money

European Sovereign Debt Crisis - How Did This Happen?

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piigsWith Spain now getting a bail out all to pump up their insolvent banks, one might wonder how did we get here in the first place?

We actually are on the precipice, with a key critical Geek vote on whether or not they will default on their international bail out. Sitting on the edge of a cliff, a review of the European sovereign debt crisis and how we got here is at hand.

What the hell happened is complicated. Greece is not the same as Ireland, nor is Spain the same as Greece. Ireland's sovereign debt crisis was the direct result of their financial crisis. Greece, on the other hand, had long standing structural problems with their economy. Nor are their economies the same although treating them as such originally was part of the problem.

The St. Louis Federal Reserve Research Director Christopher Waller gave a presentation on the the European Debt Crisis. The entire May 8th, 2012 lecture is below. The focus is on debt to GDP ratios, the European Union and interest rates for sovereign bonds. We learn about the European Union's major financial structural problems versus how exactly the debt happened. There are plenty of specifics and this lecture is concise, accurate in it's scope. If you don't understand European Sovereign Debt fundamentals, watch this lecture in full and you will.

Running Rupert to Ground – Vox Populi, Vox Dei

How will they get rid of Rupert Murdoch and his toxic enterprises?

July 4, 2011 may turn into the people's Independence Day.  On that day, stellar journalist Nick Davies of the Guardian released his story; Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by News of the World.  Twelve year old Milly Dowler had been kidnapped with foul play feared.  The Murdoch tabloid couldn't resist.  News of the World (the News) hired a private detective to hack Milly's voicemail.  Finding the mail box full, the News or its hired dick deleted existing messages to make room for new ones, all to fuel their ongoing coverage.  The deleted messages raised hopes by Milly's parents that she was still alive and using her voicemail. (Image)

The Davies story elicited a reaction of near universal shock, outrage, and revulsion.  Milly had already been murdered by the time the Murdoch paper began its illegal tapping.

The public revulsion resulted in immediate and fervent popular demands for justice.  Those demands were compounded by follow-up stories on other Murdoch media hacking.  As it turned out, the News also broke into the voicemails of war widows to capture their most intimate exchanges on the loss of fallen soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.   All in all, at least 4,000 citizens had their voicemails hacked to boost the Murdoch publication's circulation and profits.

Driven by broad public ire, Murdoch's empire began unraveling immediately.  He became a target for those he'd tormented, particularly in politics.  In just a few days, he became anathema for those he'd placed in power, indicating the focused intensity and force of public outrage.   Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron fell in line with Labour Party Leader Ed Milliband's call to stop Murdoch's critical acquisition of pay TV network BSkyB.  The Independent spoke of Murdoch having to abandon his United Kingdom media properties.

The crisis spread across the Atlantic when Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller demanded that law enforcement look into possible voicemail and other electronic surveillance of 9/11 survivors in the United States by  Murdoch's News Corporation.

The Bipartisan Citizen Beat Down and the End of Democracy

Michael Collins

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Both political parties are manifestly hostile to citizens. This hostility reduces electoral participation to just over 50% of the voting age population for presidential elections and less than 40% for off-year congressional elections. The absence of 50% to 60% of those eligible to vote creates minority rule and threatens the legitimacy of any ruling party. Truly, every election ratifies the rejection of both parties.

Buffett Thanks "Uncle Sam" for Big Bailout Payday

Michael Collins

"Mr. Buffett. You are no different than Goldman Sachs and the other exploiters funded by the hard work of everyone other than those who reap the benefits of that work."

The people's oligarch Warren Buffett just wrote a thank you letter to "Uncle Sam" published in the New York Times. It is the height of cynicism. (Image)

Buffett has a carefully crafted public image as a brilliant but people-friendly master of investments. We hear about his regular table at an Omaha diner where he conducts business (just plain Warren) and we see his occasional public stands for reasonable policies like the inheritance tax.

He claims that "Uncle Sam", the government, saved us from a financial catastrophe that would have swallowed up his company. He then endorses the notion that the housing bubble was based on "mass delusion" - meaning it was our fault. But he forgets to mention that he took advantage of the 2008 crisis to purchase a $5 billion interest in Goldman Sachs. And he forgets whose money "Uncle Sam" stole from the Treasury to save him and the rest of his cronies. What a hypocrite.

Prickly Fed on QEII

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By Numerian

 

This is the battlefield on which corporations and their customers are struggling for survival. If companies can make price increases stick, the consumer is going to bear the burden of inflation, and for a lot of consumers this can be the last gasp to bankruptcy.

Image:  Anonomyous

The Federal Reserve is on the defensive over its next round of Quantitative Easing, known as QE2. Over 20 distinguished economists and market analysts placed an ad yesterday in The Wall Street Journal urging the Fed to drop its plan to purchase $600 billion in Treasury securities over the next six months. Finance ministers around the world have deplored this policy for its tendency to generate global inflation and scupper the dollar on the foreign exchange markets. Even that noted financial expert Sarah Palin has published a Facebook criticism of the Fed’s “running the printing presses.”

Some Federal Reserve governors have warned about the potential inflationary implications of QE2, even though they voted for it. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and NY Fed President William Dudley have been in the media during the past week, justifying their QE2 decision. If you analyze their comments carefully, you realize they haven’t been helping their cause.

Corporate Takeover Stalls in California - Healhens hold the line

Michael Collins
California

California's economic depression is the key campaign issue. The official state unemployment rate is 12.4%. When you add those who've simply given up looking for a job plus the marginally employed, the figure for the state is over 20%. Official unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley, a huge agribusiness region, ranges from 15% to 19%. Long the economic engine for the nation, the state is not accustomed to hard times.

The corporate takeover of California is on hold according to the latest polls out of the nation’s largest state. Just nine days before the election, the Los Angeles Times and University of Southern California poll shows a nearly impossible uphill battle for the big business ticket of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.

Among likely voters in the governor’s race, Brown leads Whitman 50% to 38%. In the race for United States Senator, two term Senator Barbara Boxer maintained an 8% lead. The leads by Democrats come from a brand new constituency, those who "never" go to church. More on that later.

"Show Me the Money!" - Waste and Fraud in Iraq from the Start

Michael Collins

The Associated Press ran an article Sunday that focused on the wasted funds during the US reconstruction efforts in Iraq. There were stories of an unused children's hospital, a prison for 3,600 that will never open, and the diversion of reconstruction funds to pay off Sunni fighters to turn on al Qaeda.

AP failed to mention that the main reason that we have to rebuild Iraq is that the United States government invaded it and destroyed everything it could in a display of shock and awe. Also unmentioned were the unique post invasion strategies of no security for sites like power plants that keep the country running and the dissolution of the 400,000 man army, the main institution that kept order in the country before the invasion. But I digress.

Anyone paying attention should know that financial controls and accountability went out the window from the very first days following the defeat of Saddam Hussein's military.

Wages versus gold: A look at historical data

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One of the most visible measures of the condition of working families is the price level of a day’s wages. So, we figured it might make sense to subject those wages to the same sort of analysis we used in the last post: the withering criticism of an ounce of gold.

Here is a chart of an average day’s wage since 1964, as presented by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

 Average wages in dollars

Chart 1: Average day's wage in dollars (1964-2010) (Source: bls.gov)

As is befitting a labor force enjoying the prosperity of the freest, most productive, nation on the planet, we have seen our wages rising for the entire period from 1964 to 2010. Even through depressions as intense as that of the Great Stagflation (the first set of green and red bars) and the current Great Recession (the second set of green and red bars) the average day’s wage of American workers has never fallen year over year.

Unfortunately, things are not so rosy when the value of a day’s wage is measured by an ounce of gold:

Chart 2: Average day's wage in gold (1964-2010) (Source: bls.gov)

Golden Myths

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I don't believe there is any investment, outside of a mania, that elicits more emotion, both positive and negative, than gold. People love it or hate it, there isn't much in between. It's because of these strong emotions that there is so many misconceptions about the yellow metal. Emotions tend to cloud normally reasonable minds to the point that they miss either opportunities or dangers.

Which brings us the current bull market in gold. What does gold hitting all-time record highs mean? To answer that you must brush away the myths and misunderstandings of what gold is and why someone would purchase it.
I am going to attempt to do that.

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