Economy, How bad?

THIS LOOKS TO ME AS THOUGH THE WAR IN 

IRAQ WAS WINDING DOWN AND SO WAS THE 

BORROWING, THE BANK MELT DOWN LOOKS

EQUALIVANT TO THE GWOT FOR ALL OF LAST 

YEAR. GERALD

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SOURCE:

So why doesn't the MELT DOWN show up in the charts.

Something going on these charts don't show.

These charts show an economy growing normally.?

With in normal parameters any way.

Volker talking about Banks doing just Banking.( NOT selling to Wall St. )

Gerald

Series 7 & 13

Congress to reinstate Glass-Segal act,

Phil Gramm, Jim Leach = depression

Our Paradigm engine, crystal ball

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Rape of the American Economy

Rape of the American Economy

By Gerald: Internet Anthropologist Think Tank

Oct 14,08

We are moving away from a free market, and the rule of law.

The government is trying to over ride the Free Market system

and set an artificial system, Capitalism I feel is close to nature.

And good for humans. Caqpitalism doesn't want slaves, they can't

buy goods or pay taxes, well there are a lot of reasons capitalism 

has been so sucessfull, and why it works. I won't go into that now.

In this case the Free Market System has been corrupted by Lobbyists

who get to circumvent the law, by bribing congress to write new laws.

Making criminal activity legal, usury is a prime example. 

Its a violation of the Free Market system.

So is the sub-prime mess, a violation of the Free Market System.

I have read about how its the Dems. fault and they FORCED the

banks to write sub-prime loans with new laws.

Does anyone really believe anyone could force the worlds biggest

corporations, Banks Corps to write loans the banks were going to get 

stuck with in default?  The banks were not taken to the woodshed 

they encouraged this as they knew they wouldn't get stuck with the 

bad loans, the Government would be stuck with them.

Any one who doubts this needs to examine the power of the Banking 

lobby, the ones who rewrote usury laws, rewrote the bankruptcy

laws so the could persue the usury victims to the grave.

But the Banks get to skip bankruptcy and get bailed out by the Victims.

The Federal reserve system or congress, I'm not clear on who it is,

now requires equity in the Banks, the Banks don't have a choice.

They have to give up some equity to the Feds.

After this settles down that is going to be thrown out, what rule of 

law requires a Bank or any Corp to give up equity.

I like the idea, but I like the idea of public whippings for Bank CEOs and Lobbyist also

and none of it is legal, it won't stand in court.

The results of flooding the banking system with 4 Trillion dollars in cash, ( maybe more )

is a combination of Inflation and devaluation. Hard times coming.

The cause of the current cash flow disaster is the sub-prime loans being commoditized,

as an Real Estate Investment bond, and this getting into the money markets as a liquid asset.

If the RE loans are good, honnest, there is not a problem.

But when bad loans quit paying , default, then the Interest part of the RE Bonds stops.

And they be come an Illiquid investment in money markets. And that chokes the cash

flow, and stops loans.

And now "they" have decided not to mark the money market assets to the market, just value them at 100%.

Where does the legal authority to do this stem from?

Well the US Government has guaranteed them at 100%, with the creation of 4 trillion dollars.

It took the US Government 200 years to get to a GND of 7 trillion dollars and it just grew to 

11 trillion dollars in one year.

They need to get all the RE loan bonds out of the market, and price them as defaulted bonds.

Why are they leaving these things out there?

My fear is the Banking Corps have written trillions of dollars of bad loans.

The lobbyists and banking corps and congress have created its own criminal cabal.

Congress was bribed by the Banking lobby to change usury laws, rewrite bankruptcy laws

and set up this sub-prime scam. ( The banks figured any loans they did get stuck with they could go after the borrowers for the rest of their lives under the new bankurptcy laws. )

My auto mech. was writting RE loans as a side line, eventually sold to banks.

And the banks sold them to Freddie and Sallie may, and the US taxpayer is bailing them out.

"They" are giving the Banking Corps all this cash, but that doesn't mean the Banks will actually make loans, Banks are working out how to make more profits from this mess and from the taxpayers cash. The banks may not be making loans in a poor economy. After all THE BANKS know the risks involoved in the sub-prime debacale. They just went through a cash shortage, the natural reaction is to hord more cash. But that may what the Bank Corps. decide to do with your tax payer bailout. Make very few loans. There is no assurance they will make loans, or at what rates.

Congress is turning the Free Market System on its head and we just don't know how its going to fall out.

I am amazed there has been no effort to caculate the amount of actual bad and fraudlent loans

in the sub-prime mess, of course that would disclose the scale of this massive Banking SCAM.

Big question is how the FBI will come down on this?

Under J Edgar, the attorney general didn't push Hoover  or the FBI around.

Now the Attorney General runs the FBI.

And as we well know the Attorney General is a political appointee, remember Mitchel?

While the FBI didn't go after Nixon it did provide Deep Throat.

Why are they not pulling all the bad sub-prime stuff out?

Give it an aring and see what the dammage is, could congress be trying 

to hide the problem, the public finding out what congress was being bribed to do?

What are they hidding?

Will the biggest Banking scam in the World be prosecuted?

When I was a boy it was the customer is always right,

Now its all about how who can legally screw the customer the hardest the longest.

And the Criminal Banking Corps get a free ride, and collect $200 for going around "GO".

Gerald

Series 7 & 11

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Iran inflation crushing, new currency

Toman Iran's New Currency

09/09/2008

The central bank of Iran is planning to replace the rial with toman by removing three zeros from the end.

The rial has been used as Iran’s official national currency since 1932. However, in more recent years, the term “toman” has replaced the rial in daily practice as an unofficial unit.

A toman, in its current form, is worth 10 rials, but now the central bank plans to slash 3 zeroes off the unit - or in other words 4 zeros - and turn into the country official currency. [In short, a 10,000 rial bank note, worth a little over 1 US dollar, will be converted into one toman.]

PRESSTV, Iran, September 4, 2008

We have posted on Iran's economic before:

Iran Economy to collapse 8/26/2007 03:50:00 PM

Qods, corruption, plunder ...

Gerald

Taliban, al-Qaida Work Together in Pakistan

US Commander Says Taliban, al-Qaida Work Together in Pakistan
By Al Pessin Pentagon 23 January 2008

Pessin report - Download (MP3)
Pessin report - Listen (MP3)

A senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan says Taliban and al-Qaida forces in the Pakistan border area are turning their attention more toward Pakistan, and are working together to hit Pakistani forces. Major General David Rodriguez spoke to reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday, and VOA's Al Pessin reports.

General David Rodriguez (file photo)

General Rodriguez says better security in his area of eastern Afghanistan, and increased turmoil in nearby areas of Pakistan, have led Taliban and al-Qaida groups based in the border area to focus on Pakistan and work together more than in the past.

"Many of them, we have seen over the last year, are coordinating with each other more based on their short term goals, rather than their long term goals, which are not necessarily the same," he said. "So, I think that they will move to where the best opportunity is to get the highest payoff. Right not, that probably seems to be in Pakistan, based on what is going on in the last couple of months here."

Pakistan has experienced increased insurgent violence particularly in the Swat Valley, north of Islamabad.

"They are doing more coordination and more training off of everything from resources to intelligence and technical expertise and things like that, yes, that is shared a lot more than it has been in the past," said General Rodriguez.

General Rodriguez says the insurgent focus on Pakistan has contributed to a drop in infiltrations across the border into Afghanistan, and could mean the insurgents will not launch much of a spring offensive in Eastern Afghanistan this year.

General Rodriguez and other U.S. officials say the increase in attacks inside Pakistan is convincing Pakistani military leaders that they have to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaida threat, which had been seen as aimed mainly at Afghanistan.

General Rodriguez says Pakistani military officers are beginning to respond.

"They are working, for example, to develop a better capacity to do counterinsurgency operations, like many other nations are, because that has not been their forte and what they have been trained on as a major focus here, but they are adjusting their military now to do those things," he said.

The general says the United States is helping with coordination and information sharing, but no U.S. involvement inside Pakistan is being contemplated.

Regarding his area of responsibility in northeastern Afghanistan, where security has improved over the last year, General Rodriguez says he expects several thousand more Afghan soldiers to be ready to join the fight in the coming months. He says he does not need any more U.S. or NATO combat troops, but he does need 800 trainers for the Afghan police. He hopes to get some of the one thousand U.S. marine trainers whose deployment to Afghanistan was announced last week.

SOURCE:

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We think after the Paki army is done with the Taliban they too just like al Qaeda will be on the 'downhill'. Terrorism winding down. That assumes an all out effort on all fronts, which may be difficult in the face of the Economy.

Gerald
Anthropologist

USA now has all the keys to the al Qaeda type paradigm, ( Violence based recruiting ).

Terrorism will continue into the foreseeable future but on a much less intense level, and will be responsive to police type actions, tracking criminal gangs.

We've posted on the combining of Internet efforts by al Qaeda and Taliban.

Merging of Internet forces. G

Chinese perspective (w/corrections) on America's Economic Crisis

A Chinese perspective on America's Economic Crisis

by Lau Nai-keung

Global Research, October 19, 2005
China Daily


It's time to take seriously a US-led global recession

I think it is time that we should take a serious look at the possibility that the US is going to take us down towards a worldwide recession in one or two year's time. ( with the help of OPEC, Russia and China see bottom of article )

It is well known that the US is the world's biggest economy, taking up about 30 per cent of global GDP, but it is now also the world's biggest debtor country. According to the most authoritative person on this subject, the US Comptroller General David Walker, who audits the federal government's books, the tab for the long-term promises the US Government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor amounts to US$43,000 billion, US$145,000 per US citizen, or US$350,000 for every full-time worker.

And this figure does not even take into account all the personal debts such as credit card bills and mortgages. With a low interest rate of 1 per cent running for the past three years in a row, savings plummeted to just 1.8 per cent last year, below 1 per cent since January and at zero in the latest estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In 2000, household debt broke 18 per cent of disposable income for the first time in 20 years. Credit card debt alone averages US$7,200 per household.

( Some of the American Corps are the "New Mafia", Banks are a good example, The interest rates 60% on some Bank credit cards would have put the Mafia in prison 30 years ago, usury.
The USA has the best politicians money can buy, and the lobbyists have bought them. Not only can they charge criminal interest rates, they got congress to make the bankruptcy laws harder for citizens to get out of the debt. The customer paradigm in the USA has changed from "the customer is always right " to "screw them hard". Corps regularly operate illegally and settle with class actions suits, and just continue the illegal activities, no criminal charges. )


The US Government indebtedness is financed this way: The US now runs a trade deficit roughly 6.5 per cent of its GDP and the gap is widened every day. Its citizens are spending ever more on foreign goods, and with the US dollar as the international currency, the US Government just prints money to finance the deficit. And with this money, central banks in the surplus countries purchase most of the US Treasury bonds as currency reserve.

By now, Japan is the largest creditor of the US Government, and the Chinese mainland has been a fervent buyer for the last few years. As for Hong Kong, most if not all of our reserves are in US dollar denominated assets. The US Government in turn uses this foreign borrowed money to finance as much as 90 per cent of the federal deficit which stood at US$412 billion last year. The federal deficit is expected to be running at about US$2 billion a day at the moment.

( Thats how they pay the Worlds cop, get to keep their money and always get a good interest rate. )

Put it simply, the Americans have been living way beyond their means for much too long. On top of this, the Bush Administration is cutting tax at least three times while fighting an expensive war in Iraq, which has already cost the country US$700 billion, and currently progressing at US$5.6 billion per month. Now the US economy is dependent on the central banks of Japan, China and other nations to invest in US Treasuries and keep American interest rates down. The low rates keep American consumers snapping up imported goods.

( Globalization will redistribute the wealth, we see International Corps, US Corps , Walmart for example as the conduit for the process, Arbitrage.
Employment arbitrage, Walmart exporting Jobs formerly in the USA to China buy buying finished products from China for lower price because of lower wages. USA has been getting over paid by the worlds standards. Walmart is employing $50 billion dollars worth of China labor.

And Corps. in the USA also need lower wages, hense the ease of illegal aliens coming to America, ie no border with Mexico. )

Any economist worth his salt knows that this situation is unsustainable.

( Wrong again, as long as the system remains balanced, it can continue as it has, the "problem" percentage wise of Global growth remains about the same, even though the total increases. )

This includes the country's economic guru driver Alan Greenspan, who recently warned his countrymen that the federal budget deficit would hamper the nation's ability to absorb possible shocks from the soaring trade deficit and the housing boom. Now he may have to add two more worries: soaring oil prices and cyclones.

The US is now clearly in huge trouble, economically, socially, politically, and internationally.

( The indicators for economic problems are there, and will have to wait while the War on the "nuclear threat" ( Iran & al Qaeda ) is funded, USA is acting as a proxy for the world is a big sense. )

The Bush Administration bungled big in cyclone Katrina's aftermath in New Orleans, and then a minor rerun from Rita in Houston, and this will trigger the general outburst of people's dissatisfaction with the government, leading to great internal turmoil lasting for many years. In all likelihood, long-term interest rates are going to rise, and the greatest property bubble the world has witnessed is going to burst in the next one to two years.

The countdown is in progress, and there is no way that anybody can do anything to reverse it either by short-term measures such as fiscal and monetary policy, or through long-term reform of tax policy, entitlement programmes and even the entire federal budget. This is as inevitable as gravity, and it will take place under a new and inexperienced chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. I do not want to sound alarmist, but I see very bad omens.

( It is a re balancing process, Globalization is/will re distribute the USA's wealth, we will no longer use world resources at the rate USA currently does. )

To make things simple, let us just examine some key economic issues raised by some economists:

What if the dollar plummets? Do stocks follow? How about pensions?

What if interest rates soar? How would all the new homeowners, who stretched to buy with adjustable and interest-only loans, cover their mortgages?

How would consumers with record credit-card debt make their payments? Would they stop buying? Stop taking vacations? What will happen if they go bankrupt? New rules going into effect later this year make it harder on such debtors.

How would a government, which depends on the taxes of a strong economy to operate, keep all its promises?

To us, the good news is that when the country is in deep trouble, the US will not have the energy to pick on China. Even when it is necessary to start another war to divert people's attention, it would pick one much smaller in size and weaker in strength, like Iran. This will provide a much more amicable environment for China to make good use of its "period of strategic opportunity" till 2020 for the country to pass through a turbulent zone between per capita income of US$1,000-3,000.

( The author doesn't recognize the Iran nuclear problem ( world basic safety ) is driving the economic problem, expenses for the GWOT, al Qaeda gets a nuke and everybody is in trouble, the "WORLD SYSTEM", through the USA will spend its self into bankruptcy for safety. )

But in the short term, now the US not only sneezes, and all symptoms indicate that it is going to suffer from a SARS-like trouble, the whole world should take extra precaution not to get infected. One thing is for sure, some time in the not too distant future, every central bank and institutional investor is going to dump US dollar and US Treasury bonds. Once, when a country like South Korea dumps the dollar, the still unsold US Treasuries in the asset column of Asian central banks - US$2,000 billion according to some estimates - will collapse. The cheapened dollar will cause a sudden jump in the US inflation, which forces the Fed to jack up interest rates. A giant leap in inflation will cause a severe recession, or perhaps a depression, in the US. These countries' exports to America will dry up, which in turn will spread the global economic downturn like wildfire.

( Which is why China won't dump the dollar, the structure, power, authority is not in any other currency, why does the WORLD feel safe holding USA dollars, look at Iraq, that is exactly why, POWER.. )

After the stampede, everybody is going to get hurt, not least the central bank of China, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which are major US creditors and with the US as their number one export market. The recent currency reform of the RMB is most timely, and it is about time we should do something about the Hong Kong dollar. At the same time, China should make extra efforts to rekindle internal consumption, and diversify its market really fast before the great US bubble bursts.

( China is in a co-dependent relationship with the USA, ie selling $50 billion of plastic junk to USA through Walmart. And world comptrollers, treasury's no longer control the values of the worlds currency's, the market does, they are no longer big enough to successfully control values. )


Global Research Articles by Lau Nai-keung
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"The thinking now is that, OPEC knows the price is high, but as long as they don't see signs of a global recession, they're going to try to maintain the $90 price. OPEC's going to try to push the envelope.

Russia's oil minister announced that Russia does not expect to repeat double-digit production increases in the decade ahead, The Wall Street Journal reported (subscription required.) That more-modest Russian production estimate added to some analysts' concerns about a dwindling safety margin between global supply and demand, amid rising demand from emerging markets and resilient per capita demand from the developed world.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:-ZVe10WGM0EJ:www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/11/16/crude-awakening-opec-may-defend-90-oil/+%2490+oil,+world+recession&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

http://tinyurl.com/38y63g


The devaluing of the USA dollar is "capitalism's " indirect way of saying the GWOT is getting expensive, but is there any other choice? The system can go on/maintain for years and years re-balancing its self.

Gerald
Broker series 7 & 13


AND:

Morgan Stanley exec: US recession likely

The U.S. will likely slip into a recession in 2008 and such a development may affect Asian economies, Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach said Friday.
"The global economy will be a very challenging one in the next couple of years. The subprime crisis is an early sign of a recession in the U.S. in 2008," Roach said at a function.
"While fundamentally the Asian economies are terrific, Asia remains an export-led region. If the U.S. sneezes, Asia will catch a cold," he said.
A sharp fall in prices of securities backed by housing loans to people with poor credit histories in the U.S. froze capital markets worldwide and triggered rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

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Securties Exchange Commission: afraid of China

OPEC likes Dollar

China blocked another US ship: Pentagon


UPDATE:
China Tells Its Cities to Begin Stockpiling Fuel, Food - Post Media Reply
Updated: 2007-12-12 07:00


The central government Tuesday instructed 36 major cities to each maintain a minimum 10-day reserve of food and cooking oil supplies, as part of its measures to ensure market stability during the current period of rising food prices.

A notice jointly issued by five ministries led by the country's top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said the move was necessary to ensure a "ready" emergency production and distribution system.

The cities include Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Local governments were also asked to designate companies to ensure the sound production and distribution of food and cooking oil.

"Local governments should also inspect those companies regularly to ensure the quantity and quality of their reserves," the notice said.

Warning of major increases in the prices of corn, wheat and cooking oil, yesterday's notice came with an announcement from the National Bureau of Statistics that the country's key inflation indicator, the consumer price index (CPI), surged to an 11-year high of 6.9 percent last month, of which 5.4 percentage points were a result of food price hikes.

Grain prices last month rose 6.6 percent over the same period last year, while cooking oil prices increased 35 percent.

Pork prices, which have been blamed for the recent increase in the CPI, soared by 56 percent.

Nine straight months of consumer price hikes, fueled by the rising cost of food, have taken their toll on the public.

Beijing resident Gao Ning said that since the summer, her family's monthly food bill had risen by 200 yuan ($27).

"With the major festivals drawing near, I hope there will be enough food on the market. Otherwise, the New Year holiday will be the most expensive yet for my family," she said.

In an effort to minimize the impact of rising food prices, the ministries also told local governments to closely monitor the needs of the poor and students.

People in disaster areas and those relocated because of major reservoir projects should also be given special consideration, they said.

In addition to yesterday's notice, the central government earlier launched a crackdown on the possible hoarding of food by suppliers during the current period of soaring prices.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-12/12/content_6314411.htm
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China's Economic problems:


..

Iran cleric warns on country's worsening situation

Iran cleric warns on country's worsening situation

20 hours ago
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's former nuclear negotiator, in remarks published on Thursday, sharply criticised the country's policy over its controversial nuclear programme and said sanctions were hitting the economy.
Hassan Rowhani, who is also a member of two influential bodies, was quoted by Etemad Melli newspaper as saying: "At the moment, we are under threats in the international domain more than ever."
Tehran's opponents were increasing, he said, adding: "The country's diplomacy is successful when it does not let the enemy unite other countries against our national interests."
While Iran is in talks with the UN nuclear watchdog to clear up key issues in its nuclear experiments, major powers engaged in talks on the disputed nuclear programme are to meet next week in Europe to discuss tightening UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Tehran has been slapped by two sets of UN sanctions over its atomic agenda which the West, led by the United States, charges are aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge and says the programme is purely peaceful and aimed at generating electricity.
"Unfortunately our enemies are increasing in number. Until yesterday, it was only the United States and Britain. Today however, France, with even more enthusiasm, has sided with the United States."
He did not mention any name but his comments echoed criticism on the policies of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rowhani, a prominent cleric and member of the Experts Assembly and the Expediency Council, touched upon Iran's worsening economic situation despite the increased oil prices of close to 80 dollars per barrel.
"Unfortunately, there are no signs of a dynamic and healthy economy. If we had a multilateral and precise plan, many of our economic problems would be resolved."
Ahmadinejad came to power on a populist platform that promised to improve the economic situation of ordinary people, based on the country's oil income as the OPEC number-two oil member. He has, however, been criticised by economists for lack of management and not delivering on his promises.
"Our situation is not favourable ... the effects of these pressures is seen in our economic and political relations and our situation worsens day by day," Rowhani said of the UN sanctions which are played down by Ahmadinejad.
"Someone would say it is not important, but it is important for our people, since people pay its price in their economic life," he said.

Hassan Rohani

Source: