Timothy Geithner ,Overseen by a CZAR-Summers. Who would want to work in that type of environment? No wonder they can't get an undersecretary or deputies. Seven years of intense audits and low pay. And the boss has a czar overseeing him.
Rumor has it that Germany tried to get a hold of the Treasury Dept. and no one answered the phone.
Maybe they were in a 'break-out session' and weren't taking calls.
<< <i>MY God, the U.S. Treasury Dept. What a fiasco.
Timothy Geithner ,Overseen by a CZAR-Summers. Who would want to work in that type of environment? No wonder they can't get an undersecretary or deputies. Seven years of intense audits and low pay. And the boss has a czar overseeing him.
Rumor has it that Germany tried to get a hold of the Treasury Dept. and no one answered the phone.
Maybe they were in a 'break-out session' and weren't taking calls.
The 50 day experiment in progress. >>
Yep.... same problem our British cousins were complaining about. Oh wait..... the British were told that they were no more important than any of the other 190 countries out there......
Diplomacy in action. Buy physical gold. (and silver)
Can anyone explain to me why we need "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military?
<< <i>Can anyone explain to me why we need "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military?
The Greenshirts? Perhaps they will have authority to enter homes to ensure compliance with the new environmental regulations. Do not get caught with the old fashioned light bulbs!
Wait til the "credit card burden" is revealed. I don't think that is completely factored in yet.
I just activated my new Visa Card from Bass Pro this morning, in order to get $150 back from my new gun purchases. What's a credit card burden? Do I have to pay it back?
The Greenshirts? Perhaps they will have authority to enter homes to ensure compliance with the new environmental regulations. Do not get caught with the old fashioned light bulbs!
I have a bunch of cheap plastic fixtures that require a round bulb so that the wire loops will allow the fixture to attach directly onto the bulb. I ain't giving them up, nor my religion, nor my guns.
I just burned my field yesterday - am I causing global warming? If so, I guess they can cause me grief for managing my "native grasses".
I think that Ahnold should be allowed to run for President. There is no proof of citizenship requirement.
At EBAY and PayPal, We Are Not Happy Until You Are Not Happy!
Storm, that's a catchy slogan. I like it.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
While I agree with a lot of what Mr. Jim Rogers is saying I have a hard time with him saying how well farmers will be doing.
I am a 51% optimist. I think the US is capable of manufacturing a lot of goods. I think we will continue that.
Yesterday evening I watched "House of Cards" on CNBC about the mortgage problems. What stuck with me was the fact that people were "being creative" to rate collateralized Debt Obligations as AAA. That and to keep everything going well housing prices had to appreciate at 6 to 8% EVERY year!
Greed got us into a lot of trouble.
I'm hoping our new 5% savings rate can get the US going the right direction again.
I worry a lot about bailing out STUPID banks and bankers and mortgage funding companies and mathematicians who use complex math to create things no one understands but doesn't care because it's making them money.
I'm hoping our new 5% savings rate can get the US going the right direction again.
Cheers >>
Savings is where we need to go for many reasons obvious here but now this administration says, wait, wait, spend....please. Where have we heard this before? What ever happened to moderation? Everything has become an -oholic....spendoholic, workoholic, alchoholic, s&xoholic, houseoholic....
One would only to have look back the most recent bull market in gold (and commodities) so see that times were not really prosperous in the 2nd half of the 1970's. Stocks went nowhere from 1966 to 1982. Inflation was high, interest rates were high, etc. But gold and silver did extremely well. Gold also did well during the 1930's as shown by gold mining stocks that increased up to 8x. In fact you really can't find any period in the past 75 years where we really had a "prosperous inflation" where gold did well. I think that says more that gold does not do well at lower rates of "reported" inflation, esp. when the central banks are doing all they can to keep it and interest rates managed.
Sorry, but you'll have to past the link since our fine CU software won't allow a particular series of letters.
Above is a link to Hulbert's Gold timing letter. Gold was at a bullish 60%+ rating just a few short weeks ago. Now at -15% in newsletter bullishness (ie the average newsletter writer he monitors recommends maintaining a 15% short position in gold). Several times in the past some of our fiat-buddies trotted out the Hulbert Index to show an immiment crash in gold following extreme bullish sentiment. Well right now it's about as negative as it can get. Looks bullish to me. The charts actually look to have already bottomed last week imo with a new trend of higher lows proceeding. roadrunner
<< <i>Above is a link to Hulbert's Gold timing letter. Gold was at a bullish 60%+ rating just a few short weeks ago. Now at -15% in newsletter bullishness (ie the average newsletter writer he monitors recommends maintaining a 15% short position in gold). Several times in the past some of our fiat-buddies trotted out the Hulbert Index to show an immiment crash in gold following extreme bullish sentiment. Well right now it's about as negative as it can get. Looks bullish to me. The charts actually look to have already bottomed last week imo with a new trend of higher lows proceeding. roadrunner . >>
I've been glad to see some bearish gold sentiment. When everyone is calling for a rise that means there is no one left to buy. Newsletters can say what they want but the mints of the world can't make coins fast enough. Thats as bullish as it can get
A nice explanation of how FED/Treasury/JPM (and others) helped to manipulate interest rates (and gold) down over the past 10-13 years with a massive increase in interest rate swaps/derivatives. Rob begs for a reason as to why these 3 "dealer" banks need $100+ TRILLION in IR swaps when there is no end market end-user demand. In fact end-user demand has been stagnant since 1990 while dealer notional amounts have risen from around $10 TRILLION to over $100 TRILLION. It's sort of like selling the same house over and over again between dealers when there is no retail buyer for it (hey, that sounds like the coin market!). The plan was simple and well executed and makes perfect sense as to why it was done.
I was doing some work in my house...cleaning up after some remodeling. I had on CNBC because it was such a crazy day in the "market". Mad Money came on....wasn't really listening until Cramer said he had to give BHO credit. My ears perked up. He gave credit to Geithner and Bernake. He gave them credit for the change in policy i.e. talking up the market (BHO) and Bernake by dropping a trillion time bomb on the market. Cramer went on to say that because of the infusion mortgage rates should go to the low 4%. And he kept is bottom target on housing in 105 days (a day he picked a while back and I remember putting it in my iphone). After the 105 days he says we will be chasing RE. This is a big reversal for him. He sounded absolutely bullish and giddy. I was genuinely surprised. Didn't he say just last year to get your money out of the market if you need it within 5 years? He sounded like the bull will be back.
I'm not buying it. We've just added another trillion dollars to our debt. We still have the same cast of losers running the circus, a $3.5 trillion budget, an anti-stimulus package..... The market would do better if left alone.
What the hell do I do now? Throw my crew meals at the terrorist. Do I put the crash axe next to me while I'm flying. I'm not speaking in code here. This policy and administration is a danger to our industry and country.
We are going back to pre-9/11 mentality. They give Hamas, I mean Gaza $900 million. They free Gitmo club members who were in on planning 9/11. Can't profile because it might hurt someones feelings. I have to "disrobe" nearly every time I go to work....... The terrorists have already won a big battle and now they a salivating at this new move. They know the c@ckpits will soon be unarmed. Not all airplanes have the new secure door. I would be very concerned flying in the near future.
Economic Predictions: We have "leaders" who have forgot or buried history. The next attack will be a big blow to our already weak economy.
If I'm on an airplane and someone gets up, I expect everyone to get up with me and smother this hijacking-terrorist to death. The life you save might be yours.
Every day I'm amazed what new KAOS emerges. This one hits home way to hard.
The short term effects on the monetary easing today was like giving free candy and credit cards to store shoppers. But the longer term effects on the economy will be more disastrous and certainly more bullish on commodities in general. Copper lead the way in this current move starting about a week ago....and it's not even a precious metal.
Here's a snippet from William Engdahl's financialsense article today. The foxes are in the hen house. Full article has a nice explanation of AIG's mess and how they got there. His solution, which is starting to make more sense as the only way out of the problem, is to outlaw all OTC derivatives, take over the last 20% of AIG and let the big banks sue the USA for their spoils. This will kill the shadow banking system and allow for a fresher start.
Larry Summers is the man directly responsible for the mess. As Clinton Treasury Secretary from 1999-January 2001 he shaped and pushed the financial deregulation that unleashed the present crisis. He was Treasury Secretary after July 1999 when his boss, Robert Rubin left to become Vice Chairman of Citigroup, where Rubin went on to advance the colossal agenda of deregulated finance directly.
As Treasury Secretary in 1999 Summers played a decisive role in pushing through the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 that was instituted to guard against just the kind of banking abuses taxpayers now are having to bail out. Not only Glass-Steagall repeal. In 2000 Summers backed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that incredibly mandated that financial derivatives, including in energy, could be traded between financial institutions completely without government oversight, ‘Over-the-Counter’ as in where the taxpayer is now being dragged. Credit default Swaps, at the center of the current storm, would not have been possible without Larry Summers and the Commodity Modernization Act of 2000. He is now the White House Economic Council chairman, mandated to find a solution to the crisis he helped make along with Tim Geithner, his friend who is Treasury chief. Foxes should never be asked to guard the henhouse.
Yes rq, looks like it will certainly be discussed. Methinks the world is weary of the vulnerability of the dollar in light of the strength and stability of the yuan and yen. The world might also be tired of the scamming of everything that is associated with the US financial system from the congress and the fed down to the little private fund companies, insurers and the banks. If you're not part of the scam, you're one of the victims and being a victim gets tiresome after a while. Better to invest what little cash you can gleen from the system into something you can believe in. I like the basket of currencies with a little metal in them idea, as the article discusses. Let's see what they come up with, it's at least worth a look because what we have now isn't working.
Yesterday the FED announced that was willing to sacrifice the dollar. This along with similiar announcements from the British, Swiss, Canadians and Japanese now leave the door open for a sort of worldwide currency devaluation. The only holdout is the ECB and they are the reason for my deflationary view. If they cave I will be forced to completely abandon my stance. Unfortunately the "unitended consequences" of such action will, IMHO, create even larger dislocation in the world economy.
The world needs lower prices now, not higher. The socio-economic gap that Obama intends to narrow, may actually explode wider. Consqeuences, consequences.
Some additional thoughts that came to mind as I was thinking about what I just wrote.
Is it possible to have inflation without demand? Probably not, no matter how much currency is floating around. I think many think we could enter a period like the 70s when we had stagflation. I am not so sure that is possible now. I think the 70's stagflation was caused by high demand as a result of 10s of millions of baby boomers coming to age. They would have been 25-35 years old and in the midst of family creation. This had a tremendous effect on consumer products such as oil, homes, durable goods. This time, the bulk of our population are net savers and the rest are in debt. I just dont see where the demand will come from to boost prices. Our major trading partners, namely Japan and Europe are int he same situation. China, India, Brazil and Eastern Europe are just too poor.
Interesting that there is really only one commodity that has no real economic purpose. We, consumers, use oil, corn, wheat, copper, aluminum in our everyday lives. These commodities may not do anything at all in an inflationary environment. But, gold, aside from some small component in electronics manufacturing, really has no economic purpose. And interesting that it is the one commodity that could benefit from the above scenerio.
If yesterday's gold stock reversal wasn't enough, the barbarous relics took off again this morning compounding yesterday's gains. Sinclair's own Tan Range Exploration (TRE) busted out from 3.80 yesterday morning to about 4.9 today, a nearly 30% 2 day gain. You would think it was a broken bank stock based on the volatility. Volatility is obviously here to stay.
Here's a pro-gold stance for the die hard fiat bugs. Newsletter writer Doug Gnazzo is offering his clients a full refund of their subscription price if gold does not break $1100 this year. Not a bad offer. I've read all of Doug's public (ie free) articles the past few years and he dutifully considers both bull and bear sides.
Fwiw it certainly seems like we have now entered the 5th and final wave up from the November move. A high of $1067 is one of the lower estimates I come up with using some EW ratio's. The first 2 legs up added $180 and $200 respectively. In any case the 2008 all time high looks to be squarely in the cross-hairs. It's going to take some fancy footwork by TPTB to propel gold back a 3rd time at $1000.
Irony of the day:
Why are our lawmakers wasting valuable time and resources arguing over the $165 MILL in bonuses that were paid out to AIG employees? While I understand the ethical significance of it isn't the REAL issue the $2 to $3 TRILLION in derivative losses that AIG carries? Using the larger number, that's an 18,000 to 1 ratio. This would be a new homeowner arguing with the builder over the quality of the work and spending days or weeks demanding to get $20 back on a piece of substandard door trim. Meanwhile, the homeowner is not addressing the cardboard beams that the builder used to construct the house. Address the real problem as the longer it lingers, the more it will cost, esp at a leverage of 18,000-1. And then people wonder why PM's are moving up.
I see a huge over-reaction to the Fed move. The strategy is targeting the long bond in order to push down long term mortgage rates and allow the Fed in effect to be the country’s prime mortgage lender in order to ease the mortgage crunch. The Treasury can borrow in the neighborhood of 3.5% and lend at 4% to 4.5%. Banks and Freddie and Fannie can also borrow at next to nothing but have tightened underwriting, discounted property valuations, and widened spreads which is not helping mortgagors with less than stellar credit ratings or whose property value cannot support a refi. From what I am seeing, any talk about easing credit is just talk so far as commercial and consumer lending is concerned.
If in the short-term the dollar weakens, it only helps what is left of our export industry. The dollar has given back some of its recent gains against foreign currencies but is still significantly above recent historical rates.
As far as commodity prices are concerned, in the end its all about demand. Except perhaps precious metals which have only a marginal productive use, currency rates do not generate demand.
Interesting that there is really only one commodity that has no real economic purpose. We, consumers, use oil, corn, wheat, copper, aluminum in our everyday lives. These commodities may not do anything at all in an inflationary environment. But, gold, aside from some small component in electronics manufacturing, really has no economic purpose. And interesting that it is the one commodity that could benefit from the above scenerio.
It's a barbarous relic that still serves one major purpose, that is to keep paper currencies honest. When the central banks dishoard all their remaining gain and open their books for auditing, then I too will believe that gold serves no purpose. It will then be time to close the book on gold......well, unless Brian Bloom's theories of gold playing a major role in DNA research/medicine comes to fruition.
PM's have the same basic marginal production use today as they did in the 1970's. But you are completely ruling out their monetary use which seems to be considerable. The net effect on metal prices going forward several years will be almost entirely on the monetary/money substitute side.....just like in the 1970's. The inflation effects of monetary printing over the past 20 years tended to go to assets that formed bubbles (real estate, stocks, collectibles, commodities, etc.). A few exceptions might be health care, education, legal costs, taxes, etc. Those latter bubbles may never burst. It's very possible that consumer prices can stay stagnant while excess money is sopped up by commodities or the next bubble. That's exactly how we had a "no consumer inflation" environment in the 1980's and 1990's with massive asset inflation.
When I posted part 1 of Amerman's article a month or two ago it ruffled some feathers (ie there are no examples in modern economic history where a country with a symbolic fiat currency experienced on-going price deflation and the govt was powerless to stop it). This time Amerman points out why "asset" deflation is not "price" deflation using post-1989 Japan and the US as examples. Amerman's bottom line is that we will continue to suffer asset deflation (stocks, real estate, etc) while the symbolic currency is experiencing inflation (ie your dollar buys less).
Yepper, RR. It's hard to paint a smiley on our economic situation but they are trying hard at the highest levels. If you hold up this outrage over these few pennies in retention bonuses and make it the main topic then maybe no one will look behind the curtain at the real problems. So with a few scallywags making off with a little cash, you get a good headline and a lot of camera time with appropriate public officials in righteous indignation over the brazen injustice and then you fix it and life is good and we've been saved again by our leaders. This is all just such BS for example, the volume of AIG at $.60 was less than 50M for weeks and weeks; yesterday the volume was almost 600M so the scandal is really just a buying opportunity (it's $1.58 right now)...scandal indeed, wait till they see the real picture!
I guess there is an audience for this foolishness so it stays in the headlines...meanwhile folks are stashing cash, buying PM, paying off debt. There are actually a lot of people that see through the smoke screen of BS that is being pandered to the gullible; a lot of people actually seem to have their head in the game and they aren't looking at the smiley face, they are keeping their eyes on the object ball because they ain't smilin'. Meanwhile, a local consortium has launched a big public media effort to try and get people to put their money back into the banks and to spend money at the stores...and yeah, people are standing in line to put their money into the banks but they are putting it in the SDB!
O.K. who do you think in the World is not buying their share of our debt if the Fed has to????
New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve sharply stepped up its efforts to bolster the economy on Wednesday, announcing that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities.
Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air.
...and yeah, people are standing in line to put their money into the banks but they are putting it in the SDB!
I'm beginning to agree with some people that the safety of SDB's is not what they used to be. In the event of an unscheduled bank holiday down the road (not at all unlikely), SDB's are not where you'll want your cash, your coins, or anything of real value. The potential for sealing SDB's in search of "hidden tax revenues" is a possibility as well. There is a time coming when your SDB's should only contain documents, if even that.
This Elliot Spitzer quote taken from the JS site:
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.....
<< <i>...and yeah, people are standing in line to put their money into the banks but they are putting it in the SDB!
I'm beginning to agree with some people that the safety of SDB's is not what they used to be. In the event of an unscheduled bank holiday down the road (not at all unlikely), SDB's are not where you'll want your cash, your coins, or anything of real value. The potential for sealing SDB's in search of "hidden tax revenues" is a possibility as well. There is a time coming when your SDB's should only contain documents, if even that.
This Elliot Spitzer quote taken from the JS site:
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.....
roadrunner >>
What would really be interesting, would be tracking this money to its ending point. Someone is still banking big bucks - there is no "black hole". While the media is focusing on a small fraction with the AIG bonus's, where is the real money going?
I am not saying gold has no "monetary purpose", but it does have relatively little economic (consumption) purpose.
I find it interesting that the value of gold is really based on psychology. It has been this way since the Ancient Egyptians. It is only valuable because we say it is. We cant eat it, we cant drink it, we can burn it, it just is. It may be the only commodity, that isnt a commodity.
So when does this tax apply to everyone and anyone making over 250K? I can hear it now, "Mr Baseball Player, you make too much money. Because of your high salary, ticket prices to see a game are too expensive and little Jimmy's parents cant afford to take him to a game. So we are going to take 90% of your salary and subsidize baseball tickets. Thank you very much. Jimmy will be happy."
And "Mr Gates, your company makes 90c on every dollar of sales. This is excessive. We require you to lower your prices by 75% so that everyone can afford a new computer. Thank you very much. Little Jimmy will be happy."
<< <i> So when does this tax apply to everyone and anyone making over 250K? >>
When the government owns 80% of a firm and does so because they had to bail it out after the bonus guys ran it into the ground, and then after the government bought in the bonus guys took the new big shareholder’s money and stuck in their pockets, why should we be surprised when the big shareholder says, “Not so fast buster—I’ll be taking that money back thank you since the company obviously had no real need for it.”
<< <i> I find it interesting that the value of gold is really based on psychology >>
If I showed you my wife's jewelry stash you would realize that to some people gold is an absolute necessity.
“I find it interesting that the value of gold is really based on psychology. It has been this way since the Ancient Egyptians. It is only valuable because we say it is. We cant eat it, we cant drink it, we can burn it, it just is. It may be the only commodity, that isn’t a commodity.”
Dave old Friend the entire point to Gold has always been that that crooks in politics, the banking system, or on Wall street could not just print all the , “psychological currency” they can sell us.
We can’t eat , we can’t drink , we can’t burn, our electronic money markets, stocks, C.D.’s etc. either. In the case of cash yes you can burn that and perhaps might need to in order to keep warm in the end.
All of these paper assets are all based on the psychology of value. In reality none of this has any value.
Think of Gold and Silver as a matter of faith in God. God made a limited amount of Gold and Silver and made it hard to get at. Man banned Gold and Sliver as currency, and replaced it with paper which can we printed in an unlimited amount. When that became too much trouble Man made currency electronic.
Now thousands of folks all over the world can just make up all the “Money” they want.
I wish the mainstream print media would commit a few pages with circles and arrows with little pictures and things to clarify just what all happened to every dollar that has gone to AIG. They could call the piece..."Anatomy of a Deal". Name the players from the congressmen all the way down to those that were gifted by the deal such as the retention bonus guys, how they sent US tax payer money to a German bank, all the gamesmanship that went into the great fleecing...maybe we could even find out just what percent of the companies and people involved in the deal actually don't owe taxes to the Ir s. I'm sure it is a very artful deal, kind of like Donald Trumps adventures but on megasteroids. They could even have a winners and a losers column but I guess the losers column would only have one entry on it. It would be very educational for us mullets to see how the big dogs work their magic. Man, that might even warrant a whole book...look for it at your local news stand.
So when does this tax apply to everyone and anyone making over 250K? I can hear it now, "Mr Baseball Player, you make too much money. Because of your high salary, ticket prices to see a game are too expensive and little Jimmy's parents cant afford to take him to a game. So we are going to take 90% of your salary and subsidize baseball tickets. Thank you very much. Jimmy will be happy."
And "Mr Gates, your company makes 90c on every dollar of sales. This is excessive. We require you to lower your prices by 75% so that everyone can afford a new computer. Thank you very much. Little Jimmy will be happy."
This can of worms is very large and putrid. >>
To say nothing of the Congress crapping all over the Constitution.
<< <i>Article 1 sec. 9: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. >>
mhammer - you should have been watching glenn beck on fox news -- He drew a picture of where it all went .... political money laundering - I think if I remember $62 Billion went overseas, and $55K went to other organizations.
I find it interesting that the value of gold is really based on psychology. It has been this way since the Ancient Egyptians. It is only valuable because we say it is. We cant eat it, we cant drink it, we can burn it, it just is. It may be the only commodity, that isnt a commodity.
I was going to point out that paper money is more psychological than pms, but GS's post says everything.
I wish the mainstream print media would commit a few pages with circles and arrows with little pictures and things to clarify just what all happened to every dollar that has gone to AIG. They could call the piece..."Anatomy of a Deal". Name the players from the congressmen all the way down to those that were gifted by the deal such as the retention bonus guys, how they sent US tax payer money to a German bank, all the gamesmanship that went into the great fleecing...maybe we could even find out just what percent of the companies and people involved in the deal actually don't owe taxes to the Ir s. I'm sure it is a very artful deal, kind of like Donald Trumps adventures but on megasteroids. They could even have a winners and a losers column but I guess the losers column would only have one entry on it. It would be very educational for us mullets to see how the big dogs work their magic. Man, that might even warrant a whole book...look for it at your local news stand.
mh's post needed repeating.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
GS, I just find it interesting that humankind made gold a defacto currency over history. Why didnt they pick something else? I think it all comes down to be being malleable and shiny. Its color is warm like the sun. The entire basis for its having any value at all is based in perception both physically and mentally. Makes you think about whats important to mankind and how time has not altered human perception.
I am not bashing gold, just understanding its value in terms other than dollars.
Maybe I just have too much free time waiting for the Syracuse game to start.
We haven't seen the end result of all the govt and corporate machinations of the past 10 years. Right now it is still ok....at least on paper. Being up to debt to our eyeballs was workable. We're many times that level now and it is basically unfathomable how deep the kimshee is. Revisit this day 3 years from now and let's see if everything is fine for J6P. By assuming F&F we just took our effective national debt from $9 TRILL to around $14 TRILLION.
roadrunner >>
I've been reading some "fateful" days of a time not so long ago. This excerpt by rr was on 9-8-08. It's just one of many with intelligent foresight expressed here on this monster thread.
"Events" have been many and have occurred so fast that it's difficult to stand back and let history put them in perspective.
We are living in a "Financial Blitzkrieg 2008-2009."
<< <i>I wish the mainstream print media would commit a few pages with circles and arrows with little pictures and things to clarify just what all happened to every dollar that has gone to AIG. They could call the piece..."Anatomy of a Deal". Name the players from the congressmen all the way down to those that were gifted by the deal such as the retention bonus guys, how they sent US tax payer money to a German bank, all the gamesmanship that went into the great fleecing...maybe we could even find out just what percent of the companies and people involved in the deal actually don't owe taxes to the Ir s. I'm sure it is a very artful deal, kind of like Donald Trumps adventures but on megasteroids. They could even have a winners and a losers column but I guess the losers column would only have one entry on it. It would be very educational for us mullets to see how the big dogs work their magic. Man, that might even warrant a whole book...look for it at your local news stand. >>
The Foundation for Economic Education , the oldest libertarian think-tank in the country founded more than 50 years ago and the grandaddy to most others such as cato, heritage etc, the philosophy was to "educate" and presumably the masses would realize how interwined economics and freedom is. That while being educated the masses would then reject socialism as an immoral and unworkable economic theory . They were wrong. The state has won out on the "educational" front and the masses are more ignorant than ever and have actually rejected the very foundational economic theories that made this place great to begin with.
No amount of baby talk to the contrary to these morons is going to work. The best thing to do is to learn how to make as much as you can and arm yourself with a good CPA.
Live well and avoid the lowlifes as much as you can.
Comments
Timothy Geithner ,Overseen by a CZAR-Summers. Who would want to work in that type of environment? No wonder they can't get an undersecretary or deputies. Seven years of intense audits and low pay. And the boss has a czar overseeing him.
Rumor has it that Germany tried to get a hold of the Treasury Dept. and no one answered the phone.
Maybe they were in a 'break-out session' and weren't taking calls.
The 50 day experiment in progress.
<< <i>MY God, the U.S. Treasury Dept. What a fiasco.
Timothy Geithner ,Overseen by a CZAR-Summers. Who would want to work in that type of environment? No wonder they can't get an undersecretary or deputies. Seven years of intense audits and low pay. And the boss has a czar overseeing him.
Rumor has it that Germany tried to get a hold of the Treasury Dept. and no one answered the phone.
Maybe they were in a 'break-out session' and weren't taking calls.
The 50 day experiment in progress. >>
Yep.... same problem our British cousins were complaining about. Oh wait..... the British were told that they were no more important than any of the other 190 countries out there......
Diplomacy in action. Buy physical gold. (and silver)
funding?
<< <i>Can anyone explain to me why we need "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military?
funding? >>
The Greenshirts? Perhaps they will have authority to enter homes to ensure compliance with the new environmental regulations. Do not get caught with the old fashioned light bulbs!
Carry on comrade.
Buy physical gold (and silver)
I just activated my new Visa Card from Bass Pro this morning, in order to get $150 back from my new gun purchases. What's a credit card burden? Do I have to pay it back?
The Greenshirts? Perhaps they will have authority to enter homes to ensure compliance with the new environmental regulations. Do not get caught with the old fashioned light bulbs!
I have a bunch of cheap plastic fixtures that require a round bulb so that the wire loops will allow the fixture to attach directly onto the bulb. I ain't giving them up, nor my religion, nor my guns.
I just burned my field yesterday - am I causing global warming? If so, I guess they can cause me grief for managing my "native grasses".
I think that Ahnold should be allowed to run for President. There is no proof of citizenship requirement.
At EBAY and PayPal, We Are Not Happy Until You Are Not Happy!
Storm, that's a catchy slogan. I like it.
I knew it would happen.
I am a 51% optimist. I think the US is capable of manufacturing a lot of goods. I think we will continue that.
Yesterday evening I watched "House of Cards" on CNBC about the mortgage problems. What stuck with me was the fact that people were "being creative" to rate collateralized Debt Obligations as AAA. That and to keep everything going well housing prices had to appreciate at 6 to 8% EVERY year!
Greed got us into a lot of trouble.
I'm hoping our new 5% savings rate can get the US going the right direction again.
I worry a lot about bailing out STUPID banks and bankers and mortgage funding companies and mathematicians who use complex math to create things no one understands but doesn't care because it's making them money.
Cheers
Greed got us into a lot of trouble.
I'm hoping our new 5% savings rate can get the US going the right direction again.
Cheers >>
Savings is where we need to go for many reasons obvious here but now this administration says, wait, wait, spend....please. Where have we heard this before? What ever happened to moderation? Everything has become an -oholic....spendoholic, workoholic, alchoholic, s&xoholic, houseoholic....
MYTH 5
Truth: Gold tends to rally in prosperous times, when you have inflation, easy credit and flush buyers (kind of reminds you of real estate. . . )
edit to fix link
I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it - Clint Eastwood
http://www.marke....t....watch.com/news/story/Gold-timers-running-exits-a/story.aspx?guid={3E2F89BA-904A-4E93-A518-93C9CFC0D8C1}
Sorry, but you'll have to past the link since our fine CU software won't allow a particular series of letters.
Above is a link to Hulbert's Gold timing letter. Gold was at a bullish 60%+ rating just a few short weeks ago. Now at -15% in newsletter bullishness (ie the average newsletter writer he monitors recommends maintaining a 15% short position in gold). Several times in the past some of our fiat-buddies trotted out the Hulbert Index to show an immiment crash in gold following extreme bullish sentiment. Well right now it's about as negative as it can get. Looks bullish to me. The charts actually look to have already bottomed last week imo with a new trend of higher lows proceeding. roadrunner
roadrunner
RR's above link- linkified
<< <i>Above is a link to Hulbert's Gold timing letter. Gold was at a bullish 60%+ rating just a few short weeks ago. Now at -15% in newsletter bullishness (ie the average newsletter writer he monitors recommends maintaining a 15% short position in gold). Several times in the past some of our fiat-buddies trotted out the Hulbert Index to show an immiment crash in gold following extreme bullish sentiment. Well right now it's about as negative as it can get. Looks bullish to me. The charts actually look to have already bottomed last week imo with a new trend of higher lows proceeding. roadrunner . >>
I've been glad to see some bearish gold sentiment. When everyone is calling for a rise that means there is no one left to buy.
Newsletters can say what they want but the mints of the world can't make coins fast enough. Thats as bullish as it can get
<< <i>Not sure I agree....
MYTH 5
That article has as many holes as Swiss cheese. We need the Mythbusters.
Comrade Renski
Rob Kirby with more dirt on JPM/Citi/BoA interest rate swaps
A nice explanation of how FED/Treasury/JPM (and others) helped to manipulate interest rates (and gold) down over the past 10-13 years with a massive increase in interest rate swaps/derivatives. Rob begs for a reason as to why these 3 "dealer" banks need $100+ TRILLION in IR swaps when there is no end market end-user demand. In fact end-user demand has been stagnant since 1990 while dealer notional amounts have risen from around $10 TRILLION to over $100 TRILLION. It's sort of like selling the same house over and over again between dealers when there is no retail buyer for it (hey, that sounds like the coin market!). The plan was simple and well executed and makes perfect sense as to why it was done.
roadrunner
We're not dealing with a conventional recession, are we? This wasn't caused by a normal downturn in the business cycle.
The economy, the job market, the real estate market, and the credit markets are ALL in uncharted territory, which to me - means that so is gold.
I knew it would happen.
Why the Meltdown Should Have Surprised No One
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
a) Read my lips, no new taxes.
b) The buck stops here.
c) I did not have s&xual relations with that woman...
I'm not buying it. We've just added another trillion dollars to our debt. We still have the same cast of losers running the circus, a $3.5 trillion budget, an anti-stimulus package..... The market would do better if left alone.
Comrade Renski
BHO secretly disarms pilots from carrying guns
What the hell do I do now? Throw my crew meals at the terrorist. Do I put the crash axe next to me while I'm flying. I'm not speaking in code here. This policy and administration is a danger to our industry and country.
We are going back to pre-9/11 mentality. They give Hamas, I mean Gaza $900 million. They free Gitmo club members who were in on planning 9/11. Can't profile because it might hurt someones feelings.
I have to "disrobe" nearly every time I go to work....... The terrorists have already won a big battle and now they a salivating at this new move. They know the c@ckpits will soon be unarmed. Not all airplanes have the new secure door. I would be very concerned flying in the near future.
Economic Predictions: We have "leaders" who have forgot or buried history. The next attack will be a big blow to our already weak economy.
If I'm on an airplane and someone gets up, I expect everyone to get up with me and smother this hijacking-terrorist to death. The life you save might be yours.
Every day I'm amazed what new KAOS emerges. This one hits home way to hard.
Ren
I knew it would happen.
Here's a snippet from William Engdahl's financialsense article today. The foxes are in the hen house. Full article has a nice explanation of AIG's mess and how they got there. His solution, which is starting to make more sense as the only way out of the problem, is to outlaw all OTC derivatives, take over the last 20% of AIG and let the big banks sue the USA for their spoils. This will kill the shadow banking system and allow for a fresher start.
Larry Summers is the man directly responsible for the mess. As Clinton Treasury Secretary from 1999-January 2001 he shaped and pushed the financial deregulation that unleashed the present crisis. He was Treasury Secretary after July 1999 when his boss, Robert Rubin left to become Vice Chairman of Citigroup, where Rubin went on to advance the colossal agenda of deregulated finance directly.
As Treasury Secretary in 1999 Summers played a decisive role in pushing through the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 that was instituted to guard against just the kind of banking abuses taxpayers now are having to bail out. Not only Glass-Steagall repeal. In 2000 Summers backed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that incredibly mandated that financial derivatives, including in energy, could be traded between financial institutions completely without government oversight, ‘Over-the-Counter’ as in where the taxpayer is now being dragged. Credit default Swaps, at the center of the current storm, would not have been possible without Larry Summers and the Commodity Modernization Act of 2000. He is now the White House Economic Council chairman, mandated to find a solution to the crisis he helped make along with Tim Geithner, his friend who is Treasury chief. Foxes should never be asked to guard the henhouse.
Full article on AIG
roadrunner
And I hate to hear that Renman.
The world needs lower prices now, not higher. The socio-economic gap that Obama intends to narrow, may actually explode wider. Consqeuences, consequences.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Is it possible to have inflation without demand? Probably not, no matter how much currency is floating around. I think many think we could enter a period like the 70s when we had stagflation. I am not so sure that is possible now. I think the 70's stagflation was caused by high demand as a result of 10s of millions of baby boomers coming to age. They would have been 25-35 years old and in the midst of family creation. This had a tremendous effect on consumer products such as oil, homes, durable goods. This time, the bulk of our population are net savers and the rest are in debt. I just dont see where the demand will come from to boost prices. Our major trading partners, namely Japan and Europe are int he same situation. China, India, Brazil and Eastern Europe are just too poor.
Interesting that there is really only one commodity that has no real economic purpose. We, consumers, use oil, corn, wheat, copper, aluminum in our everyday lives. These commodities may not do anything at all in an inflationary environment. But, gold, aside from some small component in electronics manufacturing, really has no economic purpose. And interesting that it is the one commodity that could benefit from the above scenerio.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Here's a pro-gold stance for the die hard fiat bugs. Newsletter writer Doug Gnazzo is offering his clients a full refund of their subscription price if gold does not break $1100 this year. Not a bad offer. I've read all of Doug's public (ie free) articles the past few years and he dutifully considers both bull and bear sides.
Fwiw it certainly seems like we have now entered the 5th and final wave up from the November move. A high of $1067 is one of the lower estimates I come up with using some EW ratio's. The first 2 legs up added $180 and $200 respectively. In any case the 2008 all time high looks to be squarely in the cross-hairs. It's going to take some fancy footwork by TPTB to propel gold back a 3rd time at $1000.
Irony of the day:
Why are our lawmakers wasting valuable time and resources arguing over the $165 MILL in bonuses that were paid out to AIG employees? While I understand the ethical significance of it isn't the REAL issue the $2 to $3 TRILLION in derivative losses that AIG carries? Using the larger number, that's an 18,000 to 1 ratio. This would be a new homeowner arguing with the builder over the quality of the work and spending days or weeks demanding to get $20 back on a piece of substandard door trim. Meanwhile, the homeowner is not addressing the cardboard beams that the builder used to construct the house. Address the real problem as the longer it lingers, the more it will cost, esp at a leverage of 18,000-1.
And then people wonder why PM's are moving up.
roadrunner
If in the short-term the dollar weakens, it only helps what is left of our export industry. The dollar has given back some of its recent gains against foreign currencies but is still significantly above recent historical rates.
As far as commodity prices are concerned, in the end its all about demand. Except perhaps precious metals which have only a marginal productive use, currency rates do not generate demand.
CG
It's a barbarous relic that still serves one major purpose, that is to keep paper currencies honest. When the central banks dishoard all their remaining gain and open their books for auditing, then I too will believe that gold serves no purpose. It will then be time to close the book on gold......well, unless Brian Bloom's theories of gold playing a major role in DNA research/medicine comes to fruition.
PM's have the same basic marginal production use today as they did in the 1970's. But you are completely ruling out their monetary use which seems to be considerable. The net effect on metal prices going forward several years will be almost entirely on the monetary/money substitute side.....just like in the 1970's. The inflation effects of monetary printing over the past 20 years tended to go to assets that formed bubbles (real estate, stocks, collectibles, commodities, etc.). A few exceptions might be health care, education, legal costs, taxes, etc. Those latter bubbles may never burst. It's very possible that consumer prices can stay stagnant while excess money is sopped up by commodities or the next bubble. That's exactly how we had a "no consumer inflation" environment in the 1980's and 1990's with massive asset inflation.
Dan Amerman - deflation vs. inflation debate part 2
When I posted part 1 of Amerman's article a month or two ago it ruffled some feathers (ie there are no examples in modern economic history where a country with a symbolic fiat currency experienced on-going price deflation and the govt was powerless to stop it). This time Amerman points out why "asset" deflation is not "price" deflation using post-1989 Japan and the US as examples. Amerman's bottom line is that we will continue to suffer asset deflation (stocks, real estate, etc) while the symbolic currency is experiencing inflation (ie your dollar buys less).
roadrunner
I guess there is an audience for this foolishness so it stays in the headlines...meanwhile folks are stashing cash, buying PM, paying off debt. There are actually a lot of people that see through the smoke screen of BS that is being pandered to the gullible; a lot of people actually seem to have their head in the game and they aren't looking at the smiley face, they are keeping their eyes on the object ball because they ain't smilin'. Meanwhile, a local consortium has launched a big public media effort to try and get people to put their money back into the banks and to spend money at the stores...and yeah, people are standing in line to put their money into the banks but they are putting it in the SDB!
O.K. who do you think in the World is not buying their share of our debt if the Fed has to????
New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve sharply stepped up its efforts to bolster the economy on Wednesday, announcing that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities.
Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air.
password is
pm me
http://www.europac.net/videoblog.asp
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
Peter Schiff Responds to Obama Speech to Congress
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
I'm beginning to agree with some people that the safety of SDB's is not what they used to be. In the event of an unscheduled bank holiday down the road (not at all unlikely), SDB's are not where you'll want your cash, your coins, or anything of real value. The potential for sealing SDB's in search of "hidden tax revenues" is a possibility as well. There is a time coming when your SDB's should only contain documents, if even that.
This Elliot Spitzer quote taken from the JS site:
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.....
roadrunner
<< <i>...and yeah, people are standing in line to put their money into the banks but they are putting it in the SDB!
I'm beginning to agree with some people that the safety of SDB's is not what they used to be. In the event of an unscheduled bank holiday down the road (not at all unlikely), SDB's are not where you'll want your cash, your coins, or anything of real value. The potential for sealing SDB's in search of "hidden tax revenues" is a possibility as well. There is a time coming when your SDB's should only contain documents, if even that.
This Elliot Spitzer quote taken from the JS site:
Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG’s bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG’s counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?
For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.....
roadrunner >>
What would really be interesting, would be tracking this money to its ending point. Someone is still banking big bucks - there is no "black hole". While the media is focusing on a small fraction with the AIG bonus's, where is the real money going?
I am not saying gold has no "monetary purpose", but it does have relatively little economic (consumption) purpose.
I find it interesting that the value of gold is really based on psychology. It has been this way since the Ancient Egyptians. It is only valuable because we say it is. We cant eat it, we cant drink it, we can burn it, it just is. It may be the only commodity, that isnt a commodity.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
So when does this tax apply to everyone and anyone making over 250K? I can hear it now, "Mr Baseball Player, you make too much money. Because of your high salary, ticket prices to see a game are too expensive and little Jimmy's parents cant afford to take him to a game. So we are going to take 90% of your salary and subsidize baseball tickets. Thank you very much. Jimmy will be happy."
And "Mr Gates, your company makes 90c on every dollar of sales. This is excessive. We require you to lower your prices by 75% so that everyone can afford a new computer. Thank you very much. Little Jimmy will be happy."
This can of worms is very large and putrid.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
<< <i> So when does this tax apply to everyone and anyone making over 250K? >>
When the government owns 80% of a firm and does so because they had to bail it out after the bonus guys ran it into the ground, and then after the government bought in the bonus guys took the new big shareholder’s money and stuck in their pockets, why should we be surprised when the big shareholder says, “Not so fast buster—I’ll be taking that money back thank you since the company obviously had no real need for it.”
<< <i> I find it interesting that the value of gold is really based on psychology >>
If I showed you my wife's jewelry stash you would realize that to some people gold is an absolute necessity.
CG
Dave old Friend the entire point to Gold has always been that that crooks in politics, the banking system, or on Wall street could not just print all the , “psychological currency” they can sell us.
We can’t eat , we can’t drink , we can’t burn, our electronic money markets, stocks, C.D.’s etc. either. In the case of cash yes you can burn that and perhaps might need to in order to keep warm in the end.
All of these paper assets are all based on the psychology of value. In reality none of this has any value.
Think of Gold and Silver as a matter of faith in God. God made a limited amount of Gold and Silver and made it hard to get at. Man banned Gold and Sliver as currency, and replaced it with paper which can we printed in an unlimited amount. When that became too much trouble Man made currency electronic.
Now thousands of folks all over the world can just make up all the “Money” they want.
<< <i>House Passes Bill Taxing Wall Street Bonuses
So when does this tax apply to everyone and anyone making over 250K? I can hear it now, "Mr Baseball Player, you make too much money. Because of your high salary, ticket prices to see a game are too expensive and little Jimmy's parents cant afford to take him to a game. So we are going to take 90% of your salary and subsidize baseball tickets. Thank you very much. Jimmy will be happy."
And "Mr Gates, your company makes 90c on every dollar of sales. This is excessive. We require you to lower your prices by 75% so that everyone can afford a new computer. Thank you very much. Little Jimmy will be happy."
This can of worms is very large and putrid. >>
To say nothing of the Congress crapping all over the Constitution.
<< <i>Article 1 sec. 9:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. >>
I was going to point out that paper money is more psychological than pms, but GS's post says everything.
I wish the mainstream print media would commit a few pages with circles and arrows with little pictures and things to clarify just what all happened to every dollar that has gone to AIG. They could call the piece..."Anatomy of a Deal". Name the players from the congressmen all the way down to those that were gifted by the deal such as the retention bonus guys, how they sent US tax payer money to a German bank, all the gamesmanship that went into the great fleecing...maybe we could even find out just what percent of the companies and people involved in the deal actually don't owe taxes to the Ir s. I'm sure it is a very artful deal, kind of like Donald Trumps adventures but on megasteroids. They could even have a winners and a losers column but I guess the losers column would only have one entry on it. It would be very educational for us mullets to see how the big dogs work their magic. Man, that might even warrant a whole book...look for it at your local news stand.
mh's post needed repeating.
I knew it would happen.
I am not bashing gold, just understanding its value in terms other than dollars.
Maybe I just have too much free time waiting for the Syracuse game to start.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
We haven't seen the end result of all the govt and corporate machinations of the past 10 years. Right now it is still ok....at least on paper. Being up to debt to our eyeballs was workable. We're many times that level now and it is basically unfathomable how deep the kimshee is. Revisit this day 3 years from now and let's see if everything is fine for J6P. By assuming F&F we just took our effective national debt from $9 TRILL to around $14 TRILLION.
roadrunner >>
I've been reading some "fateful" days of a time not so long ago. This excerpt by rr was on 9-8-08. It's just one of many with intelligent foresight expressed here on this monster thread.
"Events" have been many and have occurred so fast that it's difficult to stand back and let history put them in perspective.
We are living in a "Financial Blitzkrieg 2008-2009."
Blitzkrieg=lightning war
Comrade Renski
<< <i>I wish the mainstream print media would commit a few pages with circles and arrows with little pictures and things to clarify just what all happened to every dollar that has gone to AIG. They could call the piece..."Anatomy of a Deal". Name the players from the congressmen all the way down to those that were gifted by the deal such as the retention bonus guys, how they sent US tax payer money to a German bank, all the gamesmanship that went into the great fleecing...maybe we could even find out just what percent of the companies and people involved in the deal actually don't owe taxes to the Ir s. I'm sure it is a very artful deal, kind of like Donald Trumps adventures but on megasteroids. They could even have a winners and a losers column but I guess the losers column would only have one entry on it. It would be very educational for us mullets to see how the big dogs work their magic. Man, that might even warrant a whole book...look for it at your local news stand. >>
The Foundation for Economic Education , the oldest libertarian think-tank in the country founded more than 50 years ago and the grandaddy to most others such as cato, heritage etc, the philosophy was to "educate" and presumably the masses would realize how interwined economics and freedom is. That while being educated the masses would then reject socialism as an immoral and unworkable economic theory . They were wrong. The state has won out on the "educational" front and the masses are more ignorant than ever and have actually rejected the very foundational economic theories that made this place great to begin with.
No amount of baby talk to the contrary to these morons is going to work. The best thing to do is to learn how to make as much as you can and arm yourself with a good CPA.
Live well and avoid the lowlifes as much as you can.
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870