Lewis Wickes Hine “Shorpy Higginbotham, 14, greaser on the tipple at Bessie Mine” 1910 A pretty simple and straight continuation from yesterday’s Inequality Leads to War and Crisis , if only to hammer into everyone’s head that inequality is a very damaging development, and a very easy one to solve. America as it was in its heyday was built by the middle class, and that America is no more. Still, if you didn’t know better, you’d get the impression that
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Harris & Ewing “Iced T, Washington, D.C.” Jan 28, 1922 I don’t think that to make my case in this point, I need to state my opinion, but I will add a few words: There is nothing wrong with income and wealth inequality by itself, though I fail to see its benefits for society. The freedom to become richer than God is a mistaken case of freedom; if that’s how you express your longing to be free, you have an
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Arthur Rothstein “Migrant agricultural workers, Deerfield, Florida” January 1937 I know you thought you’d seen some crazy stuff, but it’s going to get better, promise! On the one hand you have Greek politicians claiming their economy is doing so well, they’ll present the troika with a big feel good surprise. On the other, Greek unemployment reached a new high at 28%, with youth unemployment now at 61.4%. That’s almost 2/3 of young people. What is to become of them? On
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Harris & Ewing “Shirley Temple told President Roosevelt about losing a tooth last night” June 24, 1938 When I look at this Bloomberg quote: The singling out of three debt types most at risk by the People’s Bank of China has prompted Nomura Holdings Inc. to warn that rising borrowing costs will make it even harder to avoid a default by these issuers. The PBOC will enhance monitoring of local government financing vehicles, industries with overcapacity and property developers to
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Dorothea Lange “Gas station road sign near Perry, Georgia” July 1936 There can be no doubt that the biggest story today comes courtesy of the Financial Times. Alan Friedman, whose book ‘Ammazziamo il Gattopardo’ (Let’s Murder the Leopard) is released February 12, details what went on in Italy in 2011 during events that led to both the forced departure of elected prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and the rapid installation of unelected Goldman Sachs alum Mario Monti as PM of a
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Dorothea Lange “Georgia road sign” July 1937 Looking out over the European landscape, metaphorically speaking, the more I read up on things that are developing, the more I think: what a web you guys have spun. Europe will stress test its banks, again, this year. And, obviously, everybody knows that stress tests in Europe, like in the US, have been conducted in ways that have left behind far more questions than answers. Financial shadow theater. So ECB president Mario Draghi
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Irving Underhill 1 Wall Street 1931 Today we take you back all the way to November 26 2008 (remember the good old days when everyone was scared as a squirrel?), when Nicole Foss wrote “From the Top of the Great Pyramid”. In those days, just like we do today, we didn’t only report on what was happening, but we also addressed the reasons why. Most people see pyramid schemes as limited to Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff or the occasional chain
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National Photo Co. “Two B&O freights wrecked in head-on crash at Laurel, MD switch” July 31, 1922 The scope of fraud, corruption and manipulation, as carried out throughout the financial industry in the past decade (and beyond), is not only deepening and widening as details become available. A third dimension is also coming to the forefront: the active contribution of regulators like the Bank of England (and undoubtedly other central banks, since, as Tyler Durden says: “there is never just
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Carl Mydans Auto transport at Indiana gas station May 1936 And once again, the financial media insist that the most important issue in the entire world are a bunch of numbers arrived at in very questionable fashion: US jobless rates. As a journalist, the safe thing to is to parrot all others, so you don’t stick out, and no-one can accuse you of being wrong without saying that about everyone else. Well, bring ’em on, let’s see either losses on
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William Henry Jackson Eureka, Colorado 1899 Remember how at the start of the current crisis, 2007/8, “leaders” and policy makers would state on a regular basis that they were forced to move into “uncharted territory”? Guys like Ben Bernanke were fond of it, presumably to cover their bee hinds if things would turn out wrong. I was thinking today, you never see that term anymore, not for quite a while. Well, when the US breaks through debt ceiling number 826,
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