Economy, spending, and debt
The RTD recently ran a series of articles about the status of the state employee pension system in Virginia. I thought the attempts at reassurance were very humorous, right along with the justification for the high salaries. Public employees: Your futures are being stolen by this crisis, just like everyone else's. There is no future [...]
Bloomberg (props yet again to Zerohedge); China makes a major move clearing the way for dropping the use of USD in international trade: Japan and China will promote direct trading of the yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government [...]
20 minutes. This is an excellent, mostly plain-language description of the failing paradigm that confronts the EU. If you listen carefully, close your eyes and substitute "the United States" for "the Eurozone," you will hear a description of exactly what is headed our way. The interviewer, Michael Hewson, at 1:30: "We've had numerous EU (for [...]
From Generation Z to Generation D(ebt).
Click on the Link below if you can stand it. WHEN WILL THE GOVERNMENT STOP ALL THE DEFICITS, LYING, INTERVENTIONS, AND NONSENSE, GET OUT OF THE WAY, AND LET THE ECONOMY ACTUALLY GROW? WHEN? 50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
Kyle Bass: "In the end, the picture is so large, and the leverage in the banking system is so enormous that when you start delivering, there is no way out of this scenario, and that's what's happening right now." CNBC's David Faber: "It's a complicated concept..." No, it's not; it's a remarkably simple concept: there [...]
Bloomberg: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled he’s concerned Europe’s crisis will hobble a 2 1/2-year U.S. expansion that may need another boost from the central bank. The economy allegedly "grew" at about 2% this fiscal year. In the meantime, the federal government borrowed and spent the equivalent of 13% of GDP. SO if [...]
...because, it seems, that your assets may have been pledged multiple times as collateral in a leverage process known as "Re-hypothecation." Absent proof otherwise, this should probably be assumed to include any money you might have in an IRA, any alleged retirement you think your employer owes you, (what do you think the company does [...]
ANDREW KLAVAN: WALL STREET ON TRIAL From the Manhattan Institute, a 5 min video by Andrew Klavan, City Journal Contributing Editor: ...two hearts with but a single thought., a government that will take other people's money and give it to us. ~as asserted by Edmund Gorge, President, CEO, Consolidated Avarice
A little background is in order. The phrase harkens back to ancient Greek theater. It seems that "some" Greek writers had a penchant for introducing seemingly intractable problems into the plots of their plays, and then using a machine, such as a crane, to lower one of the Greek gods onto the stage in order [...]
"The banks," of course, are the big, international, Congress-owning kind. Ten Minutes. A few highlights: "We criticized Japan for keeping alive zombie banks. We're pretty much doing the same in the West." "There's a grotesque misallocation of capital going on, away from the parts of the private sector that could use it, into parts, effectively, [...]
From the Federal Reserve's web site: The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing coordinated actions to enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system. The purpose of these actions is to [...]
