Screw the Banks and Investment Firms

lurker · Post by **lurker** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:09 pm

Houses are tangible assets.

And I think you'll find that it's not 'everyone at the bottom' that's suffering(yet)--we bailed out Wall Street--not Main Street.

Skyrocketing prices due to high transport costs is what's hurting the average American so far.

Simon of the Playa · Post by **Simon of the Playa** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:26 pm

The right has for decades been systematically doing what it can to dismantle labor unions

the beginning of the end was the PATCO strike of 1981 and subsequent scab hiring via Federal Mandate.

Thanks Ronnie*... i know, i know, you dont remember....

(*editors note.....i dont care how many fucking signs say otherwise, it is NATIONAL AIRPORT always was, always will be....Ronald Reagan Memorial Airport my ass...never remember where you parked, or what color your damn rental car is...)

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:08 pm

Are you rich when you make $250,000 a year, and is there a world in which it's good citizenship to share part of your wealth with those less fortunate than yourself?

ygmir · Post by **ygmir** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:25 pm

maybe and probably

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 4:59 pm

The trickle down idea is just as much BS as the rest of Keynes ideas. There is no real trickle down, just postponement When GOV creates and sells a bond, they're selling a debt instrument against the future production of some worker. These bonds are debt promises, nothing more. Iceland just guaranteed all of their banks. Wonderful, each person in Iceland is liable for $500,000
Don't laugh, Each and every American's share of US debt is about $450,000
It's generally accepted that 50% of the cost of an item is for financing. It varies; 19% for trash collection and 87% for public housing.
It's true; newly created money "works" but it doesn't work for the working man.
If GOV gives $100 to a bank that was created out of thin air, the $100 is either a debt to be paid by some worker or it is newly printed money that inflates away the value of the money of the saver. Since the bank gets a slice every time, the working man loses a slice every time. That is why a family has to work so many aggregate hours.

The bank may allocate capital but it doesn't produce any wealth. Both banks and GOV suck the lifeblood out of the general economy. A bank may fund a project that benefits society, which is good. Lately, all the banks want to do is fund financial transactions. It doesn't do us any good.
The same is true of GOV. GOV can fund R&D that produces real wealth. GOV seems to only be interested in funding a war industry to make banks rich. War profits are the best game in town. Prey on people's insecurity and you have them by the balls.

Banks farmed out manufacturing to get better returns. They figured that banks would make money and that was all that counted. Screw the little guy. We have a service economy where we take in each other's laundry. That doesn't produce any wealth either. The general economy is dying. Pumping money to banks isn't going to save the workers who create the wealth. They're screwed until they learn to work for the going global wage.
The FED is loaning banks almost $500,000,000 a day. The financials have a derivative exposure around 1,400,000,000,000,000. They're holding on to every dime to cover their exposure. There isn't going to be a happy ending. The bank loses next year will be even higher than this year. GOV can do endless bailouts, but they won't ever be funded.

Why do you think that investors are pulling out money just as fast as GOV shoves it in? These bailouts are promises against future workers or outright theft of the savings of the working man. He flat out can't afford either one.
The whole system is built on flawed theory and greed. THAT is what is bringing it down. You can argue all you want but, it's coming down. The US General Accounting Office says that we're screwed,,,, argue with them;
"October 13, 2008: "The General Accounting Office (GAO) has issued a sobering picture of the future economic condition of the United States, a scenario where a full economic collapse is inevitable, with the only remaining questions being "how and when the nation's current imprudent and unsustainable path will end.""

Toolmaker · Post by **Toolmaker** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 7:58 am

Ugly Dougly wrote:Are you rich when you make $250,000 a year, and is there a world in which it's good citizenship to share part of your wealth with those less fortunate than yourself?

You are rich once you hit 50,000 a year.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:25 am

Then pay your taxes, support the troops and stop complaining, Joe!

Post by **Elderberry** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:02 am

Ugly Dougly wrote:Then pay your taxes, support the troops and stop complaining, Joe!

Here! Here! And pay those back taxes too; and while you're at it get a license and stop working illegally.

JK

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:14 pm

[quote="lurker"]Houses are tangible assets.
Maybe it's just coincidence that we got foreigners to invest all their hard earned money into a non-portable asset. If it were pork bellies or bonds, they could take them away

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:09 pm

We're definitely on a roll now;
"So in just 16 days since the end of the last fiscal year, Sept 30, the federal debt has grown by an astounding $331.1 billion, which is a 75.5% annual rate of growth. It has taken just 16 days to borrow one-third of what the government borrowed in all of last year."
http://goldmoney.com/en/commentary.php
And this is going to go on for how long????
Post script; The US national debt as of March 2008 stands at US$9.4 trillion.
71% of this debt is due in less than 5 years; 39% is due in less than 1 year. Let's see, 39% of 9.4 trillion means that we have to repay $3.7 trillion next year.
I would guess that a default is coming soon. Dump those T-bills bucko.
Dan

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:36 am

I forgot to post the source for the part about maturing debt; http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/co ... t_id=10129
It remains to be seen if our creditors are willing to roll over this debt or not. The Swiss think tank believes that the US will default by summer; http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-28-is-ava ... a2250.html
Our borrowing has absolutely gone through the roof. I don't see how our creditors can take on the additional load of rolling over $3.7 trillion next year.
The credit card companies report that many people have maxed out their cards and then defaulted. Uncle Sam is going to do the same thing but, on a much grander scale.
The banking mess is just a diversion.
Dan

lurker · Post by **lurker** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:03 am

When GOV creates and sells a bond

And there's the problem in a nutshell. GOV HAS no money, it creates nothing. GOV needs to get the hell out of the way. When it starts playing with money, money disappears

It is private business that makes 'tricle down' economics work--GOV siphons off what's trickling down for other uses. Enough of that and nothing ever gets to the bottom.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:45 pm

Gotta agree there. After GOV does it's thing the trickle down closely resembles diarrhea.

Post by **Elderberry** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:58 pm

lurker wrote: It is private business that makes 'tricle down' economics work--GOV siphons off what's trickling down for other uses. Enough of that and nothing ever gets to the bottom.

For as dumb as I am on both finances and politics I can tell you that trickle down does not work--at least it doesn't work any more. If it ever did work, it was when people with money invested it into industry/manufacturing and created products for people to buy and jobs for people to earn money to buy the products.

Now there are too many 'geniuses' that are inventing too many ways for money to just make money; which does not trickle down to anyone. Until it turns out that they were not as smart as they thought they were, fucked up the entire economy and then all of the rest of us have to pay for their 'genius'.

The only thing the government failed to do was to provide the oversight to prevent this disaster.

So would you call that 'trickle up'?

JK

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:37 pm

Not sure about trickle up. To me, it seems more like a transfusion from society to GOV. The more transfusions to GOV, the weaker the body aggregate of society gets. GOV is sucking blood out so fast that society is collapsing. Like the typical parasite, GOV is not at all worried about killing the host.
The wealthy , to me, are more symbiotic rather than parasitic. If a person has tons of money, he will generally spend his money into the economy. He wants a nice life and wants people to admire [or hate] him for his wealth. It's all a matter of circulation.
Essentially, everybody who works and deserves money,,,, gets money.
When GOV comes along, much of the money goes to people who don't work and produce. They create problems and then fix them. The people who don't produce, do vote. That's why all democracies are doomed.
The non-producer class gets incrementally larger and votes for themselves the fruits of the producer class. Trickle down works just fine as long as there isn't some class or group of non-producers who are sucking out wealth upstream. Uncle Sam is numero uno upstream because the wealth is freshest.
Since so much of GOV at the legislative level is a bunch of incompetent non-producers, they have no point of reference for what the true producers have to go through.

Our legislative body is supposed to guide the country by brains and experience, not guile and deceit. All too many of them don't have any brains and experience so they have to fall back on what has always worked, Guile and deceit. It worked well for clinton.
It's not over til it's over.

Post by **Elderberry** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:50 pm

can't sit still wrote:Essentially, everybody who works and deserves money,,,, gets money.
When GOV comes along, much of the money goes to people who don't work and produce. They create problems and then fix them. The people who don't produce, do vote. That's why all democracies are doomed.

Well then, I guess the only truly workable solution is to either euthanize these 'non-producers' on the spot; or maybe a more humane approach would be to sterilize them in order for the to get public assistance then?

I don't think that we provide these 'non-producers' with a subsistence income so much because we care about them anyway, isn't it more because we give them just enough so that they don't rebel and riot and spoil it for all of the "hard working people with money"?

It's easy to talk can't sit still, but you provide no solution. Government isn't so much the bad guy by providing for these 'under-class' as they are protectors of the rest of us by providing them enough assistance so that they leave us alone. No?

Any workable ideas as to what to do with all of these piglets sucking on the teat of society (as Rush Limbaugh might say)?

JK

Apollonaris Zeus · Post by **Apollonaris Zeus** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:15 pm

can't sit still wrote:The wealthy , to me, are more symbiotic rather than parasitic. If a person has tons of money, he will generally spend his money into the economy. He wants a nice life and wants people to admire [or hate] him for his wealth. It's all a matter of circulation.
Essentially, everybody who works and deserves money,,,, gets money.
When GOV comes along, much of the money goes to people who don't work and produce. They create problems and then fix them. The people who don't produce, do vote. That's why all democracies are doomed.
The non-producer class gets incrementally larger and votes for themselves the fruits of the producer class. Trickle down works just fine as long as there isn't some class or group of non-producers who are sucking out wealth upstream. Uncle Sam is numero uno upstream because the wealth is freshest.
Since so much of GOV at the legislative level is a bunch of incompetent non-producers, they have no point of reference for what the true producers have to go through.

Our legislative body is supposed to guide the country by brains and experience, not guile and deceit. All too many of them don't have any brains and experience so they have to fall back on what has always worked, Guile and deceit. It worked well for clinton.
It's not over til it's over. 8)

I'm not sure if I agree with you on how the wealthy is symbiotic or parasitic. I think they both. it's all about were they invest that money. There are rich people there that suck the wealth out of the system, like slumlords or hostile takeover of companies only to destroy competition, then fire the workers. Too bad for them if they have no health insurance or savings to help them through the tight times. So, They are not always creating or producing. Some just stick it into the bed. As a stock investor, I'll buy based on earnings or short it but I never know what is happening in one of its factories where ever they may be. I might buy gold or stash that money into land or turn-that-house. That's not producing just being a middleman.

So its up to government in many situations to help out a changing dynamic work force to do the job of retraining, helping them with basic health insurance!

Or we can go back to Metropolis!

[youtube][/youtube]

Disposable work forces but I still got my stocks and rentals and gold!

AIIZ

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:08 pm

Zeus, jkisha, I don't have the answers. When i wrote about non-producers, I wasn't writing so much about perennial welfare groups, . I was thinking more about politicians and lawyers who write endless laws so that they can prosecute and defend people from GOV. It's a big roundtable where the Pols and lawyers take turns sticking it to anyone who comes in contact with GOV.... For fun and profit.
The crux of the problem is that mankind is naturally social. Capitalism is basically mechanical. If you take a warm human and squeeze him into the mold required by the anthill model of capitalism, he often comes throughly greedy and sociopathic as a mechanism to survive.
I don't advocate the liquidation of all non-producers. Capitalism, on the other hand, does not recognize ANY limits on efficiency. The anthill society demands that you either produce or,,,, depart.
Since human society has much more heart than an anthill society, capitalism is not a good fit. The heartbeat of human society is centered around the family unit. Anthills have queens, not families.
Because of the necessity of survival, our societies focus on the production of survival goods. True, we've drifted away from absolute survival tools. But, when we organize to distribute the products for survival [commerce], we always seem to end up with a group that is far more interested in securing personal power and gain rather than group survival.
Capitalism is one means of organization to insure that wealth is distributed commensurately to those who produce it. The anthill model doesn't allow anything to a non-producer. Capitalism favors capital but not people. Socialism, on the other hand mal-treats capital.
Socialism hasn't worked well because all organisms have a natural tendency to laziness. It's a built in means to conserve energy. Karl Marx loved the idea of the worker's paradise but forgot 1 little detail. Without incentive, there is little performance.

Capitalism can provide the incentive and socialism can provide the widest rewards. Maybe a capitalistic system WITH limits and WITHOUT the power mongers. Maybe a super computer could be used to take out the human element. Program one computer to make strict capitalistic decisions and program a second to make strict socialistic decisions. Then program them to come to an agreement. Humans are INCAPABLE of this.
Shoot me your best idea

Post by **Elderberry** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:40 pm

Hey can't sit still, my mind was more in the muck of the election threads when I responded to your post; We've been talking about the neanderthals and how republicans don't want to help the poor (health care), etc. so I was assuming you were coming from the same place as lurker. Sorry about that.

I've heard it said that China just may have the best of both worlds--a capitalistic economy model and a communistic government model. Seems to cut all the red tape.

JK

Apollonaris Zeus · Post by **Apollonaris Zeus** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:15 am

jkisha wrote:
I've heard it said that China just may have the best of both worlds--a capitalistic economy model and a communistic government model. Seems to cut all the red tape.

JK

AS long as they don't poison themselves in doing so!

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:25 am

No hard feelings whatsoever. like most things, it's all give and take. The approval rating for the Chinese GOV is about 80%,,, for the US, under 20%. The Chinese are headed up so are more satisfied. The US is headed down so, generates lots of disapproval.
Generally, the dems represent human capital and the Reps represent physical capital. Rather than working for a consensus, they seem to prefer to have complete control. If one side is in a very minority position, they stonewall the whole process.

There is a lot to be said for a monarchy or an enlightened, benevolent dictator. Power sharing is a good idea on the surface but, it seems to bring paralysis, in practice.
Cold, hard capitalism gives the proceeds of manufacturing only to producers. Capitalism hasn't yet found a way to factor in automation and AI without destroying the job base/purchasing power of "surplus" people.
In a couple of years, I think that capitalism is going to receive a good backlash from the "surplus" people that it has created recently.
I might have the idea a bit messed up but you'll get the general idea;
The French revolution occurred when debt rose to 80% of GDP. In the US, it is 77%.
Time for an adjustment.

lurker · Post by **lurker** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:03 am

You may have something here--

For as dumb as I am on both finances and politics I can tell you that trickle down does not work--at least it doesn't work any more. If it ever did work, it was when people with money invested it into industry/manufacturing and created products for people to buy and jobs for people to earn money to buy the products.

For trickle down to work, things that people want have to have values. The bulk of those things need to be things that can be owned individually and manufactured in some way. The manufacturing process moves money from owners to investors and workers and on down the line.

Now there are too many 'geniuses' that are inventing too many ways for money to just make money; which does not trickle down to anyone. Until it turns out that they were not as smart as they thought they were, fucked up the entire economy and then all of the rest of us have to pay for their 'genius'.

There are too many odd ways now that money can be made by speculating on that value. This removes cash from that straight flow and places it into transactions that focus on how things move rather than what things are worth--now, jobs can be created this way, and investments can be made that appear to add to the orderly flow--but the 'thing' in this case is a precarious process rather than anything with intrinsic value. As such, it is subject to the slightest of vagaries, and since an entire structure is built on this tiny idea, great crashes are simply inevitable.

Worse, the values can be artificially manipulated quite easily.

The only thing the government failed to do was to provide the oversight to prevent this disaster.

I would say that government helped create this. By festooning simple transactions with arcane legislation they allowed this structure to grow. By creating systems that have the effect of interfereing with actual value they paved the way for more manipulation.

Removing the various venues for manipulation would help. Allowing values to return to a 'real' level would help.

This requires some thought...

Post by **Elderberry** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:26 am

another one of those rare post when we appear to agree.

Did you happen to see Charlie Rose last night? Had an interesting panel discussion held at Harvard, topic was the economy and leadership.

JK

lurker · Post by **lurker** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:47 am

No, last night I was nursing injuries sustained while trying to repair Ike damage. A nice drink, some vegetative movies.....

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:35 am

can't sit still wrote: The approval rating for the Chinese GOV is about 80%,,, for the US, under 20%. The Chinese are headed up so are more satisfied. The US is headed down so, generates lots of disapproval.

there is a little more to it than this! the chinese government controls the press, suppresses outside sources they do not approve of, and prosecute dissidents. if, heaven forbid, we had the same situation in the US, you would see a much higher approval rating ... i'll take what we have any day ...

lurker · Post by **lurker** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:41 am

can't sit still wrote:
The approval rating for the Chinese GOV is about 80%,,, for the US, under 20%. The Chinese are headed up so are more satisfied. The US is headed down so, generates lots of disapproval
.

there is a little more to it than this! the chinese government controls the press, suppresses outside sources they do not approve of, and prosecute dissidents. if, heaven forbid, we had the same situation in the US, you would see a much higher approval rating ... i'll take what we have any day ...

I can't believe I missed that. Are you seriously comparing a situation in which the government praises dissent with death to the US? Are you serfiously believeing the communist Chinese government? You ARE far gone.

Post by **Elderberry** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:15 am

lurker wrote:
I can't believe I missed that. Are you seriously comparing a situation in which the government praises dissent with death to the US? Are you serfiously believeing the communist Chinese government? You ARE far gone.

Ever been there? If not, how would you know more than you read in the "liberal MSM" and you know how they lie and slant the truth.

JK

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:33 am

The polls that I'm quoting would be worthless if they were controlled by GOV. The people who did the polls tried to get un-pressured answers. Why waste the time and energy to do a poll if the results are produced under duress or fear?

littleflower · Post by **littleflower** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:04 am

i did not suggest that the polls were controlled by the chinese government... but that the PEOPLE are. they do not question their government-run media because they do not want to get into trouble. internet access is spotty, at best. i even read this in a lonely planet travel guide... they tell you not to even try talking politics in china.

do you think any prosperous western democracy could pull off the olympics that we saw this year? displace millions of people, spend hundreds of billions of dollars? china is a third world country, with hundreds of millions of poor people. their rich-poor gap is wider than ours in the US, not less so.

i am actually quite close to someone from china... she is han chinese but grew up in the xinjiang, moved to the provinces after school, and hooked an american man who was working near shanghai. she was in beijing just before the olympics ... visited a cousin in a newly refurbished mao era apartment building ... the outside looked great, the inside looked like crap. and the toilet did not work ... she could not get the government to fix it ...

Post by **Elderberry** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:25 pm

Have you ever considered that the MAJORITY of people in China might be HAPPY?

Singapor is also a dictatorship of sorts, and they have made great social strides and their people are all happy--as long as they don't get caught chewing gum in public.

In fact, they think we are missing the boat by letting all of our citizens get away with all that they do--sort of like mis-behaved children. (Hmmm....that's interesting).

Listen, we don't have a corner on democracy, and many countries don't want it, contrary to popular belief. (at least they don't want 'american style' democracy) Note that one of the recent elections we interfered with (free and fair too) and the people elected HAMAS!!!!!! Hmmm....now that was certainly something we weren't expecting, now were we?

JK