Back in the Goode Olde Days, people spent uncounted hours trying to forecast the future. If they
had a cat, they could try felidomancy, which is the art of using cats to predict the future. If they had feet, they could try
pedomancy.
Nowadays, people indulge in fedomancy, which is the art of predicting interest rates by observing
the Federal Reserve Board. It's a difficult practice.
God, grant me the capital to accept the things I cannot change; the reserves to change the things
I can; and the Fed Auction when all that blows up. Amen.
If Her Majesty the Queen wishes to be truly illuminated why most economists failed to see the
Crash coming, it's very simple: you get what you pay for: neoclassical economists are mathematicians willing to bent to the dominant
ideology: the free-market “religion”. Like all religions, it is showing amazing resilience in the face of empirical evidence.
Or in more laymen terms: how those neoclassical sex workers could see it coming, if they all were busy performing oral sex with
banksters.
The fact the most economists are intellectual prostitutes is undisputable. What is strange
is that they are paid much better then porno stars. What a humiliation for the most ancient profession --
Due to the size financial skeptic dictionary is now converted to a separate page
“The CEO of your company has probably already earned your 2016 salary this year” [WaPo,
Dec 6, 2016].
Calling this tightening is like looking at a guy with a 28 inch waist walking around in 38 inch pants, and saying his pants have
been tightened because they they were taken in to 37 inches. Dan Kervic,
December 16, 2015 at 03:51 PM
RE: Using economic statistics in an impartial and informed way [But that would be like science instead of politics. No one ever
called it the scientific economy. It is called the political economy, silly :<) ]
December 14, 2015 at 05:12 AM
The new American dream is to buy a 35k car with your 500fico score and park it front of your 1500/month studio apartment!
Zero Hedge comment
"... "The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession." – Ben Bernanke (January 2008) ..." Sep 20, 2015.
Using metrics in economics and applying mathematical formulas to quantify all aspects of the economy has been a major and far
reaching disaster. None worse, perhaps with the exception of unemployment and inflation, than the totally fraudulent metric "GDP".
I like the way he talks about markets as if one exists. Does he really think that growth can continue forever and ever in a biosphere
with finite resources?
Rude awakening... Is yellen going to strip?
A massive reset will include oil, especially if WWIII isn't part of the equation.
I'm starting a Hillary Clinton blow up doll factory to help support the economy.............
HP is microcosm of what Carly will do to the US: carve it like a pumpkin and leave the shell out to bake in the sun for a few
weeks. But she'll make sure and poison the seeds too! Don't want anything growing out of that pesky Palm division...
HP - that company that sells computers and printers made in China and ink cartridges made in Thailand?
Doing God's work has its advantages. de Cosmos
Sun, 09/13/2015 - 00:20 |
ZeroHedge
Yet another instance of a person or entity that is fucking causing this meltdown with their fraud and theft suddenly warning
about it. Just like that brit douche bag, just like Greenspan, and now this. Just trying to protect themselves when the disaster
they have wrought comes unglued, so they can say something along the lines of "it wasn't me, I was trying to warn you this would
happen, remember?"
What I'll never understand is why Goldman Sachs still has credibility after the 2007 crash. Are people just lazy? Comment
by arsetechnica,The Guardian
"9/11 airline puts". Thanks, that pretty much says it all
Zerohedge
September folks, *SEPTEMBER* - the month for high scale controlled demolitions, did you forgot it?! The kind which benefits very
few clever guys and screw millions of suckers. Luc X. Ifer
Zero Hedge, Sep 5, 2015.
The difference between the Rubin wing and the Warren wing was once put to me this way: one side wakes up every morning wondering
what America would be like without a middle class, the other wakes up wondering what America would be like without Goldman Sachs.
Rubin’s mindset is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that in the 1990s, Rubin was surprised to learn that for the past 20 years
workers’ wages hadn’t increased with their productivity. KidPsychon Fri, 9/4/2015 - 8:24 am
“Neoliberal economics is like a glass-bottomed party boat sailing over the world where the party-goers long ago lost interest
in even casually looking down.”
“China feared that casinos in Macau owned by the billionaire gambling magnate and Republican party funder Sheldon Adelson were
used by US intelligence agents to entrap and blackmail Chinese officials” [Guardian].
“Federal judges vacated five of imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s (D) convictions in a unanimous ruling that
will prompt a retrial… [T]he decision from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals questioned whether his proposal to trade a cabinet appointment
in exchange for appointing top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett to the Senate seat is actually a crime” [The
Hill]. Why don’t we just stop all the hole-in-corner stuff and put cabinet appointments on the open market?
“St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said Monday that while next week may be too soon for the Fed to raise
interest rates, the chance of the Federal Open Market Committee lifting rates off zero at its September meeting were above 50%” [Market
News]. What? No more free money for people who already have it?
And for the rest of the day, it's the bargain-hunters vs the margin-calls. Who will win?
sporkfed wrote on Mon, 6/29/2015 - 11:24 am (in reply to...)
The brokers ?
"Overpopulated shitholes who rely on global trade in luxury products and debt to be able to feed themselves" United States?
ZeroHedge comment, Jun 24, 1015
Who needs workers anymore. Just access cheap Fed money and buyback shares. The laid off workers can become stock traders.
"This South Carolina murder is why EVERY police officer in America should have a body camera AND a dashboard camera." Too bad
that can't be extended to meetings between lobbyists and politicians.
Bankruptcy is part of the American dream. See Harry Truman and stop being a douche.
A nice fresh [government statistics] pig. For the vegans. It is kinda interesting that the initial claims doesn't seem to be
capturing the oil bust. If you bet on fake government statistics in the fake market and then use the profits to buy the precious
[metals] have you transmuted fake money into real money? Thursday
Unemployment Claims Hoocoodanode
The central banks are hostage-takers, and to show you all that they're serious, they shot one of the hostages, Cyprus. Banks
would be foolish not to use this financial nuclear weapon against plebs.
leverage 1:99 and go bust. 0.8% to cash down. This should make bank runs so much more exciting.
Ben, while delusional and dishonest, is not entirely dumb. He knew which side of the bread was buttered for him and his masters.
Bernanke's True Legacy Zero Hedge. Apr
7, 2015
But getting back to the accuracy of Ivy League educated Wall Street economists – they missed by 50%. That entitles them to a
$250,000 bonus. The Establishment Survey showed a pitiful 126,000 increase in low paying service jobs in March. Get prepared for
the usual weather excuse.
The Burning Platform, Apr 3, 2015
What is Jamie Demand? [Apr 01, 2015]
The equity markets are just another Fed-fueled, Fed-managed bubble.
Global warming is one serious problem, of course, but the global bullshit storms emanating from the world's financial centers
are becoming even more deeply discouraging.
Jesse's Café
Américain
In the States, journalistic independence and integrity were some years ago led down a blind alley, and quietly strangled.
Jesse's
Café Américain
Feds are like the girlfriend who keeps promising you'll get a little when the time is right.
“You will know that the financial markets have reached peak instability and volatility when Britney Spears rings
the opening bell.” --Zero Hedge.
10/24/2014
The behavior of the Fed may be looked at by future historians as so bad as to be incompetent, rather than notorious, in the manner
of the 'Greenspan defense.' --
Jesse's Café
Américain, Trust Us
The promiscuous use of sanctions – as part of “regime change” strategies – has become almost an addiction in Washington.
One can envision some tough-talking U.S. diplomat confronting the leaders of a troublesome nation by going around the room and
saying, “we sanction you, we sanction you, we sanction you.” --
Robert Parry
[Feb 24, 2015] It is a bubble, it will eventually collapse, the Fed and the Wall Street courtiers know it, but don't care.
This is the entitled triumph of the "careless few" --
Jesse
The current level of S&P 500 is the testament of the decline and fall of common decency.
I have noticed lately that the spinmeisters are now latching on to the term 'currency war,' but are trying to deflect it merely
to an intensification of the beggar thy neighbor strategy of devaluing your currency to subsidize exports and penalize
imports.
Neoliberal progress. On our "neoliberal" planet the number of people who have a smartphone/cell phone is considerably
more that number of those who have access to clean drinking water and water closets.
Neoliberal oligarchy fight against income redistribution by pushing perverted social justice
smoke screen and in effect can turn the USA in South Africa. Money quote from comments: "If I
read NASDAQ's proposal for Board representation in the Onion, I would have thought that even
these jokesters have exceeded the creativity threshold of ridiculousness I thought was possible."
and "What about the Mentally Ill? Do they get a seat? How about the Homeless?"
Three words about famele CEO and board room members: Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos. BTW what is
unclear in NASDAQ bold critical race theory support is: Can we exchange one black member for two
female members? Or not.
Also why stop at the boardrooms. Why not require the same in professional sport teams?
Nasdaq has, in its own words, embraced "the social justice movement." The
actual job of a stock exchange, however, is to ensure that trading is orderly and its listed
companies follow standard governance rules. But doing that doesn't earn the applause of the
political left. Progressive approval apparently means a lot to Nasdaq, which has officially
proposed to its regulator -- the Securities and Exchange Commission, newly chaired by Gary
Gensler -- to increase boardroom diversity through a "regulatory approach."
This proposal would require that Nasdaq-listed companies not only disclose the diversity
characteristics of their existing boards, but also retain "at least one director who
self-identifies as female," and "at least one director who self-identifies as Black or African
American, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, Native American or Alaska Native, two or more races or
ethnicities, or as LGBTQ+."
Noncompliant firms must publicly "explain" -- in writing -- why they don't meet Nasdaq's
quotas. Nasdaq has, in its own words, embraced "the social justice movement."
The actual job of a stock exchange, however, is to ensure that trading is orderly and its
listed companies follow standard governance rules. But doing that doesn't earn the applause of
the political left. Progressive approval apparently means a lot to Nasdaq, which has officially
proposed to its regulator -- the Securities and Exchange Commission, newly chaired by Gary
Gensler -- to increase boardroom diversity through a "regulatory approach."
The Fed, in sync with the fiction writers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), reports
consumer inflation as honestly as Al Capone reported taxable income.
Vardaman 3 hours ago
"A basket of things no one actually buys, with prices we just pull out of our
asses..."
Glock 1 hour ago
Yep, the BLS uses the CPI-W to literally avoid raising SS payments. The real rate of
inflation for seniors is close to 10% as the things they spend most of their money on like
medical care, medicine, food and utilities have gone through the roof
While the government claims they are entitled to 1.5% or less COLA's out of which comes a
bigger deduction every year for Medicare. Scam artists.
Keith Speights: Some findings were recently published in Nature magazine that
indicate that the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines may provide protection for
years.
Many investors are and were hoping for annual recurring revenue from these companies'
vaccines. Brian, how troublesome is this latest data for the prospects for Pfizer, BioNTech,
and Moderna?
Brian Orelli: There's a bit of an extrapolation going on here. The researchers looked at
memory B cells, which tend to provide more long-term protection than, let's say, antibodies.
They looked at those in the lymph nodes and found the cells were there as long as 15 weeks.
Typically, they'd mostly be gone by four to six weeks. So that's the basis of this claim
that it could offer protection for years. If true, that will be a big blow obviously to vaccine
makers, at least for Moderna and BioNTech.
Pfizer would be fine because it's so diversified. It's really hard to make an argument for
the valuations of Moderna and BioNTech right now if these vaccines are one and done over a
couple of years. They really need to have ongoing sales until they can get growth from other
drugs in their pipelines.
Speights: Brian, when I first saw the story, I went to check out to see how the stocks were
performing, and Moderna is up, BioNTech was barely changed, Pfizer barely changed. It seems to
me that investors really aren't making much of this news. Do you think that's the right take at
this point?
Orelli: I think it's still too early to be able to conclude that it's definitely going to
work for years. The other issue is that we're looking at, will those B cells actually protect
against the variants?
If they don't protect against the variants, then it doesn't really matter if you have B
cells in your lymph nodes. If they're not going to protect against the variants then we're
going to have to get a booster shot anyway.
Speights: Right. Obviously, if these vaccines provide immunity for multiple years, these
companies aren't going to make nearly as much money as they expect and a lot of investors
expect. So this is a big story to watch, but like you said, really, really early right now and
too soon to maybe go drawing any conclusions at this point.
Note to Goldman: you're a bank. Stick to banky-stuff. Leave the fear **** and lies to
the professionals in the .gov and MSM.
p3scobar 7 hours ago
Goldman is the government... sooo.....
espirit 9 hours ago
If Goldman can give medical advice, so can I.
A Lunatic 9 hours ago remove link
Turning off the TV will neutralize the Delta Variant.
rag_house 9 hours ago
Just like 'Climate Change' you know it's contrived when the bankers start doing
'science.'
liberty2day 9 hours ago
when did they not?
rag_house 8 hours ago
Bankers aren't scientists. They simply dream up fake things they want to convince people
of and bribe people to try to make it seem real.
Enraged 9 hours ago remove link
Goldman Sachs Charged in Foreign Bribery Case and Agrees to Pay Over $2.9 Billion
The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs (Malaysia) have admitted to conspiring to
violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with a scheme to pay over $1
billion in bribes to Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials to obtain lucrative business for
Goldman Sachs, including its role in underwriting approximately $6.5 billion in three bond
deals for 1Malaysia Development Bhd. (1MDB), for which the bank earned hundreds of millions
in fees.
bond prices have nothing to do with recovery [sic]
stock prices have nothing to do with growth, except growth of the money supply
Kreditanstalt 3 hours ago
"...the price of a beer or a McDonalds in 10-years time will be exactly the same as it
is today. (Which it won't.)"
But the type who buy US government bonds don't care about the price of burgers. They
only plan to flip the thing back to the next Greater Fool...or THE FED
Traders are addicted to trading, much like murderers fixate on murdering. The traders
noticed a slight change in the Fed's tone and sold anything tied to inflation. They whacked
gold good. Then they went after the other commodities. When they were done there, they went
after value stocks, before finishing the week by blasting a bunch of cyclical names.
25 play_arrow
ted41776 5 hours ago
the only kind of ism that has exist is sociopathism
they always end up at the top of any power pyramid and make the rules that apply to all
others but not them
same as it always was and same as it always will be
NoDebt 4 hours ago
Traders are addicted to trading, much like murderers fixate on murdering
A line I wish I had come up with.
lambda PREMIUM 4 hours ago
This was already modeled and formalized: The Gambler Fallacy.
Let us preface our inflation note with one of our favorite quotes:
"World War II was transitory"
– GMM
Inflation has eroded my purchasing power in my transitory life. Bring back the $.35 Big Mac,
which was only about 20% of the minimum wage. Now? About 40-50%... Enough to spark a
revolution?
There are also Bagdad Bobs from IEA " "World oil supply is expected to grow at a faster rate
in 2022, with the US driving gains of 1.6 million bpd from producers outside the OPEC alliance.
"
"... Just in time for Pride Month, a new exchange traded fund aims to connect with LGBTQ investors. ..."
"... LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings partners with Harris Poll to annually survey 150,000 self-identifying LGBTQ constituents across the U.S. for their views about a company's brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty and how the firm supports the community. As noted in its prospectus , 25% of the index's weighting is derived from that survey data. ..."
Just in time for Pride Month, a new exchange traded fund aims to connect with LGBTQ investors. Two previous efforts failed to
attract enough assets.
The fund, LGBTQ + ESG100 ETF LGBT,
, launched in late May, is a passively managed, large-cap index fund that holds the top 100 U.S. companies that most align with
the LGBTQ community.
In 2019, two LGBTQ-focused ETFs were delisted: ALPS Workplace Equality Portfolio ETF and InsightShares LGBT Employment Equality
ETFs. Like this new fund, both were mostly U.S. large-cap, passive index ETFs comprising companies that received high or perfect
marks for workplace equality in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality
Index , a benchmark for corporate LGBTQ policies.
The first ETF stuck around for five years, but the second barely made it two years, even though it was launched with much fanfare
by UBS. Neither gained many assets.
Bobby Blair, CEO and founder of LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings, which launched the fund with issuer ProcureAM, says community input on
holdings makes this fund different.
LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings partners with Harris Poll to annually survey 150,000 self-identifying LGBTQ constituents across the U.S.
for their views about a company's brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty and how the firm supports the community. As noted in
its prospectus
, 25% of the index's weighting is derived from that survey data.
... the LGBTQ + ESG100 has an annual expense ratio of 0.75%.
Just in time for Pride Month, a new exchange traded fund aims to connect with LGBTQ investors. Two previous efforts failed to
attract enough assets.
The fund, LGBTQ + ESG100 ETF LGBT,
+0.91%
, launched in late May, is a passively managed, large-cap index fund that holds the top 100 U.S. companies that most align with
the LGBTQ community.
In 2019, two LGBTQ-focused ETFs were delisted: ALPS Workplace Equality Portfolio ETF and InsightShares LGBT Employment Equality
ETFs. Like this new fund, both were mostly U.S. large-cap, passive index ETFs comprising companies that received high or perfect
marks for workplace equality in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality
Index , a benchmark for corporate LGBTQ policies.
The first ETF stuck around for five years, but the second barely made it two years, even though it was launched with much fanfare
by UBS. Neither gained many assets.
Bobby Blair, CEO and founder of LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings, which launched the fund with issuer ProcureAM, says community input on
holdings makes this fund different.
LGBTQ Loyalty Holdings partners with Harris Poll to annually survey 150,000 self-identifying LGBTQ constituents across the U.S.
for their views about a company's brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty and how the firm supports the community. As noted in
its prospectus
, 25% of the index's weighting is derived from that survey data.
... the LGBTQ + ESG100 has an annual expense ratio of 0.75%.
I accept the reality except that FED said this inflation is "transitory."
The Fed description is accurate... it's just whether the transition is to
lower inflation or to runaway inflation.
Jim McCreary
The biggest single factor that will drive long-term inflation is the absence of downward
price pressure from new Chinese market entrants. Cutthroat pricing from China is the ONLY
reason the West has been able to get away with Money-Printing Gone Wild for the past 20 years
without triggering runaway inflation.
There are no new Chinese entrants because the Chinese are now all in in the world economy.
The existing Chinese competitors are seeing their costs go UP, not down, because they have
fully employed the Chinese population, and have to pay up in order to get and keep
workers.
So, without any more downward price pressure from China, this latest round of
Money-Printing Gone Wild is showing up as price inflation, and will continue to do so.
Batten down the hatches! Stagflation and then runaway inflation are coming!
Doyle Lonnegan to Johnny "Hooker" Kelly in the movie The Sting: "Your boss is quite the
card player Mr. Kelly. How does he do it?"
Kelly to Lonnegan: "He cheats."
philipat 2 days ago
It's appropriate that the entirely useless ex-PM Cameron got taken by this guy and tried
to use his influence to access free money for him from The Treasury as an "advisor"..He
didn't get any.
The Fed never had control, just s bunch of shysters running a long term hybrid ponzi
scheme.
Lordflin 54 minutes ago (Edited)
The Fed is losing control...
I suppose that is true... as the function has been to drain the people's wealth into the
coffers of the few...
The Real Satoshi 29 minutes ago remove link
Sad that Greg Hunter got kicked off youtube.
gregga777 12 minutes ago (Edited)
He is in great company, though. Anyone who offends the Marxist narratives (Politically
Correct, Multicultural, Affirmative Action, Diversity, Feminist, LGBTQQ, etc.) gets kicked
off YouTube.
pmc 36 minutes ago (Edited) remove link
...As Kissinger said "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little
longer."
Not only is this not true, the evidence shows that bubbles are called in advance. In 1999,
the Wall Street Journal had 286 articles on bubbles. Here are a few of the titles,
"When the Bubble Bursts..."
"The Bubble Won't Burst"
"Bursting Mr. Geenspan's Bubble"
"Fed `Bubble' Policy: Watch, Don't Pop'"
"Fed Governor Meyer Counters Suggestions Of a Market Bubble"
Dogecoin is now valued at more than Ford.
Economics?
Lunacy is more like it.
This is just more proof that the dollars are becoming more worthless.
Whistling past the graveyard.
...retail investors have been net buyers of stocks for 10 straight weeks, hedge funds have
been sellers, client data from BofA Global Research showed, with the four-week average of net
sales of equities by hedge funds hitting their highest levels since the firm began tracking the
data in 2008.
Archegos is a Greek word denoting leadership. The place where the eponymous family office
led UBS, and a growing roll call of investment banks, was into a morass.
SUBSCRIBER 2 hours ago Borrowing money to gamble on the stock market is not
a very smart thing to do in my opinion. Like thumb_up 7 Reply reply Share link Report flag
R
The current financial world has been reduced to a one-legged bar-stool in a bar where
drinks are on the house. There is no scenario where this does not end well no matter how
euphoric we are in the moment.
Corporations, especially those headquartered in Georgia, have come out against the
legislation signed by Governor Kemp. Republicans describe the bill as one that addresses
election integrity while Democrats call it a voter suppression law – "Jim Crow 2.0".
Coca-Cola and Delta were among
the first to make a point to virtue-signal after the governor signed the bill, only to be
exposed as taking part in the process and giving input into the legislation. Both were fine
with the law until the governor signed it and grievance activists did their thing. Coke soon
discovered that not all of its consumers think that companies should be making policy –
that 's the job of lawmakers- and now it is trying to clean up the mess it made for itself.
Churches have increasingly played a part in American politics and this is an escalation of
that trend. Evangelical churches have shown support for conservative and Republican candidates
while black churches get out the vote for Democrats. This threat of bringing a large-scale
boycott over state legislation is a hostile action against the corporation. It's political
theatre. Groups like Black Voters Matter, the New Georgia Project Action Fund (Stacey Abrams),
and the Georgia NAACP are pressuring companies to publicly voice their opposition and the
religious leaders are doing the bidding of these politically active groups.
When SB 241 and HB 531 were working through the legislative process, the groups put pressure
on Republican lawmakers and the governor to abandon the voting reform legislation. They also
demanded that donations to any lawmakers supporting the legislation be stopped. The Georgia
Chamber of Commerce tried to remain bipartisan while still voicing support for voting rights
but then caved and expressed "concern and opposition" to some provisions . At the time,
several large Georgia companies were targeted by activists, including Aflac, Coca-Cola,
Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Southern Company and UPS.
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce previously reiterated the importance of voting rights
without voicing opposition against any specific legislation. In a new statement to CNBC, the
Georgia Chamber said it has "expressed concern and opposition to provisions found in both HB
531 and SB 241 that restrict or diminish voter access" and "continues to engage in a
bipartisan manner with leaders of the General Assembly on bills that would impact voting
rights in our state."
Office Depot came out at the time and supported the Chamber's statement. The Election
Integrity Act of 2021, originally known as Georgia Senate Bill 202, is a Georgia law
overhauling elections in the state that was signed into effect by the governor and we know what
happened. Office Depot has not delivered for the activists as they demand so now the company
faces boycott drama. The
religious leaders are taking up where the activist groups left off.
African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Reginald Jackson said the company has remained "silent
and indifferent" to his efforts to rally opposition to the new state law pushed by
Republicans, as well as to similar efforts elsewhere.
" We just don't think we ought to let their indifference stand ," Jackson said.
The leader of all his denomination's churches in Georgia, Jackson had a meeting last week
with other Georgia-based executives to urge them to oppose the voting law, but said he's had
no contact with Home Depot, despite repeated efforts to reach the company.
Faith leaders at first were hesitant to jump into the boycott game. Now the political
atmosphere has changed and they are being vocal. Jackson focused on pressuring Coca-Cola first.
After that company went along to get along, before it realized its error, Jackson moved his
focus onto other companies.
"We believe that corporations have a corporate responsibility to their customers, who are
Black, white and brown, on the issue of voting ," Jackson said. "It doesn't make any sense at
all to keep giving dollars and buying products from people that do not support you."
He said faith leaders may call for boycotts of other companies in the future.
So, here we are with Home Depot in the spotlight. There are
four specific demands leveled at Home Depot in order to avoid further action from the
activists.
Rev. Lee May, the lead pastor of Transforming Faith Church, said the coalition is "fluid
in this boycott" but has four specifics requests of Home Depot: To speak out publicly and
specifically against SB 202; to speak out against any other restrictive voting provisions
under consideration in other states; to support federal legislation that expands voter access
and "also restricts the ability to suppress the vote;" and to support any efforts, including
investing in litigation, to stop SB 202 and other bills like it.
" Home Depot, we're calling on you. I'm speaking to you right now. We're ready to have a
conversation with you. You haven't been ready up to now, but our arms are wide open. We are
people of faith. People of grace, and we're ready to have this conversation, but we're very
clear those four things that we want to see accomplished ," May said.
The Rev. Timothy McDonald III, senior pastor of the First Iconium Baptist Church, warned
this was just the beginning.
"It's up to you whether or not, Home Depot, this boycott escalates to phase two, phase
three, phase four," McDonald said. "We're not on your property -- today. We're not blocking
your driveways -- today. We're not inside your store protesting -- today. This is just phase
one."
That sounds a lot like incitement, doesn't it? Governor Kemp is speaking out, he has had
enough. He held
a press conference to deliver his comments.
"First, the left came for baseball, and now they are coming for Georgia jobs," Kemp said,
referring to MLB's decision to move this year's All-Star Game from Atlanta over the new laws.
"This boycott of Home Depot – one of Georgia's largest employers – puts partisan
politics ahead of people's paychecks."
"The Georgians hardest hit by this destructive decision are the hourly workers just trying
to make ends meet during a global pandemic. I stand with Home Depot, and I stand with nearly
30,000 Georgians who work at the 90 Home Depot stores and 15 distribution centers across the
Peach State. I will not apologize for supporting both Georgia jobs and election integrity,"
he added.
"This insanity needs to stop. The people that are pushing this, that are profiting off of
it, like Stacey Abrams and others, are now trying to have it both ways," Kemp said. "There is
a political agenda here, and it all leads back to Washington, D.C."
The governor is right. The activists are in it to federalize elections, not to look out for
Georgians, who will lose jobs over these partisan actions. The law signed by Kemp increases
voting rights, it doesn't limit them .
My simple solution is to turn the vacant malls into giant marijuana growing operations,and
huge meth labs,and use the revenue from the meth and weed sales to balance the Federal
budget..As an additional plus,you put the Mexican drug cartels out of business,which can't be
a bad thing,either
FurnitureFireSale 26 minutes ago
The smile on the side of the Prime trucks looks like a big wang (Bezos's?) saying "F-U,
take THIS!" to all the small businesses. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
Puppyteethofdeath 14 minutes ago
Turn them into homeless shelters.
744,000 Americans filed for 1st time unemployment last week.
Every week the numbers are the same.
no cents at all 5 minutes ago
Yet mall property owners and their ilk have equity prices in the stratosphere. Same with
cruise lines. A mystery. (Although doesn't take scooby doo to understand why)
That makes Jamie brilliant. play_arrow 5 play_arrow 1
zorrosgato 10 hours ago
"flush with savings"
HA!
Yen Cross 10 hours ago
Jack, ****, Dimon? Which one was it Z/H Google moderator?
I donate at Christmas.
Basil 20 minutes ago
whats gone wrong is the cancer of progressiveism. wokeism, social justice nonsense.
Gadbous 29 minutes ago
Don't you want to just slap these people?
MuleRider 18 minutes ago
You misspelled decapitate.
GrandTheftOtto 2 hours ago
"It was a year in which each of usfaced difficult personal challenges"
boundless hypocrisy...
Mr. Rude Dog 2 hours ago remove link
" Americans know that something has gone terribly wrong, and they blame this country's
leadership: the elite, the powerful, the decision makers - in government, in business and in
civic society," he wrote.
"This is completely appropriate, for who else should take the blame?"
Lets see if he projects the problem back on the citizens...Let's see what happens.
"But populism is not policy, and we cannot let it drive another round of poor planning
and bad leadership that will simply make our country's situation worse."
I knew the so called elites could not take the blame... You know populism always makes bad
decisions with the economy, our monetary system, our infrastructure and just managing our tax
money in general...Yes I knew Jamie could not take the blame..LOL.!!!!
QE4MeASAP 2 hours ago
So Dimon is giving the state of the union instead of Biden?
Budnacho 2 hours ago
Jamie Dimon....Friend of the Little Guy....
Tomsawyer2112 PREMIUM 11 hours ago
He doesn't believe a word of what he just said. But he knows that if he wants his bank to
continue to be an extension of the government and curry favor then he needs to tow the line.
I am sure he also has his eye on a future role as Fed Lead or US Treasurer but might be tough
since he's not a diversity candidate.
oknow 2 hours ago
Someone turn off his mike, dont need your sorry *** confession
Just confiscate his wealth and make him do 9 to 5 jobs for the rest of his life.
ChromeRobot 9 hours ago remove link
This guy is a rarity in the banking industry. He's a billionaire. Running a bank I was
often told in my early years in finance was foolproof. Everybody needs money and they have
it. Hard to fk up. Somehow this "titan" has gamed it to do really well doing something
incredibly easy. Positioning yourself to be a SIFI helps too! Too big to fail has it's
perks.
a drink before the war 10 hours ago
What Jamie is really saying without saying it is " I get paid in stock options however
since the pandemic JPM and other banks haven't been allowed to do stock buy back but come
June we get back to the NORMAL and with the FED printing money and giving it to us we going
to talk this stock WAY up no matter what because I got almost two years of stock options I
gotta get paid for!"
lay_arrow 2
archipusz 10 hours ago
If you want to get to the top, you must speak the party line narrative.
The truth is something different altogether.
Eddie Haskell 10 hours ago
If you want to be a state-approved oligarch you've gotta suck the right dickie. Good
job.
Detective Miller 38 minutes ago
"Jaimie Tells Bagholders To 'Buy Buy Buy!!!'"
Onthebeach6 38 minutes ago
The US is addicted to helicoptor money.
The world looks fine to an addict until the supply is cut off.
sbin 41 minutes ago
Off shore industry
Steal pension funds
Laundering drug money
Regulatory capture.
Jimmy going to lock himself in jail and forfeit his assets?
34k of jerkoff.
Nuk Soo Kow 2 hours ago
How magnanimous of Jamie to blame elitists and civic "leaders" for the structural problems
in America. It was the banksters that pushed NAFTA and helped China engineer it's currency
against the dollar, which led to massive outflows of productive capital. It was the banksters
via the use of financial legerdemain who engineered the collapse in 2008 (not to mention
every other banking panic and collapse prior to). It's high time to throw out this den of
vipers once and for all.
Nature_Boy_Wooooo 2 hours ago
He lost me at.....
We need more cheap immigrant labor...... housing is unaffordable for many.
No **** moron!......you suppressed our wages and increased demand for housing.
PT 10 hours ago remove link
I always consult the fox when I want to know about the state of the hen house.
QuiteShocking 10 hours ago
Economic boom?? Is really just trying to get back to where we were previously before the
pandemic hit with things opening back up etc... More people have been working from home so
different spending patterns are developing.. but could change... Supply chain chaos makes it
seem like shortages and inflation etc... It may only last through 2023?? but with Dems in
charge this is not a given with their anti business slant??
same2u 11 hours ago
UBI for the rich= stock market...
Hope Copy 3 hours ago (Edited)
Jamie knows that the core of Crypto is at the CIA and that the pseudo Republic has far to
much Fascist politics at the core .. There has been a competitive failure at most all levels
of the government in recent times with a 'winner take all' at the cost of keeping competitive
practices alive (not to mention kickbacks).. Of course China is laughing even though they
have a history of cutting corners (and outright fraud) in every economic sector.
Mario Landavoz 20 minutes ago
Banker. That's all ya need to know.
Just a Little Froth in the Market 40 minutes ago
But the CEO was very candid about China...
"China's leaders believe America is in decline... The Chinese see an America that is
losing ground in technology, infrastructure and education – a nation torn and
crippled . . . and a country unable to coordinate government policies (fiscal, monetary,
industrial, regulatory) in any coherent way to accomplish national goals
This is correct.
Joe A 55 minutes ago
He is just mocking and taking a piss at everybody. That America is such a mess is because
of people like him with his scorched earth robber baron rogue capitalism. But there is a way
to redeem yourselves. Just make all your assets available to the American people. And oh,
blow your own brain out.
Abi Normal 3 hours ago remove link
What else is he supposed to say? As long as things don't go bad for Jamie it's cool.
OrazioGentile 3 hours ago
The Banksters, after years of mismanagement, borderline fraud, and endless bailouts now
see that investments in unicorn startups, selling mindless BS to each other, and the quick
buck lead to a burned out husk called America?!? Now?!? Let all of them live in the great
paradise called the Cayman Islands that they helped build and see how far they get selling
"capital instruments" to each other. The last 20 years have taught most Americans that hard
work is meaningless to get ahead IMHO.
P Paul Avila SUBSCRIBER 8 hours ago U.S. stocks edged higher Wednesday as investors
awaited more testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Good grief. Is there any way his subordinates could prevent that? Perhaps lock him in a
supply closet until the market closes? Every time he opens his pie hole, I lose money.
W Will Bee SUBSCRIBER 8 hours ago Actually I suspect we are waiting for all the FED and
Treasury "people" to stop jawboning us so Markets can assimilate their irrelevance
Disposable people are indispensable. Who else would fight the wars? Who would preach? Who
would short derivatives? Who would go to court and argue both sides? Who would legislate? Who
would sell red hots at the old ball game?
For too long disposable people have been misrepresented as destitute, homeless, unemployed,
or at best precariously employed. True, the destitute, the homeless, the unemployed and the
precarious are indeed treated as disposable but most disposable people pursue respectable
professions, wear fashionable clothes, reside in nice houses, and keep up with the Jones.
Disposable people are defined by what they do not produce. They do not grow food. They do
not build shelters. They do not make clothes. They also do not make the tractors used to grow
food, the tools to build shelters or the equipment to make clothes.
Although disposable people do not produce necessities what they do is not unnecessary. It is
simply that the services they provide are not spontaneously demanded as soon as one acquires a
bit of additional income. One is unlikely, however, to engage the services or purchase the
goods produced by disposable people unless one is in possession of disposable income.
Disposable income is the basis of disposable people. Conversely, disposable people are the
foundation of disposable income.
Tesla down 31%? Not a problem I will use the dividends to offset my losses. Oh wait!
BigJJ 13 minutes ago
I've never understood how Tesla could possibly make money given all the infrastructure
they had to install just to sell shoddily thrown together rusty cars that are useless when
the grid crashes.
Sound of the Suburbs 41 minutes ago (Edited)
...What was the ponzi scheme of inflated asset prices that collapsed in 2008?
El Hosel 1 hour ago (Edited)
Clearly "It's different this time", now that everybody knows "stocks only go up"...
Michael Mackenzie and James Fontanella-Khan in New York Fri, March 5, 2021, 7:00 PM
The veteran value investor John Rogers predicted the US is headed for a repeat of the
"roaring twenties" a century ago that will finally encourage investors to dump tech stocks in
favour of companies more sensitive to the economy. The founder of Ariel Investments told the
Financial Times in an interview that value investing "dinosaurs" like him stood to win as
higher economic growth and rising interest rates took the air out of some of the hottest stocks
of recent years. The US central bank is "overly optimistic that they can keep inflation under
control", he said, and higher bond market interest rates would reduce the value of future
earnings for highly popular growth stocks such as tech companies and for the kinds of
speculative companies coming to market in initial public offerings or via deals with Spacs.
The wonderful world you talk about was not experienced by the peoples of Guatemala, Iran,
Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Argentinia, Haiti, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Syria and many of the homeless and destitute in the US, UK, Japan etc. The wonderful
world you describe is an illusion.
There is a line from the 1960s Science Fiction series called the Invaders from another
galaxy who wish take over the world. At the beginning of each episode the narrator says " they
wish to take over the world and make it their world".
The Transnational Financiers have been working towards that goal for centuries!!!!
Just as a poetic discussion of the weather is not meteorology, so an issuance of moral
pronouncements or political creeds about the economy is not economics. Economics is a study of
cause-and-effect relationships in an economy.
-- Thomas Sowell
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all
those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of
economics.
-- Thomas Sowell
Economics is the painful elaboration of the obvious.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about
what they imagine they can design.
-- Friedrich von Hayek
I can't imagine economists admitting how little they actually know. If they admitted to
themselves, it would hurt their ego. If they admitted to others, it would hurt their job
prospects.
-- Joseph Mattes, Vienna (The Economist, letters December 04, 2010)
The use of mathematics has brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it has also
brought mortis .
-- Attributed to Robert Heilbroner
A study of economics usually reveals that the best time to buy anything is last year.
-- Marty Allen
Economic statistics are like a bikini, what they reveal is important, what they conceal is
vital
-- Attributed to Professor Sir Frank Holmes, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand,
1967.
Doing econometrics is like trying to learn the laws of electricity by playing the radio.
-- Guy Orcutt
Economists
The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite
economist.
The Second Law of Economists: They're both wrong.
-- David Wildasin
"Murphys law of economic policy": Economists have the least influence on policy where they
know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the
least and disagree most vehemently.
-- Alan S. Blinder
An economist is someone who, when he finds something that works in practice, tries to make
it work in theory.
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic
questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
-- Joan Violet Robinson
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday
didn't happen today.
-- Laurence J. Peter
Having a[n in] house economist became for many business people something like havinga
resident astrologer for the royal court: I don't quite understand what this fellow is saying
but there must be something to it.
-- Linden. (Jan. 11, 1993). Dreary Days in the Dismal Science. Forbes. Pp. 68-70.
Economics is the only field in which two people can get a Nobel Prize for saying exactly the
opposite thing.
Economists do it with models.
-- Heard at the LSE
Bentley's second Law of Economics: The only thing more dangerous than an economist is an
amateur economist!
Berta's Fundamental Law of Economic Rents.. "The only thing more dangerous than an amateur
economist is a professional economist."
Definition: Policy Analyst is someone unethical enough to be a lawyer, impractical enough to
be a theologian, and pedantic enough to be an economist.
Q: Why did God create economists ?
A: In order to make weather forecasters look good.
Q: Why has astrology been invented?
A: So that economy could be an accurate science.
Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions.
An econometrician and an astrologer are arguing about their subjects. The astrologer says,
"Astrology is more scientific. My predictions come out right half the time. Yours can't even
reach that proportion". The econometrician replies, "That's because of external shocks. Stars
don't have those".
When an economist says the evidence is "mixed," he or she means that theory says one thing
and data says the opposite.
-- Attributed to Richard Thaler, now at the Univ of Chicago
The last severe depression and banking crisis could not have been achieved by normal civil
servants and politicians, it required economists involvement.
Taxes
State run lotteries: think of them as tax breaks for the intelligent.
-- Evan Leibovitch
Inflation
Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.
-- Milton Friedman
Having a little inflation is like being a little pregnant–inflation feeds on itself
and quickly passes the "little" mark.
-- Dian Cohen
Trade and Trade Barriers
Tariffs, quotas and other import restrictions protect the business of the rich at the
expense of high cost of living for the poor. Their intent is to deprive you of the right to
choose, and to force you to buy the high-priced inferior products of politically favored
companies.
-- Alan Burris, A Liberty Primer
Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause
of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers.
-- Frank Chodorov
When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.
-- Fredric Bastiat, early French economist
The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer
by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery.
-- Albert Jay Nock
Regulation
Regulation - which is based on force and fear - undermines the moral base of business
dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of
construction. A fly-by-night securities operator can quickly meet all the S.E.C. requirements,
gain the inference of respectability, and proceed to fleece the public. In an unregulated
economy, the operator would have had to spend a number of years in reputable dealings before he
could earn a position of trust sufficient to induce a number of investors to place funds with
him. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory.
-- Alan Greenspan
You fucking academic eggheads! You don't know shit. You can't deregulate this industry.
You're going to wreck it. You don't know a goddamn thing!
-- Robert Crandall, boss of American Airlines, to an unnamed Senate lawyer in 1971
Government
The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources
that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.
-- David Friedman
Government Spending
See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in
the hands of Taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably.
Anything to avoid creating jobs.
-- Dave Barry
I don't think you can spend yourself rich.
-- George Humphrey
Capitalism and Free Markets
A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they
want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments
against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
-- Milton Friedman
The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place
unless both parties benefit.
-- Milton Friedman
The only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by
capitalism.
-- Joan Violet Robinson
Manufacturing and commercial monopolies owe their origin not to a tendency imminent in a
capitalist economy but to governmental interventionist policy directed against free trade and
laissez faire.
-- Ludwig Mises, "Socialism"
If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe
they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple
insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can only gain at
the expense of another.
-- Milton Friedman
States with central-planning regimes [ ] do tend to consume much less energy (and much less
of everything else) [ ] than do Americans. There is a word for that: poverty.
-- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism
Central Banks
Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes
– excusable or not – can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a
bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any
effective check by the body politic – this is the key political argument against an
independent central bank To paraphrase Clemenceau: money is much too serious a matter to be
left to the Central Bankers.
-- Milton Friedman
A central banker walks into a pizzeria to order a pizza.
When the pizza is done, he goes up to the counter get it. There a clerk asks him: "Should I
cut it into six pieces or eight pieces?"
The central banker replies: "I'm feeling rather hungry right now. You'd better cut it into
eight pieces."
Intellectual Property
For one thing, there are many "inventions" that are not patentable. The "inventor" of the
supermarket, for example, conferred great benefits on his fellowmen for which he could not
charge them. Insofar as the same kind of ability is required for the one kind of invention as
for the other, the existence of patents tends to divert activity to patentable inventions.
-- Milton Friedman
Slavery
From the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes
cheaper in the end than the work performed by slaves.
The work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only their maintenance, is in the end the
dearest of any. A person who can acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as
much and to labour as little as possible.
Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be
squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.
-- Adam Smith
Prohibition
It is because it's prohibited. See, if you look at the drug war from a purely economic point
of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.
-- Milton Friedman
In the Long Run
John Maynard Keynes: "In the long run we are all dead."
Joan Robinson: "Yes, but not all at the same time."
Minimum Wage and Unemployment
The real minimum wage is zero: unemployment.
-- Thomas Sowell
All of the progress that the US has made over the last couple of centuries has come from
unemployment. It has come from figuring out how to produce more goods with fewer workers,
thereby releasing labor to be more productive in other areas. It has never come about through
permanent unemployment, but temporary unemployment, in the process of shifting people from one
area to another.
-- Milton Friedman
Misc
Talk is cheap. Supply exceeds Demand.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not
understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair
When you start paying people to be poor, you wind up with an awful lot of poor people.
-- Milton Friedman
of course the country could never listen to this guy .it just makes too much damn sense.
-- ryanx0 about Milton Friedman [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se_TJzB9-z0]
Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he
can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is
promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by
an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.
-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
SOCIALISM: You have two cows. State takes one and give it to someone else.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you milk.
FASCISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and sell you milk.
NAZISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoot you.
BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. State takes both of them, kill one and spill the milk in
system of sewage.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Back during the Solidarity days, I heard that the following joke was being told in
Poland:
A man goes into the Bank of Gdansk to make a deposit. Since he has never kept money in a bank before, he is a little nervous.
"What happens if the Bank of Gdansk should fail?" he asks.
"Well, in that case your money would be insured by the Bank of Warsaw."
"But, what if the Bank of Warsaw fails?"
"Well, there'd be no problem, because the Bank of Warsaw is insured by the National Bank of Poland."
"And if the National Bank of Poland fails?"
"Then your money would be insured by the Bank of Moscow."
"And what if the Bank of Moscow fails?"
"Then your money would be insured by the Great Bank of the Soviet Union."
"And if that bank fails?"
"Well, in that case, you'd lose all your money. But, wouldn't it be worth it?"
All models are wrong but some are useful.
-- George Box
I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong.
-- J.M.Keynes; Found in Forbes magazine 01/25/1999 issue. In the Numbers Game column by
Bernard Cohen
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact
answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
-- J. Tukey
There is an entirely leisure class located at both ends of the economic spectrum
Wall Street is very story driven. They wasted a decade throwing money at tight oil and
lost billions. It's hard to see how this tight oil story gets resuscitated. The '10s saw free
debt, low regulatory regime, no effective alternatives to oil, skilled work force, entrenched
globalized oil markets, no pandemics, etc, and they STILL lost hundreds of billions. Wall
Street wants to lose their money in new ways. At least they get some novelty out of it.
Hey there! It's me, the stock market. I know it's weird to write you like this, but I felt
like I needed to drop a quick thank-you note for everything you've done for me this year. I
mean, your big ol' balance sheet is almost $3 trillion larger since early March! You're backing
up the truck and loading it with Treasuries and corporate bonds and bond ETFs, all to keep the
competition to stocks from fixed-income yields as limited as Jim Cramer's understanding of me.
It's been a dream come true, honestly. I mean, fess up: Have you been reading my diary?!
... ... ...
So please do me a solid and keep this thank-you note in mind when you host your virtual
Jackson Hole summit. No cowboy stuff, OK? If I hear anybody mutter something about "irrational
exuberance," I swear I'm gonna blow my top and hurt a few of these Robinhood types, you got
that? The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. It's what I do -- and I'm good at it! But
right now, this is still a lot of fun for me...
A sound banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when
he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no
one can really blame him. Keynes via Yves
The problem is that the payment system, besides grubby coins and paper Central Bank notes
(e.g. Federal Reserve Notes), must work through private depository institutions or not at
all.
How then can we have a sound economy when it is held hostage by "sound" bankers?
And are not the banks a form of rentier – who rent the Nation its money supply?
Then where are the proposals of the MMT School to euthanize those rentiers?
There is also a tendency to think newer=better. I've heard doctors and pharmacists complain
that patients will get offended when prescribed a cheaper, older drug. They want the best and
newest, they need and deserve it!
@Redneck farmer That is because advertising works. Drug companies being allowed to
advertise guaranteed that predators, such as the Sacklers, would want to own drug companies.
More activity on the dark, unethical side of capitalism. There's an entire history of it,
opium wars, Atlantic slave trade, pornography, control of political agents through
pedophilia. The list does go on and strangely enough it's usually the same actors.
johnbrewster@77
Here's a story from today's Toronto Star. It's a neoliberalism story and goes well with Pepe
Escobar's piece in Asia Times (see above for link)
Basically the Province of Ontario stockpiled everything need for the pandemic that SARs
warned them was bound to come.
Then, a couple of years ago, they destroyed the stockpiles including 55 million
facemasks.
Now there are no face masks to be found and medical staff, inter alia, are having to take
totally unnecessary risks.
Why did this happen? Because neo-liberalism is all about profits and fiscal austerity: as
soon as the masks got beyond their 'best before' date they were destroyed - so the
manufacturers could have another bite at the cherry and sell another 55 million masks. But
then, austerity, the need to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, stepped in so the orders were
not renewed. And people will die, horrible deaths, as a result.
PS to vk # 1. Please think again. Trump has been in a trade war with China for what? a couple
of years? AND, he specifically banned imports of medical supplies from China. Other posters
wave supplied links for this idiocy.
Trump's about as innocent as jack the ripper. You may just be seeing things relatively, as
ghouls like Elliot Abrahms and disgusting Pomposity make Trump seen like an amateur.
Clowns should be increasingly used in redundancy (layoff, firing) meetings until it
becomes the norm and employers start to compete with each other to offer the best clown
redundancy experience and promote it as a benefit.
It would also create clown jobs, which would probably require more clown schools, meaning
that the tuition prices would go through the roof and young people dreaming of becoming
redundancy clowns would either have to come from wealth or take out massive clown loans to
fund their education for clown universities and grad schools. Shareholders can only take so
much top line costs and Wall Street pressure would force corporations to improve return on
investment and reduce redundancy clown labor expenses. Sadly, redundancy clowns would find
themselves training their own replacements – HB1 clowns from "low cost" countries.
Employers would respond to quality criticisms of the HB1 clown experience by publishing
survey results showing very similar almost ex-employee satisfaction with the new clowns.
Eventually, of course, redundancy clowns will be replaced by AI and robots. It's just the
future and we will need to think about how to adapt to it today by putting in place a UBI for
the inevitable redundant redundancy clowns.
"Few economists worked at the Federal Reserve in the early 1950s. Those who were on the
staff of America's central bank were relegated to the basement, at a safe remove from the
corridors where real decisions were made.
Economists had their uses, allowed William McChesney Martin, then the Fed's chairman. But
they also had 'a far greater sense of confidence in their analyses than I have found to be
warranted'. They were best kept down with the surplus furniture and the rats." •
Indeed!
It's just too bad being elected President doesn't come with a 90-day probationary
period that many employers use, because if they did Mike Pence would be considering a 2nd
Term run right now.........
"Government set to inject more than $1 Trillion into US economy this year, but poorly
targeted and still isn't enough to improve the lives of most people".
Spot-on . Whenever I read this nonsense in the NYT or elsewhere I always ask myself the
same question ' Is this deliberate or are they really ignorant ? ' . I suspect the latter,
but I could be wrong.
Excuse me, how can the deficit be increasing [with Trump tax cuts]?
I was told that a simple bell curve graph called the 'Laffer Curve' indicates that cutting
taxes increases growth which increases revenue. Its simply mathematics.
Well, Lawrence H. Summers is right to worry when he says "Can central banking as we know
it be the primary tool of macroeconomic stabilization in the industrial world over the next
decade?"
I remember when Qaddafi was murdered and Libya fell. Within the first day or two a central
bank was set up in Libya. And look how well that is working out for them.
"It sure is weird that the labor market is the only place where the magic of the
marketplace -- price! -- doesn't work."
I also hear weirdness about price considerations when I read investment advice for workers
and their 401ks.
"Don't worry about the price. Invest now as much as you can. You can't predict the market
"
(Looks down at Twitter feed).
Haha so right and we mistakenly claim that economists don't know how the real economy
works. They know, and part of that knowledge is that you need to shill the BS for those with
the money if you wanna get your own piece of said pie.
Hongkong is no longer of great importance for bejing as a financial and trading locus. up and
down the south china sea coast are many cities of far greater importance than Hongkong.
perhaps when the PLA finish in hongkong they can come over here and deal with antifa since
our government at any level does not appear to have the sense or spine to do it
themselves
Some of the other stuff we've encouraged, such as The EU, ETFs, Hi-Frequency Trading, Neil
Woodford and Deutsche Bank look likely to be highly effective vectors of short-term economic
destruction and destabilization
(Edited version of the speech given by the TJ Wormwood, Chief Demonic Officer –
Finance, Lord of 3rd Ring of the 7th Circle, to invited audience at Davos.)
Dear Colleagues,
As you all know, I've been wrecking finance for millennia. [Pause for effect]
Nearly every major big idea, evolutionary leap forward, invention and discovery has improved
the miserable lot of mankind only through their ability to monetise it. Forget the theft of
fire – being able to monetise fire by attracting pretty and willing mates around a warm
campfire, or cooking the food others have hunted, is what mattered. Strip out the noise, and
the rise of mankind is largely due to improvements in the efficiency and ease of means of
exchange.
From the realisation hunters could barter their furs for other goods, to the rise of complex
products to finance global growth – the innovation of financial markets has been a major
driver of success for the Other Side in raising the wellbeing and prosperity of mankind. Pretty
much anything that holds back or disrupts trade, increases costs and holds back services is
naturally positive for our goal of global destabilisation.
So, here is the big plan:
Since 2007 we've been turning the Other Side's successful innovation of financial markets
against them. Global Financial Markets are incredibly rich in opportunities to distort truth,
hide lies, and undermine mankind – generating immediate greed, envy, suspicion and anger.
We've uncovered previously unimaginable ways in which to financially screw the World with
consequences that impact everyone.
We've overlaid the programme with our mastery and understanding of temptation, human greed,
avarice and pride, while adding subtlety and cunning. We merely suggest and advise. We are
facilitating the train-wreck of the global economy by destroying asset values while confounding
their understanding of money and wealth – the pillars of their society.
At its simplest form we are manipulating and driving constant market instability to keep
mankind distracted. Uncertainty clouds their future expectations – so we keep it raining.
A Mortgage crisis one year, followed by a Sovereign Debt crisis the next, spiced with a couple
of bank failures, and threats of global trade war. Overlay with confusion and distraction such
as social media, fake news, Bitcoin and populism, and it all works rather well.
Keep their leaders arguing. Keep the blame game going.
Our success can be seen in current financial asset prices. These are now hopelessly inflated
and distorted by foolish post financial crisis policy decisions. They are bubbles set to pop.
Empower the regulators and bureaucrats to compromise finance through zealous over-regulation,
making banking safer by destroying it. Usher in a new era of trade protectionism, the end of
Free Trade and increase the suspicion some countries are manipulating their currencies for
economic advantage. Sprinkle some dust of political catastrophe, the collapse of law, undo the
fair, just and caring society, while adding some eye of newt and complex environmental threats.
Make the rich so rich they don't notice, and the poor so poor they become invisible. If the
markets remain uncertain, then it distracts mankind from addressing these issues, making
society less stable!
There as some things we're really proud of, including the Euro, Social Media, Investment
Banks, the Tech Boom, and especially Quantitative Easing (which is still delivering confusion
and pain). New Monetary Theory could prove even better – it shows tremendous potential to
thoroughly unsettle confidence in money. Cybercurrencies are particularly fun – despite
coming up with the idea, neither we, nor even the distinguished members of our panel of eternal
guests, understand the why of them. They are libertarian nonsense – so, naturally we
continue to encourage them as get-rich-quick schemes, but they also further undermine
confidence in money and government. We made something up in a bar one night and called it a
Distributed Ledger - the humans ran with it and invented Blockchain, whatever that might
be..
Some of the other stuff we've encouraged, such as The EU, ETFs, Hi-Frequency Trading, Neil
Woodford and Deutsche Bank look likely to be highly effective vectors of short-term economic
destruction and destabilisation, triggering systemic market events and regulatory backlashes
across markets. We are only now exploring the full potential of market illiquidity to rob
billions of pensioners of their savings.
We've persuaded investors to overturn proven tried and tested investment strategies and
wisdoms, nurturing a whole range of overpriced unprofitable US Tech "Unicorn" companies which
we are confident will prove utterly over-hyped and largely worthless. The success of social
media, data mining and new tech has increased levels of dissatisfaction and envy –
especially in our target younger demography.
The way we successfully pinned the blame on banks for the Global Financial Crisis –
despite the fact it was people who wanted mortgages to buy houses and fast cars - ensured
global regulators would over-react. We've allowed regulators to focus on banks while we target
the next financial crisis in other parts of the financial ecosystem.
Regulators forced the banks to de-risk. But risk does not disappear - it just goes somewhere
else. While banks understood risk and had massive staffs to manage risk, risk is now
concentrated in the hands of "investment managers" who are singularly ill-equipped to withstand
the next credit crunch and global recession, (which we've planned for next October – Save
the Date cards have been sent).
We are particularly pleased that many banks now exceed the 2.3 compliance officers for every
profitable banker ratio. Compliance and regulatory costs now exceed 10% of income at some
European banks – a stunning success and substantially decreasing the efficiency of
banking and exchanges.
We've some great new financial ideas we are still experimenting with, some of which show
great promise for further weakening society. Facebook Money is going to be a cracker, and I
particularly like the Spaceship to Mars project if only they knew what awaits them
By hiding inflation in the stock market, we assisted the accumulation of massive wealth by a
tiny percentage of the population to ferment income inequality dissatisfaction. When capital is
concentrated and the workers under the cosh, it creates all the right conditions for weak
disjointed government to aid and abet the rise of destabilising populism.
It's highly satisfying to watch the instability we've created in financial markets drive
fear and distrust across society. The debt crisis we engineered led to global financial
austerity, job insecurity, and rising inequality. We were surprised how easily we pushed the
Gig economy concept to further exploit and cow workers through regulators and authorities
– they barely noticed. Over this we've layered whole new levels of anxiety such as the
unknowns of data theft, the rise in envy coefficients through social media, fake news while
fuelling social distrust through resentment.
We've managed to persuade Governments to follow damaging and contradictory policies. As
society reeled in the wake of the financial crisis, we persuaded policy makers to cut back
spending through "austerity" spending programmes, simultaneously bailing out bankers while
flooding the financial economy with free money through Quantitative Easing.
Effectively we've split the world into two economies. A real economy which is sad, miserable
and deflating, and a financial economy that's insanely optimistic, massively inflated and ripe
to pop on the back of free money.
The resentment, instability, fear and general sense of decay has paid dividends in our drive
to break society by undermining the credibility of the political classes. Our approach to
politics has been simple – deskill the political classes, reduce their effectiveness as
leaders, while engineering economic, social and financial instability to drive rampaging
populist politics – just like in 1932! Populism may ultimately prove short-lived, but
it's difficult to see how the political classes will recover their power in time to reverse the
damages being done to the global environment.
While markets have burned, society become increasingly riven, and politics has failed, we've
distracted the humans from the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which
threatens to create global warming and rising sea levels, while plastics poison the oceans and
soil erosion threatens agriculture.
Now I love the ravenous hunger and sharp pointy teeth of polar bears as much as the next
demon, but needs must... needs must. I was also rather fond of the dinosaurs...
Our approach to ensuring destructive climate change has proved very effective. We've
supported, financed and advised the loudest green lobbies to ensure their message looks
ill-considered, wrong and economic suicide. We also paid big bucks to fund the loudest climate
change deniers. Our innovation of fake news to discredit and mitigate anything positive means
climate change remains a crank topic – even as our polar bears drown.
Meanwhile, through our dominance of global boardrooms and investment firms, we've made sure
that large corporates have bought-out and stifled new technologies that could solve the
environmental crisis.
Our future looks great – because their future is bleak!
"When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the
music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing,"
"A baited banker thus desponds,
From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
'Tis like the writing on the wall.
How will the caitiff wretch be scared,
When first he finds himself awake
At the last trumpet, unprepared,
And all his grand account to make!
For in that universal call,
Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;
They'll cry, 'Ye shops, upon us fall!
Conceal and cover us, ye counters!'
When other hands the scales shall hold,
And they, in men's and angels' sight
Produced with all their bills and gold,
'Weigh'd in the balance and found light!'
"... He would be given a lavish reception in Riyadh, where he would deliver a speech thanking our Saudi allies for leading the brave fight against "Iranian homophobia." ..."
On the bright side, if ever there were a candidate who might be inclined to rethink our
relationship with the Saudis, it's Buttigieg.
Oh, who am I kidding? He would be given a lavish reception in Riyadh, where he would
deliver a speech thanking our Saudi allies for leading the brave fight against "Iranian
homophobia."
"Monopoly" is such an ugly term. We prefer to call it "market power" these days, because of
course it's a good thing if the job creators and their enterprises have more power to do all
the good things they do for us.
It's clearly class warfare, if not racism, to use the term of abuse, "monopoly", when you
mean "market power".
WASHINGTON-Despite ongoing economic woes and a jobless rate that has been approaching 10 percent, U.S. unemployment projections drastically
improved Monday after the consumption of five beers.
"It's going up," leading economist David Singleton said confidently, indicating the predicted growth in jobs with an upward wave
of a Bud Light bottle. "All the way up. By the end of the month. No problem."
Singleton said the economy would begin its rebound once employers realized that there were many currently unemployed skilled laborers
across the country who would "bust their asses" in a number of growing fields.
"Whether it's manufacturing, finance, hospitality, or manufacturing, these dudes trying to reenter the workforce right now have
awesome skill sets and, most of all, they really deserve it," he said. "They're great, great guys. All of them."
According to analysts, both long- and short-term forecasts showed signs of recovery between the third and fourth beer...
... Reports from those well on their way toward putting away a whole six pack suggested that unemployed Americans could look forward
to increased job security and much higher salaries. In addition, many half-in-the-bag analysts said they foresee greater career satisfaction
and massive quality-of-life improvements following the inevitable arrival of new employment opportunities.
"Why should those who've lost work have to live paycheck to paycheck, doing some miserable wage-slave job a goddamn monkey could
do?" said Donald Ellington, a completely hammered senior adviser at JPMorgan Chase. "All these layoffs, they're totally a blessing
in disguise. Now these people can do the thing they've always wanted to do. Like becoming a sportswriter. Or a musician. Or a pilot,
even!"
... Joblessness was not the only domestic problem that began to appear eminently solvable after the rapid downing of five beers.
Also substantially improved were projections for the housing crisis, the affordability of health care, getting hot wings later, and
being able to drive home just fine.
Though most on their fifth beer showed unbridled optimism-and in some cases outright cockiness-in terms of the employment landscape,
those who greatly exceeded that number said they saw the current job market as hopelessly bleak. Contrary to the rosy prospects he
had described earlier in the evening, economist David Singleton, after imbibing nine beers and an unknown quantity of Wild Turkey,
lamented that there would have to be a comprehensive shift in the nation's entire economic structure before any lasting improvement
could be realized.
In banana republics it´s very common to not only pick bananas, but also print a lot of money. It´s said to be very cool. First
you pick bananas, then cut down the trees, produce paper and finally print money on that paper. It´s the whole business cycle.
Highly recommended!
While U.S. politicians from both parties have given standing ovations for the
U.S. oil and gas industry , investors appear to be losing their enthusiasm. The so-called
shale revolution, the fracking miracle, may have resulted in record oil and gas production in
North America, but the real miracle -- in which shale companies make money fracking that oil
and gas -- has yet to occur.
"Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau", "subprime is contained", "there's no
icebergs this far south" and now "The Fed's balance sheet is not the threat that people seem to
think it is."
Man's ability to willfully ignore 'downside possibilities' and remain cognitively dissonant
far longer than logic (or their pocketbook) should allow seems to know no bound and none other
than
The Federal Reserve's Bill Dudley just unleashed what could be the piece de resistance of
"nothing to see here, move along" agitprop.
Great Picture' Cowboying a Nuke while discussing confidence in the FED, quite appropo'
!
TRUTH @ 9:00; Plus this week, Friday will be Huge !
Should a seated President jail someone that attempted his Assassination, or a Former
President that planned to Nuke the Yellowstone Super Volcano Caldera, or someone that sold
email password to China and CC copied all 'to and from' messages including those highly
Confidential, or blame a former President for planning 911 False Flag attack, or expose
Planned Parenthoods first Amputating tongues for silently shipping in bulk, or expose
Democrat history of Decades of Projecting blame while committing War Crimes, or end 19 Year
War in Afghanistan ( Longest War ) then Syria against Last Night's Congressional Vote to keep
status quo, or 'take a knee' and quit being President !
CLEVELAND -- In a devastatingly sad overestimation of his influence in the professional
world, local father Bruce Tenety, 54, expressed the heartbreaking belief Monday that his
connections could help his son Justin, a recent college graduate, find a job. "You know, I
actually have a friend in the media business, and if you shoot him an email and meet up for
coffee, he just might be able to hook you up with something," said Tenety, who depressingly
appeared to be under the impression that this tenuous contact from a conference he attended
three years ago would not only remember his name, but would also be willing to extend an offer
of employment to a 23-year-old he knows nothing about.
"I also know a guy who works at a PR firm in Mayfield Heights. Old Gary definitely owes me
one from back in the day.
Hell, you could probably call him up right now and get an interview this week. Just tell him
you're Bruce's kid."
At press time, sources confirmed Tenety had noticed his name was suspiciously absent from
the references section on his son's most recent job application.
1. Think short term. 2. Be greedy. 3. Believe in the greater fool 4. Run with the herd. 5. Overgeneralize 6. Be trendy
7. Play with other people's money
In 1906 the great statistician Francis Galton observed a competition to guess the weight of
an ox at a country fair. Eight hundred people entered. Galton, being the kind of man he was,
ran statistical tests on the numbers. He discovered that the average guess was extremely close
to the weight of the ox. This story was told by James Surowiecki, in his entertaining book The
Wisdom of Crowds. 2
Not many people know the events that followed. A few years later, the scales seemed to
become less and less reliable. Repairs would be expensive, but the fair organiser had a
brilliant idea. Since attendees were so good at guessing the weight of an ox, it was
unnecessary' to repair the scales. The organiser would simply ask everyone to guess the weight,
and take the average of their estimates.
A new problem emerged, however. Once weight-guessing competitions became the rage, some
participants tried to cheat. They even tried to get privileged information from the farmer who
had bred the ox. But there was fear that, if some people had an edge, others would be reluctant
to enter the weight-guessing competition. With few entrants, you could not rely on the wisdom
of crowds. The process of weight discovery would be damaged.
So strict regulatory rules were introduced. The farmer was asked to prepare three monthly
bulletins on the development of his ox. These bulletins were posted on the door of the market
for everyone to read. If the farmer gave his friends any other information about the beast,
that information was also to be posted on the market door. And anyone who entered the
competition who had knowledge about the ox that was not available to the world at large would
be expelled from the market. In this way the integrity of the weight-guessing process would be
maintained.
Professional analysts scrutinised the contents of these regulatory' announcements and
advised their clients on their implications. They' wined and dined farmers; but once the
farmers were required to be careful about the information they' disclosed, these lunches became
less useful. Some smarter analysts realised that understanding the nutrition and health of the
ox wasn't that useful anyway. Since the ox was no longer being weighed -- what mattered was the
guesses of the bystanders -- the key' to success lav not in correctly assessing the weight of
the ox but in correctly' assessing what others would guess. Or what other people would guess
others would guess. And so on.
Some people -- such as old Farmer Buffett -- claimed that the results of this process were
more and more divorced from the realities of ox rearing. But he was ignored. True, Farmer
Buffett's beasts did appear healthy and well fed, and his finances ever more prosperous; but he
was a countryman who didn't really understand how markets work.
International bodies were established to define the rules for assessing the weight of the
ox. There were two competing standards -- generally accepted ox-weighing principles, and
international ox-weighing standards. But both agreed on one fundamental principle, which
followed from the need to eliminate the role of subjective assessment by any individual. The
weight of the ox was officially defined as the average of everyone's guesses.
One difficulty was that sometimes there were few, or even no, guesses of the weight of the
ox. But that problem was soon overcome. Mathematicians from the University of Chicago developed
models from which it was possible to estimate what, if there had actually been many guesses as
to the weight of the ox, the average of these guesses would have been. No knowledge of animal
husbandry was required, only a powerful computer.
By' this time, there was a large industry of professional weight-guessers, organisers of
weight-guessing competitions and advisers helping people to refine their guesses. Some people
suggested that it might be cheaper to repair the scales, but they' were derided: why go back to
relying on the judgement of a single auctioneer when you could benefit from the aggregated
wisdom of so many clever people?
And then the ox died. Amid all this activity', no one had remembered to feed it.
SEATTLE -- Deciding at the last minute to hold off due to ethical concerns, Amazon founder
and CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly set aside his latest cost-cutting initiative Wednesday after
realizing it was actually human slavery. "On the surface, it seemed plausible -- owning our
employees' bodies, implementing a mandatory 18-hour workday, restricting their movements, and
not compensating them with anything besides minimal food and shelter -- but then it started to
sound really familiar in a bad way," said Bezos, who acknowledged his fears were confirmed when
Amazon's general counsel kept reporting back that such labor arrangements had been illegal
throughout the United States since 1865. "It's too bad; the increased efficiency and cost
savings would have been tremendous. And now I have to go explain to our shareholders why I
spent $1.8 million outfitting all of our managers with bullwhips, shackles, and branding
irons." Bezos went on to describe the setback as temporary, saying it wouldn't matter in five
to 10 years when his entire workforce was robots.
CHICAGO -- Saying it was ultimately a small price to pay in exchange for the splendid spectacle that has followed, millions of
Americans admitted Thursday that they didn't really mind having their Facebook data stolen if it meant getting to watch that
little fucker squirm.
[Dec 31, 2018] New is well forgotten old
The following cartoon from 2008 illustrated this point
nicely
'Trickle down effect' - the favourite buzzword of neoliberal supporters. I'd like to see
trickle down effect tried at the local pub on the taps by the local mp. Imagine what would
happen. Definitely doesn't pass the pub test.
That'd be like astronomers saying that although Hellenic astrology is pseudoscientific nonsense they can probably do business
with Ptolemaic or Hindu astrology. Other scientists would laugh and call astronomy the dismal physics. Isn't it about time economists
like yourself just told the knuckle dragging ideologues - of whatever colour and salinity - to fuck off?
Trump claims to be able to solve the problem, and,
Trump goes somewhere, and talks to somebody, and then later claims, contrary to what the other party is saying, that he
has solved the problem, and, then
The problem later turns out NOT to be solved.
[Dec 04, 2018] The best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your wallet. ~Benjamin Franklin
Ah, yes. Goldman Sachs is
famous for their "good work and integrity".
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has said about $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB,
including some money that Goldman Sachs helped raise, by high-level officials of the fund and
their associates from 2009 through 2014.
US prosecutors filed criminal charges against 2 former Goldman Sachs bankers earlier this
month. One of them, Tim Leissner, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money and
conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
I'm sure it was just a "few bad apples", like Goldman Sachs's Ex-CEO
Lloyd Blankfein , who was personally involved in the transaction.
You might remember Lloyd from his doing "God's
Work" .
[Jan 06, 2016] "The CEO of your company has probably already earned your 2016 salary this year" [WaPo].
Calling this tightening is like looking at a guy with a 28 inch waist walking around in 38 inch pants, and saying his pants have
been tightened because they they were taken in to 37 inches.
Calling this tightening is like looking at a guy with a 28 inch waist walking around in 38 inch pants, and saying his pants
have been tightened because they they were taken in to 37 inches.
A6: None. They're all waiting for the unseen hand of the market to correct the lighting disequilibrium.
tony, December 30, 2015 at 6:12 am
Q: What do you call an economist that makes a prediction?
A: Wrong.
ben, December 30, 2015 at 3:28 pm
Two economists are walking on the street. They notice a pile of horseshit, and the older one says to the younger one: "I'll
pay you twenty thousand if you eat that." The younger one ponders for a moment, then agrees and eats it. They walk a bit more
and run into another pile of horse feces. So the younger one tells the elder: "I'll pay you twenty thousand if you eat that!".
The older economist considers the offer and starts eating. After a while the younger economists stops and asks: "What was the
point of this? We both ate a pile shit and neither of us got richer." The older one answers: "What are you talking about? We both
produced and received twenty thousand worth in income and services."
GDP. Great deposits of poo.
Clive, December 31, 2015 at 5:41 am
"This economy is really terrible."
"How bad is the economy?"
"The economy is so bad, this year oysters are making fake pearls…"
"The economy is so bad, organised crime just laid off 10 judges…"
(and so on)
Paul Jonker-Hoffrén, December 30, 2015 at 7:27 am
"Knock Knock!"
"Who's there?"
"It's Return to Growth!"
Two years later…
"Knock Knock!"
"Who's there?"
"It's Return to Growth!"
And ad finitum…
Clive, December 30, 2015 at 6:21 am
"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Janet Yellen"
"Well there's no need to shout, I heard you knocking"
Joaquin Closet, December 30, 2015 at 7:42 am
The number of economists is the only thing that contradicts the Law of Supply and Demand.
craazyboy, December 30, 2015 at 9:00 am
Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Three. A micro-economist to hold the ladder, a macro-economist to rotate the room, and a university economist to develop the
math model and forecast how long it will take.
Ulysses, December 30, 2015 at 9:56 am
A mathematician, an accountant and an economist apply for the same job at an oil company.
The interviewer calls in the mathematician and asks "What do two plus two equal?" The mathematician replies "Four." The interviewer
asks "Four, exactly?" The mathematician looks at the interviewer hard and says "Yes, four, exactly."
Then the interviewer calls in the accountant and asks the same question "What do two plus two equal?" The accountant says "On
average, four – give or take ten percent, but on average, four."
Then the interviewer calls in the economist and poses the same question "What do two plus two equal?" The economist gets up, locks
the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the interviewer and says, "What do you want it to equal"?
Paul Tioxon, December 30, 2015 at 10:02 am
What do you call a cruise ship sinking with 500 PhD economists chained below deck?
A good start.
allan, December 30, 2015 at 10:03 am
Frederic Mishkin.
Yves Smith, December 30, 2015 at 4:32 pm
Oh, that is good!
Paul
An economist is someone who will tell you tomorrow why what they predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
An economist, a physicist, and an engineer are stranded on an island with a can of food, and no opener.
The engineer says, "Let's smash the can open with a rock and eat".
The physicist replies, "Naw, that's going to splatter the food all over the place. Let's light a fire, the expanding gases will
force the can to pop open and presto: warm food!"
The economist says, "Bad idea: the can will explode and the food will be all over the place. Now… let's assume we have a can opener…."
Blue Meme
A physician, an engineer, and an economist were discussing who among them belonged to the oldest profession. The physician
said, "Remember, on the sixth day God took a rib from Adam and fashioned Eve, making him the first surgeon. Therefore, medicine
is the oldest profession."
The engineer replied, "But, before that, God created the heavens and earth from chaos, thus he was the first engineer. Therefore,
engineering is an older profession than medicine."
Then, the economist spoke up. "Yes," he said, "But who do you think created the chaos?"
aj
The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.
The Second Law of Economists: They're both wrong.
fresno dan
Pareto's law of optimal economic theory:
an economic theory has reached an optimal state when no other economist can make it wronger
pat b
The Third Law of Economists : The two economists theories don't add up.
Economists: purveyors of fictions upon which the superstructure of organized robbery is raised.
(apologies to Ambrose Bierce)
Synoia
Q: What do you call an Economist who tells the truth?
A: Unemployed.
Ivy
If you laid all the economists end to end,
it would probably be a good thing.
They still wouldn't reach a conclusion.
ben
A farmer and two bankers are shipwrecked on an island. Two weeks later help finally arrives. The bankers greet their rescuer
who remarks how well they look.
BankerA: "we realised the potential of the natural resources on this island were tremendous".
BankerB: "I created some fiat money, we divided it up. I lent BankerA ten times my share for a coconut farm startup,
he invested ten times his share in an accountancy startup."
Rescuer: "well that's amazing, only where is it all, I don't see any produce – how did you actually survive?"
BankerA: "We each used our debt to invest in futures given the fertile land it was clear the land could generate wealth
once labour was applied. We both realised significant paper profits. Oh and we ate the farmer"
--
Bankers live off our backs.
Nortino
What did the supply curve say to the demand curve?
If you shift a little to the right, I'll give you some more of what you want.
_________
Why did the economist cross the road?
Because his models predicted he would.
TG
"Market Failure" is the name that economists who believe that the market cannot ever fail use when the market fails.
Synoia
Hmm, it seems you should take your own advice to heart. :-)
What is a person called who claims to predict the future and has a history of 100% failure in predictions?
a) A Charlatan
b) An Economist
c) A prophet
afreeman
In the same vein:
econ entropy: money invented from hot air evaporates, what do you expect?
How many economists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Only one, but the lightbulb has to be hanging from the ceiling. Because economists can only screw things up.
Minnie Mouse
It takes one economist to change a light bulb and take the entire power grid down.
James McFadden
"Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it
never does to anyone else." Lyndon Johnson
A criminal lawyer representing Turing Pharmaceuticals chief Martin Shkreli has informed his client that he is raising his hourly
legal fees by five thousand per cent, the lawyer has confirmed.
Minutes after Shkreli's arrest on charges of securities fraud,
the attorney, Harland Dorrinson, announced that he was hiking his fees from twelve hundred dollars an hour to sixty thousand dollars.
Shkreli, who reportedly received the news about the price hike while he was being fingerprinted, cried foul and accused his
attorney of "outrageous and inhumane price gouging."
"This is the behavior of a sociopath," Shkreli was heard screaming.
For his part, Shkreli's lawyer was unmoved by his client's complaint. "Compared to what he pays for an hour of Wu-Tang
Clan, sixty thou is a bargain," he said.
Brokenarrow
this boy dont know it yet. he is in trouble. he gonna take the heat for a lot of americans being angry at scam street, corzine,
obama. he is a diversion. if they kill him in rikers? wouldnt surprise me a bit.
slaughterer
This turn of events was fairly predictable Shrkeli is a safe scapegoat for US envy/hatred of just about everything. Surprised
Martin did not see this coming and move to Shanghai well beforehand.
Blankenstein
Gotta have a scapegoat when you quietly overturn cases on the BIG BOYS.
"Then came a surprise last week, right before Thanksgiving. A federal judge ordered the men released from prison. An appeals court
had reversed their convictions the day before, without explanation"
"Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm each had been convicted on multiple counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors accused
them of paying kickbacks to brokers hired by cities and towns to oversee the bidding on municipal-investment contracts, which
local governments use to invest the proceeds from bond sales. Goldberg was sentenced to four years in prison. Carollo and Grimm
got three years each."
Hey, I was thinking the same thing, Johnny. This chart (from the Ambrose E-P article about China in today's links) shows that
the US dollar took a mighty leap as the Asian crisis launched:
And it's doing it again since mid-2014, as J-Yel tightens while the rest of world plays competitive devaluation.
*sigh*
Maybe we can work as gardeners, trimming the hedges in front of the Federal Reserve Bank (and planting a little cannabis in the
flowerbeds, now that it's legal in DC).
They're certainly not going to hire us to polish the gold bullion, as (1) they don't trust us, and (2) probably the gold paint
would rub off of the tungsten core.
polecat, December 10, 2015 at 6:04 pm
that gives me an idea for new federal reserve crest/shield design…… three pot leaves in the upper diagonal w/ a gold trimmed
tungsten bar in the lower side!
plunge in oil prices is taking a large toll on the formerly booming mining sector. In addition, the high
dollar "
~~Dean Baker~
Oil costs less when dollar is strong? No lie! When $$$$ buy more of oil our trucking industry is booming? No S
Dick Tracy! We now need 40,000 more of teamsters to drive our parked 18 wheeler-s? More truck driving slots than drivers? Because
of strong $$$$? Increased labour demand through the magic of deflation! Look!
If you qualify for truck driver job, you can complete training without going into 6 figure debt, without having
to pledge a fraternity, and without having to learn the words to your school's fight song. Plus, you get to see the entire 48
states without booking a flight, get to meet beautiful young waitresses at the truck stop that serves delicious slow food. Think
of it! Now you get to relax in a modern truck where you can listen to country-and-Western's newest talent plus more much more.
"Item: Rights to a drug used to treat parasitic infections were acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which specializes not in
developing new drugs but in buying existing drugs and jacking up their prices. In this case, the price went from $13.50 a tablet
to $750. ..."
That is brilliant - so Turing Pharmaceuticals is a classical - wait for it - parasitic infection!
Q: What's an investor? I know other terms such as manipulators, riggers, fixers, front runners, fraudsters, ponzi schemers, inside
traders, spoofers, scammers, front men, bagmen, market makers, interventionists, plunge protectors, rehypothecators and Corzined...
But who is Investor and what do they do?
<< Consumers focused on the dollar amount of their monthly payment have taken advantage of low interest rates to sometimes
buy more car than they might otherwise be able to afford. >>
Well, of course, I'm going to buy the Biggest chartreuse Escalade I can! I got to fill that 4.872 sf subprime house garage
with something.
Rasputin explained why the Fed must raise rates before the next recession, so it can lower them later:
"Certainly our Savior and Holy Fathers have denounced sin, since it is the work of the Evil One.
But how can you drive out evil except by sincere repentance?
And how can you sincerely repent if you have not sinned?"
It is humorous to note that the words "In God We Trust" are printed on the greenback.
Does that mean "In God We Trust" is only true if there is money?
If there is no money you can't trust "God" anymore?
A few decades ago all the evangelicals were always crying for donations to help with "God's Work" and Goldman Sach's states it
is doing "God's" work too.
I think that may be a problem for many. They may feel God can't do anything without money, which strips the divine out of the
"God" belief, doesn't it?
I'm not so sure. This article might be spot on. Consider this:
Federal Reserve can print and create INFINITE digital and physical dollars. With infinite dollars, they can control EVERYTHING.
Both UP and DOWN. We can't audit the Fed, how do you know their balance sheet is really 4 trillion? Because they say so? They
could literally decide the prices of every single thing in dollar terms with unlimited dollars at their disposal.
messymerry
Yo pods, next time you get a bag of M&Ms, eat the red ones first,,,
;-D
I don't think the Skxawng in charge have the organizational capability to pull off an event of this magnitude with any reasonable
expectation of success. They manipulate where they can and surf the waves just like the rest of us...
"...Can't hurt one bit to pray for some relief from all of those mounting monetary losses. If anybody has money to bail out
the oil conglomerates, God does. Maybe Goldman Sachs too, since they do God's work."
Maybe the oil corps could get together on a Sunday morning in a church somewhere and have a prayer session to pray for higher
oil prices. Realtors did when the housing crisis stuck them with a bag to hold.
Dear Lord, please help us by buying more oil.
Surely, Lord, there must be a need for a couple of million barrels of oil each day in heaven that You can buy to ease our financial
burdens. Lord, hear our prayer.
Can't hurt one bit to pray for some relief from all of those mounting monetary losses. If anybody has money to bail out
the oil conglomerates, God does. Maybe Goldman Sachs too, since they do God's work.
God might tell the oil corps to go straight to hell, if so, then Goldman can answer all those prayers being they do God's work
too. All it takes is money and the prayers are answered.
That's right Ron, the oil companies' guardian angels will make a deal with the devil to produce a lot of abiogenic petroleum and
suddenly the old fields will be oozing the stuff out again. Gushers galore on Monday morning. The banks will get the notice from
the devil to fund more drilling and away we go, happy motoring for another fifty years.
OK, yesterday, 7/23/2015, I was sent to a Federal Pen, I spent five hours there doing mock job interviews. (This is the place
that had Johnny Taliban for a while..
Me: "What was you're former occupation?"
Him: "I was a bank robber. There wasn't enough money in it, that's why I'm here."
Me: "What do you mean a bank robber? That 's been legalized since 2008! Call your fucking lawyer!!"
"... So anyway, what's the evidence that professional economists who publish research notes for large firms really understand the
actual economy? Have these guys at Nomura ever gotten the big picture right when it really matters? If they had, why would they be telling
us?..."
...some factors such as low energy prices and the strong dollar likely continued to weigh on business activity.
Raise hands. How many here think low energy prices weighed on business activity?
Wisdom Seeker wrote on Fri, 7/24/2015 - 12:43 pm
So anyway, what's the evidence that professional economists who publish research notes for large firms really understand the
actual economy? Have these guys at Nomura ever gotten the big picture right when it really matters? If they had, why would they
be telling us?
poicv2.0 wrote on Fri, 7/24/2015 - 12:43 pm
It seems pretty logical that all that savings from lower oil price is going to result in consumers buying more IPhones,
Yukon Denalis with 25" spinner rims and new housing.
"...This is bordering on hero worship with this guy and, frankly, I think that's dangerous. That's exactly how the Ds ended
up shoving Obama down everyone's throat and look how lousy that turned out."
Republican preferences of Presidential candidates ;-)
1st choice
2nd choice
Donald Trump
15%
12%
Jeb Bush
11%
7%
Rand Paul
11%
7%
nmewn
Trump filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009. I have zero interest in putting him in charge of anything
remotely connected to my prosperity or posterity.
But I will say this, with Hillary! the current frontrunner, fully 98% of democrats are insane ;-)
Paveway IV
Witht that kind of experience, we should make him president of Puerto Rico.
Not My Real Name
Trump is too much of an ego maniac to have that kind of power.
You mean like Obama?
Gold...Bitches
Wrong. The popularity of Trump and Sanders is they are actually talking reality versus the papsmear crapola that comes out
of the mouths of the corporate polititcians from both sides. They also actually have policies that appeal to the majority of the
people in their respective parties. Most people oppose the crony trade deals that get signed that do nothing for the people yet
enrich the CEO and the politician that passes the bill after they are out and get massive "speaking" fees. Not the corporatists
such as Bush and Hillary - never met a trade deal favorable to corporations they didnt like. Quid, meet Pro and Quo.
Southpark said it best regarding voting and elections: But Stan, don't you know, it's always between a giant douche and a
turd sandwich. Nearly every election since the beginning of time has been between some douche and some turd. They're the only
people who suck up enough to make it that far in politics."
chosen
Thanks for the heads up. Is there any candidate that is not in AIPAC's pocket?
Yves, my first level accounting professor told me to minor in computers, and he was tremendously correct. All accounting today
relies on database management, either SQL or some close cousin.
Sure, u still have to be able to put together a balance sheet and P&L. But the more u can automate that, the less the traditional
accounting function is needed.
sam s smith, June 8, 2015 at 1:08 pm
Automation has been very useful to accounting fraud.
WALTHAM, MA-Frustrated with a growing list of unacceptable workplace indignities, fed-up Catamount Systems employee Marc Holden
is just about 14 years away from walking out the front door of his office and never returning, sources confirmed Thursday. "I swear
to God, if things don't improve around here real fast, I am out of here in 14 years or so-I am not bluffing," Holden said, noting
that if he has to endure just a decade and a half more of company-wide incompetence and pointless micromanagement, he is gone for
good. "Seriously, I don't think I can take any more than 3,000 more days of this before I snap. Mark my words, if 2029 rolls around
and it's still the same old shit around here, I'm cleaning out my desk, getting on that elevator, and never coming back."
Holden
added that if his boss belittled him in front of the entire staff just 200 more times, he would storm right into his office and tell
him exactly where he can stick it.
The Confidence Witch: ...The confidence
fairy seems to have turned into a confidence witch. One more victim of the crisis. But this one will not be missed
This is just short term noise. Long term Dollar investors aren't going to be swayed by this, and neither should you. A strong
dollar is a fundamental part of our Federal Reserve's dual mandate, and we're lucky to have a Federal Reserve chariwoman that
understands this. We also need to dispel this myth that lower interest rates mean a weaker dollar - this empirically isn't the
case.
The reason our economy continues to grow is precisely because of low interest rates fueling aggregate demand, which in turn
strengthens the dollar. These are some basic elementary economic facts that Zerohedgers just cant seem to understand.
MillionDollarBonus
Doomers on this site should consider the enourmous cost of their pessimism and far-right ideologies. There are some incredible
health benefits to believing in government, which many of you would be wise to consider. People who believe in government have
more peace of mind, produce less cortisol (the stress hormone), worry less, and are far more likely to enjoy their lesuire time.
All of these benefits reduce the risk of stress related diseases. Just look up the statistics - if you look at the disparity between
government employees and private sector employees the effects are even more extreme.
See also YouTube - Every Breath Bernanke Takes. It's really
high qaulity parody... The lead performer's name is Michael O'Rorke. MBA 2006... Poor Helicopter Ben :-). 4:15pm
Today's best four minutes of the day: an uproarious parody of the Police's "Every Breath You Take" by students at Columbia
Business School, which purports to show the school's dean, Glenn Hubbard -- and, no, that is not Mr. Hubbard, the school confirms,
but a look-alike student -- taking Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to task for monetary policy mistakes (in a fit of jealousy over not
getting the position). It's hard to resist the charm of any attempt to poke at the Fed, especially one that includes the couplet
"Hope your models break/bet that beard is fake." The real Mr. Hubbard was traveling and could not be reached for comment.
April 26, 2006 [George W. Bush:] "Ben Bernanke is the right man to build on the record that Alan Greenspan has established.
I will urge the Senate the act promptly to confirm Ben Bernanke as the fourteenth Chairman of the Federal Reserve."
Every breath
you take
Every change of rate
Jobs you don't create
While we still stagflate
I'll be watching you\
Every single day
Bernanke takes my pay
When growth goes away
Inflation will stay
I'll be watching you
Oh can't you see?
The Fed's where I should be
How my poor heart aches
With each of your mistakes
First you move your lips
Hike a few more BPS
When demand then dips
And the yield curve flips
I'll be watching you
Since you came supply's lost without a trace
I dream at night that I punch you in the face
Your interest policies I cannot embrace
I feel so wronged and I long for Greenspan's place
I keep cryin': Benny! Benny! Please...
Oh can't you see?
The Fed Chair should be me
How my poor heart aches
When prices escalate
Every move you make
Every oath you take
Hope your models break
Bet that beard is fake
I'll be watching you
CBS is great
Wouldn't change my fate
But we'll be watching you
We'll be watching you
top cnbc headline: Why crude won't rebound any time soon
Frank N. Beans
If lower oil prices were great for consumers, then higher oil prices indicate that the economy is expanding, which is also
great for consumers. Win Win!
Gas prices are plummeting across America thanks in part to the country doubling its daily oil exports, which is made possible by
chemical fracturing technology that scientists have said wreaks havoc on the environment. Here are some pros and cons of
fracking:
Pros
Blasts tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals deep underground, out of harm's way
Prompts important conversation about whether or not people have a right to clean water
Chemical balance of breathable air getting a little staid
Fact that shale well blowout could happen at any moment emphasizes ephemeral beauty of life
Cancer research could use few more confounding variables
Those hardest hit will be the voiceless
Cons
Dilutes perfectly good chemicals
Family history providing enough birth defects as it is
Class action lawsuits always take forever and are super boring
Noise of drilling day and night could keep up the oh-so-precious rural farmers who live nearby and need all the sleep their
sweet little heads can get
Fewer excuses to spend time with oil-rich dictatorships
Gas still not zero dollars
SilverIsKing
I like the fact that you can use the word in so many ways. Some examples...
Frack you!
Frack me!
I don't know what that fracking means.
Abso-fracking-lutely!
How the frack are you?
What the frack?
I'm gonna fracking beat the crap out of you!
I fracked that bitch last night.
I'm so fracked!
Frack off!
You're a fracking genius!
She's so fracking hot!
I wouldn't frack her with your dick and him pushing.
Motherfracker.
Fracking A!
Wanna frack?
serotonindumptruck
Let's keep going.
Go frack yourself!
You wanna frack with me?
Get the frack outta here!
I fracked your wife last night, motherfracker, what are you gonna do about it?
(Rogue) Trader. (The "rogue" term is generally not to be used explicitly especially with senior management, directors, shareholders
and clients for fear of misunderstanding.)
Reporting Line
The position reports along "functional' and "geographic" lines to the Head of Trading and Head of the Region. (Nobody, really.
A multi-dimensional matrix structure is currently in operation so that everybody reports to several people allowing a total absence
of accountability.)
Location
Optional. (Some candidates may have a preference for working in head office where total confusion and chaos reigns facilitating
successful rogue trading. Other candidates may prefer a remote location where benign neglect and absence of supervision may provide
rogue trading opportunities.)
Organisational Environment
A leading edge investment bank with a global brand, presence in key financial markets, superb product range and unparalleled client
list.
(Our PR firm told us this.)
A global trading team trading in a wide variety of cash and synthetic instruments, including a number of "proprietary" structures.
(You can lose money pretty much any way you like. There are some trades that even we don't understand but the models say we are
making money).
Supported by a world class risk management team (they are readily identifiable by their guide dogs) and operational staff and
systems (they have been specially chosen for their total ignorance.)
Excellent career prospects (We have sinecures for everybody who has failed to perform.)
Key Responsibilities
Trading with the bank's capital to achieve targeted risk adjusted returns on capital under the bank's unique Economic Capital
Allocation system. (If you are half as smart as you think you are then you will be able to game the system from day 1. Everybody
else has.)
Developing innovative trading strategies. (You need to be able to come up with hare brained trading schemes based on the relationship
between the El Nino cycle and market prices.)
Closely managing trading positions. (You need to be able increase your bet when your position shows losses until you bankrupt
the firm.)
Major Challenges
Develop proper models and valuation procedures (You need to ensure that all pricing models are impossible to understand and give
the valuations that you want by simple unverifiable changes in model inputs.)
Risk management of positions (You will need to fudge all the Greek risk measures. We suggest you start to report risk data in
an ancient Nubian dialect that is purely oral. You will ensure that your risk always appears miniscule irrespective of market conditions.
People have a tendency to panic otherwise.)
Monitoring (You will need to be able to disguise breaches by not booking the trades or taking advantage of systems deficiencies.)
Control losses and volatility of earnings (You must disguise losses either by recording them as amounts owed to you (the Leeson
gambit), undertaking off-market trades such as deep in-the-money options (the Rusnak variation) or incorrect valuations (Rogue Trading
101).)
You need to be able to take the trading function to a new plane. (You need to show larger losses than the last rogue trader the
firm employed.)
Selection Criteria
Detailed knowledge of financial markets and trading techniques.
(You should wax lyrically about obscure markets (the Zambian Kwatcho and Islamic finance techniques) and complex mathematics (field
theory; neural networks; fractals; Frank copula models). Everybody will think you are a genius or a fool but will be unsure of which.)
Detailed knowledge of derivatives, including exotic and non-standard structures. (Everybody knows that derivatives allow highly
leveraged positions that are impossible to understand or value accurately.)
No minimum formal educational qualifications or direct previous experience in a similar role is necessary. (Nobody believes your
CV. It is merely a statement of your aspirations. Nobody will believe you if you said that you had rogue trading experience.)<
Ability to communicate and work closely with senior management (You will need to make sure that you generate enough "phantom"
profits to make sure their bonus expectations are met.)
Ability to work closely with operational staff (You must bully them or cajole them into concealing limit breaches and losses.)
Strong leadership qualities (You will claim all profits are the result of your perspicacious skills. All losses will either disappear
or if found will be hedge losses offset against gains in other positions.)
Desirable Criteria
Preferred age – under 30 years. (Have you ever heard of an old rogue trader? There is an exception for Japanese rogue traders
who are generally older.)
Strong personal qualities. (You will have "attitude". A year round sun tan and a wisp of beard underneath your chin is good. You
will treat everybody around you as idiots incapable of understanding the complex nature of your trading strategies.)
Highly motivated. (You will need to be able to hide losses and limit breaches. The Japanese rogue traders never took holidays.)
Remuneration
Negotiable including a strong performance linked component. (You don't need to be paid as it is assumed that you will defalcate
ample amounts.)
Social Responsibility Statement
We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. (We do not discriminate on any basis. How else can you explain the calibre of
Directors and Senior Management not to mention risk managers and auditors that we have?)
Note: The idea is based on a column published by Trevor Sykes (writing as Pierpoint) of the Australian Financial Review [see
"Indispensable Guide For Rogue Traders" (30 January 2004) Australian Financial Review] However, the text is different.
...completely nonsensical largesse the ECB permits itself to launch, aimed at once again saving a banking system, but which will
not only not help the European people, it will make things even much worse than they already are.
... ... ...
Forget the Central Banks, as I have mentioned here many times, the ECB lowered the Reserve Ratio for member to banks to 1% (ONE
PERCENT)!
kliguy38
calling them criminals is an injustice to criminals
rccalhoun
more like a swarm of locust
Feel it Reel it
The Lawyers protect the Bankers. The bankers pay the Lawyers(political contibutitions)...If you realize roughly 50-55% of the
U.S. House and Senate are lawyers/trail lawyers then it all makes sense of why we are where we are....and don't forget Obama is/was
a Lawyer as is Biden.... The Lawyers and Bankers protect each other and are at the top of the Pyramid scheme... The profession
that never gets regulated or talked about is the Law profession....The majority of Lawyers in Politics are corrupt it's that simple....We
live in a litigious society where you are encouraged to sue regardless of how friviolus it might be... Political correctness is
driven by the Lawyers who are the Politicians....
CH1
The Lawyers protect the Bankers. The bankers pay the Lawyers(political contibutitions)...
You missed the ROOT of the problem...
And the sheep keep obeying, no matter what.
FIAT CON
Correct, most sheep don't even pay attention to politics or world events. They just want to come home after working 8 hrs while
only 3 of those hours was for themselves, and turn on some phoney distraction "Tee Vee" These people have no idea how badly they
are being represented by there favourite politician that did get elected.
If you are invited to play poker with a bunch of cheaters and you accept, sit down and aloow your money to be cheated out of you.
Do you deserve it?
[Dec 13, 2014] Citigroup to Move Headquarters to US Capitol Building
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)-The banking giant Citigroup announced on Friday that it would move its headquarters from New
York to the U.S. Capitol Building, in Washington, D.C., in early 2015.
Tracy Klugian, a spokesperson for Citi, said that the company had leased thirty thousand square feet of prime real estate on the
floor of the House of Representatives and would be interviewing "world-class architects" to redesign the space to suit its needs.
According to sources, Citi successfully outbid other firms, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, for the right to move
its headquarters to the House floor. ...
...the avg Americans gives away 42% of found money. But first year economics students only give away 20%. The economics curriculum
in the USA needs to change.
Who knew? Jane Austen was a dyed-in-the-wool, easy-money-loving, stimulus-demanding 'expert' on monetary policy. As Citi's
Steven Englander finds in his eloquent new year's note, it seems the antiquated authoress has much sense-and-sensibility to reproach
those of us who believe in real money and a return to a real economy. From justifying QE, "Money is the best recipe for happiness,"
to the importance of the wealth effect, "If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow;"
Austen offers some 'balance' to offer on Fed transparency, tapering, and congressional spending.
Via Citi's Steve Englander,
'Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event, however certain
the mind may be told to consider it, and certainty itself." – particularly apt in light of the market reaction to tapering.
"Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself." -- more on tapering
"A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch." -- on the tapering calendar
"I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly." -- advice on communications policy
"I think we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves, and doing nothing." -- insight
into labor force participation
"I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it." -- the hysteresis
effect
"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of." – on the need for more stimulus
"I am sorry to tell you that I am getting very extravagant and spending all my money: and what is worse for you, I have been
spending yours too. " -- message to Congress
"If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow." – the importance of the wealth effect
for human capital
"Money is the best recipe for happiness." – QE justified
"If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next." -- on economic forecasting
"There is a monstrous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit." -- FOMC press
conferences
"It would be most right, and most wise, and, therefore must involve least suffering." –taking the easy policy route
"We do not look in great cities for our best morality." – distribution effects of QE
"I don't approve of surprises. The pleasure is never enhanced and the inconvenience is considerable." -- the argument
for Fed transparency
"It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first." --
nothing more need be said
"..people always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them" -- on the need for entitlements reform
"And we mean to treat you all,' added Lydia, 'but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out
there." – on balance sheet expansion
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
FAIR USE NOTICEThis site contains
copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available
to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social
issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such
copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which
such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free)
site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should
be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...
You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors
of this site
Disclaimer:
The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or
referenced source) and are
not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society.We do not warrant the correctness
of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be
tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without
Javascript.
