Archive for August, 2009

Stockholm Syndrome writ very large.

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Comes now the news Ben Bernanke has been reappointed as head of the Federal Reserve.

It seems to me like our whole nation has plunged deeply into a gigantic Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to the parasites, fools, and thieves of our financial system.  How soon we forget the days when the hired political agent of Wall Street — the Tyrant Emperor George Bush II — threatens Congress with martial law and a complete meltdown of the financial system unless they take trillions from Main Street and give it to Wall Street.  And there is Ben Bernanke, right in the middle of the robbery, egging it on, joining in the heist.

So what is our response to these wicked people who held (and hold) our nation hostage? Do we lock them up in jail and throw away the key? Not on your life. We give them even MORE money, and reappoint the arch-criminal of them all, Ben Bernanke, to another term as head of the Federal Reserve.

The worse they treat us, the more we apparently love them.  This sounds like the Stockhold Syndrome writ very large, and it augurs very poorly for the future.  If you reward crime, you get more criminals. That’s the basic facts of this life.  So expect more taking from Main Street so the feds can give more to the fools, parasites, and thieves on Wall Street.

That’s what this game is about, and it will continue right up until the moment our entire nation falls onto the ash heap of history.

Posted in Financial Crisis, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Our Tyrant-Emperor calls for even MORE death, murder, and suffering in Afghanistan.

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Today, in a rousing speech, our beloved Tyrant-Emperor called for even MORE murder and death for the long-suffering nation of Afghanistan.  It’s a war worth fighting, he says from the safety of his Secret Service protection.  If we don’t fight it, and win it, well, Al Queda will set up shop there and come back over here and kill us all.

Whatever.  Same schtick we’ve been hearing. The longer the President is in office, the more he sounds like the previous Tyrant-Emperor George Bush II.

The utter hypocrisy of his statements on Afghanistan are just nauseating.   If we care so much for the Afghan people, why exactly is it that per capita health care spending for this country that we have occupied for eight long yeas is less than fifty bucks?  Why so little development aid?  The answer to that is simple.  This war has nothing to do with helping the Afghan people or protecting America.  It is about greed and gold and oil.  It provides a useful violent distraction from the bummer economic news.  We ignore the fact that the enormous economic cost of our unjust wars is a major contributor to our on-going financial devolution.  All that money spent on murder and mayhem is money that can’t be spent on other more useful and productive purposes. If you want to read some details about that, see Winners and Losers in the American Warfare State.  We think we can do this forever without any consequences, but that just goes to show that as a collective, we Americans are adolescent fools, convinced of our own superiority and invulnerability.

The Bible says, “Pride goes before a fall.”  See also “Sow not in furrows of injustice lest you reap a seven-fold harvest.”

I hope everyone’s plans to adjust to the much-poorer future reality are coming along promptly.  What’s that you say? You don’t have any such plans? Better get busy.  Procrastination is the thief of time.

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More on deflation.

Monday, August 17th, 2009

The bad news keeps coming in.

  • Nearly 1/3 of mortgages are under water, that is, the mortgagees owe more money than their houses are worth. Add in the mortgages that are “almost negative”, and we’re at 38%.  Here in Oklahoma, 19.6% of mortgages are negative, and 30% are nearly negative, so we are at 49.6%!  But. . . but .  .  . but . . . our local political and economic aristocrats have been assuring us, for months, that the “recession isn’t so bad here in Oklahoma” and “our property values remain strong”. {icon of hand slapping forward.} “Idiot!  The aristocrats are lying.  You should know that better than anyone.” Why is this so bad? Well, every one of those negative or near-negative mortgages is just about one major personal financial crisis away from a “walk-away foreclosure”.
  • Here are charts from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank that make a pretty compelling case for deflation.  Import prices? Down 20%.  Export prices? Looks like down about 8%. “Official” CPI? Down 2% (largest negative in 59 years). Retail sales? Down 10% over last year. Imports? Down about 35%. Exports? Down about 28%. Inventories? Down 10% over last year. Capacity utilization? 65% (all time low). Non-durable goods manufacturing? Down 9%. During goods manufacturing? Down 20%. Total manufacturing output? Down 15%. And so on and so forth.

OK, that’s enough for now. I should have advised readers to take a couple of shots of bourbon before reading this article. Indeed, I should have had a drink or two before writing it, but alas, I am stone cold sober.

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More thoughts on dysfunctional aristocracy.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Yesterday’s post led to further thoughts today on our problem with dysfunctional aristocracies. Simon Johnson writes today about the problems our “too-big-to-fail” policies and our refusal to properly regulate Big Finance will cause for our future.  He notes that the Chinese are investing in production, while we are investing in finance.  In other words, in the future, China will eat our lunch.

The problem is not confined to economics.  Our religious aristocracies show similar signs of dysfunction.  How many US Catholic bishops lost their jobs for conspiracies to conceal the problem of sexual abuse among the clergy?  Not very many, that’s how many, and to this very day, the arch-enabler of clergy sexual abuse, Cardinal Law, remains a cardinal, is on all of the Vatican committees relating to bishops, and is arch-priest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of Rome’s four pilgrimage basilicas.  None of the Vatican bishops who conspired with the US bishops has ever been identified or punished. And some people still wonder why the US has such a crisis in recruiting new priests.

The political aristocracies are no better.  Our new Tyrant-Emperor is shaping up as pretty much the same as the old Tyrant-Emperor on the really big questions like continuing the war and continuing to feed/protect the parasites of Wall Street.

This is not a future to bet on.  The aristocracies of these united States are as clueless as the aristocracies of France in 1789 or Russia in 1917. They continue to think that their place of privilege is secure from any challenge and their right to loot the population will not be infringed upon.

Alas for them — and for us — the triple dooms of peak energy, climate instability, and economic irrationality remain on the horizon, coming ever more closely with each passing day.  Elites don’t usually do well in such systemic crises, just ask the French and Russian aristocracies about that.  But then, the French and Russian people didn’t do so well either in their systemic crises.

The advantage that we have that wasn’t there in 1789 and 1917, however, is a certain amount of foreknowledge and understanding of what is happening.  Widespread literacy, very cheap knowledge, practically instantaneous forms of communication and storage of knowledge (internet, book publishing, etc), a wider sphere of possible actions, all these are points that suggest the ability of people to prepare now for hard times coming at them.

The key to survival, however, is to avoid procrastination.  Now is the time to make hay while the sun is shining.

Posted in Financial Crisis | No Comments »

Economic check

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Well it’s been a while since I’ve ranted about the financial crisis.  So how are we doing?  Are we now safely out of the woods so everyone can ignore my various advices to prepare for a financial hurricane?

The short answer is “no”.

  • Foreclosures and delinquencies are still rising,
  • unemployment is increasing (the government of course continues to fiddle with the reports to make the problem seem less than it is, my rule of thumb is “double the government’s unemployment figure to find the REAL unemployment rate),
  • The financial reports of banks and other financial institutions are still loaded with worthless assets that are being carried at full value on their balance sheets,
  • The rate of bank failures appears to be increasing.
  • The likely result of “financial regulation reform” is going to be to increase the power of the big guys, and do nothing substantive for retail financial services customers (so it is definitely “let the buyer beware” when it comes to retail finance),
  • The biggest financial institutions are profiting from the government’s assistance in eliminating key rivals, and as a result, are handing out major bonuses this year,
  • Despite historically low Federal Reserve interest rates, the cost of retail credit to families and small businesses is headed up, and the number of fees and penalties is proliferating like mosquitoes in a swamp,
  • The Commerce Dept reports that wages for the 12 months preceding June 2009 fell 4.7%, the largest decrease since these records started in 1950,
  • Household net worth has declined by $13 trillion since 2007.
  • Homes for sale are at historic highs, but there is evidence of a huge “shadow inventory” of homes not on the market, but held by banks (foreclosures) who are releasing them slowly to keep the market from declining even further.

Etc. etc. yadda, yadda, yadda.

So no, I don’t see anything that is stopping my work on my own Category 5 Financial Hurricane Survival Plan.  I am confident that no one in Washington DC or my own state capitol or even my own city hall cares a rat’s behind about what happens to me and mine.  They are all about helping the aristocracy, and that “help” will always be at the expense of Main Street.  We must save ourselves and unite to save each other, because our aristocracies are leading us straight to the ash heap of history.

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Civilian death toll soaring in Afghanistan

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

The United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan reports that civilian deaths are up 24% over last year. Somehow I missed this report on our imperial mainstream news.  This figure relates only to direct casualties of battle and assasinations, etc.  It doesn’t report other collateral damage caused by our mis-managed occupation (eg. lack of access to pure water, unavailable health care resources, etc.)  The figure is also under-stated because it uses official US and Afghan government figures, which nearly always under-count the actual dead (based on reports from civilians on the ground and independent NGOs).

And so the slaughter continues.  Your US tax dollars at work, making poor people miserable around the world.

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