Dr. D
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Yellen for the win!
Charts over 120 year-highs in every metric? “is that a bubble? …it’s very hard to tell.” Or not. At all.
Also doesn’t know what collateral is. Or leverage. “…our overall judgment is that, if there were to be a decline in asset valuations, it would not damage unduly the core of our financial system.” Somehow I think if you have out an 80% loan, or stocks on margin, if the collateral drops 20%, you’re repossessed. And yes, that is not voluntary, which leads to more selling, lower prices, etc. The complete loss of adequate collateral is the definition of “undue damage.”
On markets: “Recoveries don’t die of old age.” Yes Janet, they do. Look at any chart and you’ll see an 8-year, 20-year, 37-year etc cycle. Trees don’t grow to the sky, you might have heard. But when we no longer have markets, but soviet central planning, the sky’s the limit, yes?
PS, We have regulations on banks? First I’ve seen. Anybody planning on using them?
And like I said about ivory towers in the 12 blesse’d cities where journalists live: can’t figure out why Americans don’t use over 10 vacation days when I bet 60% of them don’t have even 5. For any purpose: sick, dying, kids: sucks to be you. You think Bezos is made out of money or something? Get back to that $21K a year, the ambulance is outside if you can’t hack it.
They seem to have pulled the plug on the old system, it’s being swapped out for the new one right now.
When are they finally going to give up on the I-Y-I class and think for a second? The Phillips Curve was a failure in the 1970’s — 40 years ago. Yet they trot it out regularly as a pretense for the Fed to raise and lower rates — the Fed who has been wrong 100% of the time, always over and undershooting the market, causing, if possible, even worse booms and busts than the 19th century wildcat markets, which is really saying something.
In the 40 years of the Phillips Curve, getting it completely wrong, never having either stable prices NOR full employment, the boom-bust has coincidentally transfered a majority of the national wealth FROM the employed-stable-price people TO the friends-of-Fed people, Wall Street, banks, speculators, and insiders.
To make this even MORE of a kick-in-the-teeth to everyday Americans, you’d have to truly be the nation’s dumbest American — hyperbole accepted — to believe we had anything within 1,000 miles of full employment, meaning they’re lying, OR low inflation, meaning they’re lying, OR a working economy, meaning they’re lying, while they just raised your mortgage and credit card rates and drove the last remaining hangers on into bankruptcy. And saying it’s your fault for your benefit.
Golly, why are people so steamed at DC, Wall St. and the Fed? How come they no longer trust the experts on CNN, economists, sociologists, scientists? The world may never know.
Only their carmakers have lost their moral compass?
Youtube, welcome to AI! How do you like me now?
In general terms, unprocessed food is cheaper as well, so what you really have in processed food is a drug-running outfit. Same as tea, sugar, coffee, beer, taurine…
Oddly, and for better or worse, Capt Crunch’s supporters do not believe he will save them and never have. That’s why it’s so odd they voted for him anyway. It was just either that, or an immediate shooting war. So mostly they don’t think much of him, nor need him in particular, just the process, nor even count on him not to fail. If he fails, falls short, dies, is removed, his supporters will carry on the same push; or at least so far as I can see, sitting here.
Never believe the media on any side, which is full of bloviating partisans. Obama was also considered the messiah, but I’m not sure it wasn’t similar with him: that’s why they weren’t all that disappointed he was a sellout. Failing big didn’t help in the next election though.
Similarly, for the Cap’n’s successes: so the FBI is going to arrest itself now, or what?
Nassim: did you check your mail?
The world’s biggest bubble is bonds, especially the UST.
Crypto commentators had a great phrase “Bitcoin isn’t the bubble, it’s the pin that pops the bubble.”
That is to say, the real bubble — phony financial assets that can never repay – has been pumped so high and is under so much pressure it’s looking for an outlet. Gold is the usual, but it’s been rigged and bolted shut. So although not all the wealth is going to get into cryptos — most of it is fake anyway — there are so many trillions in fraud even a billion, or in this case cumulative market cap of $500B is enough to drive these tiny issuances like a rocket. https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/
You know how they say “In a bull market even turkeys fly”? Like that.
Not saying they’re good, like the .com 2/3 of them will disappear, and some others will survive only in niche use. But like the .com bubble we still have the Internet, Dell, Microsoft, Amazon today, and the Internet makes and flows a lot of money every minute worldwide.
The Pin, not The Bubble.
As it’s an active chart, it’s probably feeding. It certainly wasn’t the best one. A candlestick chart shows it now-vertical. But it was here.
https://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=TNXSorry it was CNN, I was desperate to find something that captured the motion. I hope that doesn’t mean it’s fake.
Houston, we have a problem.
Does that say interest rates just rose 25%?
Good luck boys. Hope you brought extra pants.
Since global temperatures are still plateaued for 15 years running, I’ll take the under on the 1.5c bet.
Actually, that’s unfair, as every model prediction they’ve ever made is completely wrong. Wasn’t NYC supposed to be underwater already and there be no snow in New England, much less 16″ in the Sahara? I think I saw a movie on that once.
Temperatures may be changing, but for certain these are not the guys who can predict to where.
Och, we used t’dream of “paychecks reasonably large and life is comfortable at the moment.” Woulda been a palace to us.
The numbers here, as everywhere, are made meaningless by the extraordinary wealth disparity. Some portion of each city is also dead zone, but let’s say 40% of the nation is “comfortable at the moment” although under 3 months rent (and why? Could it be interest rates are rigged too low and punish savings? And naughty people respond to this by not being robbed? How dare they!) However, those 40% are in 12 cities, with a few in the other 20/40 2nd tier cities, leaving 90% of the counties in the state of total collapse. So…are they comfortable, or not? They have a big paycheck, or not?
Well, where EVERY. SINGLE. decider and reporter live, things are sorta not too bad. When all 10 richest zip codes are in D.C. you think you’re winning and can’t imagine what the rabble is on about; you know, the same thing Ms. Antoinette said. There have been a few intrepid journalists who did a cross-country tour and were promptly ignored. Why? Like the environment, we’d have to stop driving our Prius over to buy a 128-pack of plastic bottled water and DO something. Like stop stealing from them, from the periphery to the center. But since the power is by definition IN the center, they are obviously NOT going to de-power themselves and start powering Omaha. You know, by dismantling Amazon, Berkshire, and the U.S. Tax code.
The income disparity is so extreme, it’s bending space-time. That is, when they say the “average income is” they are averaging in Bezos who made $2.4B more in one DAY. I also suspect they don’t average in 100M unemployed or the 50M or so who have net NEGATIVE income due to food stamps, welfare, etc. You know, the guys who work for Bezos for $16k/yr and get hauled out of the warehouse into the waiting ambulance the county pays for? While he natters on about Basic Income? So when they say it’s $45k, it wouldn’t shock me if the average wage outside of the top zip codes of the 12 anointed cities is like $33k HOUSEHOLD, not person. And that with no health care or retirement.
Translation: 90% of the U.S. counties are effectively the 3rd world.
So be careful overseas if you’re reading these numbers. Or heck, if you’re from the unreachable planet of the 5% blue counties, who like any self-respecting South African, wouldn’t dare leave their gated community of journalists and professors and visit apartheid. You might run into those “other” people and have to look 60 years of “helpful” policies in its unshaven, unemployed face. Some new roads ain’t gonna fix that.
The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery. -Jesse’s Cafe
They’re still a little loopy as they try to lead back to order. Despite 50 or 100 years to the contrary, CONGRESS runs the United States. The Presider, the President, executes the will of CONGRESS. Not the other way ’round. Shocking, I know.
Anyhoo, that’s the gist of Trump saying “You don’t need anything from me. You’re in charge. If you want the memo released, release it.” Congress, in standing with long tradition, instead abdicated power, handed the bomb to Trump and let him take the blame. Now they can claim it’s political, which they would anyway. I’m sure he’s not surprised.
As point, the FBI requested a copy of this infamous memo and was shocked and appalled not to get one (since it isn’t released yet). You know what the committee said? “Hey blokes, YOU gave US the memo. It’s your info. Everything in it is information YOU, the FBI told US.” So maybe they should simply check their own internal and court records? Crazy! Appalling! How dare ye! How dare you report the reporting we reported officially to you? How political. ‘Round and round until people like us throw up.
PS, apparently the “memo”, or actually the full 99-page FISA document was already released. Why? Because it’s official government paperwork that has to be posted, but the secret is to know what it means when you read it. So deep in arcane, vacuous bureau-speak no one understands (which is why they want the 4-page) you’ll be shocked to read that a) the administration went to the FISA court with nothing, bupkis. b) Said we’ve got “national security” emergency and a pretty face, can you authorize us with nothin’ and we’ll get back to you. c) Wiretapped not Trump Jr, not Trump Tower, but the fiber optic Trunc lines nationwide. d) Requested this coast-to-coast wiretapping by the NSA of all Americans everywhere e) to be used by 3rd-party outside contractors f) Promise honest injun we won’t look at anything and g) Returned to the court for a further extension after they still found nothing.
If you’re extremely slow on the uptake of the 20 YEARS of continual, daily tramplings, this is all PERFECTLY LEGAL under the 2001 Patriot Act (I mean, apart from that Constitution thingy). Golly, you mean existing administrations would wiretap Senators on the thinnest premise — say a guy sold a dime bag on the same Trunc line — then blackmail them to get votes on critical legislation? No! Really??? Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh. And still no one’s up to speed on this? I was shocked to find they still HAD a FISA court that still PRETENDED to need evidence, that was the real news to me.
Anyway, now you see why they were so desperate to plant evidence — which had to be the Russians, or at least foreigners by the way — through their man Manafort (paid by HRC’s law firm) to get Papadopoulos (a literal nobody) to convince DJT to meet with Russians, any Russians, anywhere. And fast. To get back to the FISA court with somethin’, anything. So instead set up with Trump Jr to meet with an English friend of theirs, which turns out instead to be a Russian lawyer talking about adoption policy, who met with HRC people immediately after the meeting, and from a nobody banished to the hinterlands was suddenly meeting with the Obama ambassador for photo ops eight days after.
Does any of this say “wiretapping the opposing candidates for political purposes” to you? You know, to “interfere with elections” and “undermine our Democracy”? Hey look: let the best man win, but you can’t do that. And also, IF you lose, you can’t just go overturn elections you don’t like. The essence, the core, the very foundation of Democracy, is that you hand over power to the other guy. Then you hit the streets, go out to the polls, and win it back. If you do ANYTHING other than that, it is in essence the end of Western Democracy as we know it, and will ultimately lead to a violent overthrow and civil war. Which, by the way, Deplorables in Flyoverland already assumed would happen to them.
All of this provably happened, as a matter of public record. It is provably, demonstrably happening right now as a matter of public record. And I don’t even need subpoena power to show it. I don’t even need to go past the public media to show it. It’s all been reported, months ago, here and there. The problem is no one will believe it. And even so, like every other of the 100,000 felonies reported each year, (lookin’ at you Robosigning, Wells Fargo, MF Global) no one will do anything about it. Perhaps this is because “western Democracy” and the entire heritage of Western culture means nothing anymore if my party doesn’t win, this one time.
My country (party), right or wrong. Though the heavens fall.
Fiat justitia ruat cælum Or that other catchy phrase, Kyrie eleison
Seems like the only people this is a secret to is us. If e.g. they’re in Somalia, the Somalians know. The Russians know. The Chinese will know. So who doesn’t keep any tabs on CIA/Pentagon black ops? You know, the big ones that aren’t really very secret. Congress, I suppose. Maybe they should download the Stravas app for House and Senate and they might find the 44,000 missing soldiers that somehow get army rations every day? https://www.stripes.com/report-44-000-unknown-military-personnel-stationed-around-the-world-1.501292
Part of ongoing disclosure? The Democracy can’t vote when they have no idea what’s going on, since everything important is classified…on purpose. They don’t WANT you to know where your $21Trillion went while Detroit burns, or you might get mad. Space plane? No we have no space plane. Oh wait, I forgot, it’s Tuesday, we do. Until Friday, when we don’t anymore, and the news release is denied. Just happened this week with the SR-72, inheritor of the old SR-71 Blackbird, which was itself denied for decades after the U-2. The 71 was admitted to exist when it was obsolete and replaced in the 1990’s. …But we haven’t had ANY planes since then. Nope! Suggesting we have military planes we deny is just silly. Oh wait, I forgot! We already made one: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5251961/SR-72-hypersonic-bomber-made.html Hey, where did you think the F-35 money was disappearing to?
We can admit it now because the SR-72 is retiring of old age and we have an “SR-73” …perhaps the Aurora SR-91. But no, that’s silly. They deny any such plane exists. But it was parked on Google maps the other day. But we don’t have one.
And no matter how many times the military keeps ordinary, expected, pedestrian, garden variety military secrets about weapons and capabilities, it’s always outrageous, how-dare-you, crazy, tinfoil hat stuff to even suggest they wouldn’t advertise every military object and plan in the NY Post. …Until next time, when of course all those rumors are true as well.
Anyway, disclosure. But for whom? Any worthwhile secret service worldwide already knows this stuff. How to get the ordinary Joe’s attention long enough to read? How about his Fitbit? That’ll get clicks. <sigh>
Because according to MSNBC, Europe will dissolve into the oceans unless there’s somebody on top ordering everybody about. No. Again, Europe isn’t dissolving, it isn’t leaving, it isn’t going anywhere; it’s right there above Africa and to the right of Asia, just like it always was. Their dread fear is that someone will notice nobody needs their overpaid nonsense and no one can tell the difference when they’re in session or not except a couple extra Greeks may survive.
Stockman: he’s clearly not a fan. But tell me David, how would you SOLVE the problem? Because I think if we followed your prescription, the banks would collapse, currencies would vaporize, and worldwide trade would stop, leading to millions dead and/or a world war. And hey, if you want to fix the system by removing all the fraud and injustice, I can get into that. But you have to realize that, like Vegas, the U.S. and/or the world is nothing BUT fraud, gambling, theft, gin-joints, prostitution, and murder, with one used-car dealer on the side. Removing the fraud would remove 80% of the economy. Heck, removing fraud in Medical care ALONE would reduce GDP by 15%, and the instant implosion of banks as their collateral vanishes in the adjustment. So point taken, but also not helpful.
I listened to the Davos speech (donations accepted) and it confirmed what I suspected: the Trump plan is to be “open for business” in order to draw all capital worldwide into the United States. Thus all the lying happy-talk about how awesome the tax cut and economy are. Heaven knows if it will work, but he clearly is hitting it like a hammer. Like most of his plays, it’s painfully over-acted and still no one gets it. To even try this, he needs the banks and currency to function and put out the neon sign with the always-rigged stock market, signifying nothing. Like I said, they’re going to have to build a hull underneath the rotting ship while underway, and the currency ultimately will be inflated to nothing (or at least 50-70%) in the switch. That’s why the Dow can just rise: OBVIOUSLY it’s not on economic activity. And beyond rigging, it’s signaling inflation. Gold is finally following; crypto, which was least-rigged before now was out in front.
Better or worse, that’s their plan. We can always collapse and Mad Max later if it fails. I understand, but burning down every crooked casino before there is any other business in town is not wise. It’s childish.
“[Facebook] possibly in tipping elections in the United States and in the United Kingdom”
…Because Facebook was so pro-Brexit and pro-Trump? Omg is everybody’s brain turned to pudding?
Maybe it should tell you Facebook has no influence over the people and you shouldn’t advertise there.
Raul has premonitions with this month’s photos:
https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/seine-river-bursts-its-banks-paris-after-days-non-stop-n841226
I think it looked better in 1910.
What people don’t realize is he controls nothing. The government is so infested with the one-party he can’t even pick his own cabinet. He’s running like 5%, or by now, maybe 10% of the machine, as best seen in the FBI which simply refuses to present evidence and appear for subpoenas for Congress and the President. Luckily, the part he controls apparently includes the U.S. Marines, (or rather, they control HIM) and **some** of the Pentagon. Not all. As we can see, the CIA is fighting the Pentagon (as we saw with actual U.S. forces shooting each other in Syria reported by the L.A. Times, i.e. a peculiar type of civil war overseas) but also certain parts of the Pentagon fighting itself. It’s pretty bad and they’re trying to keep it in-house and not break into an open shooting civil war, but that leaves other problems, like how they can’t just openly arrest or eliminate their opposition. Leads to a bizarre spy-vs-spy game that makes literally no sense in the nightly news.
Anyway, having no control, what can he do? Well, places he wants things to collapse he keeps the incompetent people in there pushing their embarrassing, incompetent plans. Nikki Haley comes to mind. He can change his mind in Iran, shoot useless missiles in Syria, or make trade and peace treaties impossible to negotiate. The result: the world learns to go around the United States, that we won’t be there in any competent way, and to solve it themselves without us or our military. They dump the U.S. dollar and ring-fence the power structure in Wall St. He does that by feeding the bad guys rope to proceed with bad plans they don’t have the forces to accomplish. It’s not what one might want to do, but it’s what he can do given the limitations.
That ends up reading like incompetence or schizophrenia, but the stakes are so high the good guys can’t afford to care — at all — about their public image. You have to read them from their actions only, not their words.
Example? Americans just lit up at Sessions who, while these 10,000 felonies are still unprosecuted, decided instead to call off the truce and enforce marijuana laws when 1/3 of states have legalized in some way and like +65% are in favor of decriminalizing. “How can he do this!?! Doesn’t he know the whole nation is against it? Now we’re probably going to have to go up there and repeal the law in Congress, and we’ve got the votes to do it, by God!” Ding! So Sessions, whose JOB is to ENFORCE LAWS of Congress, is supposed to NOT enforce this unpopular law while you lazy-bones don’t bother to repeal it? Isn’t that how we got into this mess? And then his enforcing the law inspires you to — finally!! — fix a law long since discredited that nobody likes? Gosh, that does sound stupid of him to force you to do your civic duty. How tone deaf. /sarc
You see this all day long, but only if you understand the field and the context, which no one’s reporting on. They’re happy to let everyone think they’re stupid, incompetent, crazy, whatever it takes to prevent shooting and mass death until they can get enough edge up to wrest control back into the civilian, visible government again. It’s been a long time.
If we’re doing shout outs, I’ve been inspired by core progressive Jimmy Dore. He’s been going tooth and nail after the moneyed insiders who are even now, post Trump, shutting down the winning platform of Bernie Sanders. They’re cracking the ossified party from inside, the way the GOP was slowly broken since the Tea Party. Anyway, it’s good to hear someone who stands for what he believes in.
There’s not much news out there, as everything real is guarded like buried treasure:
“The truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” –Winston Churchill
The DACA answer is that non-citizens can become citizens? What a revelation. And both sides will crow victory for this entirely self-evident, pre-existing reality? Is there an emoji for OMG Beam Me Up?
Thanks to CNN this may be a surprise, but the U.S. takes in hundreds of thousands of immigrants a year from every nation on earth, who sign paperwork, get green cards, and start the process. Thanks to Congress and a government shutdown, they now can walk into an office that has always been open, and request paperwork that has always been availaible to begin a process that has always been legal. And this is all Americans were ever asking. But I’m sure, somehow, the existence of forms and passports is hate, while as a citizen, my being required to file similar paperwork and carry a similar ID card is love. Got it?
So this was weird: LeGarde says the IMF’s policy position is that lowering taxes benefits a country, perhaps by a lot lot lot. Huh. Someone should tell Europe, I think she found the solution to your economy! Funny but I don’t think that it’s what the IMF has previously advised.
And then Mnuchin is going to LOWER a currency that according to LeGarde is STRONGER. Sounds at lot like they’re tag-teaming and keeping it in a controlled direction. Maybe they fear it will rise but don’t want a runaway feedback loop, so Mnuchin comes out and tells the market they’re going to try to rig it down.
Because The Guardian, they haven’t noticed that Grillo always stood aside from day one. This is hardly a change. He set up the original parameters and stepped back, doing little more than hosting visitors of the party. But hey, either knowing that, or reading old Guardian articles that would tell you that is too much to ask. We just make it up. I just wrote it in the Guardian, it must be true!
Not to press quick enough: Mnuchin makes his public announcement of their official US$ plans. “Lower” but apparently only a little.
I should have added, “Is this how it will go? Probably not. But the point is that these guys are planners. They execute plans when they’re in office, and make plans and white papers when they’re out of office. Because their life revolves around controlling everything and telling everyone what to do. It doesn’t even take Trump to have a plan; he doesn’t need one. A Presidency isn’t one man but a collective. His team will have plans, his generals have plans, the Fed has plans, everybody has plans and agitates and negotiates for things they wish they could do.
The problem is that no plan survives contact with the enemy.”
You know, something like that. But I’m guessing from the rhetoric and the pension catastrophe that the one solid point is “hyperinflating” the stock market, and there’ve been some big inside voices saying the same. Eras don’t end with a whimper but a bang. ’01 or ’08 might have been spike enough, but if you get out of that, as they have, you’ll need a blowoff top for the ages.
Problem is, “spike” vs what? US$? Gold? Oil? Aluminum? LTC? Wheat? When a system ends, the anchor points are changed. That’s how we know it’s something new.Oh well, like it or not, we’re all tied to the mast now.
“…seeking to determine whether there was a “pattern” of behavior”
A pattern of behavior where an employer fires his employees? Not to be crass but wtf are they talking about? Does Mueller’s investigation travel through all time, space, and reality to all events past and present, all decisions he approves or denies? Is it treason or collusion to fire your employees? Or is it only treason when the President didn’t get authorization from the actual controllers before making his mascot/spokesman decisions? Oi.
I don’t know what to do with counterpunch. Maybe this should be their mascot?
Look, yes, governments tax ONLY TO MAKE YOU USE THEIR CRAPPY MONEY. It creates a false demand for their worthless garbage. That’s why the Federal Reserve coincided with the Income Tax. And yes, they can just print the money instead and not tax at all.BUT THAT’S NOT A MAGIC TREE OF ENDLESS WEALTH.
Wealth comes from real people doing real things. The U.S. can print a million billion dollars. That may make you THINK they can buy a billion trillion 2x4s with it, but they can’t. There are still only so many forests, so many saw mills, and so many men. You can get exactly the same number of 2x4s after printing as before: the amount your economy is physically able to produce. What the money printing WILL do, however, is raise prices, via inflation, the expansion/dilution of the money supply. That generally means the economy comes unglued and you’ll get even LESS 2x4s than before. And while he’s suggesting that ‘leftists’ are off-base with austerity and should just pump the skittle-crapping unicorn to help the poor, in fact inflation and printing money HURT EXACTLY THE POOR THE MOST.
It ain’t rocket science: that’s why they use it. That’s why they built it in 1913, and that’s why it goes on every day since: inflation is a tax on the poorest and a direct transfer of wealth from the outsiders to the insiders. At the rate they suggest, 2%, it will cause the poorest to lose HALF their money in 40 years, and the real inflation rate is far higher than that. Sound familiar yet, where the inflation tax — the most regressive tax ever known — doubles the number of people in poverty and compounding effect leads to a runaway wealth gap? Yes, that’s the skittles-crapping unicorn of “free money” counterpunch and every other economic illiterate promotes. And believe you me, the insiders are going to say “Yes sir! Right away sir! We’re going to give that poverty-inducing, wealth-transferring, money-printing solution to you good and hard, night and day!” We already have 5 people owning more than half the U.S. due to such policies, 100% of national wealth is in a stock market owned only by the 1% and higher, when are they going to wake up?
You can’t print your way to prosperity. Real things take real work. There ain’t no free lunch, there ain’t no magic clown to give it to you. You, YOU create the wealth.
According to Kavanagh you could land on a desert island, double the money supply, and Lo! A condo and an open-bar cabana would appear! Double it again and an inground pool and lounge chairs, maybe a hospital with a fully-stocked operating room and well-trained ER staff appears! See? Easy! Nobody had to pour concrete, drill and burn oil, manufacture parts. Nobody studied in medical school for 8 years, no one made bagels. No work at all. Just print money!
If this is the state of the discussion, we are absolutely going to print more, with the absolute consequence of poverty and income disparity doubling again. And again. And again. Until we get it right. He-zeus.
Read this from Bart Simpson:
I can not print my way to prosperity.
I can not print my way to prosperity.
I can not print my way to prosperity.
I can not print my way to prosperity.
I can not print my way to prosperity.I thought the Democrats thought it was terrible and would kill people if the government shut down. So irresponsible. But that’s okay: just like last time, it’s impossible to tell. I mean, they don’t provide service or enforce the law anyway, so what’s the dif? If they stayed closed all year maybe fewer people would get shot and the EPA would spill less waste into the rivers of Colorado.
So their argument is they can make things properly for sale in India with a hammer, but there’s no way to make products in a nation that has access to CNC, robotics, internet, reliable electric, and deep banking? You know, like Germany does? Tell me how that works. How is it that Britain is now therefore weaker than India? Bonus question: tell me how it’s not a national scandal and a national security priority if that’s true.
Like New Zealand, sounds like 100% pure B.S. to me. They can do whatever they want to. They take billion dollar losses in many sectors for decades (looking at you Bezos. How are those sales, Musk?) So if it doesn’t happen it’s because they don’t want it to. Let me rephrase that more clearly: they do not want jobs or industry in the U.K. at this time: they want desperation. Maybe later, with the right concessions. This has been true for decades, so let’s not blame Brexit.
“The U.S. securities regulator on Thursday raised alarm about the safety of bitcoin”
Is this the same SEC who for years oversaw a literal, honest-to-God Ponzi scheme by Bernie Madoff, who had only one bank, JP Morgan with all transactions directly approved by the Board of Directors? You know, the SEC that ignored the Markopolos debriefing of the exact crime and methods? The one that every day approves the HFT front-running of customers in every exchange? The one that thought a trader living in his mother’s London basement was the sole cause of the flash crash? You know, the one that looked into the AAA rating of CCC mortgages and saw nothing? The ones who were caught surfing pron all day and not fired?
You mean those guys are going to regulate and protect us? From honest-to-God Ponzi schemes in the token space? Okay, pull the other one. The only thing these guys protect is the mountain of systemic fraud.
“central banks could start issuing digital currencies”
They don’t want to stop cryptos, they want to capture them. And one part of the government saying they want to regulate, while most other departments and the people say no, when there’s no legislation written anywhere much less signed, is a long way from shuttering Asian crypto exchanges and Bitcoin dying.
Bringing some of that $3T home reminds me of “Too much money chasing too few goods” (Or in Carter’s words “Inflation is a bunch of mysterious things working in mysterious ways.”) It could kick off inflation/rate hike cycle that attracts more money from abroad because inexplicably, the RoW is even worse than the dreadful U.S. If so, it could eventually drive the US$ 50% lower (at least vs goods) which is the crushing inflation and debt relief they’ve been claiming to want. Enthusiastic cheer! It’s possible.
And of course it’s awesome because it hurts pensioners and the most vulnerable the hardest! Hey, you didn’t think they were going to hurt K-Street lawyers the hardest, did you? Although a debt-relief reset would ultimately be good, nobody will like it. So DJT will need something to blame it on. His success, probably.
It’s the victim game. Quick! Everyone pick a side:
https://worldnewstrust.com/american-narratives-the-rescue-game-john-michael-greerIt’s hard to pin down history but I doubt it’s European. Starting Middle Eastern? The Chinese certainly pitched in, albeit only within the Middle Kingdom. The history of Africa is lost, but it seems they liked war and destruction as much as any. The Incas and Aztecs were no joke, chopping heads and spreading 1,000 miles. The Iroquois were proud to be cannibals, and feared.
It seems hard to imagine since the Euros spread dat Roamin’ Empire worldwide, but what we call Euros — not Romans — are barely a scratch in history, only some 300 years.
• Bitcoin, Ethereum Suffer Massive Drops, Many Crypto’s Fare Even Worse (CNBC)
Repeating the comment of yesterday, except adding that CNBC also doesn’t know grammar: please remember not every “s” needs an apostrophe. It’s not bacon and egg’s (yes this happens). An apostrophe is either “crypto owns” or “crypto IS”. If you were a journalist, or a news organization, and/or had a copy editor like actual newsrooms do, you’d know that. /rant, but honestly! Front page? In the Headline? And people should think the facts are correct when you don’t even check grammar?
A double-digit drop? Oh heavens! Well, at least we’re finally anywhere near the 50% drop that is the common, standard, boring correction among very young markets like bitcoin, as illustrated by not just all the 50% drops, but a couple of 80/90% drops as recently as 2014. Again, if CNBC read an article or looked at a chart, they’d know this. Heck, 20% drops aren’t “massive” even in tech, biotech, and mining and those markets are a lot older.
Apropos to nothing, did you know that Jan 15th was the worst year for cryptos 3 years in a row? Ain’t that funny?
Hey, you know what else happens Jan 15? Wall Street receives their yearly bonuses. How cool would it be if, when you got your free $500k taken from taxpayer bailouts, that all the prices of the things you want to buy would just happen to be on sale? Say because of basically fake news planted on the AP pressline out of Asia? You know, like Jim Cramer said he used to do. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GOS8QgAQO-k
–Even if they were the same stories posted 3 months ago. Wouldn’t it be awesome if somehow that would happen? Especially if like Ripple, the day after I buy it goes up 36,000% for the year? And then when it falls 50% after rising 36,000% everybody would be scared? Gosh that would be awesome, but we know there’s no insider trading, influence peddling, or market rigging. If there were, somebody would go to jail, right?Beam me up, Scotty.
As you say, the “apex predator”, your Skipper, did not participate in the damage they wrought. Nor did the exact same humans for 100,000 years. Even up to 100 years ago, huge areas, whole continents of humans did not behave this way. Yet this is “our” behavior? “Human” behavior?
No, if anything, this demonstrates that the present methods are IN-human behavior, not familiar and natural to our species. Which leaves the question, then where did it come from and why has it spread from a tiny outpost of madness to encompassing the globe?
This is not human behavior. Leave me out of it.
Stopping plastic? Yes, great. Now quick: go cut down some trees.
Again, I don’t know what market they’ve been following. Bitcoin corrections are +50%, and there were, what 6 last year? This one is +15%, or not even 50% cumulatively, as it went from $20k to $11.8K. Please just try to be taken seriously. Andrew Griffin, read at least one story, talk to one person and read one chart before you write an article for “Top” “Serious” “World-class” news organization UK Independent. It’s embarrassing.
Will it drop? Who knows? But while Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon buy up cryptos using subsidiaries, https://news.bitcoin.com/after-the-boss-calls-bitcoin-a-fraud-jp-morgan-buys-the-dip/
…they miss the point of the article. China and Korea are shutting down centralized exchanges, not bitcoins. Golly, with the money-printers rigging every market on earth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-barclays-regulations-gold/barclays-slapped-with-44-million-fine-over-gold-price-fix-idUSBREA4M06620140523
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/the-cost-of-nearly-everyt_b_3742106.html
…why would they think the crypto exchanges might be a weak point for manipulation by big money interests? Why would they close the exchanges for concentration but keep it available like cash in the hands of the people?Don’t be silly, just sell sell sell. It’s the end of Bitcoin. Just like the last 99 times.
Wow, that’s an excellent idea. We could all just trade countries and leave our debts behind.
Almost as good as South Park episode “Margaritaville” where Kyle takes on all credit card debts then defaults, leaving the town debt-free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaritaville_(South_Park)
Or the updated version, where Trump pardons all debtors. (still waiting!) Sign of the times where our attention goes.
Do they? You tell me. Almost all Democrats hated DJT so much they overwhelmingly voted to continue illegal warrantless wiretapping run by the Trump administration, while the DoJ and like agencies blow off more subpoenas than Tony Montana blows coke? The few real Progressives have finally cottoned on to how the Party system is a scam on them too. Heavens! Did you know the Democratic party has been giving only lip service to Progressives and the Democratic base, unions, environmentalists, workers, pacifists, anti-trusts, consumer protection and campaign finance advocates and enforcers of business law? It’s only been 30 years, whatever gave you that idea? Now don’t quote me on this, but it’s even been rumored that there was election tampering in the party primaries, you know, by the DNC legal team under affidavit, in court, where they said, “Sure we rigged the California primary, but that’s not illegal, even though the FEC and our business charter demands it.”
…Anyhoo, all that to say Progressives and the few remaining Democrats suspect the DNC is already throwing the 2018 election rather than run ANY — even one — Progressive person or policy, because they might win. Economics, helping the working man, their former base: nope. What nothing they have is to give money to corporations for training and more corporate tax breaks, both GOP policies. Jobs program? Nope. Living wage? Over our dead body. Antiwar? What are you, a Ruskie? Legalized Marijuana, already done by 28 states and supported by 70% of the people across party lines? A winning issue, one that poaches Independents and gets people to the less-voted midterms? Might be popular, we have to stay away from it.
So…do their policies, their pursuits, their headlines help a man they claim to be a threat to mothers, kittens, the Free World and life on this planet? You tell me. ‘Cause if they actually thought he was even a tiny, wee bit bad, why would they enthusiastically reauthorize what is effectively unlimited, dictatorial secret-state powers and do everything they can to avoid recapturing those voters in Wisconsin? #Winning
.5 meter of snow in the Sahara: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/snow-in-the-desert/
116f in Australia: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/extreme-volatility-in-weather-part-of-climate-change/
I’m a little confused by the alarm of Australia being so hot. I mean, Australia has similar highs through the 1930’s but also ’48, ’60, ’62, ’70, and ’72. Isn’t that sort of all the time? What’s more, 116f isn’t that hot: the whole continental U.S., from Arizona to Minnesota can reach 110f. Australia is considered hot, a 2,500 mile desert, and this is unusual? Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are all over 110f. It’s been 104f in Boston on the open North Atlantic for heavens sake, and that was in 1911.
Man up, Australia, don’t let Boston and Manitoba outdo you! You’re supposed to be hearty folk.
Jeez, states cry like little babies when after crushing their people with generations high taxes, shown by the population flight, and killed their industry and economies, now don’t have the Feds subsidize their outrageous abuse. Not only that, at the $10,000 level. Isn’t that “tax the rich”? And this is “unconstitutional”? People like Cuomo and Malloy haven’t cared about the Constitution since the day they were born until it cuts into their private money-hose. Federal mandates, unlimited search-and-seizure, police shooting citizens like dogs, gun laws, immigration, welfare and education leading to collapse of civil society? Nope, nothing to see here. But cut off a slightly higher payday for my jet-setting pals paying taxes over $10,000/yr? OMG. The fire of a thousand suns. And they wonder why the public no longer sees the Democrats as the party of the people and the working man and is losing elections.
I could say the same things of Corbyn and Europe.
Pensions are screwed, but not because of dollar signs. Stop thinking about the money: what happened is we have 2 people who receive goods for every 1 person creating them. …And there is no productive capacity in the economy, while health care is taking 20% of national wealth, not 5-10%. K? Or as Greenspan said, “This dramatic demographic change [i.e. retirement] is certain to place enormous demands on our nation’s resources — demands we will almost surely be unable to meet.”
Back to the money, as we’ve noticed over the last 10 years, things never seem to materialize in a straight line. Printing = inflation? Nope. Direct bond purchases lead to currency rejection? Nope. Total collapse of the economy and 25% structural unemployment leads to Dow falling? Nope. So why this time? What’s likely to happen is the U.S. (market? money system?) being slightly less terrible than China and Europe, will attract “investment” i.e. inflation, aka “money” home. Isn’t that what GGG said? This is the kind of flip that happened in UK’s post WWI and pre WWII gold flows that made the 20’s tech mania and the Great Depression. That heavy money could give the Fed a hard time, driving up rates in an environment that just added another $70T worldwide. What did Charles Smith just ask? What kind of problems can’t be solved by their only tool, printing money? Too much money. So we have Inflation, finally by it’s real definition, or really Stagflation, price rises with collapsing economy. Where do people hide then as bond values collapse with a rate rise? Well, lots of places, but as demonstrated in Venezuela, hollow 3rd world economies like ours show a lot of that money flees into stocks. Stocks rise: yay! MAGA and all that. Hey, if the 1% technocrats get rich, (by crushing 99% of the population) there’s no resistance, no impeachment. However that value of those stocks fall as either the cost of living rises faster or worse there are outright shortages, in our case because foreign imports are shut off. This would be pretty typical of markets once topping the trendline, to have a wacky, unstable, blowoff top. Markets don’t usually stop without one. But it’s not a “rise”, it’s a flaw of the measurement tool, the plummeting value of dollars. Oh, and it’s not the stock side of pensions that fail, but given their asset allocation, the much larger, “safer” bond side.
Since people will flee the currency and stocks that go up but don’t keep pace, where else will they go? Can’t go into Euros, Yuan, Rubles, Pounds; so sensible or not, why not cryptocurrencies? Yes, probably. And after this season, the world will begin to look different. Having driven the US$ out of sole reserve currency, production, and consumption will be more fair and normal. But back to pensions, yes, they can rise 20%, but the classic, time-honored way to screw the pensioners worldwide for 100 years in a row is to inflate the value away. Or as Greenspan said, “We can guarantee cash, but we cannot guarantee purchasing power.”
Remember, the dollar doesn’t have to drop. Drop against what? Europe? Good God no. But long-manipulated markets like commodities, against gold, against shortages due to terrible EM dislocations and a hollow economy, sure. US$ paper drops vs what? Non-paper. Reality. Real things. Or you thought like Karl Rove, you could avoid reality and accurate price discovery forever and ever, amen? So fake and hollow promises, fraud, theft and inefficiency drop against reality and delivery of real goods. We’ll all be a lot healthier for it, but no one’s going to like it.
“We know today that the staggering productivity gains in farming were a blessing.”
Really? In 1776 America people worked and ate on a low, ground-level fashion. So did we have coast-to-coast environmental devastation? Cities more hollow and abandoned than Chernobyl? Murder rates of 5 per 100,000 and >15 per 100,000 in major cities? Even in the day of King George, the income disparity was far lower…and that’s really saying something. So exactly what “blessing” does Warren infer? The blessing of dying alone, bankrupt, without family, community, belief, or purpose but with the SandwichMaster burning Velveeta over the sound of Hannity on cable TV? How far we’ve come.
He refers to the “$96 Trillion” Orlov’s “Technosphere” gained from this change, by destroying every life form it could find, including most humans who run it. That’s a great gain for the Big Machine, and all credit to it, however, it took that gain out of the lives of the humans and citizens it was supposedly created to serve.
But don’t worry, they never rest. No matter how much Frankenstein’s monster of science and technology makes the world worse, 10x a day, through one’s entire life and generations since Shelly wrote it in 1818, they never rest and figure that was just an anomaly, a one-time mistake, and surely if we just add a little MORE science and technology, everything will be fixed. Science instead of life, instead of spirit, instead of freedom, always splitting and rendering things instead of joining them and seeing the whole. Yes Warren, somebody won that $96 Trillion fight, and as you said elsewhere, “there’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won.” There’s been a war against humans for longer than that, and every year the humans lose more.
“Keep doing what you’ve always done, and you’ll keep getting what you always got.” As Smith points out, “you optimize what you measure,” so maybe we should stop measuring success in terms of money instead of misery?
#Bombogenisis #Panic #Rages #Defiantly in #Twitterstorm #Attack #Meltdown #EndofAmerica #He’s Finished.
Have we used up all the available Hyperbole for 2018 yet? This storm threatens to drop SIX whole INCHES. Wake me when the Delaware river freezes by Christmas day. Or the Mississippi at Louisiana. They both used to. Regularly.
Intel’s problem is not a flaw: it’s a back door. You didn’t think they were going to let you store your crypto keys safely, did you?
Wells Fargo, where every news story ends in: “And nobody went to jail.” If you’re Wells, and if you pull $1,000M in frauds and pay $9M in fines, you are legally required under U.S. law to commit that fraud, or else you can be sued for not fully promoting the shareholder’s interests. IKYN.
https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=wells-fargo&order=pen_year&sort=desc
Sic semper erit.But there’s more. Since the cases are brought as criminal fraud, when they’re settled, the U.S. Federal government receives the money, filling their own budget shortfall. The more fraud, the more money the government receives, usually the enforcing department. If they eliminate fraud, their budget collapses. Do you detect a small conflict of interest here?
Put it all together: In the U.S. system, companies are legally required to commit fraud, where that fraud is not only not discouraged, it is actively and openly profitable in a cooperative merger of corporations and government, where one protects the other. Should whistleblowers either stop the fraud, or under the whistleblower act, receive the money instead, the corporate and business merger both lose money and/or collapse. Should anyone go to jail, the same would occur. Would anyone like to suggest what behavior we would expect to increase under this incentive program?
There is, however, a solution. Once upon a time, there were NO government suits whatsoever. All issues were considered “Civil” where one person had to show harm by the other, and be paid restitution and reparations. The constable, as it were, only insured the appearance before the court. In the late Middle Ages, however, the King saw a new profit center and claimed such behavior harmed the “crown” on the true basis that a rich man could easily pay wergild for killing whoever he liked, and was undeterred. From there, the legal basis has steadily moved to the Criminal system and away from the Civil. However the Civil system still exists and has all former rights, including investigation, subpoena, and discovery, and not only makes the victim get repaid, can actually level enough punitive damages to deter rapacious behavior. But because it’s difficult, few bother, and defer to a system they fully know is corrupt and leads to unjust outcomes. –Not unlike how although CEOs are overpaid and Wells is virulently corrupt, everyone cheerfully buys their stock anyway.
Hey, the government was never going to be better than the sum of the people, that’s an irresponsible fantasy. if the people don’t care enough to even sell the stock, why should the government?
#FrozenAmerica
OMG people, it’s called winter, you might have heard of it before. This is a normal winter storm in a normal-to-cold winter. Note it only makes the news when it snows on the important people. If snow shut all 10 states starting in Tulsa, we’d cover the Kardashians. amirite?
Yes, friends here had SS Disability 1, 2 years ago? Well, the gov’t wrote to say “Gosh, we suddenly realized we’ve made a mistake and have been overpaying you a couple bucks a week. Could you be a dear and just send us a check for a couple thousand dollars to repay that? K thx, bai.”
Dear Sirs: it may not have come to your attention, but not only is it customary for business or government to eat losses made by idiotic overpayments, however tiny, but the very FACT of being on government assistance means you don’t have any money. …Much less thousands of dollars over thousands of people to bail out the government’s end-of-month shortfall.
1,001 examples yesterday? Make this 1,002. Even if somehow, through sheer coincidence of the stars money should make it through the dizzying array of 740% wealthy bureaucrats and government actually manages to give money to the needy, and does not ask for a hearing and/or audit and body scan 70 miles away for the legally broke and immobile, they will actually want the money back. P.S., also for no logical reason at all.
Look out V: if they have greater shortfalls ending the fiscal year, they’ll soon decide you owe THEM. I mean, 406,960 Federal employees make over 6-figures and those yachts aren’t going to buy themselves, are they?
