Taiwan (-43pc), Ukraine (-34pc), Japan (-30pc), Singapore (-29pc), Hungary (-23pc), Sweden (-20pc), Korea (-19pc), Turkey (-18pc), Russia (-16pc), Spain (-15pc), Poland (-15pc), Brazil (-15pc), Italy (-14pc), Germany (-12pc), France (-11pc), US (-10pc) and Britain (-9pc).
By comparison, industrial output in core-Europe fell 2.8pc in 1930, 5.1pc in 1931 and 3.9pc in 1932, according to RBS.
We need shock and awe policies to halt depression
28 Feb 2009
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
As ordinary citizens with no power over the levers of policy, we watch from the sidelines, and weep. The whole global economy has tipped into a downward spiral. Trade and output are contracting at rates that outstrip the leisurely depression of the 1930s. Debt deflation has simply washed over the drastic measures taken by governments everywhere.
Judging by the latest Merrill Lynch survey of fund managers, investors have a touching faith that China is going to rescue us all and re-ignite the commodity boom. How can this be? Taiwan's exports to China fell 55pc in January, Japan's fell 45pc. These exports are links in the supply chain for China's industry. Manufacturing output in the Shanghai region fell 12pc in January.
My favourite China guru, Michael Pettis from Beijing University, is in despair – as you can see on his blog (http://mpettis.com). The property bubble is bursting. Developers have built more offices in Beijing since 2006 than the entire stock in Manhattan. There is a 14-year supply glut. We have seen this movie before.
Factory output is collapsing at the fastest pace everywhere. The figures for the most recent month available are, year-on-year: Taiwan (-43pc), Ukraine (-34pc), Japan (-30pc), Singapore (-29pc), Hungary (-23pc), Sweden (-20pc), Korea (-19pc), Turkey (-18pc), Russia (-16pc), Spain (-15pc), Poland (-15pc), Brazil (-15pc), Italy (-14pc), Germany (-12pc), France (-11pc), US (-10pc) and Britain (-9pc). Norway sails blissfully on (+4pc). What do they drink up there?
This terrifying fall has been concentrated in the last five months. The job slaughter has barely begun. Social mayhem comes with a 12-month lag. By comparison, industrial output in core-Europe fell 2.8pc in 1930, 5.1pc in 1931 and 3.9pc in 1932, according to RBS.
Stephen Lewis, from Monument Securities, says we have been lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of "soup kitchens". The visual cues from Steinbeck's America are missing. "The temptation for investors is to see this as just another recession, over by the end of the year. But this is not a normal cycle. It is a cataclysmic structural breakdown," he said.
Fiscal stimulus is reaching its global limits. The lowest interest rates in history are failing to gain traction. The Fed seems paralyzed. It first talked of buying US Treasuries three months ago, but cannot seem to bring itself to hit the nuclear button.
As the Fed dithers, a flood of bond issues from the US Treasury is swamping the debt market. The yield on 10-year Treasuries has climbed from 2pc to 3.04pc in eight weeks. The real cost of money is rising as deflation gathers pace.
US house prices have fallen 27pc (Case-Shiller index). The pace of descent is accelerating. The 2.2pc fall in December was the worst month ever. January looks just as bad. Delinquenc-ies on prime mortgages were 1.72pc in September, 1.89pc in October, 2.13pc on November and 2.42pc in December. This is the trajectory eating away at the banking system.
Graham Turner, from GFC Economics, fears the Dow could crash to 4,000 by summer unless there is a "quantum reduction" in mortgage rates. The Fed should swoop in to the market – armed with Ben Bernanke's "printing press" – and mop up enough Treasuries to force 10-year yields down to 1pc and mortgage rates to 2.5pc. Monetary shock and awe.
This remedy is fraught with risk, but all options are ghastly at this point. That is the legacy we have been left by the Greenspan doctrine. We are at the moment of extreme danger in Irving Fisher's "Debt Deflation Theory" (1933) where the ship fails to right itself by natural buoyancy, and capsizes instead.
From all accounts, the Fed was ready to launch its bond blitz in January. Something happened. Perhaps the hawks awoke in cold sweats at night, fretting about Weimar.
Perhaps they feared that China and the world will pull the plug on the US bond market. If so, it is time for Washington to get a grip. America remains the hegemonic global power.
The Obama team should let it be known – and perhaps Hillary Clinton did just that on her trip to Asia – that any country playing games with the US bond market in this crisis will be treated as an enemy and pay a crushing price.
Pacific allies already know that they cannot take the US security blanket for granted. As for China – and others pursuing a mercantilist strategy of export-led growth – they must know that the US can shut off its market and wreak havoc to their economy.
To Europe, they might make it clearer that unless the European Central Bank is brought to heel by the Continent's leaders (whatever Maastricht says) and forced to play its full part in emergency efforts to save the global economy, the NATO military alliance will wither and the region will be left to fend for itself against a revanchist Russia.
Should the main threat come from an exodus of private wealth, Washington may have to impose temporary capital controls. Never forget, America is the one country with enough strategic depth to go it alone, if necessary. The US is not going to let foreigners keep it trapped in a depression.
I doubt matters will ever come to this. Japan is already in dire straits. Exports crashed 46pc in January, year-on-year. The Bank of Japan may soon start buying US Treasuries for its own reasons – just as it did from 2003 to 2004 – in order to reverse the 30pc rise of the yen over the last 18 months. If it helps preserve the Sino-US defence alliance in the face of Chinese naval expansion, so much the better.
In any case, the storm has shifted across the Atlantic to Europe. Germany faces 5pc contraction this year (Deutsche Bank). The bill has come from the burst bubble in the ex-Soviet bloc. Europe's banks are on the hook for $1.6 trillion (£1.1 trillion). For the first time since the launch of monetary union, Europe's leaders are speaking openly about the risk of EMU break-up.
A run on the US dollar looks a remote threat as the euro drama unfolds. The Fed may soon have all the room for manoeuvre it needs. Small comfort.
This ought to wake up our masters and rulers, the assholes who are still debating that the housing bailout is un-fucking fair. To whom may I ask?
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of the departed dumb shits that stood on the beach with their video-cams recording the tsunami wave racing to crush them.
ReplyDeleteIt's all a conspiracy, I tell ya. It's all part of the new world order. All the capitalists have gotten together and conspired to put themselves out of business.
ReplyDeleteMy local bank right down the street, for instance. They are part of it too. They got $125 million from unca Obama out of this deal. In turn they are panting to be nationalized, to be part of the new world order.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Soros and the commies are behind this. I can feel it.
ReplyDeleteAll these bankers have been yearning to be nationalized since my youth. They have finally got up a conspiracy to make it happen.
ReplyDeleteYou look at your average American banker, you're lookin' at a George Soros commie yearning to be nationalized.
That's what is behind all this.
The entire purpose and intent of this so called "crisis" was an effort by the banks to put themselves out of business. They wanted to put themselves out of business so they'd be nationalized, even internationalized, so as to concentrate all power in the 'new world order'.
ReplyDeleteIt's a real betrayal of the stock holders, I'll tell you that.
They all schemed together to put themselves out of business.
Those are so blind that cannot see.
I was always suspicious of the bankers down there at my little local bank. They all wear nice clothes and are polite. Always with a scheming smile on their faces. I knew something was up. They have conspired to put themselves out of business. I see that now.
ReplyDeleteThey are still in business, but I see the end of it now.
New
World
Order
mark of the beast
So global warming nuts should be thrilled?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that we're beginning to hear more talk about the "d" word. On the other hand, many still opine that we'll see the bottom of this recession toward the end of this year.
ReplyDeleteDepression, recession.
Billions and trillions.
Social engineering.
I'm up for a new adventure.
I'm also beginning to think my very wife is part of this scheme as well.
ReplyDeleteDoes she not take the checks to deposite in these banks?
Yes, she does, and she knows what she is doing.
I'm beginning to think she is part of this conspiracy too.
Maybe that she is even the spark plug behind it all.
Banker is too lose a term. An Investment banker is more of a speculator than he is a banker. Bankers were restricted about how they could conduct their business.
ReplyDeleteReal bankers are not and were not the problem. All bankers rent money. Real bankers were cautious as to how they put out rented money to people they knew.
Investment bankers were always innovating at how they could push the envelope rather than walk the line. The Regulators let them.
Don't trust anybody, not even yourself.
ReplyDeleteThe entire purpose of the "Crisis" was to transform the private bankng system, to further Nationalize and Centralize the economic authority and power in the New World Order.
ReplyDeleteThey just waited until now to do it, the scheming bastards.
Paranoia strikes deep. Gotta run, there's a cop behind me.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find China in that list.
ReplyDeleteThe numbers do not lie. The world economy is collapsing. Very few people will not be affected. Fair has nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteFair had nothing to do with the 50,000 casualties at Gettysburg. Not one of them deserved it, but the sacrifice was made for what was thought to be the greater good of each side.
Today, most, not all people believe the unfairness to the fifty thousand was in the best interest of the US as a whole.
So it goes.
Carlos The Jackal Writes To Obumble From Jail
ReplyDeleteDmitry, you're part of this too.
ReplyDeleteDon't tell me you aren't.
The Chinese lie bout their figures. No one knows for sure but I undesrtand the skies are blue over many of the manufacturing areas. I found this to be an interesting hint about China and how they act.
ReplyDeleteWhy would China be sending Chinese laborers to Costa Rica when the Costa Rican unemployment in construction is accelerating at such an alarming rate that the Government is worried that the loss in social security payments will affect their own ponzi scheme?
ReplyDeleteThere's a better way.
ReplyDeleteGreen Libertarian.
Bob, this future was predicted.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.unwelcomeguests.org/
You got me there, Deuce, I haven't a clue.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do know is that locally here--Moscow/Pullman--we are getting overbuilt again, in rental units.
It swings this way and that.
It's going to be a 'tenants market' this fall, I am sure.
If it weren't for the fact that a lot of people are coming back to school because of this economic turmoil, we'd be really really overbuilt.
Real Estate may have been part of the trigger, but the debt debacle is far too large to be cured by real estate, even if every speculator and scamster was made whole and prices were brought up to unaffordable Bubble Heights Again.
ReplyDeleteAs it states below, California reeal estate is still Fifty Percent HIGHER than it was in 2002!
...hard to argue that's responsible, or would be the cure for the Global Meltdown.
Dividing all those Trillions amongst the multitudes via tax breaks and rebates woulda worked better, but that's the last thing those in DC are about to do.
As it states below, California reeal estate is still Fifty Percent HIGHER than it was in 2002!
ReplyDelete==
Which is what I told Rufus. Prices still have 50% to go from where they are now.
I may be a kind of a son of a bitch, but I am getting, I admit, something of a laugh at these real estate prices collapsing in places like Vegas and California.
ReplyDeleteServes them right, is the feeling that comes to my mind.
All these assholes seemed to have thought it's my god given right to have the house appreciate year after year.
Basically, I kind of feel this way--
Fuck 'em. Serves 'em right.
But maybe I've lived up here in the lonely snows for too long.
Property Records Of Henrietta Hughes Sweetness and Light
ReplyDeleteThis commenter goes into quite a few different scams:
SSILargestFraudUS
OK, LISTEN UP Folks, I’m going to tell you exactly HOW Henrietta Hughes did this.
I know, because of a tiny mountain community in very far-Northern California, where I live, and did the US Census 2000, as well as I know the people around here and “How” they do exactly what Henrietta Hughes. So here goes and it will be a REAL EYE OPENER!
Illegals can collect SSI & SSP, via PRUCOL & CAPI, just to name two Programs as there are around 6 other Programs that allows Illegals, especially those ‘Over Age 65′ that collect Immediate SSI & SSP checks as soon as they get here from another Foreign Country and walk into any SSA Office, pull a tab, sit there, wait to be called to an ‘Intake Worker for SSA’ start filling out the forms, show “documents” of their Age and/or Disability, and they will “cut them a check” that day!
SSI’s also get HUD-Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. That’s what Henreitta was squacking about to Obingo.
She is on a “waiting list” for HUD-Section 8 Housing, and the waiting list for people without any children under age 18 is a long wait, because HUD-Section 8 Housing, as well as County & City Housing Authorities, always house the oldest, most disabled and the one’s with minor children FIRST.
Obviously, the HUD, County & City Housing Authorities felt that Henreitta’s “NEED” was not big enough to constitute putting her at the front of the waiting list!
Henrietta, gets the MAXIMUM Plethora of Benefits if she say’s she has NO HOUSING at all. So, she get’s the MAX check each and every 1st of Duh Munt.
SSI’s also get homeownership Grants & Loans, that a Middle-Class worker over the “Low Income” Guideline Limits Can NEVER recieve.
USDA Rural Direct, USDA Rural Guarenteed in the New ‘Stimulus’ are Perfect examples of this RULE. Low-Incomes ONLY!
It also means, she get’s a Dignity Food Stamp Card, Low-Income Heating & Air Conditioning Assistance, Lifeline Phone Services, Reimbursment for her Property Tax bill and/or Trailer space Rental and/or RENTAL monies paid all year given back to her at 95% in October which is the end of the fiscal year for this reimbursment ‘Entitlement’ Program.
Henrietta is on MediCAID & MediCARE because she’s classified as Disabled, EXTREMELY Disabled OR over age 65, and EXTREMELY Low-Income.
This means she has “next to nothing”.
She has done what millions do.
The Majority of SSI’s Own their Home, Free & Clear, Paid For.
An SSI may own a Home, one per ‘Household’ of Any Value and Size Whatsoever.
This means, someone in a swanky California neighborhood in a $750,000 house, can collect the Maximum SSI & SSP checks each 1st of Duh Munt.
That’s right~it’s legal, one house of any size or value whatsoever per SSI beneficiary.
---
"SSI-Supplemental Security Income is NOT Social Security at all.
SSI is for those that never worked enough during their lifetime to get the SSDI checks.
This is what 80% of African Americans live hand to mouth off of, SSI.
This is also WHY Obama has favored SSI within his ‘Stimulus’ bill.
He’s given ONLY SSI’s an extra SSI check that will come on April 1st, 2009.
But, no other entities or ‘Entitlement’s at all will get this EXTRA check.
No, not Social Security Retirees, not Unemployed, not Welfare Mommie/Baby recieients, None BUT SSI will get this EXTRA check.
Simply because 80% of Obama’s “people” live off this check—-> SSI.
Henreitta Hughes Quit Claimed to her son because she wanted a clean slate to appear on her “Means Test”.
SSI-however, is allowed to “Own 1-One Real Estate Per Individual’ or 1-One Real Estate Per ‘Head of Household’ that’s ON SSI benefits.
Many SSI’s use their Windfall check to buy a house, an expensive car, that’s why they drive Cadallic Escalades, and there’s an old saying, “Welfare Cadallic” because it’s the car of choice for people like, Henreitta."
---
I see many, many Mommies become pathetically Obese from getting “paid to sit” by the Gubment, State and County.
The EBT-Dignity-Food Stamp Debit Cash Card in California, and all other states just got yet another raise from the ‘Stimulus’.
Watch and see what happens with all the Vacant and Foreclosed homes around YOUR area. They will ALL be bought by ‘Low-Incomes’ because of all the plethora of Grants n’ Loans in the ‘Stimulus’. The ‘Entitlement’ Grants n’ Loans that were already in place, ALL recieved an increase.
You will have very different looking Communities in about 1-Year from now, very, very different indeed!
Already happened to very-far-Northern California in July 2007 with HR-1851 and then again with more massive funding from HR-3221.
This Region looks completely different now, and I cannot wait to move North to my property way out in the forest in Oregon soon!
Henrietta is a Classic SSI “Milker”. They “Milk” the Government, State, County & City Grant Subsidies for ALL they CAN GET!
Rufus says this ain't no big deal to get Het Up about Mat!
ReplyDeletePut your money on Rufus!
...he's the one that said New Century was a mere ripple in the pond!
What accounts for such huge differences between Case-Shiller and federal price indexes? CNNMoney imagines it’s because “Homes purchased without financing or ones too expensive to qualify for a Fannie-Freddie loan are not counted in the FFHA (sic) statistics.” That’s more than unlikely. The inclusion of cash sales and jumbo loans (larger than $729,750 in pricey area) can’t possibly explain why price declines in the Case-Shiller index look so much more dramatic those in the OFHEO/FHFA index.
ReplyDeleteThe real reason is simple: Case-Shiller indexes are hugely dominated by the Foreclosure Five. In the Case-Shiller index of only 20 “top” metro areas, the Foreclosure Five account for 41.2% of that value-weighted index with California alone accounting for 27.4%.
The “national” Case-Shiller index totally excludes 13 states, such as Indiana and South Carolina, and samples only a fraction of many others. The Foreclosure Five account for 28.3% of that “national” index, with California amounting to 17.1%.
As is true of nearly all reprorting about foreclosures, underwater mortgages and falling house prices, what the Case-Shiller price index really shows is that many people are confusing what has been happening in the Foreclosure Five with what has been happening in the nation as a whole.
Buffett Says Economy Will Be ‘In Shambles’ for 2009
ReplyDeleteBy Rick Levinson
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett said the economy will be “in shambles” for the rest of this year as financial firms take losses tied to reckless loans made during the housing boom.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will probably gain in three-quarters of the next 44 years, just as it did in the period since Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in 1965, he said today in his annual letter to the company’s shareholders.
While Buffett and business partner Charlie Munger can’t predict how stocks will perform in 2009, they’re certain “that the economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 -- and, for that matter, probably well beyond,” he wrote.
Gross domestic product shrank at a 6.2 percent annual pace from October through December, the most since 1982, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington. Buffett said the consequences of the U.S. housing bubble are now “reverberating through every corner of our economy.”
Home purchases should involve an “honest-to-God down payment of at least 10 percent,” Buffett said. “Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective.”
Buffett endorsed efforts by the U.S. government to prevent the failure of financial firms including Bear Stearns Cos., which was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Rufus says this ain't no big deal to get Het Up about Mat!
ReplyDelete==
And he's right. The problem of deflating real estate prices is a problem for the banks. And like Bob says, fsck em. They should be made to eat their losses. The real problem is the $3.6 trillion being thrown out the window. Of the $3.6 trillion maybe $3.6 billion will go towards the solar energy. And that is simply scandalous.
22. Doug:
ReplyDeleteNaw, it’s just a Rotten Apple!
---
23. Doug:
(that was for Apple User 2164th)
Like Bobal says tho, Mat, it isn't really BANKS, like all the healthy regional banks.
ReplyDeleteIt is Wall Street Monstrosities like Citi, Lehman, etc.
And MOST OF ALL, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE USA.
Greenspan is gone, but not forgotten by some.
Hell of a nice house of cards he built tho.
The Genius of the Beltway.
His Mumbling "explanations/predictions" made Barry look like a straight talker..
Like Bobal says tho, Mat, it isn't really BANKS, like all the healthy regional banks.
ReplyDeleteIt is Wall Street Monstrosities like Citi, Lehman, etc.
==
And I have zero sympathy for any of them. They should have been killed. Like GM and the fscktard auto industry, the oil corporations, and the supersized military welfare contractors.
btw Mat:
ReplyDeleteMost of my bitching about Vista was ill-founded.
I, along with many others, thot DELL was crazy for giving users new hard drives to cure the problem their Western Digital Drives caused.
My Hp had a Western Digital too, and when I replaced it, (Seagate) problems vanished.
...but in MY case, it might not have been the WD Drive's fault, but mine for knocking it off it's stand (while running) one morning as I was waking up. (more or less)
First time I ever wrongly accused anyone other than myself.
har de har
There ya go again givin Trish fresh Ammo!
ReplyDeleteYOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE AMMO SHORTAGE!
F..... Traitor!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSP2 is on its way.
ReplyDeletePolite Guy that I am, I'll let you go first!
ReplyDeleteThere ya go again givin Trish fresh Ammo!
ReplyDelete==
Trish doesn't need any ammo. Her casserole cooking does the job just fine.
The Underlying Fraud In Banking
ReplyDeletehttp://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/837-The-Underlying-Fraud-In-Banking.html
Not to worry, Rat will be along soon chastizing each of us for not listening to him in an earlier post.
ReplyDeleteHe will also have the solution to all of this.
Just stand by...yes, he will be along soon....any moment now...
John McCain’s Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Warnings - MAY 2006
ReplyDeleteI hope you haven’t just eaten, because what you are about to read will disturb you–and well it should.
It’s proof that John McCain foresaw the Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae disaster in 2006– and tried against all Obama-Like minds to ward it off.
Below are John McCain’s remarks urging the passage of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which he co-sponsored and which was rendered “Dead” in Congress.
Guess who prevailed and didn’t take heed? Or more appropriately, guess who deliberately “looked the other way”?
This is all we need to know to understand exactly WHICH candidate in this election is willing to break some eggs when it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–two organizations that, with the help of certain Democrats, deliberately redistributed wealth the easy way. Now we are all paying for it, as intended all along. Just as John McCain warned below.
Don't make me Gag, Gag!
ReplyDelete"Oh they “empowered” all right. The Democrats killed this bill while Dodd, Frank and Obama fiddled and helped Fannie and Freddie cook their books, continue to tank, all the while keeping the regulators out of their way.
ReplyDeleteThese are the guys who killed the bill that McCain fought for. The bill that would have avoided the financial disaster we witnessed during the past two weeks. In the meantime, take a look at which senators were feeding at the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac trough. My party is not what it used to be. My party has not only let me down, but it has also screwed me and my country in the process."
Obama’s Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact
ReplyDeleteThe perception that the U.S. is now serious about tackling climate change has set off a flurry of diplomacy around the globe.
Times Topics: Global Warming
- The Great Solvent North -
ReplyDeleteHAS the world turned upside down? America, the capital of capitalism, is pondering nationalizing a handful of banks. Meanwhile, Canada, whose banking system had long been notorious for its stodgy practices and government coddling, is now being celebrated for those very qualities.
The Canadian banking system, which proved resilient in the global economic crisis, is finally getting its day in the sun. A recent World Economic Forum report ranked it the soundest in the world, mostly as the result of its conservative practices. (The United States ranked 40th).
The Coming Blue State Collapse
ReplyDeleteMarch 1 (Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders rejected pleas for an aid package for eastern Europe and EU funds for carmakers, bowing to German concerns over budget deficits as the economic slump deepens.
ReplyDeleteEU leaders vetoed a call by Hungary for loans of 180 billion euros ($228 billion) for ex-communist economies in eastern Europe, and told automakers such as General Motors Corp.’s European arm to look to national governments for help.
“I would advise against taking huge numbers into the debate,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels today. “I see a very different situation -- you can compare neither Slovenia nor Slovakia with Hungary.”
The worst economic crisis since World War II is devastating eastern Europe, putting at risk EU goals of stitching together a continent-wide free market.
The EU’s $17 trillion economy will contract 1.8 percent in 2009, the European Commission predicts. Latvia, a former Soviet republic that was the bloc’s star performer only three years ago, will shrink 6.9 percent. Growth in Poland, the biggest eastern economy, will tumble to 2 percent, the slackest pace since 2002.
Investors fleeing eastern Europe to cover losses at home have pushed down Poland’s zloty by 28 percent against the euro in the past six months, Hungary’s forint by 21 percent, Romania’s leu by 18 percent and the Czech koruna by 12 percent.
6. cedarhill:
ReplyDeleteSadly, the latest migrants from
“The Grapes Of Obama And The Democrat’s Wrath”
carry their left-leaning votes with them. Perhaps this is an alien plot - make a state “blue” then move “blues” to red states achieving the effect causing the red states to go rotten as well.
World Wide New Deal Urged
ReplyDeletethe prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make further tax cuts to boost the UK economy
ReplyDeleteSomeone shows some sense.
Fred_the_shred said...
ReplyDelete2:43 PM
The guy who ran the NY Fed and was supposed to regulate Bear and Lehman is now US Treasury Secretary (lets not mention he is also a tax cheat).
The guy who was the British equivalent of Treasury Secretary, who obviously did a bang up job regulating RBS, is now Prime Minister
Sandy Weill (Citi) has been collecting benefits for years after leaving Citi. Stanley O'Neil (Merrill) played golf while his firm collapse -- but he gets a pension. John Thain bought a $35K toilet, finished Merrill off for good, but he got a bonus anyways. Bear and Lehman CEOs are still worth hundreds of millions, while their former employees are being evicted from their homes. Bob Rubin was paid $15 million per year to provide "strategic advice" to Citi. We already mentioned Fred Goodwin collecting GBP600K (plus another 600K at least in benefits), and that is on top of tens of millions of pounds he was paid for "earnings" that were nothing more than accounting slight of hand... and the list goes on
In another time, these people would have been in prison if they were lucky, and quite probably lynched by a mob.
http://macro-man.blogspot.com/2009/02/back-of-my-mind.html
http://snipurl.com/cvrhc=
==
In my universe these fscks would be shot dead along with their close relatives and friends.
Glenn Beck asks:
ReplyDeleteDoes it sound reasonable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca_aOvZPh-g
Mat, you can't shoot dead the relatives and friends:)
ReplyDeleteRecall the prophet, whose name escapes me, the one that said the sins of the fathers don't adhere to the sons, much less the relatives and friends:)
Besides, you'd run out of ammo, already in short supply:)
We'd probably run out of ammo just shooting the primary culprits.
ReplyDeleteMat, you can't shoot dead the relatives and friends:)
ReplyDelete==
These fscks need to get what's coming to them. One way or another.
Besides, you'd run out of ammo, already in short supply:)
ReplyDelete==
That's fine. I'm sure many would enjoy using a baseball bat on these fscks.
Obumble didn't mention Joe the Plumber in your Glenn Beck cut, Mat. Painters, landscapers, everybody but Joe the Plumber.
ReplyDeleteAlways liked Glenn Beck. Fancy dresser too, with those jeans, and coat and tie:)
I'm waiting for a talk show guy with coveralls and tie.
OshKosh B'Gosh
You won't want to miss tomorrow night's Coast To Coast---program on the dreaded Spontaneous Human Combustion
ReplyDeleteJust the other day a pooch was running across the road in front of me and burst into flames. And the moon is showing its dark side while the tides all run one way.
And I've seen bankers bludgeoned to death in the streets.
And strange gibbering sounds from the cemetaries at night.
Something is up.
It'd be a tough way to serve the Lord and make a living, writting books on spontaneous human combustion.
ReplyDeleteIran has Enough Nuclear Fuel to Make Bomb
ReplyDeleteSunday, March 1, 2009
WASHINGTON – The United States believes Iran has stockpiled enough nuclear fuel to make a bomb, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said on Sunday.
"We think they do, quite frankly," Mullen said on CNN's "State of the Union" program when asked whether Iran has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
"And Iran having nuclear weapons, I've believed for a long time, is a very very bad outcome -- for the region and for the world," Mullen said.
A watchdog report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency two weeks ago said Iran had built up a stockpile of nuclear fuel, raising alarm among Western governments that Tehran might have understated by one third how much uranium it has enriched.
The United States suspects Iran of trying to use its nuclear program to build an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists it is purely for the peaceful generation of electricity. Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, which favors diplomatic engagement with Tehran to defuse the dispute over its nuclear intentions, called Iran's nuclear program an "urgent problem" the international community must address.
The IAEA report showed a significant increase in Iran's reported stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) since November to 1,010 kg -- enough, some physicists say, for possible conversion into high-enriched uranium for one bomb.
The IAEA later said Iran was cooperating well with U.N. nuclear inspectors to help ensure it does not again understate the amount of uranium it has enriched, suggesting the uranium accounting shortfall might not have been deliberate evasion.
Recall the prophet, whose name escapes me, the one that said the sins of the fathers don't adhere to the sons, much less the relatives and friends:)
ReplyDelete==
I have the unadulterated original script:
..For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation..
Exodus Chapter 20
continuing on the quest of the Grail--
ReplyDeleteFor, in connnection with the Grail Quest, the obvious question arises as to why anyone in the Middle Ages should have thought it necessary to embark on such a lonely, dangerous enterprise when the Holy Mass, with Christ himself on the altar, was being celebrated, right next door, every day. The answer--simply and plainly--is that the Mass was a ecclesiastical sacrament associated wtih a doctrine of vicarious salvation, administered in those centuries, furthermore, by a clergy notoriously corrput and protected by Augustine's antidonatist argument, the dogma, namely, of the incorruptibility of the sacrament on which salvation hung, no matter what the moral character of the clergy by which it was administered. In contrast: the Grail is housed not in a church but in a castle; its guardian is not a priest but a King. It is carried not by an assortment of questionable males but by twenty -five young women, whose virtue must be unsullied, and the knight who achieves the quest, and so restores the Waste Land to bounty, succeeds through integrity of character, in the service of a singly focused love, amor.
Right, but who was the fellow that first broke with that?
ReplyDeleteJim Rogers on farming:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzKjNzVUGzQ
Right, but who was the fellow that first broke with that?
ReplyDelete==
Probably a Roman scribe.
(Ezekiel 18:20) - "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself."
ReplyDeleteThat passage from Ezekial is in line with Western thought.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of anything in our traditions where the son is held responsible for papa's errors.
We had some truly gruesome and irrational ways of coming to a judgement, like throwing the accused into a river to see if they would float(guilty, the river god has rejected him) or innocent(sink, the river god accepts him), but I can't think of anywhere that the son is held guilty of the father's crimes.
YeHoVeH = Cosmic Meanie
ReplyDeleteEzekiel =/ YeHoVeH
:)
YeHoVeH = he who has made the future
ReplyDeletecontinuing...
ReplyDeleteIn Wolfram's work furthermore, a number of additional points are made, among which, the following:
1) The knight, on his first visit to the Castle of the Grail, fails to achieve the aim of the quest because he acts as he has been taught to act, not on the impulse of his nature(think Huck Finn- "all right I'll go to hell"--this puts our national epic in the deep current of Western literature)
2) He is told, subsequently, that no one who has failed on the first visit will ever have a second chance, yet he resolves to succeed notwithstanding, and, when he has done so, is told that he has accomplished a miracle, since, through his integrity of character and persistance in resolve, he has caused the Trinity to change its rules.
3) Following the first failure, and the shame that falls upon him as a consequence, he renounces God and wanders for some five years in a Waste Land. And when he finally returns in his heart to God, it is not to the churchly sacramental theology of his mother and her clergy but to a view of God as a cosmic principle corresponding and responding to the movements--whether of love or of hate--of the individual heart.
4) Parzival is striving to repair his failure through holding one-pointedly to his quest; yet what gains for him his victory is not directly his quest but the fervor and loyalty of his love--not for God but for a woman, whose very name, Condwiramurs (Conduire amour--in Old French, the nominative singular ends in s), reveals her role as the guide and vessel of the energy of his life.
5) Wolfram's ideal of love is neither that of the Church nor exactly that of the Troubadors' amor. The idea of marriage without love (the Church's view) he rejects, but he rejects also love in adultery. Love, for him, is absolute, singlefold, and for life. It makes no difference, furthermore, whether it is ritually sacramentalized. It is fulfilled in a union that amounts, in effect, to the only type of marriage worthy of the name.
6) Parivals' half-brother is a Moslem, as noble as himself. "One might speak of them as two," states our author when they come together on a battlefield, "but they are actually one: the one substance, through loyalty doing itself much harm."
7) Man's life is neither all white nor all black, nor can it ever be: but through integrity to oneself, to one's nature, the poet states, one trends toward the better, whereas irresolution augments the worse. His hero's name he interprets, through the French, as per-ce-val, "through the middle."
It occurs to me that Europe is throwing off its imposed Christian ways. If they'd go back to what is already in them, which really is noble, they might get somewhere.
ReplyDeleteIf they'd go back to what is already in them, which really is noble, they might get somewhere.
ReplyDelete==
They've already proved what's in them. And on many an occasion. I know them up close. And there's nothing there to romanticize about. Sorry, Bob.
America is composed of much better human beings. The best people on Earth are Americans. And I say this from pretty good experience of the rest. It's too bad Americans are afflicted with such a poor political system.
ReplyDelete8) And finally, when the hero arrives the second time at the Castle of the Grail, he is accompanied by his Moslem brother, Feirefiz; so that, in Wolfram's view, a noble heathen might attain to this goal inaccessible to most Christians. However, an amusing and most remarkable scene then takes place. For, when the Grail is brought in, the Moslem prince cannot see it. All he can see are the beautiful form and the eyes of the lovely maiden Queen, Repanse de Schoye, (Repense d Joie), by whom it is carried. The Grail company becomes gradually aware of this alarming fact, and presntly word arrives from the ancient, ageless Grail King Titurel, reposing on couch in the next hall (an Arthurian counterpart, he was, of the old sea god, Manannan), that the reason the heathen cannot see the Grail is that he has not yet been baptised. An old priest thereupon enters who has baptised many a heathen and he instructs Feirefiz in the doctrine of the Trinity. "Is that her god?" the Moslem asks. "If I accept that god, can I marry her?" Told "YES!" he consents willingly, and the sacrament in administered. But what a strange baptism it is! For the empty font is first tilted toward the Grail, whereupon it fills with water from the boon-bestowing stone; so that, although the form of the rite is ecclesiastical, its content is of another order, namely, of the so-called aqua permanens, the water of life of the alchemists and of the ancient pre-Christian world.
ReplyDeleteI hear ya, Mat.
ReplyDelete"problem: the banks do not have enough money to lend to citizens and businesses.
ReplyDeletesolution: steal $10-trillion to $20-trillion from citizens [and their children], give that money to the banks, and hope the banks lend some of the citizens money back to them - AT INTEREST." -honestann (2 days ago)
When I see some of these homes in California appreciate to the point, in only a few years, to a point that is beyond the mortgage I paid off on my farm in 30 years, its hard for me to jerk a tear, when the prices fall a bit.
ReplyDeleteFsck 'em.
the lovely maiden Queen, Repanse de Schoye, (Repense d Joie)
ReplyDeleteThe Supernormal Image
Maria McCool
"The eternal feminine leads us onwards." Goethe
Golly, hate to leave gag waiting, but ...
ReplyDeleteI do not have the answer to increasing global production, of either capital, commercial or retail goods.
But seems that mat laid out the first row of New World Order conspiritors, and not a soul demurred.
He also told of some of the renumeration recieved for creating or aggrevating the root causes of the crisis. Looks like millions of reasons to conspire, with politicians, to me.
But those Democrats, they are guilt free, as is Mr Gramm and the balance of the Republicans that were in the legislative majority for 6 of the last 8 years.
Mr Bush, when first briefed about the rescue bailouts, is reported to have said, aloud "How'd we come to this?", which most of the folk in the room could have told him, but didn't. They thought they were still playing par on that course.
Limiting M1 expansion to under 1% during the 18 months prior to 14 September 2008, that was an Act of GOD, not men, aye?
The primary domestic issue from the Founding through Jackson, on to the Civil War and then piecemeal Nationalization of the banks until the progressive reforms of 1913 was the establishment of a Nationally Chartered Bank.
Since then it has not been a major issue, amongst the electorate. It should have been.
There is a school of thought that holds that the actions of both Hoover, FDR and the Federal Reserve lengthened and deepened the 'Great Recession', in one of the first efforts to consolidate control of the banking and financial services industries by the Federal Socialists.
May just be time for a Hemispheric Currency, if things keep going the way they are. It has been almost 100 years since the first issuance of US fiat script.
As wiki tells us the history of US central banking
The first institution with responsibilities of a central bank in the U.S. was the First Bank of the United States, chartered in 1791 by Alexander Hamilton. Its charter was not renewed in 1811. In 1816, the Second Bank of the United States was chartered; its charter was not renewed in 1836, after it became the object of a major attack by president Andrew Jackson. From 1837 to 1862, in the Free Banking Era there was no formal central bank. From 1862 to 1913, a system of national banks was instituted by the 1863 National Banking Act. A series of bank panics, in 1873, 1893, and 1907 provided strong demand for the creation of a centralized banking system. The first printed notes were Series 1914.
Now a new bank panic will cause strong demand for strengthening the centralized banking system.
Centralizing power, that is what this is about, or the 'Mark to Market' fiasco would have been addressed by now.
Life is not about the economy.
ReplyDeleteLife is about the supernormal image that pulls us all forward.
A History Of U.S. Paper Money
ReplyDeleteAnciently, the ratio of gold to silver was something like 20 or 30 to 1, I can't recall the exact ratio.
ReplyDeleteAnyway there is not enough gold or silver in the universe to back the currencies, as they are now.
And, gold and silver are worthless. You can't eat them, they are costly to store. You have to guard them, dragonlike.
The only real value they have is in some industrial purposes.
We might as well stick with paper money, which has no more or less value than gold, when things get tough.
When things get tough, a strong arm and quick mind is all that counts.
This the Supernormal that draws you to it?
ReplyDeleteDeliverance
ReplyDeleteOur founding fathers, bless them, tried to get away from this, we may be going back to it.
Often fools make foolish statements about serious subjects. Nothing new about that.
ReplyDeleteThat's why meaning is so often carried subterranially. It's the only place it can exist, find a home.
ReplyDeleteA gold coin has no storage costs, bob.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the only value gold has is that men hold it valuable as jewelry, teeth and in electronic devices.
Not like a fiat script, in actuality. In part because the script is easy and cheap to produce. Much more so than gold.
The ability to create 'wealth' out of paper and ink, if enough folk will accept it. That is one of the wonders of the printing press. Whether printing money or trading the printed product for money or power.
Printed paper has less intrinsic value than gold or silver, trust me on that.
A gold coin has no storage costs, bob.
ReplyDeleteAnd explain to me then, the costs that were associated with the guarding of old Fort Knox.
A bushel of wheat could be the standard just as well.
At least you can eat that.
I think the--
ReplyDeleteca·thect (k-thkt, k-)
tr.v. ca·thect·ed, ca·thect·ing, ca·thects
To invest emotional energy in (a person, object or idea)--
cathectism of gold and silver comes from the old Sumerian outlook when they became cathected to the orbits of the sacred heavens, and they assimilated the sun to gold, the moon to silver. And needed to trade.
The old influence lives on.
And of course we know from our fairy tales, myths and legends the inordinant amount of energy that is expended by dragons guarding holds of gold, silver, and young women.
ReplyDeleteUntil a Prince of Spirit comes, slays the dragon, and sets the young maiden free.
ReplyDeleteStorage is not the same as security, bob. Anything of value, in large quantities would have to secured, the paper at the mints or the nukes in the armoury.
ReplyDeleteA basket of commodities, could be used as a communal store of value, but wheat decomposes, with time, it loses its' value, while gold does not rot, burn, nor self-destruct.
But, now-a-days most money has been digitized, just like the birth records of President Obama.
This 'multinationalisation' may not be the worst alternative for Citi
ReplyDeleteCitigroup has become the United Nations of the global banking system
Fold in the stakes that will probably be held by funds linked to the governments of Singapore and Kuwait and a Saudi prince, and a quasi-sovereign group - a sort of coalition of the begrudgingly willing - will have a majority, effectively controlling stake in what was formerly the biggest US bank. Maintaining Citi in private hands would have been ideal - but this "multinationalisation" may not be the worst alternative for Citi's business.
Of course, the US government's stake of up to 36pc does present complications. It may force the company to reconsider its footprint around the world. That's because many countries place restrictions on entities that are even partly owned by foreign governments. Mexico, for example, has a law that bars a company that is more than 10pc owned by a foreign government from operating a bank.
That raises vexing questions about Citi's ownership of Grupo Financiero Banamex, the second largest bank in the country. Citi might be forced to sell the business if it cannot reach an understanding with the Mexican government. Of course, given Citi's continuing need for fresh capital, a sale might be necessary anyway.
By Rob Cox
@Telegraph.co.uk
Anything of value, in large quantities would have to secured, the paper at the mints or the nukes in the armoury.
ReplyDeleteAnything of value, like my little farm that I paid for over 30 years, rests on the labor I put into it, and a social consensus that it is ok to do that. It doesn't have anything to do with gold or money, but rather an acceptance in law that a man can have a title to his land.
I do think we are drifting away from that, what with that Supreme Court decision, and the general tenor of the country now.
It is worrisome. I would just like to ask the others, do it yourself.
What is the Market Worth?
ReplyDeletePat Dorsey @ Morningstar reports on historical fair value and currently for the S&P 500.
Interesting analysis.
"The Eternal Feminine Draws Us Onward"
ReplyDeletegaelic song
Totally disagree, bob.
ReplyDeleteThere is more to value than labor, far more. The failure of the Communists and Marxists prove that point.
Labor is part of the value equation, but just a part.
I've known a few fellows that sold the farm, some alfalfa, some cotton.
The land is not farmed, anymore. None of the labor it took to create those farms had any longterm intrinsic value. All the value was in the land itself, in new land use applications and the water rights, which were of real value. The water often more valuable than the farm, or the land itself.
Planet Ranch sits idle as Scottsdale seeks to sell land to mining company
Deal may ultimately double size of Bill Williams Refuge
By John Rudolf
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Planet Ranch was once a busy agricultural operation, its 8,000 fertile acres devoted to growing alfalfa and raising cattle. Today, the land is silent, the fields covered with knee-high grass, weeds and willow saplings, while irrigation wheels stand rusty and unused. Stacks of hay lean crazily, half-dissolved by rain and wind. Rows and rows of tractors, trucks and farm equipment, a reminder of the ranch’s more productive days, sit with peeling paint and flat tires in a mechanical graveyard. An eerie silence hangs over the land and buildings, punctuated only by the chirping of birds and the whistling wind.
About 20 miles east of Parker, and hidden behind the rugged Buckskin Mountains, Planet Ranch is remote: ”so remote that in the late 1970s the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency used part of the area to simulate the explosion of low-yield nuclear weapons.
Yet despite its isolated location, the ranch has been a source of intense interest for more than 20 years, and for one simple reason: water.
The idea that the value of a good water well is soley based upon the labor to drill it, well, that's marxist to the core, bob.
All the value was in the land itself, in new land use applications and the water rights, which were of real value
ReplyDeleteYes, I can't disagree with that, but only add it's kind of a special sitution, at least around here.
We've beem blessed with more water than we know what to do with.
As to the title to that land, it always returns to the State.
ReplyDeleteHere the nonpayment of property taxes for three years initiates siezure of the property. Whomever did pay the property taxes for the first year delinquent, he gains title, free and clear, but for the property tax liens that would be coming due.
If no one paid the tax due, ... that's a situation I've never encountered.
Factor in Kelso v New London and there goes ever more of the equity rights in title, eroded for the 'common good' of possible increased tax revenue from new or improved land use applications.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the lake, Bob?
ReplyDeleteThat's Lake Coeur d' Alene, Sam, taken from Highway 95 going into town.
ReplyDeleteIt was wonderful when I grew up, still pretty nice.
I had the wonderful experience of getting laid there a few times in my youth, by a ripping woman.
I recall the sway of the boathouse moving:)
And the lap of the waves.
Via Glen Beck:
ReplyDeleteMajority Of U S States Join Sovereignty Movement, Assert 10th Amendment Rights
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQhcwKD1A9c
Not New Hampshire, that fellow speaking introduced a Resolution.
ReplyDeleteHe did recongnize the reality that New Hampshire is controlled by Democrats, so it will not be passing, there.
20 States with some type of a "Sovereign Resolution" 'pending'.
Not a majority of the States, regardless.
Israel must lift Gaza blockade now, says Blair
ReplyDeleteRory McCarthy in Gaza City
The Guardian, Monday 2 March 2009
Well good for New Hampshire anyway. Least they are talking about things.
ReplyDeleteBut seems that mat laid out the first row of New World Order conspiritors
ReplyDelete==
Only I doubt the conspirators knew of the conspiracy as you present it. The conspiracy, as I see it, is that of deliberate fraud. As far as the regulators and corruptokrats are concerned, the conspiracy there is that of co-conspiracy with the fraudsters.
Glen Beck is doing a yeoman's job. We need more like him. Many more.
ReplyDeleteSome of them were, those on Team Rubin. Most all the Federal Reserve Governors and such.
ReplyDeleteAll of whom played a part in personal enrichment, tax forgetfulness and general cultural corruption of Wall Street.
Exemplified as a place where a fellow like Bernie Madoff is still living in his deluxe apartment.
EB now allows Autobiographical Soft Porn???
ReplyDeleteOh!
The Humanity!
Betcha no individual in the Mafia ever abscounded with anywhere near what Bernie stole!
ReplyDeleteh/t: Buddy Larsen
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailycomet.com/article/20090228/ARTICLES/902289969/1030/OPINION02?Title=Clearing-up-issues-for-guest-columnist
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