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Peace In Our Time
From Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors
Peace In Our Time
Markets are rallying on the back of Greece’s approval of the austerity measures, and all I can think of is the ill-timed 1938 speech by Neville Chamberlain. But analyzing that leads to dark places, far too dark for a Monday morning when the markets are up. So I’ll try and lighten the mood, and only think about a book with talking animals – Animal Farm:
Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure. On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?
Why do I find it so easy to imagine those words coming out of some technocrat’s mouth? Why are the Greek people faced with bailout or chaos? There has never been an alternative to the bailout since no politician has worked on one. There is plenty of historical evidence showing that countries can default, and not just survive, but thrive. There are examples of countries letting the banking system fail for their mistakes yet the country has come back stronger than ever (Iceland most recently). Yet all we get is politicians, inside and outside of Greece saying that not accepting the terms and getting more bailout money would be catastrophe, without a shred of evidence to back that up. The best part of this, is that Greece would need to spend money to analyze and prepare for bankruptcy, but they have no money. Sure the EU gives them as much money as they need to fly back and forth to summits, but letting them spend money that may make them go against the plan, well, that’s another story.
While we wait for the next phases of the Greek drama – EU approval of bailouts because of the effort of their technocrat, and PSI announcements, we can focus on the other big lending decision. Just how much LTRO to take down. Bankers in Europe are just bunching up the remains of their lunch to throw in the trash and can sit down and attend meetings determining how much LTRO money they will need and the best way to front run it. Collateral requirements have been reduced – not quite to the point where the banks could pack up the lunch trash and drag it down to the ECB for some money, but headed that direction.
There are no strings on the 1% money from LTRO. No “austerity” conditions. Just borrow it and spend. There are various estimates on how much banks will save in interest costs, with somewhere around 3% sounding about right. So banks will earn an extra 3% per annum on the assets they buy with LTRO money. If they anticipate correctly the huge demand (some estimates that this one will be a trillion) they can scoop up assets in advance. Italian 5 year bonds are up 10 points since LTRO – that is more than 3 years of carry. So many people get lost in the world of carry and forget how long and slow that is, and how much more important and immediate mark to market is (or at least the perception of mark to market is in this European banking world of accrual accounting).
I continue to believe the next LTRO will be smaller than the first one and that will disappoint the market, but the anticipation ahead of it, coupled with the “success” of Greece may be enough to push markets higher. I remain highly skeptical and will continue to fade rallies, but will be quick to take some profits on those fades.
And of course, in between starting to write this and finishing, good old Olli Rehn managed to mention how much worse a default would be for Greece (again with no facts) and that it would have caused a chain reaction for Europe. Last week, the official lines were that the firewall was ready and it was all priced in (immediately disseminated), but now that the masters want to approve aid, they have to mention it could be dangerous not to give the money. Many of the same people will flip-flop on the issue, but their words will be sent around without hesitation. Maybe some American Election coverage people can come to Europe. If they think Mitt flip-flops, they would have a field day with the European politicians (and there are a lot of them).
I think this will be another interesting week, but think the celebration is premature, and possibly way off base as there is a deeper and growing problem bubbling below the surface. That and the markets for a few minutes actually paid attention to weakness in China and Japan and the fact that TEPCO was getting even more of its own bailout money to pay for damages from the nuclear power plant problem (that has been getting downplayed for a year).
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What does ANY of this have to do with AAPL and Whitney Houston?
I just handed a copy of Animal Farm to my 12year old son last night. I was a little frustrated about the amount of time he wasted on his IPad last night. He was of course reluctant to read and decided to argue with me so I cut him off by reading the first page out loud. I then handed the book to him and walked away. As I left the room he had picked up the book and started to read. I plan on having a chapter by chapter discussion with him as he reads through it. this is probably, somehow, child abuse these days. The NWO hates it when you educate your children about something other than slavery or the holocaust.
I applaud you. A parent that cares and wants his child not just to read, but wants him to read something worthy of reading. Then to have discourse with his child concerning the content of what he is reading...
You are a rarity, indeed.
I hope you follow it with 1984 and then to Atlas Shrugged. Top it off with This Time Its Different.
Meh. Ayn Rand.... Her work inspired the satanic bible ya know.
He should squeeze in Brave New World between the first two you mention.
and then zamyatin's We which was what orwell modelled 1984 from.
I'll vote for your son 3 elections from now if he's on the ballot.
What an unmitigated act of cruelty. I'm serious, not posting in the spirit of Million Dollar Bonus or the other trolls.
Who here is truly glad they took the red pill? Who here doesn't envy the sheeple every now and then? After all, what good does it do to be aware of the corruption and evil in the world and be completely powerless to stop it? Who wouldn't want to wave the flag and truly believe America is the "good guys" and its enemies are "bad guys?" Who wouldn't want to enjoy some "televised circuses" and drink some beer without having to drink a half gallon of liquor to silence the higher thinking processes telling you that our entire civilization is a sham and you are nothing but a slave?
What is your master plan for your son? To make him so anxious, paranoid, weird and incapable of connecting with his peers that he kills himself? I assure you his peers won't be reading Orwell, much less comprehending what it means. They'll be gorging on pop culture and chasing the opposite sex and not much else. Your son will be a pariah, at best. Or is it to convince him to reject the slavery that society offers him via student loans and low wage debt based indentured servitude and instead live in your basement forever? Those are the only two logical routes that any young man would take after having become aware of just how fucked and powerless he truly is.
You need to rethink your plan here guy. I was reading Orwell on my own initiative when I was 8 years old. Extrapolate from there just how far down the rabbit hole I am.
Destroying a child's innocence is an act of cruelty. Let them believe in the system for as long as they can. Let them believe in Santa Clause, God, Democracy, the Constitution, and other fairy tales. Let them chase the milestones that the elite have laid out for them: high school graduation, college entrance exams, college admissions, a college degree, a first job, a car loan for a 3 series BMW to impress young ladies, a huge 30 year loan for an overpriced townhome, a wife, a family.
“Countless people… will hate the new world order… and will die protesting against it… When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents…” – H.G. Wells, The New World Order (1939)
Remember the scene from the Matrix? Ignorance is bliss.
Give PEAS a chance...
~BHO
Visualize Whirld Peas
IMF
Peace? Mwahahahha! Peace is not for slaves, which we are! The sheeple will fight if the masters says so. And they will do so till all the globe is under their dominance.
As for free men trapped in a slave country, there can't be no peace either between them and their masters as no free men stand still in face of tyranny.
In related news, two ``attacks`` on Israeli diplomats failed... how long before Iran is blamed on this?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-israel-will-not-...
Lieberman: Israel will not suffer an attack on its diplomats abroad FM says attack on Israeli official in India, attempted attack in Georgia show Israel and its citizens face a daily threat of terror, both physical and diplomatic.That's right. Democracy is a lie, as the events in Europe are showing everyone as we speak. And the Western Oligarchy behind the New World Order only desires peace on its terms. The people are nothing but cows in the field, to be milked for tax money and corporate profits - or sent to die horribly on the other side of the world to murder a foreign people/culture into submission to the New World Order.
Every time I read some US commentator using the word "technocrat" I see red.
Then I start to look for some hint that this commentator has any clue how a parliamentary system works, and I seldom see any hint of this.
Do parliamentary systems work? Which one?
And what does "work" mean then?
I'm talking about the constitutional setup - how the government is formed or elected or appointed. You seem to pretend representational democracy is a waste of time.
Unfortunately it is much worse than a waste of time. It's a waste of economic, moral and cultural substance.
so can I count on you when I take my shot at world dictatorship?
No, but you can count on him criticizing everything without ever coming up with better, doable approaches.
I used to smoke Parliments, can I be Prime Minister?
So give a quickie on parliamentary vs congressional.
in the US: executive is elected - legislative is elected - judicative is appointed by the exec and confirmed by the legislative (congress)
in most EU republics: legislative is elected, elects a prez (usually not in the same cycle), this appoints an executive that is confirmed or rejected by the legislative, who usually can also cast a motion of "distrust" and elect a new executive. the parliament has a more central position, hence parliamentarism. though it's important to note that it also allows more than two parties.
when a EU republic has some troubles forming a majority in parliament, the prez has more leeway due to his power of appointing a new PM "per default" until a new majority is formed in parliament - this is called a technical government (in Scandinavia they have another term).
the British press loves the term technocrat because they can take cheap shots at "unelected" leaders - they just miss the chance to remind their readers that they need the parliament to govern or even to keep their seat. and this even though they themselves have a mixed system where the PM is not directly elected. and they love to shoot this at the EU system, which is again different, because the various committees are formed by ministers of the member countries.
Aha! So it's the British press that loves the term technocrat. Our Constitution (when applied ) improves on your system by separating the powers of our executive and legislative bodies.
well, with a parliamentary system the US Libertarians would probably form their own party, have their own fraction in parliament and perhaps even have a ministry or two when partecipating to coalitions. See the FDP in Germany or the current coalition in the UK.
Ron Paul as Finance Minister? Yes, it would be possible. How about that? ;-)
There could easily be a Libertarian faction in congress if the two parties had not created rules discouraging/penalizing weaker parties. A clear case of regulatory capture.
It's a very good comparative political analysis.
The problem that people on this blog seem to have is that the particular "technocrats" who have taken power in Greece, Italy, and Spain were the architects of a failed currency union that is causing the problem. The PM of Greece is one of the people who was instrumental in getting Greece into the Euro and we come to find out 15 years later that they've been lying about their Debt:GDP for years. When you turn even "technical" control over to a group of people who caused your problem, you're rarely going to like the solutions they come up with, especially in every agreement they draft has language in it that says something to the effect of "this agreement cannot be revoked and is absolute".
No one is actually agreeing with what these people are saying and this particular democratic process is not representative of the will of the people at large. Therefore, this form of representative democracy is a failure. (As a side, even when EU membership is put for general referendum, it continually gets voted down.)
thx. are you not mixing up the issues? the Italians have one of those technocrats, he has currently an approval rating of 65%.
some EU parliaments seem to think that you need a thief (i.e. a Goldmanite) to catch a thief. you and me might be of a different opinion, but that's what representative democracy is about, you elect a bunch of volunteers to take decisions, and then we call them laws...
as for the "EU membership is put for general referendum" - go a bit into details, there are lots and lots of them, per country...
As long as Central Banks remain in global control of the money, it doesn't matter what governmental system is in place...they're all puppets.
The US Constitution allows an informed citizenry to correct an out of touch Govt. without a revolution. Or so I believe, time will tell.
We lost an informed citizenry over a century ago.
I agree that we slowly lost an informed citizenry, but on the other hand we are now living in a new information age.
Boy, ain't that the truth. Been re-reading Walter Lippmann, Eddy Bernays and even Col House himself.
The "problem" of controlling public opinion in allegedly "democratic" systems has been carefully thought through for many decades. Those who glibly point out that there can be no "conspiracy" because governments are too sloppy and individual would-be conspirators too anarchic and Ockam's razor says we don't have to complicate the narrative need to take another look. The big money crowd has always taken steps to maintain or improve its position.
And the Tribe has grown enormously in power the past two centuries largely through its mastery of opinion-forming techniques (including the circumscribing of the limits of discourse through "political correctness") and money-controlling techniques.
Use of the term "technocrat" is a way for the West to criticize Europe's quasi-Democratic processes without calling attention to the fact that "Democracy" is just as much a sham in the Anglo countries as it is in Europe.
The new normal.
Empty your atm machines today!
Sometimes a gas-powered cut-off saw is the best way to quickly access the cash inside your ATM. Hope this helps.
I read a good article earlier recommending not only that Greece should default but explaining how to do it. It looks a lot more realistic than the current farce which is playing out.
This morning on Bloomberg they refuse to discuss any option other than transferring bank debt to the public, "without the bailout, no one knows what will happen."
The sheeple were slaves before, we'll just be slightly less well cared for slaves with lower standards of living in the future. 'Tis all worth it to prop up the opulent lifestyles of our glorious banker/politician masters says I.
Don't worry about "protesting" slavery under the NWO by refusing to bring children into this world to live as slaves. The U.S. will import as many Mexicans as it has to to replace the declining white population. And their standard of living will vastly increase by coming to the U.S., even if they're living 8 to an apartment and riding bicycles to below minimum wage jobs.
Half an ounce of thought and folks would realize that chaos is not a required outcome.
I'm not going to burn my neighbor's house down because my bank closed.
In fact, I might rejoice, since nobody will be looking to collect on my mortgage.
Remember in the USA, 90% of the states run in the black, even with federal cutbacks.
Nationalize the Federal Reserve and make it publicly owned.
That's the only solution to American debt problem.
Publicly owned like the TSA? Publicly owned like the DEA? Publicly owned like our prison system? Publicly owned like our military?
Democracy is a lie. The Federal Reserve has a .gov top level domain. They ARE officially part of the government already.
Reposted :
The Emergence of the Financial Inquisition World Order
In 1492 the new world was discovered and the Catholic Kings of Spain entered into the last bastion of Islamic presence in Granada, expulsing in its wake the Moslems and the Jews from their lands.
A Spanish Pope elected in Rome would start the most corrupt period of Papal power known to date, built on "the end justifes the means"; cynical power play immortalised by Machiavelli in his treatise, THe PRince, henceworth the bible for all political constructs in western world during the nation-state period upto and including, with increasing virulence, present times.
Pope Borgia, would divide the Oceans of the world between Spain and Portugal, at the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, and the race to plundering the riches of Amerindia would be on.
The Catholic kings of West and their friendly Pope would start a tradition making Hapsburgian united Spain the centre of the world, with the accession in 1519 to title of Holy Roman Emperor of their grandson Charles V. The installment of the Spanish Inquisition and the forays of Cortes, Pisarro and Balboa would make Spain uber-alles nation, world wide master of Europe, owning huge swathes of France and Low COuntries, controlling Italy, Austrian EMpire and the new world. The Pope would then be deemed irrelevant, as the World nation state in 1527 under Charles V had Rome burnt by his troops. It now had its own statist machinery of the Inquisitorial Order; initiated under Torquemada and aggrandised by his successors.
Now fast forward to West in 1980-1990 :
The new Catholic Kings of West would be the alliance between Thatcher and Reagan, just like that of Isabella and Ferdinand.
The reconquest of NEW Hispanolia would be the deregulation of markets and creation, in conjunction with Big Bang in City, of WS supremacy under Paul Volcker's supervison at FED; a well thought out global financial strategy planned like a war of reconquest against the "enemy within", the trade unions and "welfare state construct" of Keynesian age since FDR/Labour government days. Reaganomics would triumph and NEW labour and Bush/CLinton, its children, would install the NWO after Berlin Wall Collapse and create Outsourcing model with Chindia collusion. The plundering of RM and cheap labour of the world could begin. WIth GWB as Charles V its inheritor and his conquistadors in Irak and Afghanistan, around the sacred gold of the new halls of Montezuma!
We are there now. And in this construct, both democracy and republic go out of the window! We are in NWO global Oligarchy like a world domain belonging to the NEW HAPSBURGS.
The metrics of OLD AGE of democracy and Republic and its so called free market construct are now OBSOLETE : the DEBT/GDP ratio is now deemed meaningless in NWO construct; "we own you all sheeple as we own all RMs" sing the Oligarchs who now bow to new lords of world. THe multinationals, like Pisarro and Cortes, can horde their gold in the Barbary coast of Carribean islands, and use the new electronic instruments of power to invest it wherever they like!
THe world is their play ground and we are all pawns on their chessboard. All institutions of power kneel to them, like Pope of old to Imperator.
Well, in Athens they now realise how this game will be played! Unlimited debt is no longer the issue as all labour and RMs are owed to the people in purple. "We can cook the books forever, we can cook you in a baked oven; we can rook you, as you are well and truly hooked! Even TIME bows to us."
New world order, new Financial Inquistion, new expendable jews/moslems/amerindians, slave labour for future generations...Simple, history repeats!!
Now, ask yourself how long did that Hapsburgian Empire last? What caused its demise and what were the consequences for those who practised the spanish inqusition and wore its red and purple...?
History is Nemesis to all hubris. Since Hector faced Achilles on walls of Troy and they both died, as did their civilizations bringing to an end the age of HEroes. So sang Homer, son of History, passer on of tradition and wisdom. Only Ulysses survived to carry the torch for the search of new frontiers and created in his wake the Mediterranean civilization!
The torch never goes out. Empires do.
The victory of Empire builders is ephemeral in the eyes of history; its ruins eternal. So said Diogenes to Alexander as he prepared to cross over to Asian continent. But Alexander had his own Karma...
Just visit Athens and ROme and you'll see this universal truth in all its material evidence of magnificent past splendour. TIme's arrow!
Ridiculous, the more modern part.
So everything was going fine, in the US under LBJ/Nixon/Ford/Carter, and in the UK before Thatcher, but then she and Reagan ruined everything??
Talking about revisionist history...
you seem to have missed the discussions in ZH on the period leading up to Reagan= Thatcher period. It has been copiously discussed, on all fronts. Revisionist is a misplaced wod as the paper by Professor Antal FEkete shows as well as all the analysis about petrodollar and the fiat construct under nixon. Nope it all fits in inspite of LBJ, who went viral in Keynesian overkill and imperial military strategy but it did not justify the Oligarchy take over.
Not sure what discussions you are referring to - here in the forums?
I am not aware of a Antal Fekete paper on Reagan/Thatcher.
If anything, you can blame modern schooling on not inspiring people to avoid debt.
Politicians as well as PR guys cannot make people act against their inhibitions at any time - they can only move them in directions where no understanding and/or inhibitions exist, or when things have been deteriorating for a while.
Read "The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy"
Whatever, Reagan and Thatcher were not geniuses, but they broke through stationary buildups when it was necessary.
There is a lot of truth in that post, but I think your opptimism is unwarranted. Those previous empires fell before the age of electronic data storage. Before every man, woman, and child could be assigned a number and tracked against 10,000 metrics from cradle to grave. Their power is absolute, escape before death impossible, and they know it.
Welcome to the New World Order.
Very well put. +100
But why, in an otherwise long and carefully thought article, did you (and most everyone) fail to proof before hitting ?
More to the point, there was a basic change in the Regan years from "there's enough for everyone" to " greed is good and I've got to get mine before it is all gone" as the prevailing theme of the times. This shift in perception; enough vs scarcity is, IMNSHO, a root cause of the disphoria of today in conjunction with increasing economic disparity.
It just sucks.
Now Samaras wants to 'renegotiate' the deal after the April elections. More I 'voted for it before I was against it'. It won't end until Germany pulls the plug.
Using fear to get their way. Fear and greed are fighting it out forever with collateral damage mounting on the bottom of the pile.
Problem for the top of the pile is that when the bottom collapses the whole mountain comes tumbling down. Every time.
Animal Farm ending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ERhLH4aFZ0
I like your history lessons Falak, thanks. History indeed repeats, as does the battle between fear and greed. In my view only Intelligence coupled with compassion can save us wether on a personal or on a societal level, and obviously this has to start with every one of us daily.
"U.S. Navy: Iran prepares suicide bomb boats in Gulf"
Tonkin Gulf incident?
"War's good for business. Invest your children."
Next up: "Iran throws foreign babies out of incubators"
Right, the ECB.EU would love an orderly greek default and the drachma to to become a strong and healthy currency and all Greek citizens enjoy prosperity. They would put no external pressure on Greece like huge sanctions because by golly that little country is doing it on their own.
HaHa.
Good article. Aggregate demand is inverted to debt, public and private.
So the solution is deleveraging.
Quickest is going to be best, for all concerned.
And that implies across the board default, and no selling of real assets to digital bandits.
(same thing everyone said in March 2010 BTW)
Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.
I will work harder
Good for you Jurgis!
Hey Peter Tchir, here ya go ... an antidote Du jour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IlW9velocM
You're right about where thinking about the parallels to '38 leads one
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-peace-our-time
As Athens burns, Greek PM Papademos said "Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and won't be tolerated."
Democracy ? I guess the definition of that today in the land of its origins is - - We Say, and you Do, and you just Shut Up & Pay Up. We don't care what you think or want.
2 legs good, 4 legs bad.
"Stray dogs that live by the highway walk on three legs, they move too slow to get the message."- Leon Russell