Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

Trump told the two dozen grocery and supply chain execs they “can help Americans feel calm and safe when shelves are stocked with the items they need. Supply chains in the United States are strong, and it is unnecessary for the American public to hoard daily essentials,” per WH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ

[Higgenbotham]

https://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/ ... 200-tbla-5

A post earlier this year on Houston’s Reddit that mentioned late Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s wide-eyed trip to a Clear Lake grocery store led to a trip to the Houston Chronicle archives, where a batch of photos of the leader were found.

It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.

At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location.

Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”

Shoppers and employees stopped him to shake his hand and say hello. In 1989, not everyone was carrying a phone and camera in their pocket so Yeltsin “selfies” weren’t a thing yet.

Yeltsin asked customers about what they were buying and how much it cost, later asking the store manager if one needed a special education to manage a store. In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops.

“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.

The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. You can blame those frozen Jell-O Pudding pops.

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

[Higgenbotham]

Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to zero and announces new QE program of $700 billion.

Stock Index futures locked limit down.

Monkeys flying 747s.

[John]

** 15-Mar-2020 World View: Yeltsin visits Texas

** 12-Feb-18 World View -- What was Kim Yo-jong thinking as she returned to North Korea from the Olympics?
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e180212

**** Kim Yo-jong returns to Pyongyang with fond memories and an invitation for Moon

Before leaving Seoul on Sunday, Kim Yo-jong invited South Korea's
president Moon Jae-in to visit her in Pyongyang, and also said that
she'd like to visit Seoul again:

"Honestly, I never thought I would visit (the South)
so suddenly and believed much would be strange and different but I
saw many things that were similar or the same. Here's to hoping
that we could see the pleasant people (of the South) again in
Pyeongchang and bring closer the future where we are one
again."

I thought that this was a very interesting statement, because it
reminded me of the surprising outcome of a visit by Russia's
Boris Yeltsin to the United States in 1989.

• "Boris Yeltsin visits Randall's Supermarket in Texas on
  September 16, 1989 (Houston Chronicle)

Yeltsin was visiting the Johnson Space Center in Houston on September
16, 1989, when suddenly he asked to go shopping at a grocery store to
be chosen more or less at random. He ended up at Randall's
Supermarket in Clear Lake, and was astounded at the bewildering
variety of products available to American shoppers. He had been led
to believe that the grocery stores in America were even worse than the
ones in Soviet Russia, and he was shocked to learn the truth.

According to Yeltsin's autobiography, this visit changed his life,
and shattered his view of communism. Two years later he
left the Communist Party, and started making economic reforms. He
wrote in his autobiography:

When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds,
thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for
the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the
Soviet people. That such a potentially super-rich country as ours
has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to
think of it."

So, when Kim Yo-jong says that she "saw many things that were similar
or the same," what was she thinking? Was she reflecting on the many
things that were dissimilar, and how much better off the South Korean
people are than the North Korean people?

[aeden]

They do not understand.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... entilator/

[vincecate]

Federal Reserve cuts interest rates to zero and announces new QE program of $700 billion.

Stock Index futures locked limit down.

Monkeys flying 747s.

Buckle up. Tomorrow will be interesting.

[John]

** 15-Mar-2020 World View: Federal Reserve press conference

I listened to the Federal Reserve press conference this evening
which, in tune with the times, was held over the phone rather
than in a meeting room.

Lowering the interest rate to 0-0.25% certainly did not achieve the
desired result of calming the markets. To the contrary, US stock
market futures are limit down and stopped trading, and Asian stocks
have been in free fall. The Bank of Japan will hold an emergency
meeting today (Monday) to decide what to do next.

I've been watching the CNBC commentary. The fact that CNBC is still
running live programming on the stock market rout, rather than the
usual Sunday night fare which I gather is usually reruns of old Shark
Tank shows, is by itself proof of high anxiety and chaos in the
financial world.

Steve Liesman made an interesting remark during his commentary. The
subject was follow-on fiscal policy. Powell said that Washington
should implement some fiscal policies to supplement the monetary
policies.

Liesman said that government medical policy is in conflict with
economic policy. Economic policy -- monetary and fiscal -- has the
goal of putting money in people's pockets so that they'll spend it and
the economy will grow. But medical policy is that people shouldn't be
out shopping or attending events, but should be staying quietly at
home to limit spreading of Covid-19. That's an angle I hadn't heard
before.

We're still waiting for an event that hasn't occurred yet but must
occur, as predicted by Generational Dynamics: A full-scale
generational panic leading to a global financial crisis. It might
occur on Monday, or it might not occur for weeks or months.

-- Federal Reserve cuts rates to zero and launches massive $700
billion quantitative easing program
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/15/federal ... ogram.html
(CNBC, 15-Mar-2020)

[Higgenbotham]

We're still waiting for an event that hasn't occurred yet but must
occur, as predicted by Generational Dynamics: A full-scale
generational panic leading to a global financial crisis. It might
occur on Monday, or it might not occur for weeks or months.

I agree. The 2008 Lehman event was not it. If the Lehman event was the true generational panic, CNBC would have been asking people on Friday where to sell, not where to buy. The coming event has to burn into people's consciousnesses for the rest of their lives that the stock market is an extremely dangerous game to play. That didn't happen.

[John]

** 15-Mar-2020 World View: Burning the consciousness

> We're still waiting for an event that hasn't occurred yet but must
> occur, as predicted by Generational Dynamics: A full-scale
> generational panic leading to a global financial crisis. It might
> occur on Monday, or it might not occur for weeks or months.
>

> I agree. The 2008 Lehman event was not it. If the Lehman event
> was the true generational panic, CNBC would have been asking
> people on Friday where to sell, not where to buy. The coming
> event has to burn into people's consciousnesses for the rest of
> their lives that the stock market is an extremely dangerous game
> to play. That didn't happen.

Exactly right.

[John]

** 15-Mar-2020 World View: Credit crunch

Multiple analysts have said that the Fed's move was not targeting
the stock market. The bond market has been described for several
days as being "broken," similar to the credit crunch of 2007-08.
The purpose of the Fed's move was to provide liquidity to the bond
market, so that Treasuries can be traded again.