An exemplary and outstanding column post, well written and thought out with excellent background material. Justice Brandeis's brilliant expose, Other People's Money (somewhat updated by Nomi Prins' similarly titled book published several years back, and can't wait for her latest, It Takes a Pillage - unabashed plug here), perfectly laid out the web of connections via interlocking directorates back then, which still exist today.
And the earlier forms of a type of securitization which led to the Great Depression, are back in force a thousand times stronger today, and that "shadow banking system" - now in overt control - and long out of that "shadow," will lead us to a continuing meltdown and serfdom. (End of my pompous diatribe.)
how about greenbacks under the mattress? I have most of nine in money market accounts, but about 10-15% in hard cash. I am curious about KC Fed chief Hoenig's speech and comments re "too big has failed" and wonder what the next weeks might hold. Could we be getting ready to press the RESET button? Who knows? I don't, but I'm damn suspicious about any and all Official Statements these days. thanks for the forum and many of the comments-- two cents beats a plugged nickel-- or an insolvent regulator
is it just me or what? I don't see how the drop in oil, energy commodities is a problem or implies a "deflationary spiral" and that finished goods is the indicator, esp. wages should be most weighted....of a deflationary spiral. But raw commodities of production, per say, to me are in a special category, esp. because they are weighted imports.
His post basically what I was saying in the 3D's post with all of the talk on inflation with the velocity of money just kind of "sitting around" I sure as hell didn't quite get why the dollar would magically seriously tank (beyond no longer safe haven) as was being predicted (Pimco, Buffet).
Lots of indicators contraction of credit and that Helicopter Ben appears to have done the right thing in this case, for the current conditions. (this is separate from giving $2 trillion to banks/institutions unknown and guaranteeing $300B from Citigroup alone and the rest of the financial oligarchy favoritism.)
But on the 1930's cusp time tracking, on this I am truly unsure on those points....because we do not have the same policy responses as they did back then. On the other hand, we have a butt load of new problems, just as the never ending global labor arbitrage agenda, the trade deficit, the erosion of the stable career to turning the entire country into a nation of disposable workers....
going through the existing data and pointing out a lot of anomalies already. It's all over the site.
but the so ignored trade/shipping data would be new...
I did pull apart GDP components but have not done a historical comparison of import/export components or say investment component to past recession tracking, esp. w.r.t. unemployment.
the nominal unemployment rate may be turning up/levelling off, but what about the actual employment numbers? The numbers seem to indicate a state of limbo developing--not employed OR unemployed, just job/incomeless. How is an overspent, overleveraged working/middle class going to generate any real demand(not government debt offsets) without an extended retrenchment period? It is not easy, maybe not even possible, to rebuild personal finances while spending enough to support general growth in consumption, I mean,cis a vis "the paradox of thrift", if we can barely meet current obligations, how are we supposed to buy more crap?
It's like throwing pebbles in a scatter shot, by hand, to kill a bird in mid-flight for dinner.
I have more on this, they are awarding no-bid contracts through the same system as Iraq contracts were awarded plus we have IBM, many others offshore outsourcing the jobs. 22k "green jobs" were created....offshore.
The other countries "Stimulus" did follow Keynes and put stipulations that the spending must hire their citizens and be domestic, China have the most stipulations of this kind.
So, not only was the money not targeted where it could have killed multiple birds with one stone, say manufacturing or startups or innovation, they also did not directly tie the U.S. taxpayer (government spending) money directly to U.S. citizens and make sure that income went into their pockets.
IBM is one of the worst, they get contracts all of the time and are also offshore outsourcing jobs in droves. All of those contracts should have stimipulations that they are executed in the U.S. plus must have "U.S. citizenship required" in order to get the job.
That is much more in alignment with Keynes where it's clear that temporary government expenditures must go directly to domestic income in order to be effective.
You've never used any snarky titles about "green shoots," have you?
I was toying with the idea of a "21st Century transportation index" using the Baltic Dry Index, Oil tanker data, trucking association index and AAR railroad car index -- the idea being to track stuff from country of manufacture to retailer -- but I couldn't figure out how to make the data series comport with one another. Just tossing the idea out there.
LA Ports - imports are way down, but is that actually bad?
As to exports, I can't figure out if they are down or not, using CR's graph. Can you shed any light on that? The last "official" data is Q2, so lagging.
I've got another one, digging around in Q2 GDP we had a huge reason it was less of a drop, that being imports dropped more than exports. We have China being touted as going to "recovery" which means selling us a hell of a lot of crap, which means that difference could increase (negative). Then investment is still way, way down. Also while industrial production looks truly in a trend of an upswing, the capacity numbers are at record lows....
That would make for an interesting post by itself, analyzing the components of GDP, specifically the trade deficit w.r.t. past recessions and see what that shows us.
As far as snark, I think EP's FAQ of when in doubt use a calculator is serving us all very well. But we can see the war right now on analyzing the Stimulus to try to determine if it has had any effect....so economic geeks clearly can have blog wars in spite of doing it with "back of the napkin". I hope we stay out of that and stick to the #s, graphs, data points.
I wouldn't be so confident of that one data point from the last monthly figures. Firstly, just by absolutes, these numbers are just way too high. Then, the numbers also have projected people falling off of the rolls, not being counting and then we have some recently weeklies which implies the next new claims might be an increase. It's about 240k by Sept 1, 1.5M by end of 2009. So while to me it might appear "cliff diving has stopped" by absolute scales....the numbers of initial claims are just way to high to claim the "R" word unless one is looking at a L or a longer tailed U, but I think V is out of the question. There are also some very scary numbers out there on the original financial crisis, housing market, CRE which may lend credibility to a W.
So, in underemployment I think there is a miss on the details, the numbers falling off of the rolls and potentially assigning too much value to one monthly report.
So in other words, the slope has been so bad when one sees the slope decrease, that implies to some, recovery, but those initial claims, by their recent change or slope would be an "R" in past recessions.
they are failing off of a shadow banking system, derivatives, fictional "financial products", etc..
these banks are failing because the people they make loans to are failing.
In my mind this is more significant in a lot of ways...
I am really starting to believe that this time....they have damaged the middle class so badly, nothing is coming back as is currently being predicted, that we have reached the tipping point where the sucking of the middle class dry will not allow the global economy to return by feeding off of the "american consumer".
I just accredited you but believe me this site does not make enough money for coffee.
But you're right folks, if you are borrowing images, etc. from other people (versus my fav. the Fed!) try to put the author, the source, in a link as above.
Or just get something from open source, for example, wikipedia has no issue with you linking to their many images directly.
An exemplary and outstanding column post, well written and thought out with excellent background material. Justice Brandeis's brilliant expose, Other People's Money (somewhat updated by Nomi Prins' similarly titled book published several years back, and can't wait for her latest, It Takes a Pillage - unabashed plug here), perfectly laid out the web of connections via interlocking directorates back then, which still exist today.
And the earlier forms of a type of securitization which led to the Great Depression, are back in force a thousand times stronger today, and that "shadow banking system" - now in overt control - and long out of that "shadow," will lead us to a continuing meltdown and serfdom. (End of my pompous diatribe.)
I'm down with executed in the U.S, but I would say residency not citizenship should be the requirement.
how about greenbacks under the mattress? I have most of nine in money market accounts, but about 10-15% in hard cash. I am curious about KC Fed chief Hoenig's speech and comments re "too big has failed" and wonder what the next weeks might hold. Could we be getting ready to press the RESET button? Who knows? I don't, but I'm damn suspicious about any and all Official Statements these days. thanks for the forum and many of the comments-- two cents beats a plugged nickel-- or an insolvent regulator
is it just me or what? I don't see how the drop in oil, energy commodities is a problem or implies a "deflationary spiral" and that finished goods is the indicator, esp. wages should be most weighted....of a deflationary spiral. But raw commodities of production, per say, to me are in a special category, esp. because they are weighted imports.
His post basically what I was saying in the 3D's post with all of the talk on inflation with the velocity of money just kind of "sitting around" I sure as hell didn't quite get why the dollar would magically seriously tank (beyond no longer safe haven) as was being predicted (Pimco, Buffet).
Lots of indicators contraction of credit and that Helicopter Ben appears to have done the right thing in this case, for the current conditions. (this is separate from giving $2 trillion to banks/institutions unknown and guaranteeing $300B from Citigroup alone and the rest of the financial oligarchy favoritism.)
But on the 1930's cusp time tracking, on this I am truly unsure on those points....because we do not have the same policy responses as they did back then. On the other hand, we have a butt load of new problems, just as the never ending global labor arbitrage agenda, the trade deficit, the erosion of the stable career to turning the entire country into a nation of disposable workers....
Talking about when or if re: recovery is great academic exercise. But for me it is a matter of what type of recovery will we have.
Question: how many "jobless recoveries" can we sustain before we cement a permanent two-tiered economy?
I don't mean to put a damper on the lively debate here. I am just frustrated.
Continue please.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
going through the existing data and pointing out a lot of anomalies already. It's all over the site.
but the so ignored trade/shipping data would be new...
I did pull apart GDP components but have not done a historical comparison of import/export components or say investment component to past recession tracking, esp. w.r.t. unemployment.
(some more accurately negative than others), here.
the nominal unemployment rate may be turning up/levelling off, but what about the actual employment numbers? The numbers seem to indicate a state of limbo developing--not employed OR unemployed, just job/incomeless. How is an overspent, overleveraged working/middle class going to generate any real demand(not government debt offsets) without an extended retrenchment period? It is not easy, maybe not even possible, to rebuild personal finances while spending enough to support general growth in consumption, I mean,cis a vis "the paradox of thrift", if we can barely meet current obligations, how are we supposed to buy more crap?
time window, volume, to correlate? absolute tonnage? % total volume shipped during time period Y (upon arrival)?
It's like throwing pebbles in a scatter shot, by hand, to kill a bird in mid-flight for dinner.
I have more on this, they are awarding no-bid contracts through the same system as Iraq contracts were awarded plus we have IBM, many others offshore outsourcing the jobs. 22k "green jobs" were created....offshore.
The other countries "Stimulus" did follow Keynes and put stipulations that the spending must hire their citizens and be domestic, China have the most stipulations of this kind.
So, not only was the money not targeted where it could have killed multiple birds with one stone, say manufacturing or startups or innovation, they also did not directly tie the U.S. taxpayer (government spending) money directly to U.S. citizens and make sure that income went into their pockets.
IBM is one of the worst, they get contracts all of the time and are also offshore outsourcing jobs in droves. All of those contracts should have stimipulations that they are executed in the U.S. plus must have "U.S. citizenship required" in order to get the job.
That is much more in alignment with Keynes where it's clear that temporary government expenditures must go directly to domestic income in order to be effective.
This instapopulist is really a request for information. I figured there were a bunch of smart people who would find data series I missed.
You've never used any snarky titles about "green shoots," have you?
I was toying with the idea of a "21st Century transportation index" using the Baltic Dry Index, Oil tanker data, trucking association index and AAR railroad car index -- the idea being to track stuff from country of manufacture to retailer -- but I couldn't figure out how to make the data series comport with one another. Just tossing the idea out there.
Baltic Dry Index - good, thanks.
LA Ports - imports are way down, but is that actually bad?
As to exports, I can't figure out if they are down or not, using CR's graph. Can you shed any light on that? The last "official" data is Q2, so lagging.
You can visit The Realignment Project and look for the "Job Insurance" series.
I've got another one, digging around in Q2 GDP we had a huge reason it was less of a drop, that being imports dropped more than exports. We have China being touted as going to "recovery" which means selling us a hell of a lot of crap, which means that difference could increase (negative). Then investment is still way, way down. Also while industrial production looks truly in a trend of an upswing, the capacity numbers are at record lows....
That would make for an interesting post by itself, analyzing the components of GDP, specifically the trade deficit w.r.t. past recessions and see what that shows us.
As far as snark, I think EP's FAQ of when in doubt use a calculator is serving us all very well. But we can see the war right now on analyzing the Stimulus to try to determine if it has had any effect....so economic geeks clearly can have blog wars in spite of doing it with "back of the napkin". I hope we stay out of that and stick to the #s, graphs, data points.
I wouldn't be so confident of that one data point from the last monthly figures. Firstly, just by absolutes, these numbers are just way too high. Then, the numbers also have projected people falling off of the rolls, not being counting and then we have some recently weeklies which implies the next new claims might be an increase. It's about 240k by Sept 1, 1.5M by end of 2009. So while to me it might appear "cliff diving has stopped" by absolute scales....the numbers of initial claims are just way to high to claim the "R" word unless one is looking at a L or a longer tailed U, but I think V is out of the question. There are also some very scary numbers out there on the original financial crisis, housing market, CRE which may lend credibility to a W.
So, in underemployment I think there is a miss on the details, the numbers falling off of the rolls and potentially assigning too much value to one monthly report.
So in other words, the slope has been so bad when one sees the slope decrease, that implies to some, recovery, but those initial claims, by their recent change or slope would be an "R" in past recessions.
The BDI has fallen out of bed again and the volume of shipping on the LA docks is WAY down. Not good for Im/Exp balances.
Jobless claims have turned up the last couple of weeks, forgot to add that.
Unemployment rate the last 3 months is 9.4%, 9.5%, 9.4%, so that has stopped getting worse over that time period.
Apologize for the slightly snarky title, but I figured it would get people's attention. Really, I'm just trying to see what I may have missed.
If you think of something else, add it to the list.
they are failing off of a shadow banking system, derivatives, fictional "financial products", etc..
these banks are failing because the people they make loans to are failing.
In my mind this is more significant in a lot of ways...
I am really starting to believe that this time....they have damaged the middle class so badly, nothing is coming back as is currently being predicted, that we have reached the tipping point where the sucking of the middle class dry will not allow the global economy to return by feeding off of the "american consumer".
I just accredited you but believe me this site does not make enough money for coffee.
But you're right folks, if you are borrowing images, etc. from other people (versus my fav. the Fed!) try to put the author, the source, in a link as above.
Or just get something from open source, for example, wikipedia has no issue with you linking to their many images directly.
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