COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Dollar's Fall from Grace



Trust me folks, we do not want this to happen for many reasons. The best way to stop it is to achieve a balance of trade. That need not be done all at once and can be augmented by a reduction in military spending overseas. (It is absurd that we still have military bases in England and Germany.) 

We can reduce oil imports, but that cannot be done without domestic drilling. The Chinese are drilling off the coast of Florida, why shouldn't we? 

We can also be more cautious as to where we buy our imported goods. All trade imbalances are not equal. There are many ways, but the most important way is to stop the escalating rate of governmental spending.

Obama, last night, said that he would cut the deficit in half in ten years. Did you happen to notice where the half will take us? Try five hundred billion dollars. Not good. 



61 comments:

  1. Half of 1.8 trillion dollars (CBO figure) is 900 large. That's real money there.

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  2. We've had an IMF SDR program since 1965, but about the only place that you can spend them is to pay to transit the Suez Canal. Whatever.

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  3. What you are witnessing is just Populist Politics - Internationalist style.

    If SDRs became readily accepted by International Companies (ie. Boeing accepts SDRs in payment for Airliners, and Saudi Arabia accepted SDRs for oil) it would "Weaken" the Dollar, and conversely strengthen the Yuan. That's Absolutely, the last thing in the world China wants.)

    It's just babble to distract the babbling heads, and thus, the masses.

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  4. The US is willing to explore China’s proposal to give a synthetic global currency a larger role in the international financial system, Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, said on Wednesday.

    But Mr Geithner said any change would be evolutionary and that the synthetic currency, called the International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), would not replace the dollar.

    FINANCIAL TIMES

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  5. Let me have what Rufus is having.

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  6. Well, you're going to have to head for the couch, then, Deuce. Ol' Rufy is calling it, "Nap Time."

    Later.

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  7. 09:11:00 - 09:15:00
    Al-Bob,
    I didn't pollute my brain listening to that filthy Marxist Shithead either, but I just heard the first hour of Rush and had to conclude that the posts of 09:11:00 and 09:15:00 in the previous thread are two of the most vacuous and dangerous ever written on this site.
    ---
    "I may not have agreed with Hitler's positions, but I respected his advocacy for them. The same goes for Mao."
    ---
    Jeesh,
    Can't wait to see if I got a reply to my query about the big screen TV.

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  8. A businesslady called in to report that she got her tax forms yesterday.
    Says first dollar will be taxed @ 7%, Rush asked about last year, she said Zero up to some dollar amount.
    That's Progress!

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  9. I highly recommend Deuce and Ash listen to the guy posted @ Wretchard's.
    ...Rush played him in first hour.
    Maybe it will break your MSM like trance about the One and I won't have to read more of that bilge.

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  10. Brown Chuckles just like Chuckles!

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  11. I didn't say I agreed with a thing he said. I observed that the man is not a stumbler without his tele-prompter. Underestimating your adversaries just may put you on the mat.

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  12. OUCH>>>

    A state-of-the-art US air force F-22 fighter has crashed in the desert in southern California, the Pentagon says.

    The fate of the pilot was not immediately known after the plane, which was on a test mission, came down near Edwards Air Force Base.
    The US air force website lists the F-22 Raptor, which is made by Lockheed Martin, as its newest fighter.

    The air force said the jet has "better reliability and maintainability than any fighter aircraft in history".

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  13. One could conclude that without the US economy, the rest of the whirled would still be in the middle ages. How accurate that is, I don't know, but why would US problems with Credit Default Swaps throw the whirled into recession?

    Is this simply more Chinese and Russian mischief or is the whirled sending Obama a message that the out of control spending is not a good idea.

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  14. To date, the Air Force has accepted 135 F-22s from Lockheed Martin, Lt. Gen. Mark Schackelford, the Air Force's top uniformed acquisition officer, told Congress Wednesday.

    This is the second time an F-22 has crashed. The first was during a test and evaluation period in December 2004, also at Edwards, the Air Force said.

    In that case, the pilot ejected safely.


    Program Questioned

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  15. This interesting tidbit of delisional paranoia cmes from Rollingstone.

    The Big Takeover

    The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution


    MATT TAIBBI


    Posted Mar 19, 2009 12:49 PM
    ...
    People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

    The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

    The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

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  16. The case for Marking to Market is that the market can efficently value those securities. That case is not bilt upon reality, the market has proven to be irrational, as a rational arbitor of value.

    If that bear market has damaged the case for stocks, the efficient markets hypothesis underlying it had been “dying a natural death for most of this decade”, according to Mr Arnott. In place of the standard assumption that all decisions are rational, behavioural economists began substituting findings from experimental psychology on how people actually make decisions. This helped to explain market crashes and bubbles, showed that investment decisions could be systematically irrational and led to attempts to create new models of how markets set prices.
    ...
    Burton Malkiel, a Princeton economics professor whose book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, is the most famous statement of efficient-markets theory, suggests its strongest form is a straw man. “‘Efficient markets’ has never meant to me that the price is always right,” he says. “The price clearly isn’t right. We know markets overreact. They get irrationally exuberant and they get irrationally pessimistic.” But he says that the key implications remain intact. “What ‘efficient markets’ says is that there are no easy opportunities for riskless profit. There I still would hold that that part of the efficient markets is alive and well.”

    Is it Back to the Fifties?

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  17. Billary says a Nork missile launch will have grave consequences at the six party talks which are not taking place---


    MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday a potential missile launch by North Korea would be a provocative act that would have consequences for talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

    Clinton's comments came as a U.S. official said North Korea had positioned what is believed to be a long-range ballistic missile on a launch pad in what could be a preparation for a launch.

    "We have made it very clear that the North Koreans pursue this pathway at a cost and with consequences to the six-party talks which we would like to see revived and moving forward as quickly as possible," she told reporters on a visit to Mexico City.

    "This provocative action ... will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences," she said.


    Are the Chinamen behind this? They could stop it if they wanted to, I'd think.

    We or the Japanese should shoot it down. Or try to.

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  18. I'll, I'll, I'lll--cancel the talks which we are trying to revive!!!

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  19. Overseas Contingency Operation = War on Terror

    Terrorist attack in USA = domestic disturbance

    Enemy combatant = civilain detainee given US civil rights

    All the wars are over.

    This isn't what Emerson, Shelley, Blake, Whitman meant when they said the wordsmiths were the unacknowledged legislators of mankind.

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  20. A wisecrack says that the fact that there is a global meltdown is apparent when your builder asks you to pay in Zimbabwean dollars instead of US dollars. While the US fights its war with AIG (NYSE:AIG) over the payment of $165 million in bonuses from government money, we seem to be fighting a different battle over marking-to-market derivative losses and providing for losses for restructured assets of banks.

    ...

    The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been consistently issuing Circulars ever since the first signs of the recession came in. In November 2008, it reduced the provisioning norms for standard assets to 0.40 per cent for all advances except agricultural advances which were to be provided at 0.25 per cent.

    ...

    Globally, a number of banks and financial institutions have declared abysmal results due to their exposure to toxic instruments and having to provide for them due to a reduction in their intrinsic value.


    Mark-to-Market

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  21. Who really gives a hoot about the dollar's fall from grace, when Great Nature -- who, the poet declared, has another thing to do to you and me -- puts on such a graceful spring storm as she did today?

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  22. the market has proven to be irrational, as a rational arbitor of value
    ==

    The market is forward looking. The market tells you what it thinks the price will be, not what it thinks price is today.

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  23. Obama AND Gates are going to kill the F22 and the SuperHornet, Deuce, along with missile defense and anti-satellite stuff. Nukes will go R&D mode only. No more Cold War stuff, everything is about playing whack-a-mullah in Afghanistan,

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  24. They're not going to play whack a mullah in Afghanistan very long. The plans are being made to get out of there too.

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  25. al-Doug was right, plans are being laid to go after talk radio by other means than the fairness doctrine.

    The govt is becoming the enemy.

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  26. This is Nez Perce Ancestor, where he rests in rock, overwatching the Clearwater River Casino. It is one of the logos they use around here.

    Another being the Treaty of 1855 aka, the Steal Treaty, with a picture of Chief Joseph in the center.

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  27. Whit: is the whirled sending Obama a message that the out of control spending is not a good idea.

    Support first term impeachment. Because every President should be a planned and wanted President.

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  28. rat,

    sure, the market is not always rational, but it is the best gauge of value, by definition. It is worth what it is worth and much of worth is governed by human emotion. Bankers and homeowners and, especially sailboat owners, firmly believe what they own is worth more than they can sell it for. Bully for them but if you need to value something as of today the market gives you an answer. The value derived thru M2M only matters if you are pledging stuff against the value, i.e. collateral for a loan. If it isn't used for things like that it really doesn't matter what the market values it at. The issue, in my view, with respect to M2M is not the value M2M assigns to an item but rather the leverage one piles upon that value. M2M then becomes the most rational way of assessing value for such purpose. The majority of valuations M2M affects are ones of collateral, ones of reserve - backing for demand loans. What you can sell it for in today's market has every relevance in this scenario where Book Value doesn't.

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  29. no mat, the 'market' is not forward looking, the 'market' simply represents today's price. Loads of folk think that the market predicts the economic future but they really need to additionally peer at the entrails of animals to get an accurate view of the future.

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  30. Mat: The market is forward looking. The market tells you what it thinks the price will be, not what it thinks price is today.

    What if you want to buy something (or sell something), what do you pay (or get)? You pay (or get) whatever price you and the seller (buyer) agree to in the market...today. So no, the market isn't forward looking, it's one big giant NOW.

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  31. The market doesn't predict what the future will be. It takes into consideration what the collective best quess is as to what the future will be.

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  32. There's got to be a way for the semi-retired to cash in on this cow someway--


    Foster Grandparent Program ($115 million);

    *Learn and Serve America. ($97 million);

    *Retired and Senior Volunteer Program ($70 million);

    *Senior Companion Program ($55 million);

    For those of us over 55, the future may look bright, if we can just figure how to get a toehold.

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  33. Mark Frisone, executive director of Family and Community Services in Portage County, said he hopes the funding will benefit local programs such as the Senior Companion Program, the Foster Grandparent Program and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

    SeniorCorps coordinates volunteer programs for all of Northeastern Ohio and oversees the programs. RSVP matches volunteers with social service agencies such as F&CS.

    The Senior Companion and Foster Grandparent programs give low-income seniors a chance to help fellow seniors or mentor young people in exchange for a small stipend to supplement their income.


    Federal Funds

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  34. So no, the market isn't forward looking, it's one big giant NOW.
    ==

    Glad you straightened me out.

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  35. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  36. It's funny how it's always the same people that come up with the same top opinion, isn't it. Ashley, have you even been right? On anything? How long now have you been posting here; I can't remember a single issue that you were got right. Even a broken clock will get the time right every once in a while, but not you. It's just amazing. You and Tes.

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  37. ..I can't remember a single issue that you got right..

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  38. ..Ashley, have you ever been right? On anything?..

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  39. heheheh--my wife sent me this--

    Amazing Homes and Offices Built From Shipping Containers

    That's me wifely, always making contingency plans:)

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  40. Reminds me of this:

    http://www.contemporist.com/2009/03/25/the-rantilla-residence-by-michael-rantilla/

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  41. That's neat, Mat. But all that glass would make it tough during the winters around here. That's one thing about my house, too many big windows, the heat just scoots right on out during the winter. (and also the heat magnifies through the windows in summer) That looks like more of a warm weather deal.

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  42. What you need is green glass:
    http://www.ecoglass.ca/homeowners.php

    :)

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  43. The problem is not the glass, but what's around it.

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  44. Bobal, you (and Methuselah) are thinking of the FUTURES market.

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  45. Just what I want, a container with a view.

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  46. No, Tes. The market is not a barometer of present supply/demand, but a barometer of anticipated supply/demand. That's why the market is always ahead of the economy by about 3-6 months.

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  47. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  48. I think Mat's got it right, Tes.

    Our wheat futures market goes way out, a year or more. The stock market is kind of a compressed futures market.

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  49. I was recently in a meeting for a non profit I'm involved in, and someone kept saying we needed to "dialogue" about something. The English major in me cringed.

    English is a beautiful language, but it has become bastardized by people who simply refuse to say what they mean. They have created this language that succeeds in obfuscating their real meaning, while making them sound intelligent.

    It's a lot of sound and fury but really signifies nothing except to perhaps protect or inflate the ego of the "human thesaurus" speaking.


    Corporate Doublespeak

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  50. One of my least favorite words these days is 'inappropriate'.

    On the other hand I've always liked 'unbefitting', which is definitely out of style.

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  51. When the snows come, it beats a view, without a container

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  52. Those are Crappo's 2 favorite words.

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  53. Wed Mar 25, 11:58:00 PM EDT

    Sent that to my wife. We need to do something here for sure.

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  54. Come on, duece, they are 40' long and 8 feet wide.
    Built with popouts, like a travel trailer, these shipping container homes are now featured of "Green TV". There is an entire channel on my Cox cable box dedicated to showcasing those type of building techniques.

    You've just gotta get on the "Green" bandwagon, duece. Build out an entire eco-tour camp with shipping containers in Costa Rica, ir'd be all the rage.
    Cutting edge.

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  55. Build out an entire eco-tour camp with shipping containers in Costa Rica, it'd be all the rage.
    Cutting edge.


    heh:)

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  56. Raising taxes on the middle class is such harsh language, Obama prefers to say he's going to "generate more broad-based contributions"

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  57. When the snows come, it beats a view, without a container

    said by the best wordsmith on the blog:)

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