You wouldn't know it to look at it
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Hi Ilargi,
Nice to read your writing again, appreciating your contribution, thanks.
I have a question: I got the impression when reading TAE in the Fall that you thought a Credit Event/CDS event associated with Greece would likely have a large destabilizing effect (ie: collapse) on the global financial system d/t all in the globally intertangled and layered instruments, fakery, etc.And yet, as you yourself say here, the CDS credit event went relatively smoothly for the financial elite – at least so far as we can tell. And it went smoothly likely d/t to the tremendous political, as well as financial, power they wield (as per your post’s second paragraph). It ended up being much less of a big deal as far as it’s effects (at least so far) than i think TAE thought would happen.
To my questions:
1. Are the largest financial institutions “holding it together” (for their own benefit) longer than you thought they could?
2. Are they showing even more power to make things go their way than you thought?
3. My TAE-informed impression was that dominant global financial systems would crumble/collapse, but I’m starting to wonder if enough of the big players have enough power and willingness to use it, that they can manipulate things to their own interests – just as they did with the Greek CDS credit event – and go through unscathed or even get wealthier while everyone/everything else collapses. Your thoughts?
Thank youHi All,
I don’t think I’m alone with an IRA at a Big Finance Capital mega front corporation and I’m rehypothecating bad dreams.
Anyway, I’m kind of disgusted with Big Finance Capital’s Wall Street front structure… and I’m worried about having my eyeballs ripped out and being called a Muppet as I’m looted by the crooks in charge.
I’m thinking about moving my IRA to a much smaller real estate specialized IRA operation. I’m thinking that the risk of being rehypothecated into poverty would be lower and I might be able to pick up some good real estate deals when the market finally bottoms for good.
I suppose a smaller IRA could be eaten alive at some point.
I’d appreciate anyone thoughtful input.
TIA…
I think we need a nice simple call to action.
Something like “No profit for banks.” It is a little catchier, though a little less clear than “Banks should be non-profits.”
Ilargi wrote: There is no easier time and way to gut a society’s wealth then when you manage to make that society believe it’s actually getting wealthier. People believe that version of the truth which makes them feel better.
Few people I know, even IRL, believe we are getting “wealthier”. Just about everyone I know beleives we are being scammed and taken to the cleaners by the TBTF Banks.
The problem is not that people don’t KNOW they are getting screwed, by now just about everyone does. The problem is that there isn’t anything short of REVOLUTION that can do anything about it. The political system is entirely captured; it doesn’t matter at all who you vote for. Demonstrations out in the street don’t matter, they are just ignored/supressed. The endless prose of Blogger Pundits doesn’t matter, they are all OUTSIDE the power structure looking IN through the Bullet Proof Glass Windows.
J6P simply isn’t hungry enough here in the FSofA for Revolution, its not that he is being fooled anymore. EVERYBODY knows they are being ripped off by the TBTF banks. There just isn’t anything you can do to stop it unless you topple Da Goobermint completely, and that is a rather intimidating project for most people to consider.
The increasingly vampiric councils here in New Zealand have certainly dissuaded us from establishing our doomstead just yet. We just fear that the need to feed the monster (and it’s big in New Zealand, considering the size of the population) will compell councils to increase property taxes to the breaking point. If you have some money set aside, I think there’s a risk it will be eaten up with massive property taxes. It’s a dilemma though, because I know we’re also wasting precious time. Once we finally have our own land, I’m looking forward to raising some chooks (that’s what they call chickens Down Under).
I keep waiting and hoping for an internet People’s Bank. One with total integrity and transparency that offers us savings, checking, loans and mortgages at fair rates. One that has no derivative exposure, no trading, no lice with outlandish offices, salaries, and political contributions to cronies. Perhaps run by a universally respected religious, or charitable organization, that wishes to rid us of these bankster turds that have done so much to harm and demoralize so many.
Reverse Engineer said “EVERYBODY knows they are being ripped off by the TBTF banks.”
Not really. I have a sister who retired early from a major bank in Boston. She is fully entrenched that big banking is good, and she is glad that the government bailed out the TBTF banks because it is keeping the economy from getting worse. She is clueless about things going on around the world, that stuff is over there. She has told me that our government is taking care of us, we have rules and regulations that will prevent another 1930’s depression, that advances in technology are always coming to make our lives better, etc., etc.
She is worth a few million and has a professional financial planner to manage her portfolio. She truly believes that no one is stealing her wealth. If the markets go down, she has plenty of time to recoup the losses, because she told me, if you get out, you will miss the gains when the markets recover.
It is impossible to talk to her otherwise…I’m just a reader of blogs so what do I know.
Everyone doesn’t know they’re being ripped off by the banks. Homeowners tens of thousands of dollars underwater are fighting to stay in homes that may never have equity. They must believe housing prices will explode. (How do I know? I work as a consumer attorney. So it’s just anecdotal.)
My mother — bless her heart — is another who’s typical of the people who keep doing business with the TBTFs. She’s in her late 70s, has hundreds of K’s invested with a conventional stockbroker (who’s steered her into investments in bonds of a Texas sports authority that built a basketball arena in Houston — this for a woman living outside Washington D.C. with NO interest in sports) and she has over $21,000 in her chequeing account with BofA. (To say nothing of the 10s of K’s in BofA CDs.) “Dumb money.” (Again, bless her heart, but…)
My wife and I have tried to educate her. She has a dim conception of what’s going on, just knows that things are lousy, but she’s too old and unwilling to change to learn more. Although my wife and I are splendidly well-informed, she writes us off as ranting, unpatriotic country-abandoners. The more we talk to her, the harder she jams her fingers into her ears, singing “La-la-la, I can’t HEEEEEEAR you!” So her money just sits, waiting to be MF vapourized out of existence when the thief-time is right.
There’s something about human psychology that resists change. Must be a survival trait at some level, the tendency to consistency. The older a person gets, the more invested they are in the system (literally and figuratively) the more barnacle-like they become.
Of course, I’m not one to talk. My wife and I still have an account with Wells Fargo. Although we live overseas, we still need an account for the things we do using U.S. dollars. We’ve tried to open a new account with different U.S. banks, but when your address is outside the country, they won’t touch you. (We only get to keep our Wells account because we started it before we emigrated.)
Anyone have tips on what honest U.S. banks would be amenable to our situations, USAcos living outside the line?
TAE has given me a good education in finance and macroeconomics over the past 4 years. Even as a 20 year old taking Economics 101, I saw how bogus the whole field was, which just prompted me to avoid it and focus more on chemistry. It was only back in 2005 when I was seriously considering retirement, that I was willing to give it another look. At which point I soon saw the tsunami on the horizon heading at us at 300 km per hour.
Ilargi’s article is an excellent analysis of the $25B scam. But my truth is that I didn’t need a detailed analysis to know that it would just be just another way to put the financial burden of the Ponzi onto us farm animals. You don’t need to master general relativity to know that if you let go of that concrete block, it’s gonna land on your foot. Data indicates that the human brain weighing into the arena at less than 1.5 kg or less than 2% of the mass of a typical obese Usaco, consumes over 20% of the entire body’s energy utilization. I am starting at this point to wonder just how useful it is to study the details of this stuff if there is next to nothing we can do about it other than Nicole’s defensive and reactive lifeboat. But the lifeboat is based on the idea that there will be a minimum of rule of law after the hammer falls. Suppose, for example, your local TSA VIPR commandant gets orders from his regional commander to shut down your farm because it is interfering with distribution of toxic GMO, corporate farm crops. He also needs a better house for his brother-in-law. He goes out to your farm, and you bring him all the papers showing that you have paid your taxes and you have no mortgage or debts. He responds by taking out his side arm and shooting you, your wife, and your kids in the head. Case closed.
Suppose like in the classic movie, Gaslight, you discover that your husband is trying to poison you, and in the process make you doubt the reality of the evidence of your senses and your critical thinking. Is it worthwhile and germane to study how the poison involved creates a destructive cascade in the cytochrome process in your mitochondria? It may be interesting but is it useful? The central banks, owned by the giant primary dealers, have captured the political process in most of the developed world. They control the military and much of the local, paramilitary police forces. The USA is now under a de facto martial law with the passing of the NDAA, and this weekend the presidential executive order.
Their ducks are now lined up in a row. We are frogs in the pot with the flame under it. What can we do about it? Aye, there’s the rub.
bluebird post=1475 wrote: Reverse Engineer said “EVERYBODY knows they are being ripped off by the TBTF banks.”
Not really. I have a sister who retired early from a major bank in Boston. She is fully entrenched that big banking is good, and she is glad that the government bailed out the TBTF banks because it is keeping the economy from getting worse. She is clueless about things going on around the world, that stuff is over there. She has told me that our government is taking care of us, we have rules and regulations that will prevent another 1930’s depression, that advances in technology are always coming to make our lives better, etc., etc.
She is worth a few million and has a professional financial planner to manage her portfolio. She truly believes that no one is stealing her wealth. If the markets go down, she has plenty of time to recoup the losses, because she told me, if you get out, you will miss the gains when the markets recover.
It is impossible to talk to her otherwise…I’m just a reader of blogs so what do I know.
OK, granted, there are plenty of clueless imbeciles out there. However, just based on Polls and so forth MOST people would like to see the bailouts stop and most of their Politicians given a one way ticket Outta Town, if not to the Great Beyond.
RE
el gallinazo post=1480 wrote: Their ducks are now lined up in a row. We are frogs in the pot with the flame under it. What can we do about it? Aye, there’s the rub.
Be Patient, find a good Hole, and wait for the Failure of the Conduits. Fail they will EG, the complexity level and energy requirements for this model are hopelessly mismatched. When they fail, somemighty big changes will come your way. You can either be a force for Good, or you can be a Hopeless Nihilist. Your Choice.
RE
Reverse Engineer post=1482 wrote: [quote=el gallinazo post=1480]Their ducks are now lined up in a row. We are frogs in the pot with the flame under it. What can we do about it? Aye, there’s the rub.
Be Patient, find a good Hole, and wait for the Failure of the Conduits. Fail they will EG, the complexity level and energy requirements for this model are hopelessly mismatched. When they fail, somemighty big changes will come your way. You can either be a force for Good, or you can be a Hopeless Nihilist. Your Choice.
RE
As to your description of my comment as perhaps “hopelessly nihilist,” not at all. Anyone on this blog for more than a month knows that I am not a nihilist – far from it. As to “hopeless,” also not at all. I just wanted to open another line of creative thought to the swarming millions who read this blog. The question of what we can do about it is not rhetorical in the least. You already supplied one possibility; maybe the best, maybe not. Ilargi, Nicole, and Ash have supplied another.As to the break down of the Stasi state through complexity and energy resources, as you know, I am rather sure that they are not facing an energy shortage in the least. Even if you accept the peak fossil fuel paradigm, they are decades away. (I am not writing that we are not running out of cheap fossil fuels, but rather that TPTSB have developed other sources of energy. But I don’t wish to get into that here and now, other than that they are having quite a bit of trouble with their whack-a-mole strategy of suppressing it from “leaking” out.) And complexity breakdown is usually a function of energy shortage.
Not that I don’t think that there will be a huge breakdown of international trade in the near future, precipitated by financial as opposed to energy reasons. But this will simply impoverish us farm animals, and not cripple the coercive state. That is what the presidential executive order of this weekend is all about
Point of clarification.
You say, “A major buzzword among New Zealanders is “rates”; people are acutely aware of the potential various levels of government have to raise tax rates. “.
Rates in this case is our term for city or regional property taxes; we are rated a share of the total council budget according to the value of the property we own.
The “rate” of that tax, ie the number of cents payable per $1 of property value varies according both to changes in property valuation and city budgets that need funding.
Otherwise, cities have no power to change any other tax rates such as sales tax or income tax, all of which are set by central government.
Looking forward to meeting Nicole in Turangi next month, she’s been a hero and an inspiration since I first found TOD nearly a decade ago.
el gallinazo post=1484 wrote: As to the break down of the Stasi state through complexity and energy resources, as you know, I am rather sure that they are not facing an energy shortage in the least. Even if you accept the peak fossil fuel paradigm, they are decades away. (I am not writing that we are not running out of cheap fossil fuels, but rather that TPTSB have developed other sources of energy. But I don’t wish to get into that here and now, other than that they are having quite a bit of trouble with their whack-a-mole strategy of suppressing it from “leaking” out.) And complexity breakdown is usually a function of energy shortage.
Not that I don’t think that there will be a huge breakdown of international trade in the near future, precipitated by financial as opposed to energy reasons. But this will simply impoverish us farm animals, and not cripple the coercive state. That is what the presidential executive order of this weekend is all about
I know you have this opinion, however as of yet I haven’t read anything of yours to justify it. I’m sure you’ll present it in due time, but you’ll have to make a pretty good case to convince me of any more than a marginal probability.
As to the extent of your nihilism, I put it in the same category as other folks I’ve read who figure we are all boiling frogs and the Stazi State is inevitaly going to turn whatever is left of the population into Eloi Slaves of Morlock Masters. I don’t buy the meme.
RE
“What can we do about it?” Seems pretty hopeless, the entire thing has gone on for far too long. They are drunk with their power and are now declaring themselves the legal owners of all things tangible if they deem it to be an emergency. It had to be nipped at the bud to prevent it. I try to remain hopeful, but I know better. Could a strong magnetic patriotic leader arise and save us in this, “who can raise the most money to win,” political system we are in?
Reverse Engineer post=1486 wrote: [quote=el gallinazo post=1484]As to the break down of the Stasi state through complexity and energy resources, as you know, I am rather sure that they are not facing an energy shortage in the least. Even if you accept the peak fossil fuel paradigm, they are decades away. (I am not writing that we are not running out of cheap fossil fuels, but rather that TPTSB have developed other sources of energy. But I don’t wish to get into that here and now, other than that they are having quite a bit of trouble with their whack-a-mole strategy of suppressing it from “leaking” out.) And complexity breakdown is usually a function of energy shortage.
Not that I don’t think that there will be a huge breakdown of international trade in the near future, precipitated by financial as opposed to energy reasons. But this will simply impoverish us farm animals, and not cripple the coercive state. That is what the presidential executive order of this weekend is all about
I know you have this opinion, however as of yet I haven’t read anything of yours to justify it. I’m sure you’ll present it in due time, but you’ll have to make a pretty good case to convince me of any more than a marginal probability.
As to the extent of your nihilism, I put it in the same category as other folks I’ve read who figure we are all boiling frogs and the Stazi State is inevitaly going to turn whatever is left of the population into Eloi Slaves of Morlock Masters. I don’t buy the meme.
Pulled this back from the ether by quoting myself 🙂 Took out the pic of Yvette Mimieux 🙁
You guys got a maor glitch in your database.
RE
Is it just me, or are most of these acronyms meaningless?
Is there a place where I can get the definitions?Golden Oxen post=1487 wrote: Could a strong magnetic patriotic leader arise and save us in this, “who can raise the most money to win,” political system we are in?
Eat enough Sushi from Fuk-U-shima, we could get some REALLY magnetic leaders!
RE
Yo Bukko, you are the ultimate hypocrite aren’t you? You berate your own mother, yet you do the same? And you emigrated? You’re an expat?
It so happens I live outside the U.S. also, and I have the perfect bank that takes very good care of me while I’m away. Great exchange rate, and no fees on the cards, and a rebate for any fees charged by other banks. And it’s one of the very very few left with a AAA rating. They’ll give you an account even if your away, no problem – as long as you’ve served your country. Did you? Good. Go get an account. I’m certainly not going answer your call and help you figure it out though.
BTW – Your post was way too much personal information, nobody really cares to hear about you or your mother’s banking problems.
Ooh — I’ve made my first TAE forum antagonist! Thanks for the shitkick ufik. I think it’s more fun to have some aggro than agreement with everyone else on here. I look forward to irritating you in the future.
desert mouse post=1490 wrote: Is it just me, or are most of these acronyms meaningless?
Is there a place where I can get the definitions?when in rome, desert mouse! :silly:
internet slang website
TAE has its own slang, too, which may require reading every comment there ever was, and remembering them. the forum format makes this more challenging. and the acronyms are subject to change. for example LG’s (mine and joeP’s version of el g) TPTSB upthread is about a week old, means The Powers That Shouldn’t Be, which he moved to from TPTB.
TOD (The Oil Drum) won’t come up at the link above. it was all new to me too when i found TAE and i found it fun to try and figure them out over time. and if it’s something custom, or obscure but important, it’ll probably get put in parentheses after, like FCLO (Fermented Cod Liver Oil).
and you can always ask.
Was there ever a response to this query?
Hi Ilargi,
Nice to read your writing again, appreciating your contribution, thanks.
I have a question: I got the impression when reading TAE in the Fall that you thought a Credit Event/CDS event associated with Greece would likely have a large destabilizing effect (ie: collapse) on the global financial system d/t all in the globally intertangled and layered instruments, fakery, etc.And yet, as you yourself say here, the CDS credit event went relatively smoothly for the financial elite – at least so far as we can tell. And it went smoothly likely d/t to the tremendous political, as well as financial, power they wield (as per your post’s second paragraph). It ended up being much less of a big deal as far as it’s effects (at least so far) than i think TAE thought would happen.
To my questions:
1. Are the largest financial institutions “holding it together” (for their own benefit) longer than you thought they could?
2. Are they showing even more power to make things go their way than you thought?
3. My TAE-informed impression was that dominant global financial systems would crumble/collapse, but I’m starting to wonder if enough of the big players have enough power and willingness to use it, that they can manipulate things to their own interests – just as they did with the Greek CDS credit event – and go through unscathed or even get wealthier while everyone/everything else collapses. Your thoughts?
Thank youI have had the same thoughts… the CDSwaps do not seem to have had the domino effect projected across the banks, triggering major financial issues.
What’s up?
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