Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

Chard also spoke with President Obama about rising gas prices in Charleston.

"Gas prices continue to be an ongoing problem," said Obama. "I'm proud of the fact that under my administration, oil production is higher than it has been in a decade or more. We have seen a doubling of fuel efficiency standards on cars over the next several years, so that is saving people money at the pump."

The president said one of the things that must happen in order to lower gas prices is to make the "overall economy use less oil."

"Unfortunately because of world-wide demand, oil prices are going to keep going up and down until we put in place some of the energy saving proposals I talked about in the State of the Union," Obama said.

The overall economy is already using less oil. It's been using less oil for 2 years.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fvszP2hwbgw/U ... .04+AM.png

[Reality Check]

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Bend Over - We are all going to get Governed
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http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013 ... 57781.html

[Higgenbotham]

However, many participants also expressed some concerns about potential costs and risks arising from further asset purchases. Several participants discussed the possible complications that additional purchases could cause for the eventual withdrawal of policy accommodation, a few mentioned the prospect of inflationary risks, and some noted that further asset purchases could foster market behavior that could undermine financial stability. Several participants noted that a very large portfolio of long-duration assets would, under certain circumstances, expose the Federal Reserve to significant capital losses when these holdings were unwound, but others pointed to offsetting factors and one noted that losses would not impede the effective operation of monetary policy. A few also raised concerns about the potential effects of further asset purchases on the functioning of particular financial markets, although a couple of other participants noted that there had been little evidence to date of such effects. In light of this discussion, the staff was asked for additional analysis ahead of future meetings to support the Committee's ongoing assessment of the asset purchase program.

Several participants emphasized that the Committee should be prepared to vary the pace of asset purchases, either in response to changes in the economic outlook or as its evaluation of the efficacy and costs of such purchases evolved. For example, one participant argued that purchases should vary incrementally from meeting to meeting in response to incoming information about the economy. A number of participants stated that an ongoing evaluation of the efficacy, costs, and risks of asset purchases might well lead the Committee to taper or end its purchases before it judged that a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market had occurred. Several others argued that the potential costs of reducing or ending asset purchases too soon were also significant, or that asset purchases should continue until a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook had occurred. A few participants noted examples of past instances in which policymakers had prematurely removed accommodation, with adverse effects on economic growth, employment, and price stability; they also stressed the importance of communicating the Committee's commitment to maintaining a highly accommodative stance of policy as long as warranted by economic conditions. In this regard, a number of participants discussed the possibility of providing monetary accommodation by holding securities for a longer period than envisioned in the Committee's exit principles, either as a supplement to, or a replacement for, asset purchases.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetaryp ... 130130.htm

[vincecate]

There is a new paper, that Krugman does not like, that goes through the math showing why governments get in trouble when debt gets over 80% of GNP. I think it is worth reading.

http://howfiatdies.blogspot.com/2013/02 ... -loop.html

[aedens]

Krugman is insane, move along. Statist always want more revenue until the lights go out. Spending is the issue and he knows that. When money has enough of these idiots, then the lights go out as a so called liquidity event. Point being over countless cycles as they are doing in Eurozones now as we speak the money will vanish and then the Velocity of money as liquidity dries up. Our 2015 thought is on target and even they confirmed this. European Commission forecasts envisage a general improvement in economic scenario for 2014. However, estimates for 2015, this morning hidden behind an interactive graphic, pointed for a few hours, before being erased-a brutal relapse. In fact, Germany would grow 2% in 2014 to only 0.8% in 2015, would UK from 1.9% to 0.3%, France 1.2% and Spain 0.2% from 0.8% to -1.4%. Statists do not wish to understand business cycles and the farther left they drift the worse it will always get. To much confusion on encyclical patterns and letting the moral hazard clusters find out there is a natural economy to consider. We leave out the details here since we all know them here up front, and as we know governing is about letting enabled idiots hit bottom. Only then do the enabled get the message. The more spending from here on out will only damage market signals further than they already are. There are plenty of historical examples of what happens when they turn inward to consume fixed capital pools since they are as we say, Statists. Always do they turn inward to destroy as locusts since the seal in there forehead is certain since they know not another way. When we had Dr. Koo present his work early in the manufactured "trust" crisis here we noted the credit formation, and tear up on contracts which disarmed many derivative of effects that where averted and the metrics suggested for the liquidity draw downs later to properly constructed CDS some are reading up on today. We touched on the animal spirits and projected course of events early and already we have noted when the market has had enough it will draw out "cash" over time and bleed slowly until it drops as of the lack of oxygenated blood to the ideological brain damaged cause and effects recorded for countless generational dynamics constructs from hubris and avarice induced Statists. The term no free lunch started decades ago when Parents could, or would not not send a lunch with the kids to school and look how patterns are today from enabled and disengaged segments have overrun reason and moral hazard is top to bottom devastating productive capital that IS leaving the stage or going black at a increased rate of change we trend. When they have a committee board for everything as they do to steal capital as property rights it will lock up sooner than later. We left the article here that produce is stolen and run by statists and now it goes before the supreme court. The verdict is already settled and we know it since if the local courts ignore facts we already know who runs the supreme court. We already left an article on how capital is unable to allow free market competition of choice to even serve its preferences of civil discourse. Government is ruling all members must be included even if its very act is contrary to the nature of actual regard. Point is when they are on the wrong side of even the door nob issues it will break down since the very act is a affront to normalcy and capital will retire to its own recourse since they have the ability to mind there own affairs in the nature of things and they cannot see this? When does the legal system meet justice? Never, since even Freidman new the market has a choice to say no on a preference and the statists show up with a weapon to take choice away on decisions to avert poor choices. Krugman wishes a gun to your head to preserve his nature of thought, not your local ability to decide what needs to be addressed.

[vincecate]

Krugman is insane, move along.

I think Krugman not liking an academic paper related to the sustainability of debt means it is probably worth reading. Really.

[Reality Check]

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The Bank Holiday was, in the 1930s, a response to a Banking Crisis, not the Banking Crisis itself.

The U.S. Government portrayed it as a solution they had "no choice" but to implement and the act by which the U.S. Government allowed the "new" "safe" FDIC insured private banks to open, almost overnight, in the same buildings that the "old" "unsafe" private banks previously used.

The U.S. Government at the time, and history books now, refer to the Banking Holiday as a cure, rather than a crisis.

H, a Cyber Attack by Communist China seems the perfect fall guy for the cause of the "unexpected" "Banking Crisis" that will force the Government to Declare a Bank Holiday. After all how could Obama be held responsible for an attack that "no one saw coming" ( do the words sound familiar ? ).

Such a Cyber Attack also seems to be the perfect cover story ( excuse ) as to why the U.S. Government will not be able to determine where all the retirement funds and other uninsured long term deposits ( M3 ) disappeared to, from the "old" banks that had the "Banking Crisis". The U.S. government used the same excuse as to why no one was prosecuted in MF Global, even without a fall guy to blame. The reason for no prosecutions was: "there was no way to track what happened to the missing money". The lack of such a way to track what happened was the justification for not prosecuting since there was no way to gather evidence of a crime.

In the 1930s the small, individual small bank owners, were, as a group, made the fall guys, for all money losses.

The concept that a Banking Holiday ( an arbitrary government solution to a Banking Crisis ) can not happen today unless exactly the same banking crisis occurs, as occurred in the 1930s, is to misread history.

Once the Bank Holiday is declared, and new banks are operating in the buildings where the old banks used to be, the actual reason that the Banking Holiday was declared becomes "old news" and "irrelevant" to the banking system going forward.

One must keep in mind that two things which will allow such a Banking Holiday to occur have been going on for the past few years:

1. First, Dodd-Frank required banks ( actually all types of "financial institutions" that hold retirement investments - not just banks ) to prepare pre-packackaged plans, plans that must be approved by government regulators, to create new banks ( financial institutions ) overnight, under new legal ownership, where the old banks ( financial institutions ) use to be.

2. The Federal Reserve System has implemented a new ABA automated inter-bank clearing system using a new ABA bank number system that removes the arbitrary limits on the number of total Banks, and the arbitrary limit on the number of related banks, that the now replaced automated system enforced ( enforced by arbitrary software design limitations ) .

Taken together, these two steps appear to allow the U.S. Government to do today, in an automated environment, what the U.S. Government did "overnight" in a manual banking system in the 1930s. That is, have a banking holiday after which "new banks" open immediately ( in the same physical building, and with the same automated clearing account numbers ) for business for new transactions with ongoing customers, and "old banks" go into a U.S. Government ( Executive Branch ) controlled alternative bankruptcy system where the U.S. Government acts as Auditor, Complainant, Investigator, Prosecutor, Judge, Jury, Appeals Court and Final arbiter without recourse and without appeal to the federal courts system. Picture the relationship bond holders and franchise holders of the old General Motors have with the "new GM" under the Obama Administration, pre-packaged, GM bankruptcy as to the relationship "old bank depositors" and retirement fund beneficiaries would have with the new bank.

[aedens]

Krugman is insane, move along.

I think Krugman not liking an academic paper related to the sustainability of debt means it is probably worth reading. Really.

We read that view way over six months ago. Krugman wants the press since he wants to control the narrative. This is rule one and nine of the fifteen rules to dialog with ideologues. Appeal to people's basest prejudices and biases. And the old number nine “unforeseeable” and that “no one could have known”. In short an educated waste of time and also number fourteen as question motives, since I am paid to distract and destroy as the Empire burns down so we can plan murdering them again since its what we Statist do when they demand to be left alone to prosper. He has no position to add focus of a constructive organization of capital already done. Commercial enterprises are ninety five percent of the creation of debt and credit structures. He is not needed since he was never needed in the fact of day to day Business or the point to the balance sheet depression that was already over other than commercial sweep accounts handled badly in the first place. Fact is they lied on sweeps and MMF funding and the G30 already pointed this out. He is pointless and a redundancy of known position. Fact is Vin he is years behind reality. They blew it up to prosper since most common and decent people are to busy to keep up with these disturbed people. Now they must since they are being devoured and there grandchildren also.

Another thread: Jon Huntsman urges Republicans to support same-sex marriage. Fabian idiots, Republicans are extinct and that defines the depravity of the age. Taxpayers also made to pay for others human disposal problems called clinical murder, evil and leave the taxpayer be on statist murders. They can cough up there own money. We are tired of why did you not say more then? If you expect normal people to answer that you are beyond hope.

https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseServic ... 45212.html

This argument is Germany saving the eurotards as texas saving california. Not going to happen.
Here is a soft view of the moderate left and right in consensus and rather correct to be blunt.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=47098

Also do not get butt hurt this week since as the Dow closed at 1.55% neg, the DXY was selling, Fed Lockhart spewed, HFTs came in and supported futures.
NY Fed did the rest and sold USDs and bought EUR swaps "as we warned before". Asia should be down over 2%, it's not, Yen selling came in helped Nikkei
off lows. There should be a massive short squeeze on open. One day the market will obliterate those central banks and their hubris.
Not this week and I will sell when we red later this week which is not going to happen. Point being YOU are the target... Not currency this week.

[Reality Check]

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American citizens tolerated by their "Rulers" - for now.
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Secretary of State John Kerry explains to the political elites in Europe why he is forced to tolerate "Stupid Americans" who disagree with him.
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Secretary of State John Kerry offered a defense of freedom of speech, religion and thought in the United States on Tuesday telling German students that in America "you have a right to be stupid if you want to be."

"As a country, as a society, we live and breathe the idea of religious freedom and religious tolerance, whatever the religion, and political freedom and political tolerance, whatever the point of view," Kerry told the students in Berlin, the second stop on his inaugural trip as secretary of state.

"People have sometimes wondered about why our Supreme Court allows one group or another to march in a parade even though it's the most provocative thing in the world and they carry signs that are an insult to one group or another," he added.

"The reason is, that's freedom, freedom of speech. In America you have a right to be stupid - if you want to be," he said, prompting laughter. "And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be.

"And we tolerate it. We somehow make it through that. ( Somehow make it through having to to tolerate stupid people disagreeing with our opinion ) Now, I think that's a virtue. I think that's something worth fighting for," he added. "The important thing is to have the tolerance to say, you know, you can have a different point of view. ( Even if "everyone knows" people who disagree with me are stupid and I, John Kerry, am smart )"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... 1950s.html

[Higgenbotham]

"The American way of dealing with dissent and with protest is certainly more advanced: why imprison dissidents when you can just let them shout into the wind to their heart's content?"
-- Dmitry Orlov

The Kerry talk also reminds me of something I wrote here about 5 years ago. An aspect of promoting the false view of reality carefully crafted by the State (in this case by the Secretary of State) is to delegitimize those who have an alternative and/or more accurate view.

This is true. In the Soviet Union (SU), there were those individuals called "dissidents" who presented an alternative (and more accurate) view of reality from that carefully crafted by the State; they pointed out flaws and some even predicted the collapse of the Soviet system. In the United States (US), we have coined various similar terms such as "whistleblowers" for those who happen to exist within the State or corporate apparatus, or today's "bloggers" and others who exist outside the apparatus, all of whom present an alternative (and in most cases more accurate) view of reality. Dissidents and whistleblowers were/are treated with extreme cruelty as the SU and US government agencies and corporations are really advanced tribal and fascist systems where no dissent whatsoever is tolerated, and loyalty to the members within the tribe (and not to the public) is the overriding concern. Therefore, when reality becomes something that is obviously vastly different from that crafted and purveyed by the State, as in today's economic situation, the search is on for a loyal member of the "tribe" who "got it right" and it's a very difficult search in an environment where dissent is not tolerated. By definition, that person must come from a government or corporate institution, must be a member of the "tribe" in good standing and, therefore, the person who is annointed as the one who "got it right" with the associated Congressional appearances, etc., usually didn't even hit the target. In the meantime, the growing numbers of those outside the State and corporate apparatus who really did "hit the bullseye" are ignored because giving them any credence would delegitimize those within the tribal apparatus, further weakening and corrupting an already weak and corrupt structure.

In America, it's OK to disagree, but just know that you will not be a legitimate person in this society, but pushed to the fringes where you nonetheless do have the freedom to say whatever you want and be ignored.