether its smug non-stop “victory lap” ultimately represents an embarrassing high-water mark is for subsequent events to reveal.
However, let us look at the policies that have been implemented post-crisis (in the absence of the kind of solid pro-growth policies that we and others have been advocating) and compare them to the policies that were in place during the run-up to the 2008 crisis.
Pre-crisis, the Fed funds rate was 1% for 2-1/2 years. There was no asset buying by the central bank (QE), but the persistently low Fed funds rate fueled bubbles in leverage, real estate and structured products. The balance sheets and derivatives books of financial institutions went from crazy to colossally insane.
Following the crisis, the Fed funds rate has been effectively zero for six years, and QE has put several trillion dollars of government and mortgage debt on the books of the world’s major central banks. Indeed, a substantial portion of government spending in the past six years has been “financed” by QE. If the gibberish that passes for explanations of why this is not just money printing makes sense to you, then please give us a call so we can be educated. The explanation makes no sense to us.
ZIRP has allowed insolvent corporations to issue debt at almost no premium to government bond rates. Companies that should be shuttered or taken over and chopped up are instead able to pursue projects that should never have seen the light of day, and to create fake demand that essentially borrows growth (and jobs) from the future.
A good deal of the economic and jobs growth post-crisis is false growth, with little chance of being sustainable and self-reinforcing. It is based on fake money conjured by the Fed to buy assets at fake prices. What happens when interest rates are normalized and QE stops (and reverses) globally is a question that nobody wants to contemplate. The financial system is fragile, still ultra-leveraged and reliant upon a continuation of superlow interest rates. Thus, the appearance of stability and low volatility is also illusory.
Government economic data.
Some of the most important government data is unreliable, starting with inflation. Reported real GDP growth has been in the 2% annualized range for the last few years. The 4% annualized real growth rate reported for the second quarter of 2014 only reversed the terrible first quarter numbers, so year-over-year growth was still only in the 2% range for the twelve months ended June 30, 2014. Only if third and fourth quarter real GDP growth reaches 3% or higher, and only if that rate persists next year, will it be fair to say that the U.S. economy has finally recovered from the crisis (six tough years later).
But regardless of the purported results for the rest of 2014 and into 2015, all of the reported growth numbers are too high, because the official inflation number is too low. Over a long period of time, these figures have become politicized, always in the direction of under-reporting inflation. Constant repetition has resulted in most policymakers and economists now just accepting the adjustments and tricks that have become part of the reporting culture. From the notion that there is “core” and “non-core” inflation; to ignoring house prices and using “rental equivalence”; to “hedonic adjustments” according to which, if your computer is “better” than last year’s, then you should subtract an amount from the actual price every year to reflect that improvement, even though it is subjective and not really quantifiable; to a handful of other nonsensical adjustments, inflation is understated. Inflation is also distorted by the increasing gap between the spending basket of the well-off and that of the middle class (check out London, Manhattan, Aspen and East Hampton real estate prices, as well as high-end art prices, to see what the leading edge of hyperinflation could look like).
Said differently, inflation is the degradation of the value of money. Money has no meaning beyond the value of the real things for which it can be exchanged. The inventions and tools of modern finance have made things look really complicated, but stripping inflation to its essence is critical to understanding what is real and what is false. The inflation that has infected asset prices is not to be ignored just because the middleclass spending bucket is not rising in price at the same rates as high-end real estate, stocks, bonds, art and other things that benefit from QE and ZIRP. Money is losing value in those areas. This is inflation, plain and simple. If and when the situation gets to be Argentina-like, with generalized increases across the entire spending spectrum, it will be clear to everyone. In the meantime, sadly, policymakers do not recognize the reality of the peculiar and sectoral inflation, in some cases massive and growing, that has been caused by money printing and bad policy.
Even apart from rising prices in high-end goods, all of this suggests that CPI inflation is being understated by some unknowable amount, which we estimate is between 1/2% and 1% per year. This is a big difference in a 2% or 2-1/2% per year reported real GDP growth environment. Middle class citizens who are paying more at the supermarket and for college tuition and for many other goods and services feel that inflation is higher than reported, but they lack access to reliable data. The well-off think that it is their exquisite good choices that enable them to sell their overpriced $10 million co-op apartment and buy a $20 million overpriced Hamptons beach home. Neither group is coming to grips with the insidious and tricky nature of modern inflation, and the government just uses its tone of complete confidence to ignore what citizens see with their own eyes.
Unemployment figures are also a source of faulty or misleading data. The headline currently reported unemployment rate of 5.9% is deeply misleading. A 35-year low in the workforce participation rate, a policy-driven transition from full-time to part-time jobs, and the transition from high-paying jobs to relatively low-paying service jobs, all combine to make the headline rate a poor measure of employment health. Support for our statement is provided by the data on real wages, which have been stagnant during the entire post-crisis period. These figures for trends in real wages avoid the distortions we have described above, and are consonant with the polling numbers which show that Americans believe their country is on the wrong track and that the future prospects for themselves and their children are poor.
Deleveraging.
The 16th Geneva Report on the World Economy (published in September of this year by the Centre for Economic Policy Research) says that the total burden of global non-financial debt, private and public, has risen from 60% of national income in 2001 to almost 200% after the crisis in 2009 and to 215% in 2013. Contrary to widely held beliefs, the world’s leading governments and financial institutions have not yet begun to de-lever, and the global debt-to-GDP ratio is still growing to record highs, even before taking into account entitlement programs.
* * *
Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake financial stability, fake jobs, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth. Our feeling is that confidence, especially when it is unjustified, is quite a thin veneer. When confidence is lost, that loss can be severe, sudden and simultaneous across a number of markets and sectors.
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Perhaps, but you can bet all that bailout money was and is very fucking real motherfuckers.
End that MISERABLE PIECE OF SHIT ENTITY called "the Federal Reserve" and prosperity will appear.
They are nothing but parasitic leeches on the American people.
When CONfidence is lost then a very rough time is coming for all of us. True purging will come and most urban areas will become killing fields. That day of reckoning is not to be enjoyed.
why cant i borrow a trillion from the fed at zero and gamble on the markets until i have a few billion for myself and if my 'bets' fail, they'll lend me another trillion
How about we enforce counterfeiting and usury laws
PUNISHABLE BY DEATH
FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT
that is at the very heart of americana ... that is america like it or not ... my man singer ... sorry to disappoint you, i know you have high standards :)
God is real. I thank him for all the bennies, including the ability to discern the truth from the lies (most of the time). Live every day like you're one heartbeat away from eternity because we all are one heartbeat away from eternity.
The food, the cars, the house, the kids, the grandkids, the beautiful wife, the fully-loaded gun safe, the gold, the silver, the vacations, the work, the new tire, tooth crown, arthritic shoulder and all the other stuff is REAL!
That is why we are where we are today...A mess
Current Layoff / Business Closing: http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
-
Print MOAR electronic yen and buy MOAR DEBT, Kuroda-san!
http://headlines.ransquawk.com/headlines/japan-s-gdp-declines-for-the-fi...
News Headline Summary
Japan's GDP declines for the first time since April, according to Nikkei
- Japan's gross domestic product for September likely dropped 0.3% on the month in real terms, falling for the first time in five months, the Japan Center for Economic Research said Tuesday.
Update details:
- As a guide, Japan's next GDP announcement is scheduled on the 16th of November.
Print 18:16 - Economic Commentary - Source: BBG
Paul Singer - one of the biggest welfare queens on earth - writes some words, one of those words being 'fake'. In other irrelevant news I hear Greenspan has criticism on low interest rates at the fed..
Not surprised you didn't read the article, nor the fact you attacked the messenger ad hom.
At least you are consistently full of shit James.
Bullshit.
You know nothing about America.
Fake you!
the major financial institutions had become the largest and most leveraged hedge funds on earth
Only one possible outcome: FAIL
Fake hot chocolate and fake tits are the worst fakes of all.
Listen.
I know because I worked there at Research Triangle Park USSA and I saw it first hand.
In America you can be big and successful if you are tribe. If you are not tribe then you can eat dirt and scrape by.
Perfect example
Facebook vs. Myspace. Myspace, no "LIKE" button so it's a big fat fail, yea right.
Well BET, if you ever come back to the RTP I will buy you a cold one.
At least that is real.
pods
Contracted at Qualcomm for 15 months. I quit when another company offered me full time with benefits. No counter offer from Qualcomm... They will use the open position to hire another H1B visa holder from India...(Yes, Qualcomm is a sweatshop, unless you are "tribe")
The only thing economical that is fake is tits.
It's at the heart of the progressive (Nazi) West. Fake Utopia.
Fake birth certificate.
Fakery abounds
Congress abdicated it's powers
- Fake Congress
- Fake Central Bank
- Fake integrity in Banking
- Fake Jobs Stimulus
- Fake Democracy
- Fake free enterprise & markets
- Fake incentive to build capital in USA (business expansion, CapEx)
- Fake concern for Main Street Jobs, Full Time hours, Savings
- Fake SOTU each year
- Fake GDP Stats, Fake Inflation Stats, Fake Employment Stats
- Fake concern about minorities, prision rate, where jobs are
- Fake lie about inequality and transfer of Wealth to the 1%
- Fake reasons for war, droning, DoD spending, Spying
TeethVillage88s
With all the due respect, your post is nonsense because:
a) America is functioning exactly like an Empire is supposed to function
b) And your post distracts from the real ‘unsustainable’ problems:
Growing demographic
Finite energy
Growth by debt
Here’s an example:
In 1944, 29 reindeer were introduced to the island by the United States Coast Guard to provide an emergency food source. The coast guard abandoned the island a few years later, leaving the reindeer.
Subsequently, the reindeer population rose to about 6,000 by 1963 and then died off in the next two years to 42 animals.
A scientific study attributed the population crash to the limited food supply in interaction with climatic factors.
By the 1980s, the reindeer population had completely died out. Environmentalists see this as an issue of overpopulation.
For example, Garrett Hardin cited the "natural experiment" of St. Matthew Island of the reindeer population explosion and collapse as a paradigmatic example of the consequences of overpopulation in his essay An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals
Fake name too.
Fake fantasy football, lol.
Fake wife.
Fake wife's fake tits.
So many parasites... So little time...
Fake boobs should be in there somewhere. But let's face it of all the fakery going on we seem to tolerate nippletism pretty well in workplace hiring practices.
Well it is handy for being able to identify the whores.
He forgot fake tits which might LOOK good but which eventually cause a lot of issues.
He also forgot fake politicians and their fake rhetoric.
And finally, fake gods which have created for an idolatrous consumer.
uh, but fake rhetoric is what 'real' politicians do!
Anyone presuming to speak the 'truth' about the reality of our making wouild not be elected, therefore, would not be a political office, which means they'd not be a politician, but instead a 'wannabe politician'.
Sorry for the parse, but the irony couldn't be passed up.
The problem is everybody already has lost confidence but they cannot get out because they are either holding student debt or underwater mortgages.
So they hold on because they have no other choice.
We live in a world that is fake
Constructed by men on the take
Believing the fools
Who are making the rules
It's time my dear sleeple...awake!
About time we were graced with your wisdom.
Brng it on.
Don't fight the Trend.
More Limericks
Blankety Blank Blankety Blink
This Fringging Country goin' into the Sink
Behold the great wonder we have found
Fakery and forgery in USA abound
please Americans, Please People Think
There are many take the high road
But not in banking lawyering Code
See the Truth please see it now
Fed Congress Corps we can not bow
Stop Lobbying as principals corrode
Many charlatans take us to the brink
Congress maneuvers put us in the drink
No Jobs, no Savings, no savings rate
Racsism, police brutality creating hate
Now politics is like a strange kink
Set up to fail, set up to die
tell me work harder, gotta try
fraudulent stimulus, fake risk
see the coupling, bank and Fed Tryst
Not cake, let them eat pie
Trust the government you silly man
Trust the Fed and old Uncle Sam
Give us your retirement 401K
Promise you a new bright shining day
Now we are pennyless living on the lam
Call me old fashioned if you will
give us movies sports for a thrill
Take away our history and good pay
But know you can't hide on the last day
Crashing economies empty government tills
A piece of advice for a would-be bard:
Rhyming is easy ... but rhythm is hard.
Where you been LK ? Are you now on parole ?
here here.
Although the time to wake passed a long time ago.
When?....5 years give or take a few
The Sheep will only realize it when the football, baseball, hockey etc etc are not on tv and the beer has been seriously diluted
What largely feeds the pro leagues? Poor kids tricked by the big salaries of a tiny minority of players. It is one of the biggest illisions of America. Total distraction and false hope manipulation. America will collapse before they go.
the world is one big smoke and mirror. if and when the citizens of the world realize how much they have been taken for, the elite better have a super super secret bug out island and hope they never get found. Perhaps the space station
"when the citizens of the world realize" Where did I hear that term before? Oh yes from the President of the World and his World citizen globalist friends.
For prosperity to reappear in the USA it will take more than the demise of the Fed. Another facet of the poor business environment is government regulation. Diminish the powers and scope of the EPA, OSHA, IRS and scores of other government agencies and the economy might recover more quickly. Strangulation by regulation is every bit as responsible for the poor economic situation as the Fed's policies. Then end the entire nanny state structure. Etc., etc.
Bullshit.
How about cutting off trade with China/Asia unless they have EPA-like, OSHA-like, Collective Bargaining-like and Universal Healthcare-like laws and regulations.
Competition becomes fair. The people benifit. And maybe the world won't asphixiate itself.
Indeed!
I had about 50G in AIG back in 2008 lost it all.. Goldman had about a 15 billion trade to cover and got bailed out by the Fed and ruling establishment.. Today they are making record profits and I'm merely eeking out a survival.
100 years ago they'd hang horse thieves. What they have stolen is far greater than a horse..
Not enough rope in Texas for the maggots imo!
all of this fakery is shameful. it's like getting pushed around by yosemite sam.
we can trace it back to fake breasts
the true beginning of our slippery slopes
heh, boob enhancement for the womens, boob reductions for the mens.
someone profits from cultural preferences. always.
Well Cath, I am not a boob guy, either for guys or gals. But what is it with dudes carrying them now?
It is almost child abuse to see a baby at the beach drooling at the mouth while their dad is holding them.
pods
That's because our new cultural preference is choosing our own Gender Identity. Nothing fake about it, you can choose to be anything you want man, it's up to you.
Choosing one's sexual identity is the essence of liberty.
Maybe you need to take a pop-quiz on the meaning of liberty.
Sorry dude, but liberty to be degenerates is not the essence of liberty, that's the twisted logic of modern western culture. You can make believe all you want, but you're still what you were born.
What I am talking about is people who have fat that is too lazy to get in line and get with the rest of the fat on a guy's gut, and instead parks itself in the handicapped spot of fat storage on a guy, the breasts.
I am all for "choosing your own adventure." Just accept the consequences for it. Same for face piercings and armfuls of tattoos, or being fat, or being a misanthrope (moi). Have at it if you can pay your own way.
What I am tired of is people using the heavy hand of government to impose their will on others.
pods
It's the massive amount of hormones injected into meat and dairy cattle to increase production that makes daddy look like a bearded mommy.
Same thing causes early developement in girls and small dicks in boys. When I was a kid in the 60s I got boob fixated in the 6th grade and remember that only one girl in the entire class had anything at all. The rest were totally flat or nearly flat. Now you cruise by the elementary school and it's mind-boggling to see all the little girls who look as developed as high school girls were in my day.
You must be short stocks, this will last much longer, decades because the alternative is the dark ages. Central banks can create an infinite amount of money, debt will never the repaid, Russia gets screwed. No one can stop it as long as the US/EU/Japan/China stand together.
"No one can stop it as long as the US/EU/Japan/China stand together."
What if they don't?
I haven't gone short since The Fed start QE. That would be completely stupid. I don't have a printer. In case you missed it asshat, they do.
"the alternative is the dark ages"
That may be true, but even in the dark ages, there was some asshole in a castle living it up at the expense of everyone else.
Personally, I'd be happy with some truth.
The Key:
"Nobody can predict how long governments can get away with fake growth, fake money, fake financial stability, fake jobs, fake inflation numbers and fake income growth"
Until it does implode, step up and get ya som. Don't fight it because you will lose. Japan is going on their 3rd decade (I think) of this and it has not imploded yet.
True. Why hasn't Japan imploded?
fake tits
Nothing is real except the death and taxes. It's been fake for decades. Predicated on bullshit is a moar appropiate term.
But, some people have a great time spending thier fake money, on fake fake houses, fake cars and real hookers. It keeps the district of criminals working to butt fuck the rest of us.
I didn't vote today. I could not figure out who wouldn't fuck me the most. So I bailed.
Everything is a lie!
Alternative title of this investment letter would/should have been:
"Electric Debt Carnival: Trance to the macro reports, smokescreen trade wars, then Wait for the BPS drop" just to give it a bit of tongue in cheek to the millennials that the note hopefully read (inbetween earnings numbers this week).
If Draghi has no support from regional heads, the last time we saw a revolt like this was when Volker and Dodge had to step in to regain control of the regional Feds at Fed & BOC respectively. Only I strongly doubt Spain & France are going to agree to have yields go to 5% and pension funds liquidate.
Those January payroll numbers highlighting the roughneck layoffs is going to clearly be bullish for that all important employment report, that will clearly accelerage yields up.
Just wait until Nigeria or Venez. needs a bailout, and the IMF needs to turn to that USD strength for emergency bailout packages. Look at how hard it was to get the Greece or Ukraine packets out due to fed/Treasury risk-off.
Ah well, its' bullish for America, the only country and consumer who matters. So what difference does it make.
We knew this back in 2008....
yep ... knew by 2010* all we did was put duct tape on humpty dumpty
*Frank-Dodd was passed in 2010 ... complete sham
It's not the leaders; it's the system, which doesn't exist to be led, just gamed.
Fake politicians!
I like reasonably sized fake tits on a thin girl with a heart shaped ass. So, what I'm saying is that not all fake things are bad.
I like all of those things, but I also like a pair of soft, cuddly balls on my babe.
that fakery happened to me once on a first date.
now they hang from my rear view mirror.
I ramholed my congress critter acouple years ago, He's real alright. A real asshole.
It was over in Oct 2011 when MFG imploded as pre-planned and they changed their mind
It was over in May 2013 when rates rose and they changed their mind for a 2nd time
Now world is walking out of the system and reducing real world trade.
I don't see them changing their mind again now, otherwise bullets will fly into heads, literally
"Fake fake fake fake fake!"
Elaine to Jerry, who claimed he could tell a real orgasm from a fake one.
free associating...one of my favorite George Costanza lines:
[He's in bed with his girlfriend, going down on her under the covers. He also happens to have a nice deli sandwich stashed in the night-table drawer, and when he pops out briefly to take a bite, she catches him and exclaims "What are you doing?!" to which he responds, mouth full of sandwich, "Pleasuring you?".
Listen.
You two Americans sound like you memorize your TeeVee lines. Good boys, now eat your peas.
Thanks for the advice. Now scurry back under the Howrah Bridge.
Listen.
"She eats her peas one at a time."
Don't be jealous of our cultural cohesion.
Fake Growth, Fake Money, Fake Jobs, Fake Stability, Fake Inflation Numbers...
...REAL PHYSICAL!
It won't save your ass for shit. Silver at lows, and worthless as rocks.
Collect rocks instead. Cheaper.
Everyone keeps referring to some "Market"
It CEASED BEING A MARKET WITH TBTF!...
Keep trying to play though...and just a reminder...YOU will never know when to get out...but they will..
Fake tits and asses too?
I'm agin 'em both, but fake asses are just plain stupid.
If you fall for false beauty and sexuality, the joke's on you.
LOL haven't seen this movie in about 25 years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-1C6QlvHl8&t=2m50s
We already knew that Paul Singer.
I know I know! I get calls from fake recruiters all the time offering fake jobs with fake salaries and 99.9% of the time never land an interview with the fake hiring manager. "Hello, my name is Tom.", he proclaims with his thick Indian accent. I then procede to ask Tom if his mother really named him that? It's all a farce. Has been for a really long time. However, I keep hearing we need more STEM grads and there are no qualified or skilled workers anymore. Such BS.
"Tank you for cawling shears, my name peggy how i help you"
Listen.
What's your favorite American channel?
listen, I like Chanel # 5
I think that's what your wife was wearing the other night.
Parvinder - it's PARVINDER, Damn it...
they don't need investor confidence anymore. they have old yeller.
Sadly the harm that the Washington-Wall Street cabal is doing isn't fake. The ECB, ECB, FED, BOJ, BOE are but bit players...to the banking oligarchy!
fake media, fake religions, fake terrorists, fake security, fake food, fake athletes, fake hope, fake change, fake borders, fake enemies, ...
I could go on, but I feel the need to take an immolation break.
Oh, almost forgot, fake gold.
...and fake website comments
...those are the worst
It will be interesting when the smoke and mirror tactics cease to work for TPTB. Many people across the globe are slowly waking up to the fact they have been used, abused, and their future has been utterly destroyed by these parasites. The ensuing shit show will be one for the ages. What the catalyst will be to provoke said shit show, I have no clue. I'm shocked and dismayed that the charade has lasted this long.
Well said Paul Singer. The fake economic parallel triggers my potty mouth. Under normal circumstances, I speak fluent non offense English. In the meantime, these bastards are out of control.
;)
At Zero Hedge, we have been saying everything is fake since 2009. What took you so long?
How about fake police who will liberate you from your cash?
Nothing has been real for a long time. Ebola is real. If you are stuck in a Mexican jail... thats real. Can only hope that it gets really real for the Obola admin and the head of the Fed.
Fake fake fake fake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R48KMbOOR-A
Everything can be summed up by a "Seinfeld" moment.
Don't forget the fake President, his fake "wife" and kids
Problem is, Paul, they've got the printing press, and we don't.
Central bankers understand everything very well. There is, however, no reason they should act differently. Banks will always get bailed out. Full scale propaganda will cover all lies. The "markets" get the blame. They control the governments, currency emisions, financial markets, oil and gold prices - no reason for any fear. Yes, it's all fake, but it's like this for more than 20 years and looks like only minority of people do care. The only thing you can do is buy PM and avoid being dependent on fake money, jobs and stability. Unless is the Empire of US, GB and Israel being hit with a major disaster or war, what can stop these fuckers?
So long as we trade real labor for fake money it goes on.
Hell yeah!
The irony is that the inability of developed economies to pass pro growth economic policies is because such efforts invariably get painted as sops to the "evil rich." While in fact the monetary policies they promote in lieu of economic reform is what drives the growing inequality between the rich an everyone else.
Yep. And they get away with it.
They'll fake it until they can't fake it any longer.
Too many fake conservatives.
My guess is the only ones buying the government BS numbers on inflation are the economists, because people in the real world know their numbers are a bunch of lies.
Money is losing value in those areas. This is inflation, plain and simple. If and when the situation gets to be Argentina-like, with generalized increases across the entire spending spectrum, it will be clear to everyone. – Paul Singer
What a bitter pill to take when the criticism of the international financiers and money manipulators comes from an insider like Paul Singer. For he is exactly the individual who manipulated the system to cheat Argentina, using insider connections and biased judges.
Because his criticisms have the ring of truth it becomes disgusting to realize that he is participating in the declining confidence that has created this “fake world.”
“The fact is,” Mark Gongloff wrote July 31 on Huffingon Post, “that one conservative American billionaire and a handful of American judges have just pushed Argentina, a nation of 43 million people with an economy bigger than that of the Netherlands or South Africa, into defaulting on its debt. It's a move that threatens not only chaos for the Argentinian people, but potential chaos for other countries hoping to borrow money in the future.
"’This is America throwing a bomb into the global economic system,’" Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz told The New York Times in a front-page story about the battle.
Who is that billionaire?
It’s billionaire Zionist, Paul Singer, who, according to Jérome Duval and Fatima Fafatale , has made his specialty buying up insolvent debts for a song and later cashing in on them. Say these writers on Voltaire.net, he is now consolidating “his fortune at the expense of the Argentinian people, while already setting his sights on Spain.”
Wrote Duval and Fafatale August 1, 2014: “’Vulture funds’ refer to companies that buy insolvent debts for a song and later try to cash in on them by force… The vulture fund NML Capital that, together with others, has Argentina on the edge of suspending payments, is already devouring the rotting flesh of the Spanish market. Elliott Management, the opportunistic fund of the serial U.S. speculator Paul Singer, has already pocketed a billion euros of Bankia’s failed credit and 300 million euros of Santander. It is estimated that it has paid hardly 50 million for both these portfolios, according to Auraree.com.
“In March 2013, the Spanish financial press informed that Elliott had acquired from the Santander Group a portfolio of 300 million euros of defaulting credit of Santander Consumer Finance with a discount approaching 96%. The price that was paid was laughable: about 12 million euros, according to Cinco Dias.”
These vultures went for lawsuits after having refused to form a part of the 93% of creditors who accepted the exchange with the government. Then New York district judge, Thomas Griesa, prioritized the payment of the vulture funds.
NML Capital is a subsidiary of the inversion fund, Elliott Management Corporation, registered in the fiscal paradise Cayman Islands. It is the empire of Paul Singer, the multibillionaire.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article184957.html
The problem with Argentina is Argentina.
Argentina is a terrifying reality of where the world is headed if the growing pile of manufactured debt and usury by the international bankers is not stopped! As davidwcooney commented regarding the video below:
Argentina HAD a vibrant economy where the people were well off. ? Monopolistic international corporations used their economic influence to bribe and otherwise manipulate government officials to pillage the county's wealth and send the people into dire poverty
“I don’t want a stage of siege or to be a pawn of the International Monetary Fund,” the woman screamed amidst the noise and fires as police riding raging horses bore down with clubs and whips on the protesting Argentineans...
… Argentina's implosion has the IMF's fingerprints all over it…
Take note… from these videos… of the ravages and impoverishment of debt:
The Cynical Eco... on Sun, 04/18/2010 -#307255 wrote, “You think societal meltdown cannot happen in America? Think again...
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6_i8zuffs
My emotions were totally exhausted from what I saw and heard; I’ve not seen anything as poignant as this to express the world’s problem. The results of what can come will not be believed by Americans unless seen.
Here are random snatches of commentary from the video already becoming all too familiar in the United States and the world:
What happened in Argentina? How was it possible that in so rich a country so many people were hungry… the country has been ransacked by a new form of aggression… a daily and silent violence… the never-ending debt…of impoverishment and corruption and the biggest scandal… to enrich Argentinean financiers… to control finance and empty the county of its wealth.
Foreign debt…the policy of indebtedness favored banks and international corporations…19th century lobbyists…administrators of debts…fraudulent origins… depleted the public heritage…crisis and rising oil prices…birth of third-world debt…interest rates reach 16%…. bankruptcy of indebted countries…an alliance of foreign banks and mulitnationals comes to power in Argentina…bled dry…of which half is a private debt…23 billion is owed by multinationals operating in the country, like Citibank, First Boston, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, Banco de Italila…. and by multinational corporations…the unending growth of debt… worst pillage ever suffered by the people…Thieves. Bankers. Government. …the police protecting the thieves…with government complicity…
And words from elderly protestors facing loss of all their savings:
“A dollar at a time. I saved during the 25 years I worked so I could live decently when I retired, not on a State pension...
“I’m the oldest newsvendor in Avellaneda. For 65 years I’ve sold newspaper. All of my saving are in Citibank. The manager of the agency says they’ll return them to me. It’s a lie! Everything I’ve saved by making sacrifices is in their hands…”
and from an official voicing the straits of the people:
…in fact the foreign banks owe money to the Argentineans. In a way it’s a reverse debt. The parent companies must be responsible for the deposits…for the debts of their subsidiaries… it’s a swindle to make the government responsible for the debts of the banks…
and the dying children…
Think it can’t happen here? Think again; it’s already happening…
Keep on trying. You might convince the dead and the unborn, but not the rational and sane. In 2003, Argentina decided to go socialist. Since socialism has never worked and can never work, Argentina is the shits.
JR,
Could you please provide a new link to the youtube video u posted?
I get a "this video is unavailable" msg
Thanks
Yes, JR. Look at Federal Government budget expansion and all the thousands of additional government contracts each year... then look at the bonus money and salary increases of federal employees.
Federal .gov is a train wreck and seems they used Continuing Resolution to stimulate the economy after 2008 crash. But they would tell you that. It needs a Fresh Top to Bottom Audit.
Audit Federal Government across the board.
Yeah I have to agree with Paul Singer even if he is a kind of Vulture Capitalist. Maybe we have something in common with Paul Singer... common origins I suppose(But I have never been to New York).
Inflation from Federal Spending is Real. Contractors get to feel like they are part of a team and that they deserve contract inflation each year. All kinds of ways have been developed to wrangle contract increases and follow-on procurement. Inflation.
Even in you work infrastructure like highways, you would charge more each year as your office gets remodeled or you expand, or you get new computer systems, and the limited number of bidders on contracts can be tracked to see that their is incremental raises in the rates.
US .gov spend over $42 Trillion Dollars in the last 15 years. Think about that number.
@ Yeah I have to agree with Paul Singer even if he is a kind of Vulture Capitalist.
People of Singer's ilk describe the damage they do and remove themselves as the perpetrators. The problem with supporting the accurate statements that Singer makes is that for people who do not know his background, they develop a false admiration.
As Radical Marijuana explains below: “Guys like Singer ARE members of the best organized gangs of criminals, who get away with blaming other people for manifesting the consequences of what guys like Singer actually achieved in the past, through the applications of the methods of organized crime to the political processes, for generation after generation, until the figurehead 'leaders' appear as incompetents, fooling the ‘citizens’ who are ignorant.”
It’s like Al Capone saying the worst thing that’s happening in this town is coming from the criminal element.
Great comment, JR!
This kind of article by Singer was another classic example of how grossly understated most of the featured articles on Zero Hedge usually are. Most articles continue to presume to apply Hanlon's Razor, while deliberately ignoring the most important social facts. The failures of that kind of superficial, mistaken analysis also then enable bullshit "solutions" to be proposed regarding the problems:
"The situation is universal, a consequence of incompetent leaders and careless (or ignorant) citizenry."
That there ARE political puppets performing for the masses of muppets is due to a long history of the application of the methods of organized crime to the political processes, such as bribery, intimidation, and assassination of those who could not otherwise be bribed or intimidated. The biggest gangsters became the international banksters, who were able to capture control over the government, and then all other social institutions, by the runaway triumphs of privatizing the public "money" supply, through vicious spirals of the funding of the political processes, including funding illegal political activities, such as assassinations, etc. ...
As you recorded, JR, Singer looks to be another member of the tribe of the best organized gangs of criminals that are currently dominating a globalized civilization, who are projecting the blame out onto everyone else than themselves. While I AGREE that the political figureheads posing as "leaders" appear to be incompetent, while most "citizens" are carelessly ignorant, the MECHANISMS that drove that were those first recorded in the oldest book on the Art of War, that "success in war is based on deceits" and "spies are the most important soldiers." That was the case not merely in the wars between different societies, but also in the perpetual class wars waged by the ruling classes against those that they ruled over.
The political systems are dominated by political puppets performing for muppets, as a situation deliberately made and maintained by the ruling classes, skillfully using their ability to back up lies with violence, through the political processes to create successfully established systems of legalized lies backed by legalized violence, inside of which systems personal success was proportionately achieved by operating through those entrenched systems of lies backed by violence.
That analysis should be done more rigorously and scientifically, in order to better understand how and why that happened. Doing that deeper analysis means that one should not then collapse back to bogus "solutions" to those problems based on the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals that the biggest bullies originally promoted, which bullshit social stories were then also adopted by the various controlled opposition groups.
As you have also pointed out in previous comments, JR, the CONTROL of the opposition was a crucial aspect to how and why the politicians mostly became puppets, voted for by enough muppets that could be fooled enough of the time. ANY attempts to organize more effective opposition runs into the increasing problems that ANY such effective opposition more and more has to try to cope with the ways that the ruling classes can pay people to infiltrate and subvert that kind of opposition. THAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING FOR GENERATION AFTER GENERATION, FOR A VERY LONG TIME!
My kinds of comments on articles like the one above not only discuss the social facts that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, but also that MUST necessarily be the case, any only better organized crime could provide better government. The basics are that human realities are always organized lies operating robberies, wherein all private property is based on claims backed by coercions, while money is the most abstract form of that, since money is measurement backed by murder.
It is because MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER that the biggest gangsters, the banksters, have taken control of the public "money" supply, while the most important means whereby they achieved that were the assassinations of any politicians that they could not otherwise bribe or intimidate. That is why about the ONLY successful, surviving politicians are the banksters' puppets, while enough of the people have become muppets, brainwashed to believe in bullshit by the public schools and mass media, so that enough of those muppets can be tricked and fooled by political puppets, enough of the time. Against those social facts, there is barely any coherent opposition, that is not controlled. The ONLY publicly significant politicians who are slightly successful still tend to be controlled to stay within the frame of reference of the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, by continuing to promote the same old-fashioned religions and ideologies, which were already co-opted and compromised long ago.
Guys like Singer ARE members of the best organized gangs of criminals, who get away with blaming other people for manifesting the consequences of what guys like Singer actually achieved in the past, through the applications of the methods of organized crime to the political processes, for generation after generation, until the figurehead "leaders" appear as incompetents, fooling the "citizens" who are ignorant.
However, the deeper levels of analysis which reveal those sets of social facts then also indicate that the realistic solutions MUST also be way more radical than anything that the controlled opposition groups, who stay within the same bullshit frame of reference as the biggest bullies, the banksters, originally promoted, are recommending. The FACTS are that all human beings have some power to rob, and power to kill to back that up. All human beings necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy, however, the biggest bullies have succeeded in reversing the meaning of that (similar to how they reversed the meaning of words like "money" etc. ...)
Groups of human beings are collective entropic* pumps of energy. *(Which we understand backwards, due to the ways that we live in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything appears proportionately backwards, including our understanding of the concept of *entropy.*) Some of the most basic aspects of the philosophy of science have been just as much the victims of the biggest bullies' bullshit as have every other aspect of our current civilization, which is dominated by systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which situations are presented by the most successful professional liars and immaculate hypocrites as being good things. INDEED, since human realities must necessarily operate through organized lies and robberies, the dominant social stories have become inverted and perverted to promote the runaway triumphs of enforced frauds as being good things.
I recommend intellectual scientific revolutions, which recognize the degree to which the philosophy of science was also a victim of the biggest bullies, the same as every other social enterprise, which radicalized political science is then able and willing to address the central social facts, regarding how the debt controls are backed up by the death controls, without promoting absurdly idealized goals that depend upon that flow of energy being "stopped."
Our entire political economy is now based on the enforced frauds of private banks being legally allowed to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, while governments' powers back that up. Everyone who enjoys some relative social success MUST necessarily be doing so through operating as liars and hypocrites. In the case of the article above, a billionaire like Singer is enjoying money backed by murder. Singer is one small, recent, member of the collective group of trillionaire mass murderers who have covertly captured control over governments, and thereby effectively privatized the powers to rob, in ways that benefit them, while screwing everyone else, and the natural world even worse!
That monetary system has become like a metastasized cancer, where everyone who makes that "money" is infected, while they can not escape, because all human realities MUST be organized lies operating robberies, wherein the production of destruction controls production, but the vast majority of people do not understand that, because they have been conditioned to not want to understand that. (Which is how and why the articles published on Zero Hedge can routinely be way better than those on the mass media, but still nevertheless be persistently shallow in their presentations.)
Civilizations were primarily driven by the history of warfare. Governments were basically made as military organizations, or organized crime gangs on larger and larger scales. Thus governments assembled and channeled the powers to rob, into what they asserted was "sovereignty," as their attempts to monopolize the power to rob (i.e., the power to tax, and to kill those who resist being taxed, which is what makes fiat money made out of nothing as debts have value.)
The development of those general energy systems, in the form of human civilizations, had their controls exercised by the best organized gangs of criminals, which patterns were fractally repeated throughout the rest of the domestic and foreign affairs of those civilizations. Unless there was some prodigious series of political miracles, which enabled the emergence of sufficiently real opposition to the established systems that was able to coherently operate outside of the frame of reference of the bullshit made and maintained by that social pyramid system, where the pyramidion people's bullshit stories control the language and the ways that most people think, then the established systems will continue to merely be political puppets performing for muppets, while the FACTS regarding their puppet masters continue to be deliberately ignored.
However, to stop ignoring the most important social facts means that we MUST face the ways that money is measurement backed by murder. If citizens, and their representatives, were to stop being ignorant and incompetent, then they MUST take back public control over the murder systems, in order to back up their monetary systems. However, that is an extremely problematic proposition, due to paradoxes inherent in attempts to enforce any rule of law.
There is NO doubt that we live in a fake democracy, with a fake rule of law, which is plainly obvious once one faces the FACT that there is a fundamentally FAKE MONETARY SYSTEM. However, the realities behind those FAKES were the history of enforced frauds, due to the ways that human civilizations necessarily operate through the principles and methods of organized crime. By and large, only a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people not only understand those basic social facts, but then continue to propose ways to cope with those social facts in ways which remain still consistent with those facts.
On Zero Hedge, as elsewhere, the best one usually sees are articles and comments which reveal some of the degrees to which the banksters are the biggest gangsters, controlling governments which are the biggest form of organized crime, BUT, then those articles or comments almost always collapse back to proposing bogus "solutions," which are still based on the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, that always actually make the opposite happen in the real world, because those are being promoted by controlled opposition groups.
Of course, that is what this kind of article by Singer also did, while, as you pointed out JR, that was a particularly offensive manifestation of the typical kinds of professional lying and immaculate hypocrisy that one expects to be publicly presented by people who became socially successful within systems that were built on the foundation of fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems!
Again, wow. Very prolific and insightful. You need to write a book, if you haven't done so already. Are you familar with Daniel Quinn?
Edit: Ok, just was at your site. Answered some of my own questions. :)
No, gswifty, I was not previously familiar with Daniel Quinn, until I just now used an Internet search to look him up.
and there we have a 100 point Dow ramp and green , no end in site for this Ponzi scheme I'm afraid
Jubber? Prove it! If you are the real jubber.
Call some debts in, sell some asset like the Grand Canyon, pay down the debt - no big deal.
Fake orgasm...When Harry Met Sally....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0OeM6UUAoI
It's gotten so bad that even our fake shit is fake....It's fake'n crazy, Mon....
And how about fake,paid, commenters?
MISSION: "Distract, disrupt, derail and destroy" any real discovery or discussion of the complete rigging of the entire (oppressive) system we live under.
Psycholgical operations creating complete chaos on targeted internet sites? Yes.
The evidence is right before you....here, today. Can you see?
Swarms of them.
This is worth more details.
British certainly used Opium against the Chinese. Why would not Bankers & Politicians use Drugs and Mind Control programs including propaganda against it's own people... people are useful for... 1) votes (if you need votes) 2) Consumption 3) Labor (cheap labor preferably) 4) Military Draftees or Impressees 5) Merchant Marine, Truck Drivers, Mining, Drilling, Flying, Security Guards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars First Opium War (1839–1842 ); Second Opium War (1856–1860), But Opium was grown and taken to China in 1600s by British East India Company (a Corporation).
- Propaganda traces back to like 500 BC.
- Printing Presses very effective for Propaganda in the German Schism with the Catholic Church
- US Propaganda developed for World War I, to convince Americans they should fight in Europe
- Mind Control in USA developed in 1950s
- 1960s saw huge inflow of Drugs in USA Coinciding with US Agency involvement in Vietnam
- TV now seems the most effective propaganda tool
- If we don't learn world history, they we can't see through the Veil.
- Why were US Military Guarding Poppy Fields in Afghanistan?
- Since the War on Drugs and expanded US Agency Presence in South America, why has the flow of Coca Products not slowed down and how do we justify ineffective funding on the war on drugs?
Yep, we live in the embrace-faux-as-reality world. It's nuts.
Tell us something we don't already know, Paul!
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” -- Ayn Rand
We've been avoiding reality for a long timenow, but the leaders in government and at the central banks have gotten pretty good at patching problems with temporary, albeit long-term damaging, fixes. I suspect it will be a few more years before the consequences of avoiding reality begin to really hit hard. And the longer they allow this charade to continue, the nastier things are likely to be....
Listen.
Everyone here is focused on fake tits?
Interesting. Must be Americans.
The President and Congress defer to the fed. The President defers to the gov't bureaucracy. Via specific intent in bills passed, Congress defers to the administrative state.
Why? Simple. Politicians can blame others.
Of course, there is no faction within either party whose goal is to transfer power back to the people, so we're doomed.
Addendum: Radical Progressives like Obama and almost all Congressional Democrats, with more than a few Congressional Republicans sprinkled in, are OK with a fed of unlimited power. In fact, the goal of Progressivism is to create a state unaccountable to the people, only to themselves.
Thus, an unrestrained fed is a Progressive Wet Dream.
Progressivism is the problem. Progressivism is Authoritarianism.
The outstanding scholarly (but long) Heritage Foundation article "Why Congress Must Confront the Administrative State" focuses only upon the Administrative State, but it's easy to see how the tenets of Progressivism actualized in an out-of-control fed'l gov't bureaucracy underlies the unaccountability of the fed.
Of course, there is no faction within either party whose goal is to transfer power back to the people, so we're doomed.
"Fake Growth, Fake Money, Fake Jobs, Fake Stability, Fake Inflation Numbers" and Fake boobs too!
Jean Baudrillard argued back in the late 70s what we are witnessing is disappearance of the real and humans.
Fake Human is fake.
“Policies that are needed… are not unknown, nor are they too complicated for even the most simple-minded politician [or citizen] to understand.”
Ah, but they ARE UNKNOWN; and I will agree that they are not “too complicated” for an ordinary intelligence.
You see, Americans have the power to redress any grievance that could be named – and thus, exercise sovereignty; but they REFUSE to use that power. There are three main reasons for this failure: one is that they have no knowledge of such power (that is, the power is UNKNOWN); the second, they’ve been herded into a kind of impotent stupor by medication and indoctrination; the third, that they aid, benefit or were complicit in such evil.
There’s a remedy for all three of these failures: 1) learn, and use, the law and procedures of redress (full article); 2) follow a health regimen that has REDUCED – not slowed – my biological age 50 years (it also un-does the damage done by medication and indoctrination); and, 3) see number one.
This health regimen has given me the coordination, health and physical condition of a professional athlete around the age of 20; I’m 70 years of age (for validation, video and webpage – each leads to the other).
Not only do Americans not know this power, they also do not know most, maybe all, of the ideals won/confirmed by the Revolution.
For example, Founders repeatedly declared that “no man is obligated to obey any law or pay any tax unless he has given consent to it”. Did they mean this literally? Of course they did. From the first English settlement to the Revolution this was how affairs of the colonies were managed. Every “law” and every “tax” had its origin in contracts between colonial assemblies and those who petitioned for redress of grievances. The terms of the contract were sometimes referred to as “laws” of the contract while its money payments were treated as “taxes”. And only petitioners were obligated to obey such “laws” and pay such “taxes”. When redress was completed, related “laws” and “taxes” expired.
Once you learn this right of consent, you’ll come to understand there is probably not a constitutional tax on the books.
There, in two paragraphs I conveyed to you more real history than you learned in 12 years of elementary and high schools, and 4-6 years of university indoctrination. You won’t learn this and other lessons from professors, or judges, or lawyers; the first two depend on continued grievances for their pensions, the third never learned such history, or law.
This right of consent was won with the Revolution… and who knows it?
Winners often don't care about the Losers in the Economy.
Take a look at the Triangle Fire in New York City.
Women worked in a locked garment factory on a high floor. I believe they protested low wages and poor treatment for 2 years. At one point they had only the support of a single influential woman when she abandoned the cause. A fire broke out, the women were forgotten locked in a smoke filled room with stairs burning they jumped out the windows to their death. Many New Yorkers turned out to grieve or recognize the terrible situation.
- There is some dehumanizing of jobless people in the USA
- Probably there is some Saul Alinsky strategies to raise public feelings for the losers in the Economy
- Look at the Death from Recent US Wars in Afghanistan & Iraq... US Public has never recognized the injustice of those wars, the waste of money, the disease, refugees, loss of homes, rapes, murders, loss of family history, loss of culture, loss of businesses
- Millions of US Citizens lost their homes and savings... then faced legal action or bankruptcy
- Millions lost Retirement or Pensions or Mortgage Wealth
- Yep, not much recognition from the Winners
TeethVillage88,
Yes, I agree with your sentiments. But, what can be done with it?
It will require more than one person to redress them; and those who imposed policies that produced your grievances will not redress them - lest they expose who is to blame.
See my comment just above yours.
" Central bank manipulation of prices and risk taking has become the norm over the last six years, because it is so hard for investors to see the downside. QE and ZIRP have been “free,” as far as most people are concerned, in terms of stability, asset price and economic growth, and economic recovery. “Free” in this context means devoid of future countervailing negative consequences."
This pertains to the few frineds and family I have who are both retail investors and retirement account investors. They have answered my complaints about printed money, artificial interest rates and direct market intervention by the Fed with this type of answer. " The Fed is doing allright by me!" "I hope they keep printing, my stocks keep rising!" "It's okay with me if they keep the bubble going, why should I complain as my returns soar?"
I point out the collapse that will come. They doubt there will be any collapse, because "The Fed will do what it takes." "If all else fails, the IMF will enter with Special Drawing Rights and recapitalize and failed sectors of the financial economy."
I am serious folks! These are what the investors tell ME.
It is the philosophy of the free shit army that is now so pervasive even hard working men and women espouse it. Free money based on nothing. Zero interest borrowing. Investments on manipulated prices. You're a "sucker" if you're not joining in at the trough.
There's always more ink for the printers, more countries to steal from, poorer people to sucker in at the bottom of the Ponzi, more ways than I can count to brainwash the gullible and more people who love the lies so much, they will kill you for telling the truth. I'm pretty sure you will have patriots defending the policies of the "Greatest country in the world" even while they feed their kids with boiled shoes for dinner. Because you know, it is never their fault but some horrid foreigner who did this to them.
Right now we live in a truly confusing consequence-free world, but we know in our hearts that every action has a consequence without exception. A week of headlines in the msm reads like a schizophrenic's diary. A world where all the crap that goes on is always, "Somebody else's problem". As Douglas Adams once wrote, if you can harness the energy from the effort put into the delusion of ignoring problems, you can hide a spaceship with it.
SEP Field: "you can see it, but because it is so inconceivable, your mind can't accept it. Therefore it can't exist, thus ignoring it."
Maybe we need more articles that Update the loss of US Wealth as a result of 2008 Financial Crash and Subprime Crash.
Some left funds in the Stock Market after 2008 and they are back to Even. So this is kind of the same old narrative about long term investing. The pain is gone for those with good jobs or retirements.
- Home Values probably are not recovered
- Home Ownership Rate is at Record Low
- Many Homes have been wrecked or demolished
- Many Retirement Accounts & Pension Accounts still are down... so maybe $1 Trillion
- Other Trust Funds invested in Zombie Funds must still have problems
- Fixed income people are not earning Interest to fight inflation
- Economic Winners don't notice the Jobs & Consumption problems
US Bookkeeping and Wealth is not something I understand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_United_States
http://www.businessinsider.com/american-families-are-broke-2011-7?op=1
US Total Debt is at Record, but .gov offsets it with meaningless GDP, Inflation, and Employment Numbers. $57.53 Trillion USD.
All Sectors; Credit Market Instruments; Liability, Level
2014:Q2: 57,538.86 Billions of Dollars (+ see more)
Quarterly, End of Period, Not Seasonally Adjusted, TCMDO, Updated: 2014-09-18
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/TCMDO
I'm using the fake money from the sale of my house and market gains to build a detached garage. It won't be a real garage, but so what.
I totally agree with Paul Singer and have been saying exactly the same things myself for years.
In fact, if you defined the personal qualities, abilities, honesty, competence and leadership skills of the person who should be a nation's leader, the ones who actually get the job have none of them at all. Their "skills" are virtually the exact opposite.
Put another way, they are incompetent crooks and assorted criminals who manipulate, bribe, buy and bully their way into power. The whole system of political selection and holding to account whilst in power has been corrupted to its core and is unrepairable.
Welcome to democracy.
What comes next?
Interesting fakerage here, folks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfDCRf7PqBI
***
For fake sake, don't spoil the music!!!
I like fake people they buy expensive fake shit from me with their fake dollars and their totally clueless
Then I take that fake money and go buy real money gold, silver and guns :)
Fuckin A Well Said.
The vulture speaks! The one who goes around the world and hedge funds nations like Argentina and Ebola torn Africa promising to clean water and bring prosperity only to bankrupt and spread cholera and crush nations into debt. Over charging them 600% In Interest and America Calls it creating jobs.
Endeavor to perservere