Fragile and Unbalanced in 2012

 Nouriel Roubini, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Pig-Headed Economic Policy May Still Lead to Disaster, Political Implications, Read and Weep Entries, Sound Familiar?, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Global Economy, The Great American Heist, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, The Ticking Euro Bomb, This self-serving arbitrariness, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences, Wage Deflation, We Are All Cooked, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  No Responses »
Dec 172011
 

Policymakers are running out of options. Currency devaluation is a zero-sum game, because not all countries can depreciate and improve net exports at the same time. Monetary policy will be eased as inflation becomes a non-issue in advanced economies (and a lesser issue in emerging markets). But monetary policy is increasingly ineffective in advanced economies, where the problems stem from insolvency – and thus creditworthiness – rather than liquidity.

Meanwhile, fiscal policy is constrained by the rise of deficits and debts, bond vigilantes, and new fiscal rules in Europe. Backstopping and bailing out financial institutions is politically unpopular, while near-insolvent governments don’t have the money to do so. And, politically, the promise of the G-20 has given way to the reality of the G-0: weak governments find it increasingly difficult to implement international policy coordination, as the worldviews, goals, and interests of advanced economies and emerging markets come into conflict.

As a result, dealing with stock imbalances – the large debts of households, financial institutions, and governments – by papering over solvency problems with financing and liquidity may eventually give way to painful and possibly disorderly restructurings. Likewise, addressing weak competitiveness and current-account imbalances requires currency adjustments that may eventually lead some members to exit the eurozone.

Restoring robust growth is difficult enough without the ever-present specter of deleveraging and a severe shortage of policy ammunition. But that is the challenge that a fragile and unbalanced global economy faces in 2012. To paraphrase Bette Davis in All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy year!”

Fasten Your Seatbelts For Rough 2012 – Nouriel Roubini, Project Syndicate

Nouriel Roubini is Chairman of Roubini Global Economics and professor at the Stern School of Business, New York University. His detailed 2012 global growth outlook is available at www.roubini.com

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 7:08 pm  

Mall Rats Can’t Bring About the Wealth of Nations

 Investment in Infrastructure Is A Win/Win, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Pig-Headed Economic Policy May Still Lead to Disaster, Small Business-Bedrock of America, Subsidiarity, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Geithner Resignation Watch, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, The Ticking Euro Bomb, This self-serving arbitrariness, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences, USA Is the New Japan, Wage Deflation, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  No Responses »
Dec 042011
 

there is something fundamentally wrong with a culture that promotes spending as the key to health and wealth. A multidecade borrowing-and-spending binge whittled the U.S. savings rate from an average of 9.6 percent in the 1970s, to 8.6 percent in the 1980s, to 5.5 percent in the 1990s, to 3.3 percent in the 2000s. At one point during the housing bubble, the savings rate approached zero.

My generation learned about the virtues of thrift from our parents, who were children of the Great Depression. Subsequent generations haven’t had the benefit of real-world teachers. For them, the 1930s are a story told through sepia-toned photographs of ravaged dust-bowl farms and bread lines.

Younger generations of Americans have grown up on conspicuous consumption. The focus has been on what something costs today — the monthly interest payment on the credit card or mortgage — not whether the car or home is affordable. Easy and cheap credit made it all possible.

Incentive to Spend

The Federal Reserve is complicit, too, in discouraging saving by holding its benchmark rate close to zero and pledging to keep it there at least through mid-2013. Consumers aren’t getting paid to save. The rate they can earn on bank deposits is negative when adjusted for current or expected inflation. Therefore, they spend. High real rates induce consumers to forgo current spending and save.

Households have been deleveraging for three years in an attempt to repair their balance sheets. Yet many economists and policy makers advocate more borrowing and spending as a cure for what ails the economy, and cheer as mall rats infest stores in the middle of the night. How can that be?

I suspect it’s the old short-run/long-run dichotomy. By now, though, it should be obvious that the U.S. suffers from an extreme case of short-term thinking, and it underpins decisions on everything from tax-and-spend policy to monetary policy.

Even the stock market applauds more “consumption,” a synonym for spending I try to avoid. A former editor said the word made him think of people wasting away from tuberculosis, which happens to be Merriam-Webster’s first definition. It was enough to convince me.

In the context of this column, however, the alternate definition seems appropriate: “the utilization of economic goods in the satisfaction of wants … resulting chiefly in their destruction, deterioration, or transformation.”

“Destruction” should be a tip-off that whatever it is, it isn’t wealth.

Mall Rats Don’t Produce Wealth of Nations – Caroline Baum, Bloomberg

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 10:09 am  

Prepare For Europe Collapse Before New Year

 A Changing Europe, A Moral Question - Not A Political One, Back to the basics, Bond Market, CDOs, Collateral Damage, Coming Social Unrest, Consumption Ran the Old Economy, Decapitalization, Deflation-Inflation-Stagflation, Deleveraging, Devaluation, Dismal Science-Ignorant Scientists?, Economic Analysis Isn't Science, European Union?, Fiat Currency, Financing Terrorism, Having Fun With Derivatives, History of Finance, IMF Issues - Discussion, Insolvency, Integrity and Responsibility, It starts with a foundation, IT'S ALL ABOUT POWER AND MONEY, It's the Tribes, It's Your Turn to Cry FOR ME, Let's Call What It Is - DEPRESSION, No Bank Is Indispensable, PANDEMIC, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Pig-Headed Economic Policy May Still Lead to Disaster, PIIGS Default?, Political Chaos, Read and Weep Entries, Smaller Can Be Better, Strategizing Suppy Chain Links, Subsidiarity, The Big Fat Greek Question, The Consequences of Greed, The Currency Wars Officially Begin, The Financial Elite, The Global Economy, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Suffering Poor, The Ticking Euro Bomb, This self-serving arbitrariness, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences, Wage Deflation, Watch The China Market, We Are All Cooked, We Need Open Derivative Models  No Responses »
Nov 122011
 

It’s official: The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) plan announced at the EU summit on October 27th is essentially dead prior to arrival.

As a consequence, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy appear to be betraying signs of throwing in the towel on the Euro project as it exists today. They appear to be actively contemplating ways to engineer an orderly breakup of the Euro.

As financial market participants gets wind of their intentions – albeit tentative – expect financial markets to accelerate the unfolding of events. The entire Euro edifice could collapse before the New Year.

EFSF Chief: The Insurance Plan Is Dead Prior To Arrival

When the Chief of the EFSF is pessimistic about the capacity of the EFSF to be leveraged to an extent that is adequate to the task at hand, then you might as well kiss the whole thing goodbye.

In a little noted article in Thursday’s FT, Klaus Regling, head of the EFSF essentially admitted that the plan agreed upon at the EU summit on October summit to use the EFSF as collateral for a first-loss insurance scheme is essentially dead.

As I predicted would occur in an article of mine several weeks ago entitled “Europe’s Inane Idea: Fake Brady Bonds,” the EFSF chief has acknowledged that there is no interest on the part of investors to purchase PIIGS bonds with a first-loss guarantee of only 20%.

Regling believes that a first-loss guarantee of 30% may be required to garner any interest.

Personally, I have serious doubts that there would be sufficient interest. Any issuance that actually requires a 30% loss guarantee in order to be viable simply has an implicit default risk profile that will be unable to garner sponsorship of sufficient size.

Since there are only about 250 billion euros available for the EFSF first-loss insurance scheme, that means that, even assuming 30% were sufficient, the mechanism would only be adequate to cover about 800 billion euros worth of debt issuance by Italy and Spain — and any other euro area country that needed funding.

It has been estimated that roughly two trillion euros of funding are needed to simply merely meet projected roll-over and fresh financing needs through mid 2013. Therefore, the 800 billion projection is totally insufficient to the task at hand.

If $800 billion in guarantees are all that Europe can come up with, Europe would probably better off wasting precious resources on this scheme at all.

That is why the EFSF first-loss guarantee proposal seems to be dead on arrival. The plan is totally insufficient, and therefore is unlikely to be implemented at all.

I believe that this realization is thoroughly discouraging the Eurocrats that are charged with structuring the EFSF insurance facility and selling it to investors. These Eurocrats are relaying their pessimism back to Merkel and Sarkozy in real time. This in turn, is prompting Merkel and Sarkozy to begin to contemplate “exit strategies.”

Imminent Fiasco

Because Merkel and Sarkozy are unwilling or are unable to support the only viable option available to them that is to fund bond purchases via the ECB, they appear to be engaging in preliminary speculations regarding a possible exit plan. The problem is that there is no viable exit plan that would not entail a total economic and financial disaster.

It will be impossible for Merkel, Sarkozy and other European leaders to prepare an exit strategy without their intentions being leaked to the press. Financial markets will therefore unravel any and all plans that they contemplate before they can even commit them to paper.

As soon as markets realize that the original EFSF scheme is being abandoned and that the entire Euro project will be restructured, the Euro will be crushed, the European banking system will become insolvent and global financial markets will freeze up.

Merkozy Musings

Sarkozy is already openly musing about a “two-speed” Europe. He envisions a group of countries that will quickly move towards tight fiscal and economic integration and another group of countries that will remain fiscally and monetarily independent.

Sarkozy has stated that he believes that a tight federation is impossible for a large group of economically, politically and culturally disparate countries. The implication is that the group of 16 nations that currently comprise the Euro is probably too large to be manageable.

At the same time, Merkel is already dreaming about a “New Europe.” Exactly what Germany’s Chancellor means by this is ambiguous. However, it is clear that Merkel has in mind much tighter fiscal and economic integration. In this regard Merkel must know that several current Euro members may be unable or unwilling to join in such a tight federation.

The problem with Sarkozy’s and Merkel’s musings is that they are completely irrelevant and even counterproductive to the current task at hand. The issues that they are touching on were issues that needed to have been resolved at the inception of the Euro. At this point, the question is how the damage can best be undone, not to debate what should have been.

Conclusion

Merkel and Sarkozy will soon learn that an orderly break-up of the Euro is not possible. Even the slightest hint that a breakup is being contemplated will cause a global financial disturbance that is so great that any perceived benefits of a break-up will be completely overwhelmed by the costs that will be imposed by the market.

Prepare For Europe Collapse Before New Year by James A. Kostohryz


Posted by Brian Schuettler at 10:58 am  

“forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”: an American year of Jubilee

 A Growing List Of One Term Presidents, A Moral Question - Not A Political One, Back to the basics, Collateral Damage, Coming Social Unrest, Consumption Ran the Old Economy, Coup d'etat in America, Deflation-Inflation-Stagflation, Economic Analysis Isn't Science, History of Finance, It starts with a foundation, IT'S ALL ABOUT POWER AND MONEY, Moral Hazard, Obama's Hypocrisy, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Pig-Headed Economic Policy May Still Lead to Disaster, Political Chaos, Political Implications, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The Democrats Blew It Again, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The Financial Elite, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Truth In Charity, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unintended Consequences, USA Is the New Japan, Wage Deflation, We Are All Guilty, We Have Become Beggars To The World  No Responses »
Oct 312011
 

The American financial system seems ultramodern in its complexity, but it is actually ancient in the brutal ways wealth asserts power over others. The earliest societies were torn by conflicts between lenders and borrowers, the rich versus the poor. They were compelled to fashion hard rules and put restraints on lending to curb the cruelties and promote a moral minimum for social justice. Nearly every country and culture embedded these values in religious tenets that governments enforced. Anthropologist David Graeber asserts provocatively in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years that the power struggles over debt were probably the starting point for developing civilization’s moral codes. The arguments typically began when kings or landowners lent some of their surplus wealth to peasant farmers, then took away the debtors’ property if they failed to repay the loans. In olden days, the creditor would seize the debtor’s livestock and vineyard, perhaps even his children to be enslaved as household servants, until the debts were repaid. If the failure of borrowers persisted, the wealthy lenders would wind up owning all the property, with the peasants reduced to tenant farmers on the land they had once owned. The negative cycle stopped when the peasants could no longer borrow because they had nothing left for lenders to claim in default. Economic life at that point was frozen or depressed, no longer functioning. In a rough sense, this resembles what happened to our economy in the financial crisis. Debtors were tapped out, up to their eyes in debt, and creditors recognized that they could not lend to them anymore without losing their money. In modern economies, no one takes away their children, but they do seize homes and cars and other assets. The ancient Hebrew society worked out a solution for recurring debt crises—you can find it in the Bible. Every seven years (in some interpretations, every fifty) the cycle of debt accumulation was erased by a declaration of general forgiveness. This was called the year of jubilee, and Christianity embraced the same moral principles (“forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”). Property was returned to the original owners, and children and slaves were freed. Everyone was redeemed. The economy was freed to start over again. Graeber thinks Judaism’s reform laws were probably influenced by the Babylonians, who issued “clean slate” edicts when excessive debt accumulation threatened social crisis. Graeber notes that nearly every society, ancient and modern, shares moral confusion about debt, with contradictory attitudes. On the one hand, “Paying back money one has borrowed is a simple matter of morality.” On the other hand, “Anyone in the habit of lending money is evil.” Americans share this ambivalence. Here is what Americans can learn from the ancients: severe inequality of wealth and income is not just a question of morality. Inequality is the fundamental source of the disorder that leads to financial crisis and chokes off the economy. Ancient religious principles like the limits on interest rates were a practical way of maintaining balance in economic life. Taking away those rules—as US politicians did when they repealed prudent regulations of banking and finance—in effect authorized the growing inequality that eventually leads to chaos. Modern economists and their supposed “science” generally ignore the ancient wisdom. Most would probably dismiss the connection as folklore. Some economists study inequality and what drives it. Others study financial fragility and macroeconomic volatility. But the two subjects are seldom addressed as underlying cause and effect. Gross concentrations of money at the top help explain why the system eventually stalls out. This is a basic insight that ought to inform the agenda for recovery. Inequality matters.

Economists Michael Kumhof and Romain Rancière wrote a breakthrough paper for the IMF that made the connection between inequality and financial crisis. “The crisis,” they wrote, “is the ultimate result, after a period of decades, of a shock to…two groups of households, investors who account for 5% of the population, and whose bargaining power increases, and workers who account for 95% of the population.” The 5 percent, broadly speaking, lend to the 95 percent, and in so doing gain still greater wealth and power. The shock comes when the creditor class suddenly realizes that the borrowers are drowning in debt and cannot possibly absorb any more. At that point, financial assets connected to consumer debt are dumped and prices crash, much as they did in 2007. The authors add, “To our knowledge, our framework is the first to provide an internally consistent mechanism linking the empirically observed rise in income inequality…and the risk of a financial crisis.” It took three decades of lopsided borrowing to produce the breakdown, Kumhof and Rancière explain, but the ominous trend was evident for years. In the early 1980s the 95 percent had debts equal to about 65 percent of their income. By 2006 that figure had risen to 140 percent. They were devoting so much of their paychecks to making payments on old debt—credit cards, equity lines and mortgages—there was nothing left to make the payments on new debt. Defaults and bankruptcies were already swelling. The collapse came when creditors grasped the danger and started selling off their mortgage bonds and loans to consumers. It seems odd that the financial interests, with their brilliant analysts and high-speed computers, didn’t see the nature of the crisis until it was breaking over their heads. They may have been blinded by the fabulous wealth they were harvesting. Kumhof and Rancière point out that the same ominous combination—a run-up of debt accompanied by gaping inequality—preceded the crash of 1929. Greed may inspire optimism. But why did ordinary debtors fall into this trap? The standard line is that they, too, were blinded by greed, eager for consumer pleasures they couldn’t afford. This is true for some, but the explanation libels most working people. Wage stagnation started in the 1970s and spread widely in the Reagan era. Typically, as incomes faltered, families faced two bad choices—either go deeper into debt or surrender their middle-class standard of living. Naturally, most people tried to hang on to what they had. The responses to this crisis are well-known. People worked more—women and teenagers entered the workforce, family members took two or three jobs. And they borrowed more, paying the bills with credit cards. In these terms, average families were making heroic efforts to maintain their standard of living. They were doomed to fail unless dramatic economic reforms improved their lot. University of California economist Clair Brown predicted nearly two decades ago in her landmark study of American consumption that sooner or later working people would have to retreat to lower levels of consuming. Working harder and borrowing more had sustained them for twenty years, but neither of these remedies was repeatable. At some point the merry-go-round would have to stop. The retreat is now in full flight. Homeownership has declined by 1.1 percent over the past decade. Wages are stagnant or falling. Foreclosures are tearing through communities, and falling home prices are destroying family equity. Americans, as Whalen says, are experiencing the reverse New Deal.

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 11:30 am  

Missteps to Mayhem

 A State of Distress, AIG and all that....., Analysis & Commentary, “the Greenspan doctrine”, Banks - Crisis Discussion, Bilderbergers 1 USA 0, Collateral Damage, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Suffering Poor, This self-serving arbitrariness, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  No Responses »
Oct 102011
 

Inside the Doomsday Machine with the outsider who predicted and profited from America’s financial Armageddon.

by Michael Burry, MD’97

 

I worry about the future of a nation that would refuse to acknowledge the true causes of the crisis. A historic opportunity was lost. America instead chose its poison as its cure, and the second “Greatest Generation” would never be born.

Today I expect the U.S. government to attempt continuing an easy money policy into the next presidential term—past the meat of the foreclosure crisis, and past the corporate and public financing humps that are upcoming. Junk bonds, incredibly, again are at all-time highs. Quantitative easing seems to be working for now. But this is an invalid validation of what America is doing, a Pyrrhic gamble. As we continue to debase our currency, Bernanke says he is not printing money. Yet I receive an email every day from the Fed saying we just bought another $7 billion or $8 billion in treasuries, monetizing the debt. The scope and breadth of quantitative easing raise severe questions about the Treasury’s needs.

Government borrowing of money for the purpose of injecting cash into society, bailing out banks, brokers and consumers, is an easy decision for a population that has not yet learned that short-sighted easy strategies are the route to long-term ruin. We never quite achieved the catharsis necessary to stoke a deep reevaluation of our wants, needs and fears.

Importantly, the toxic twins—fiat currency and an activist Fed—remain even more firmly entrenched with the financial reforms of last year. The Federal Reserve, having acquired new powers of regulation, has insisted that nothing in the field of economics or finance was of any help in predicting the crisis—period, no more comments. It’s a worthless conclusion that guarantees we’ll make the same mistake again and again.

We need better leaders, but frankly this isn’t going to happen. A problem cannot be solved if it is never acknowledged.

Taxes need to be raised, spending needs to be cut, and loopholes need to be shut if we are to have any hope of returning to a stable base. Home ownership should not be a policy of the U.S. government. The banking system needs substantial reform and bank breakups. Glass–Steagall needs a second run in a strong form. And 22.5 million public workers have no business unionizing against the taxpayer. The list of things that won’t happen—but should happen—goes on and on.

By 2020, interest expense on our national debt could very well exceed $1 trillion. All personal income taxes collected in the U.S. in one year do not total $1 trillion. Our country’s math is scary big, but even scarier is that it simply doesn’t work…

Read the rest here.

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 6:19 pm  

Always the Bankers’ Whore

 A Growing List Of One Term Presidents, A Moral Question - Not A Political One, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Democrats Blew It Again, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Suffering Poor  No Responses »
Oct 092011
 

Obama’s New Populist Fakery

by MICHAEL HUDSON

The seeds for President Obama’s demagogic press conference on Thursday were planted last summer when he assigned his right-wing Committee of 13 the role of resolving the obvious and inevitable Congressional budget standoff by forging an anti-labor policy that cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and uses the savings to bail out banks from even more loans that will go bad as a result of the IMF-style austerity program that Democrats and Republicans alike have agreed to back.

The problem facing Obama is obvious enough: How can he hold the support of moderates and independents (or as Fox News calls them, socialists and anti-capitalists), students and labor, minorities and others who campaigned so heavily for him in 2008? He has double-crossed them – smoothly, with a gentle smile and patronizing pattern talk, but with an iron determination to hand federal monetary and tax policy over to his largest campaign contributors: Wall Street and assorted special interests. The Democratic Party’s Rubinomics and Clintonomics core operators, plus smooth Bush Administration holdovers such as Tim Geithner, not to mention quasi-Cheney factotums in the Justice Department.

President Obama’s solution has been to do what any political demagogue does: Come out with loud populist campaign speeches that have no chance of becoming the law of the land, while more  quietly giving his campaign contributors what they’ve paid him for: giveaways to Wall Street, tax cuts for the wealthy (euphemized as tax “exemptions” and mark-to-model accounting, plus an agreement to count “income” as “capital gains” taxed at a much lower rate).

Obama’s New Populist Fakery – Hudson

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 8:53 am  

Is It Still Capitalism?

 Libertarianism - the Debate, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Austrian School of Economics, The Democrats Blew It Again, The Economics of Schumpeter, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Growing American Fascist State, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  1 Response »
Oct 082011
 

Of Time and Marshmallows
by J. Grayson Lilburne on January 15, 2010

It seems that central banks, and the interventionist state in general, are inducing the squandering of capital at a rate that may prove fatal to civilization. We are plummeting fast into what Ludwig von Mises called the “Crisis of Interventionism”, and the only way out of it is through a widespread rediscovery of sound economics among the educated public.

In particular, it is imperative that as many people as possible gain as firm an understanding as possible of how central banks induce capital consumption. As Mises teaches us, this is done primarily through manipulation of the rate of interest. So, to understand how the Federal Reserve and its junior-partner central banks are literally destroying society, one must delve into the mystery of interest.

Posted in Catholic Social Teaching, Christian Economic Theory, Christian Freedom, Church & State

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 9:50 am  

FREE WILL

 Coup d'etat in America, Obama's Hypocrisy, Smaller Can Be Better, Sub-Prime anytime, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors  1 Response »
Aug 282011
 

A lot of people have asked why New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is going after the banks as aggressively as he is. It’s almost unbelievable that one lone elected official, who happens to have powerful legal tools at his disposal, is doing something that no one with any serious degree of power has done. So what is the secret? What kind of machinations is he undertaking that no one else has been able to do? I’ve known Schneiderman for a few years, back when he was a state Senator working to reform the Rockefeller drug laws. And my answer to this question is pretty simple. He wants to. That’s it. Eric Schneiderman is investigating the banks because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. So he’s doing it. This guy has thought about his politics. He wrote an article about how he sees politics in 2008 in the Nation, and in his inaugural speech as NY AG he talked about the need to restore faith in both public and private institutions. Free will still counts for something, apparently. In all the absurdly stupid punditry, the simple application of free will to our elected officials goes missing. Yeah, Obama got money from Wall Street. But Obama is choosing to pursue a policy of foreclosures and bank bailouts not because of any grand corporate scheme. He just wants to. He thinks it’s the right thing to do, and he’s doing it. If you don’t think it’s the right thing to do, then you shouldn’t be disappointed in him any more than you might have been disappointed in Bush. Obama is not trying to do the opposite of what he’s doing, he’s not repeatedly suckered by Republicans, and he isn’t naive or stupid. Obama is simply doing what he thinks is right. So is Eric Schneiderman. So is Tom Miller. So are any number of elected officials out there. In positions of power, the best expression I heard is that “up there the air is thin”. That is, you have enormous latitude, if you want to use it. Power can be wielded creatively and effectively on behalf of whatever it is the wielder wants. Now of course there are constraints, plenty of them. Smart politicians spend their time working to maximize the constraints they want to impose and weakening the ones they want to overcome. But the basic Reaganite liberal argument defending supplication towards Obama these days is that Obama is “disappointing”. In this line of thought, powerful corporate interests and Republicans are preventing him from enacting what his real agenda would be were he unfettered by this mean machine. Eric Schneiderman, who is in a far less powerful position as New York Attorney General, shows that this is utter hogwash. Obama is who he is, and anyone who thinks otherwise is selling something.

READ THE REST –

Matt Stoller: Power Politics – What Eric Schneiderman Reveals About Obama

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 8:11 pm  

Standard & Poor’s Predatory Policy Agenda

 S&P Power, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, We Are All Cooked, We Have Become Beggars To The World, We Need Open Derivative Models, What Is An Investment Asset?, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  1 Response »
Aug 072011
 

While it’s useful to think of the ratings agencies as incompetent, or as greedy, it’s important to remember that they have an actual policy agenda. They weren’t just wrong in rating subprime tranches of toxic dreck AAA. They were also pivotal in actively creating the policies that led to the financial crisis.

In the early 2000s, several states attempted to rein in an increasingly obvious predatory mortgage lending wave. These laws, pushed by consumer advocates, would have threatened the highly profitable mortgage securitization pipeline.

S&P used its power to destroy this threat. Josh Rosner and Gretchen Morgenson told the story in Reckless Endangerment.

 

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 6:28 pm  

We need an FDR, not a toadie for the oligarchy

 A Growing List Of One Term Presidents, A Moral Question - Not A Political One, A State of Distress, Bilderbergers 1 USA 0, Coming Social Unrest, Constitutional Questions, Consumption Ran the Old Economy, Coup d'etat in America, Death of the Dollar, Dismal Science-Ignorant Scientists?, Economic Analysis Isn't Science, FDR, Greenspan is kind of stupid, HEY AMERICA-STICK 'EM UP!, It Is Supposed to be a Republic!, Let's Call What It Is - DEPRESSION, Obama Bingo, Obama's Hypocrisy, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Pig-Headed Economic Policy May Still Lead to Disaster, Political Chaos, Rational Behavior, Read and Weep Entries, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Consequences of Greed, The Democrats Blew It Again, The Dollar's Demise, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unintended Consequences, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who owns Congress-Still!  2 Responses »
Jul 242011
 

“On the eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by either of the major political parties.

The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of humanity—it goes to humanity itself.

In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will win.

More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I said: “Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”

The banners of that crusade still fly in the van of a Nation that is on the march.

It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.

What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.

First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.

Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways—those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of wild-cat speculation, the safety of their children from kidnappers.

And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations—peace in a world of unrest. The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.

I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation for future peace—peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for the Nation, and peace with the world.

Tonight I call the roll—the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.

Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance—men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.

Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o’-the-wisp.

Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.

Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, “This can be changed. We will change it.”

We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.

Their hopes have become our record.

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

The American people know from a four-year record that today there is only one entrance to the White House—by the front door. Since March 4, 1933, there has been only one pass-key to the White House. I have carried that key in my pocket. It is there tonight. So long as I am President, it will remain in my pocket.

Those who used to have pass-keys are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current pay-envelope campaign against America’s working people. Only reckless men, heedless of consequences, would risk the disruption of the hope for a new peace between worker and employer by returning to the tactics of the labor spy.

Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse—it is deceit.

They tell the worker his wage will be reduced by a contribution to some vague form of old-age insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar of premium he pays for that insurance, the employer pays another dollar. That omission is deceit.

They carefully conceal from him the fact that under the federal law, he receives another insurance policy to help him if he loses his job, and that the premium of that policy is paid 100 percent by the employer and not one cent by the worker. They do not tell him that the insurance policy that is bought for him is far more favorable to him than any policy that any private insurance company could afford to issue. That omission is deceit.

They imply to him that he pays all the cost of both forms of insurance. They carefully conceal from him the fact that for every dollar put up by him his employer puts up three dollars three for one. And that omission is deceit.

But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence.

The fraudulent nature of this attempt is well shown by the record of votes on the passage of the Social Security Act. In addition to an overwhelming majority of Democrats in both Houses, seventy-seven Republican Representatives voted for it and only eighteen against it and fifteen Republican Senators voted for it and only five against it. Where does this last-minute drive of the Republican leadership leave these Republican Representatives and Senators who helped enact this law?

I am sure the vast majority of law-abiding businessmen who are not parties to this propaganda fully appreciate the extent of the threat to honest business contained in this coercion.

I have expressed indignation at this form of campaigning and I am confident that the overwhelming majority of employers, workers and the general public share that indignation and will show it at the polls on Tuesday next.

Aside from this phase of it, I prefer to remember this campaign not as bitter but only as hard-fought. There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people.

It is because I have sought to think in terms of the whole Nation that I am confident that today, just as four years ago, the people want more than promises.

Our vision for the future contains more than promises.

This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state our objectives.

Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers of America—to reduce hours over-long, to increase wages that spell starvation, to end the labor of children, to wipe out sweatshops. Of course we will continue every effort to end monopoly in business, to support collective bargaining, to stop unfair competition, to abolish dishonorable trade practices. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America, for better and cheaper transportation, for low interest rates, for sounder home financing, for better banking, for the regulation of security issues, for reciprocal trade among nations, for the wiping out of slums. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America. With their continued cooperation we will do all in our power to end the piling up of huge surpluses which spelled ruinous prices for their crops. We will persist in successful action for better land use, for reforestation, for the conservation of water all the way from its source to the sea, for drought and flood control, for better marketing facilities for farm commodities, for a definite reduction of farm tenancy, for encouragement of farmer cooperatives, for crop insurance and a stable food supply. For all these we have only just begun to fight.

Of course we will provide useful work for the needy unemployed; we prefer useful work to the pauperism of a dole.

Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless—that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief—to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy godmother should happen on the scene.

You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side.

Again—what of our objectives?

Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women so that they may obtain an education and an opportunity to put it to use. Of course we will continue our help for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will continue to protect the consumer against unnecessary price spreads, against the costs that are added by monopoly and speculation. We will continue our successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.

For these things, too, and for a multitude of others like them, we have only just begun to fight.

All this—all these objectives—spell peace at home. All our actions, all our ideals, spell also peace with other nations.

Today there is war and rumor of war. We want none of it. But while we guard our shores against threats of war, we will continue to remove the causes of unrest and antagonism at home which might make our people easier victims to those for whom foreign war is profitable. You know well that those who stand to profit by war are not on our side in this campaign.

“Peace on earth, good will toward men”—democracy must cling to that message. For it is my deep conviction that democracy cannot live without that true religion which gives a nation a sense of justice and of moral purpose. Above our political forums, above our market places stand the altars of our faith—altars on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and all that is best in our Nation.

We have need of that devotion today. It is that which makes it possible for government to persuade those who are mentally prepared to fight each other to go on instead, to work for and to sacrifice for each other. That is why we need to say with the Prophet: “What doth the Lord require of thee—but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.” That is why the recovery we seek, the recovery we are winning, is more than economic. In it are included justice and love and humility, not for ourselves as individuals alone, but for our Nation.

That is the road to peace.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/07/fdr-speech-1936.html

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 10:43 am  

The New ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ – Taibbi

 The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Geithner Resignation Watch, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Habits of Hedge Funds, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Joy of Being A Bank, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party  1 Response »
Jul 162011
 

If you think your local Andy Griffith is a greedy pig because he retired in his forties and built an addition to his garage with your tax money, try hanging out with a guy who eats $400 crabs, throws himself $5 million parties where he is serenaded by Rod Stewart and Patti Labelle (who sang “Happy Birthday”), and then compares the president to Hitler when word leaks out that he might have to pay taxes at the same rate as a firefighter or a kindergarten teacher.

But America never gets to meet that guy, because all of those parties are invite-only, and the only reporters that go tend to do so with kneepads on — like the extraordinary Andrew Ross Sorkin, who as Sirota notes, predictably wrote a slurpilicious “In Defense of Schwarzman” piece after the event (his thesis, to the extent that I could make it out, seemed to be that there are even bigger assholes than Schwarzman). As a result, the popular outrage gets steered toward state employees greedily living off their own pensions, not toward the truly deserving targets hiding in the Hamptons and Gstaad and St. Tropez.

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 11:16 am  

The Rise of the Wrecking-Ball Right

 A Moral Question - Not A Political One, A State of Distress, BANK RESERVES FOR TBTF, Bilderbergers 1 USA 0, Constitutional Questions, Coup d'etat in America, Deleveraging, Devaluation, Dismal Science-Ignorant Scientists?, Economic Analysis Isn't Science, Federal Reserve-Discussion, Figures don't lie but Liars can figure, Goldman: Underwriter or Undertaker?, Greenspan is kind of stupid, HEY AMERICA-STICK 'EM UP!, History of Finance, Insolvency, Integrity and Responsibility, Is The Market Rally Real?, IT'S ALL ABOUT POWER AND MONEY, Jacksonian Democracy, Moral Hazard, Obama's Hypocrisy, Objectivism, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Political Chaos, Regulatory Failures, Robert Reich, Small Business-Bedrock of America, Smaller Can Be Better, Subsidiarity, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Big Fat Greek Question, The Consequences of Greed, The Democrats Blew It Again, The Dollar's Demise, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Geithner Resignation Watch, The Growing American Fascist State, The Habits of Hedge Funds, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Truth In Charity, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences, USA Is the New Japan, Wage Deflation, We Are All Cooked, We Are All Guilty, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who owns Congress-Still!  1 Response »
Jul 162011
 

One would have thought the last few years of mine disasters, exploding oil rigs, nuclear meltdowns, malfeasance on Wall Street, wildly-escalating costs of health insurance, rip-roaring CEO pay, and mass layoffs would have offered a singular opportunity to explain why the nation’s collective well-being requires a strong and effective government representing the interests of average people.

The Rise of the Wrecking-Ball Right

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 10:53 am  

WAVE GOODBYE TO THE DOLLAR

 Death of the Dollar, Deflation-Inflation-Stagflation, Dismal Science-Ignorant Scientists?, Dollar Musings, Economic Analysis Isn't Science, Federal Reserve-Discussion, Greenspan is kind of stupid, HEY AMERICA-STICK 'EM UP!, Monetary Policy - Discussion, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Politicians, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Big Fat Greek Question, The Consequences of Greed, The Currency Wars Officially Begin, The Democrats Blew It Again, The Dollar's Demise, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Joy of Being A Bank, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The New American Socialism, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, USA Is the New Japan, Wage Deflation, Want To Buy A Car?, We Are All Cooked, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!  No Responses »
Jun 112011
 

BEN BERNANKE’S speech on Tuesday got all the attention, but the speech later that day by Bill Dudley, head of the New York Fed, is more intriguing. In it he analyses the macroeconomic origins of the global imbalances that precipitated the crisis and prescribes the policy path forward.

He does so in logical, crisp and accessible language. Mr Dudley is, however, still a central banker, which means he must be translated, especially when it comes to the delicate subject of the dollar. In a nutshell, Mr Dudley tells us that aggressively easy monetary policy is essential to both the cyclical recovery and to a structural rebalancing of the American economy away from consumption and toward exports. This process will go more smoothly for everyone if emerging market economies (EMEs) cooperate and let their exchange rates appreciate (i.e. let the dollar fall), but absent such cooperation, don’t expect the Fed to change course.

Mr Dudley starts with some striking statistics. EMEs now account for 38% of world GDP, up from 23% in 1990, and 59% of world growth in the 2000s, up from 25% in the 1980s. Since 2007, the BRICS’ GDP has risen 31%; the G7’s, just 1%.

He retells the familiar story of how global imbalances bred the financial crisis, but with a twist. In the past, the Federal Reserve and Mr Bernanke (here and here) have denied culpability for the credit bubble, blaming instead the influx of excess savings from EMEs into developed-world assets. Mr Dudley, in effect, says both bear the blame:

[T]he combination of rapid gains in production capacity and relatively repressed consumption in the EME world helped foster a global deficiency of demand relative to supply. In these circumstances, the United States and many other industrialized economies had to sustain domestic demand at elevated levels in order to achieve “full employment” and prevent deflation. For the United States, the consequence was elevated consumption facilitated by asset price inflation, easy underwriting standards for credit and structural budget deficits.

 

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 5:15 pm  

Easy Money for the Banksters

 Coup d'etat in America, IT'S ALL ABOUT POWER AND MONEY, Moral Hazard, Obama's Hypocrisy, Political Implications, Regulatory Failures, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The Democrats Blew It Again, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Joy of Being A Bank, The New American Socialism, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, USA Is the New Japan, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  No Responses »
Jun 042011
 

A newly-released study from the Congressional Research Service bolsters claims that the nation’s largest banks profited off the Federal Reserve’s financial crisis-era programs by borrowing cash for next to nothing, then lending it back to the federal government at substantially higher rates.

The report reinforces long-held beliefs that the banking system in essence engaged in taxpayer-financed arbitrage: They got money for free, then lent it back to Uncle Sam while collecting juicy returns. Left out of the equation are the millions of everyday borrowers, like households and small businesses, who were unable to secure loans needed to tide them over until the crisis ended.

The Fed released records under pressure in December and March that showed the extent of its largesse. The CRS study shows for the first time how some of the most sophisticated financial firms could have taken the Fed’s money and flipped easy profits simply by lending it back to another arm of the government.

The report was requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who likened the crisis-era emergency loans to “direct corporate welfare to big banks,” in a statement. The cash likely was lent back to Uncle Sam in the form of Treasuries and other debt “instead of using the Fed loans to reinvest in the economy,” Sanders added.

In all, more than $3 trillion was lent to financial institutions from the Fed, and terms were generous. Junk-rated securities were pledged as collateral for taxpayer-backed loans. The Fed did not provide conditions for how the money was to be used.

As part of one Fed program, on 33 separate occasions, nine firms were able to borrow between $5.2 billion and $6.2 billion in U.S. government securities for four-week intervals, paying one-time fees that amounted to the minuscule rate of 0.0078 percent.

Guest Post: Congressional Research Service Confirms Big Banks Borrowed Cash For Next To Nothing, Then Lent It Back to the Federal Government at Much Higher Rates

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 1:03 pm  

The End of QE2 Is Going to Be a Disaster

 A Growing List Of One Term Presidents, A Moral Question - Not A Political One, A State of Distress, A Time To Repent, AIG and all that....., “the Greenspan doctrine”, Bilderbergers 1 USA 0, Coup d'etat in America, Credit Card Debt, Death of the Dollar, Deficit Death Spiral, Deflation-Inflation-Stagflation, Deleveraging, Devaluation, Dismal Science-Ignorant Scientists?, HEY AMERICA-STICK 'EM UP!, Is Goldman Sachs Evil?, Is The Market Rally Real?, It Is Supposed to be a Republic!, IT'S ALL ABOUT POWER AND MONEY, Jacksonian Democracy, Joseph Stiglitz, Labor Issues, Let's Call What It Is - DEPRESSION, Obama Bingo, Obama's Hypocrisy, Our phony middle class, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Robert Reich, Ron Paul Stands Tall, TARP fruit loops, The American Financial Oligarchy, The Arrogance of Power, The Consequences of Greed, The Democrats Blew It Again, The Dollar's Demise, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The New American Socialism, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, USA Is the New Japan, Wage Deflation, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  1 Response »
May 152011
 

The end of the second round of quantitative easing (QE2) is going to be a complete disaster for the paper markets — specifically commodities, stocks, and then finally bonds, in that order, with losses of 20% to 50% by the end of October. The only thing that will arrest the plunge will be QE3, although we should remain alert to the likelihood that it will be named something else in an attempt to obscure what it really is. Perhaps it will be known as the “Muni Asset Trust Term Liquidity Facility” or the “American Prime Purchase Program,” but whatever it is called, it will involve hundreds of billions of thin-air dollars being printed and dumped into the financial system.

A Premature Victory Lap

Ben Bernanke recently stood at a lectern and announced to the assembled audience that the Fed’s recent policies could be credited with elevated stock prices and an improved employment statistic while somehow keeping inflation low.

It was his own version of a “mission accomplished” speech, just like the one G. W. Bush gave. Similarly, it does not mark the end of significant difficulties, but the probable beginning of a very long period of treacherous economic and financial disruption.

Here’s one recent version of how the Fed’s actions are being interpreted, courtesy of Bloomberg:

Bernanke’s QE2 Averts Deflation, Spurs Rally, Expands Credit

Ben S. Bernanke’s $600 billion strike against deflation is paying off, as stock and debt markets rise, bank lending grows and economists forecast faster growth.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has gained 13.5 percent since the Federal Reserve chairman announced on Nov. 3 the plan to buy Treasuries through its so-called quantitative easing policy. Government bond yields show investors expect consumer prices to rise in line with historical averages. The riskiest companies are obtaining credit at the cheapest borrowing costs ever and Fed data show that commercial and industrial loans outstanding are rising for the first time since 2008.

“Looking at market indicators, you have to be convinced it’s been a success,” said Bradley Tank, chief investment officer for fixed-income in Chicago at Neuberger Berman Fixed Income LLC, which oversees about $83 billion. “When you get into periods of aggressive central bank easing, and we’re clearly in the most aggressive period of easing that we’ve ever seen, the markets tend to lead the real economy.”

A rising stock market, low inflation expectations, and lots and lots of cheap credit for even the riskiest companies. What’s not to like?

The main problem is that this is all an illusion.
The End of QE2 Is Going to Be a Disaster – Chris Martenson, Minyanville

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 10:17 am  

Amoral Behaviour

 A Moral Question - Not A Political One, Commodity Market, Goldman: Underwriter or Undertaker?, Is Goldman Sachs Evil?, The Suffering Poor  No Responses »
May 012011
 

How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis Foreign Policy (hat tip reader May S). There is one misleading factoid in the story. It creates the impression that independent traders are the ones who make the most money from monthly commodities contract rolls. Not so. The practice is called “date rape” and its leading practitioner is….Goldman.

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 2:29 pm  

“Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%”

 A Moral Question - Not A Political One, Joseph Stiglitz, Our phony middle class, Regulatory Failures, Rick Santorum - President, Ron Paul Stands Tall, Small Business-Bedrock of America, The Suffering Poor  No Responses »
Apr 092011
 

In an article titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%”

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 6:20 pm  

Sometimes Moral Courage Is the Catalyst

 A Growing List Of One Term Presidents, A Moral Question - Not A Political One, A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, Patience is a virtue...Delusion is a vice, Political Chaos, Politicians, Prostitutes and Pimps All Rhyme, The Democrats Blew It Again, The Growing American Fascist State, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Judeo-Christian Political Coalition, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Oil Question, The Suffering Poor, Time For A New Third Party, Truth In Charity, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences  No Responses »
Mar 122011
 

“Barack Obama’s policy toward the Libyan struggle for freedom is no longer a muddle. It is now a disgrace.

Here is what his administration and its allies have told the world, and the Libyan dictator, and the Libyan rebels, in recent days. The director of national intelligence declared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a chilling example of self-fulfilling prophecy, that “over the longer term Qaddafi will prevail.” The secretary of defense continued to insist that the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya is too much for America to do, and to frighten the public with the warning that it would constitute a military operation, as if all military operations are like all other military operations, and therefore the prelude to the sort of wars that would require us, as he put it in an earlier outburst about Iraq and Afghanistan, to have our heads examined. ” Continue reading “Obama’s Libya Policy Isn’t a Muddle. It’s a Disgrace.”

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 10:42 am  

The Jobs Report & America’s Two Economies

 Our phony middle class, The End of American Capitalism As We Know It? - Discuss, The excellent adventures of Ben Bernanke, The Financial Elite, The Great American Heist, The Growing American Fascist State, The Habits of Hedge Funds, The Importance of Strategic Planning, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Joy of Being A Bank, The New American Socialism, The Obama OMG magic factory, The Sorry State Of American Manufacturing, The Suffering Poor, Unemployment Catastrophe, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors, Unintended Consequences, Wage Deflation, We Are All Cooked, We Have Become Beggars To The World, Who Guarantees the Guarantor?-You Do!, Who owns Congress-Still!  No Responses »
Feb 062011
 

At a time when corporate profits are through the roof, the Dow is flirting with 12,000, Wall Street paychecks are fat again, and big corporations are sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash, you’d expect jobs be coming back. But you’d be wrong.

The U.S. economy added just 36,000 jobs in January, according to today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Remember, 125,000 are needed just to keep up with the increase in the population of Americans wanting and needing work. And 300,000 a month are needed — continuously, for five years — if we’re to get back to anything like the employment we had before the Great Recession.

In other words, today’s employment report should be sending alarm bells all over official Washington. Granted, unusually bad weather may have accounted for some of the reluctance of employers to hire in January. But even considering the weather, the economy is still terribly sick. (Technical note: The official rate of unemployment fell to 9 percent from 9.4 percent, but that’s because more workers have left the labor market, too discouraged to continue looking for work. The official rate reflects how many people are actively looking for work.)

We have two economies. The first is in recovery. The second remains in a continuous depression.

The first is a professional, college-educated, high-wage economy centered in New York and Washington, that’s living well off of global corporate profits. Corporations continue to make money by selling abroad from their foreign operations while cutting costs (especially labor) here at home. Wall Street is making money by taking the Fed’s free money and speculating with it. The richest 10 percent of Americans, holding 90 percent of all financial assets, are riding the wave. And their upscale spending has given high-end retailers and producers a bounce.

The second is most of the rest of America, and it’s still struggling with a mountain of debt, declining home prices, and job losses. In coming months most Americans will also be contending with sharply rising prices of food and fuel.

Our representatives in Washington see and hear mostly the first economy. The business press reports mainly on the first economy. Corporate and Wall Street economists are concerned largely with the first economy.

But the second economy will determine our politics in 2012 and beyond.

And not even the first can be sustained permanently on its own. Corporate profits cannot continue to rise on the basis of foreign sales (which are slowing as Europe adopts austerity and China raises interest rates), the purchases of the richest 10 percent of Americans (which are dependent on a rising stock market), and cost-cutting measures at home (which are necessarily limited). Without a strong and broadly-based middle-class recovery, America’s big money economy will fall in on itself. A major stock market “correction” is a certainty.

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

The Jobs Report & America’s Two Economies – Robert Reich, Huffington Post

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 2:25 pm  

The Elites – The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority

 A Moral Question - Not A Political One, The Financial Elite, The Inherent Disorder of Empires, The Intrusion of UNLAWFUL Authority, The Suffering Poor, Unindicted Co-Conspiritors  No Responses »
Feb 022011
 

“It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.

But in practice such a society could not remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupified by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”

George Orwell, 1984

Posted by Brian Schuettler at 9:03 pm  
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