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66 Comments

    • Sat Nov 22nd 09:22 AM | Rating: +2 0
      Commented on:
      Geithner, a Man Who Doesn't Lose His Cool
      Geithner has never been an investment banker, as I understand it, so he is not part of that crowd. Instead, he is one of the regulators, who have been functioning as dysfunctional enablers.

      Is he really cool, or just on heavy doses of Prozac?

      I agree, Amvet, this county needs a clean sweep of the greedy ones who have walked away with fortunes while bankrupting society.

      Dan
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    • Fri Nov 21st 09:55 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Bailouts and Bankruptcy: The Code Needs a New Chapter
      Interesting idea.

      The new owners would be the bond holders, which would make the company debt free except for taxes (hah) and pension liabilities (hah hah). The courts would overhaul the latter. Don't know if bankruptcies give GM a tax loss carryforward.

      But there might have to be a smaller injection of operating capital that would have to be additional "stock" owned by the public, or actually the semi totalitarian federal goverment.

      But this does seem like a rational way to keep a business going without having the Chinese pick it up for a song and a prayer.

      View article »
    • Fri Nov 21st 09:48 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Ugly
      Jadzi candidly admits he and many co workers are sitting around with nothing to do.

      I briefly dated a brilliant but bipolar woman who made big bucks at Lockheed Martin. She said half of her department was disfunctional.

      I have long thought what Jadzi and she said are signs that big corporations are

      too big to manage.

      This thinking started when the O-ring problem caused the explosion of the Challenger on the launching pad.

      It was vindicated when AOL and Time Warner merged, proving no tree grows to the sky.

      GE is the latest supporting evidence.

      View article »
    • Fri Nov 21st 09:41 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Calling a Depression
      We have a depression in the stock market and one well underway in the financial industry.

      A broader economic depression won't happen until tax revenues become so bad the huge government sector on all levels has to lay people off too. Right now, government and utility employment some sectors of the basic food are a drag on a depression.
      View article »
    • Fri Nov 21st 09:37 AM | Rating: +1 0
      Commented on:
      General Electric: Genuine Risk of Collapse?
      This article is definitely not superficial or poorly researched.

      Several comments about Jack Welch but not one mention of what could be poor judgment by Warren Buffet.

      View article »
    • Wed Nov 19th 15:36 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Isn't Deflation a Good Thing?
      I fully understand the concept that massive creation of new money should lead to massive inflation. That has worked in the past.

      But it appears much of the new money being created out of thin air is just to plug huge holes on balance sheets where credit (money) has evaporated. While there may be trillions of new "dollars" out there, are these dollars not actually just credits - obligations to be repaid? because that is what modern fiat money is. A credit against a debt. Much of the private debt has truly evanesced into the mist, never to be seen again. Thus fiat credit dollars have been lost forever.

      Inflation is caused by huge buying pressure from below, which pushes up the cost of goods. But excess compensated rich people can do even more to push up inflation through leverage. Really rich people had so much excess money they turned it over to hedge funds, which then borrowed "out of thin air" money manufactured by the banks to leverage their rich people's contributions 10 fold or more. Then this out of thin air money was unleashed to buy up the prices of stocks, commodities, non-existent fraud mortgages etc. Basic commodities like energy got pushed up so high by this hot air money the buying pressure obviously exceeded the actual buying pressure from fast growing countries competing for post-peak oil. In turn, the consumers had to stop buying so much of a high priced commodity.

      You can only deductively reason that the out of thin air inflationary dollars overpriced tangible assets from oil and steel to Brandywine Real Estate Trust and Freeport Moran and Fortress Investment Group. Because no tree grows to the sky, the puncturing of the containers holding these hot air credit dollars did indeed evaporate into thin air.

      There does not seem enough hot air dollars salvaged in reserve to pump up asset classes anytime soon. That will require banks to start pumping credit dollars out of thin air again, but they are reluctant to do so.

      And we will not have inflation until conjured up credit-collars are once again in the hands of the little people at the bottom of the pyramid.

      A 5.8 percent payment boost for Social Security recipients is a start, a weak start, but a start toward getting money lower down on the social class structure.
      View article »
    • Sat Nov 15th 19:03 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      As Italy Enters Its Fourth Recession Since 2000, Who Will Bail Out Unicredit?
      I agree that the current financial crisis is potentially more serious because it is so widespread. But I think the naked short sellers are ruthlessly driving down stock prices farther than they would otherwise go, and this is leveraging the downturn as well.


      I fail to see how the close linkages that come with globalism are really great for the New World Order because we now have everything more in lockstep and there is no fluctuating equilibrium from more random separate parts.

      Clearly, the highest elites have been displaying the most panic, and this panic is becoming more self fulfilling as industries that might just slow are starting to brake more rapidly from fear.


      But I recently used this panic to buy some Enlay.pk, the Italian electric utility I made money with and sold last year. But I bought it at 7 and now it is like 6.4 but I am still getting a 19 percent dividend yield, for now, from my purchase price.

      It is interesting that the prior post points out the Austrian dominoe effect that is suspected as the first falling dominoe that led to the depression. And now small Austria has a far higher negative influence again, compared to the larger Italy.

      This is all so strange. Is this financial crisis an accident, an unintended consequence, or a carefully thought out conspiracy to create a crisis that requires a more integrated global solution?

      Dan
      View article »
    • Fri Nov 7th 11:56 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Obama to the Rescue?
      Interesting that his chief of staff is a citizen of both Israel and the U. S. and reportedly served in the Israeli military.
      View article »
    • Tue Nov 4th 15:50 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Gold Coins Are in Short Supply, So Why Doesn't Their Price Rise?
      Silver bullion is nonexistent too. Went to a small gun show two weeks ago and the lone coin dealer has numismatic offerings but zero gold coins or silver bars and rounds.

      If you cannot buy gold, consider buying commodities that are tradeable in hard times. Or forward buy the things you would buy with gold in hard times - dehydrated meals, tp, firewood, canned foods, canned meats, ammo, guns, farmland etc.
      View article »
    • Thu Oct 30th 23:42 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Fed Is Catching Up to Reality
      The Fed is a privately owned monopoly which artificially constructs an unreal world to benefit primarily its major owners. As Forbes magazine noted a few decades ago it swings between creating too much money and then destroying money by manipulating interest rates.

      It has replaced God.

      But it actually human, more like sub human.

      Everyone has forgotten that just three or so years ago Greenspan began ratcheting up interest rates in order to slow the economy, put people out of work and "fight inflation." After accomplishing what it set out to do why is there such a furor over its success? This is what the Fed does. Congress itself is in an unreal world - insulated from the real world and Main Street by its own inflow of tax revenue through good times and bad - and borrowing from foreign nations to whom American jobs were callously outsourced.

      The illusion of prosperity woven by the artificial Fed is just that - a web that traps the unwary.

      The Congress overspends, the White House overspends and then money created out of thin air is "borrowed" to be paid back with interest.

      Our money clearly says Federal Reserve Notes. It is not from the United States Government. It is from the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. In U. S. history, privately-owned banks that issued their own notes often produced notes that became....unreal and worthless. How would the Federal Reserve, over time and excess, be any different?
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    • Sat Oct 25th 00:43 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      How Central Banks Destabilized the World's Economies
      I think I read that when Wilson died he said something like "I have unwittingly ruined my country."

      Maybe 20 years ago the late Malcolm Forbes Jr. railed against the Federal Reserve, accurately pointing out that it alternately pushes on the gas too hard and then hits the breaks too hard. This does destabilize the economic process.

      The Federal Reserve is not an inflation fighter but was created to inflate the money supply so that wages rise so borrowers can sort of keep up with interest payments. A stable wage rate and money supply would result in more and more money accruing to the lenders and the system breaks down.

      There are 20 causes for the current mess - give or take 10 or 20 more - but one of the contributors is the offshoring of millions of well-paying jobs and importing cheap foreign labor. The resulting wage stagflation overall was the wall that the banking system hit.

      Everyone in Congress has totally forgotten that in the waning days of the Greenspan era the Fed began jacking up rates from their abnormally low levels to "stop inflation" by deliberately slowing the economy and putting people out of work.

      The rate jacking was continued by Bernanke - whose college summer job was with a sort of Khazar gangster by the way.

      The Fed has accomplished its "inflation fighting" slowing of the economy = so what is all the fuss about? This is what the Fed set out to do, and the tax revenue and foreign borrowings insulated Washington beltway went along with it as they snorted and gorged at their own well supplied feed troughs.

      The Fed should be abolished and limited to check clearing.

      The Executive branch should be indicted for abolishing the uptick rule. Just a few hours ago yet another insightful money manager said on CNBC that was a mistake that should be corrected at once.

      You could build a case the uptick rule was eliminated by forward thinkers who knew what was going to happen how the rule was keep the investment bankers from which Paulson is a derivative could make billions by short selling, the only way they have left to make money right. They can't m&a or borrow from money center banks to profit from commodity spikes fueled by the lent money created out of thin air. Their sub prime honey pot has turned bitter.

      The Fed, the executive branch, the regulators, the rating agencies, Wall Street, the Democrats in Congress, the foreigners who shoveled in their money, Realtors, appraisers, illegal immigrant construction workers, the media, et al. are to blame.

      But let's start with the Fed. And Paulson and the SEC.

      D
      View article »
    • Thu Oct 23rd 22:39 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Five Ways the Global Economy Is Rebounding
      Good comments, both pro and con, regarding this post.
      With oil prices plunging it is hard for me to point out that I just got through re-watching Running on Empty. If we are at peak oil, with production soon to decline while world demand rises, the price of oil will soar once again.

      But the thoughtful scholars in this documentary point out that long term the loss of cheap fossil fuel will reverse globalization as we are forced to look for closer sources for our food and products. This will be inevitable. As one put it, the 2,000 mile Caesar salad from California to Toronto (or was it Quebec) will be over.

      They rightly point out the whole American mantra of ever expanding growth was an illusion totally fostered by cheap fossil energy. It is impossible to have an ever expanding economy within a finite system, which the earth truly is.

      We will all be led to this final reality, kicking and screaming - me included - but the global economy will disintegrate into local and some regional economies, not unlike a few centuries ago.

      Sure, there will always be some long- range trade or "globalization&qu... as evidenced in the ancient spice trading routes that cut through northern Africa.

      But really, as energy becomes more precious how much longer can we fly in apples from New Zealand and truck potatoes from Idaho to Maine? Wal-Mart - which the documentary notes along with Costco and other big chains - totally destroyed local and regional transportation networks, which will have to be rebuilt.

      But this will play out over decades so for now I guess you can make your global investment plays. It took a few hundred years before Rome totally realized it no longer really existed.

      Dan
      View article »
    • Mon Oct 13th 21:11 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      There's No Way to Go Back to Business as Usual
      It took Rome a few hundred years to actually recede into oblivion and I suspect we may too.

      But there is no question our fiat money, consumption oriented dream world is just that...an illusion. Reality requires that we work productively, save more than we disperse. But we have been cleverly brainwashed into this new paradigm which made a lot of us feel comfortable in a belief we had never had it so good. But a very few people were accumulating incredible amounts of money and power as we dreamed along.

      But now the big accumulators are really wealthy and the best of them have used their dream money to gain control of hard assets, whether a Colorado hideway or a coastal estate.

      But this frantic shoveling of money into the banks is hopeless because it only tries to plub the holes in their balance sheet. On another board someone alleged HUD claims illegal aliens in the U. S. alone got a few million fraudulent loans. Banks cannot loan to a disappearing middle class that is strapped and now subject to really tough lending standards. And I suspect a few middle class people have realized that borrowing for consumption is not the way to permanent prosperity. They may stop applying for loans.

      The only stable society may be a nation of mostly cottage farmers who grow their own food and have a little business or job on the side. But its not very exciting. Just realistic.

      View article »
    • Sat Oct 11th 17:01 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Who We Should Blame for This Crisis
      This is dead on. Everyone shares in the blame.
      But am I missing something. What about the foreign countries - both governments and foreign banks and foreign investors = who loaded up on mortgages that were going to go to 13 percent and make them richer. They were not the lenders but the ones who bought up the originators' toxic waste.
      View article »
    • Sat Oct 4th 14:42 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Ireland's Ailing Banking Sector
      I have a few shares of AIB bought earlier this year after it tanked. Several different analysts in different media said it was good buy and was not involved in subprime. Of course, it tanked even more in recent months. It is barely breaking even. So I should do more due diligence than rely on several apparently unrelated experts who agree. And not be sentimental about ancestral Ireland, which now has a half million African and Mideast foreigners there as resident workers. But then the globalists hate individuality.

      I bought a few shares of IRL around two years ago, and then added some more earlier this year. So this is further proof that international diversity has to be more carefully thought out and executed.

      I will continue to hold both and will add to both in the future to cost average. But no more money goes in right away.

      One thing I found interesting in New Ireland's annual report was that it did not list major shareholders. It simply said all shares were held by Cede, the clearing house trust that holds all shares presumably, which is a scary thought. We really do not seem to own our shares. We have a claim on them. Sometimes I wonder what if our benificent government would resolve some future economic calamity by turning everyone's shares held in CEDE to some foreign creditor with claims on the nation and its inhabitants. But that is off topic.
      View article »
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