Showing posts with label Euro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Euro. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
F*** you Pay Me (International Bankers Anthem)
There is a new law of the land that has the blessing of some of the most evil minds in the world – bankers. Along with their political flunkies, they have finally devised a way to get all of the money in the world not only from nation states but also the citizens of said nations. And the strange and sad part about it is that it was the bankers who created these problems. Like magic the result of their gross malpractice, out of thin air, similar to the manner in which the Federal Reserve Bank creates money, it has been decided that anyone who saves 100,000 euros is now considered rich. Thus a new era, an era in world finance and international banking where for the first time ever, a major banking system will take and steal from depositors to pay for the government/bank interactions that created the mess in the first place.
For an average mind such as mine, what has happened in Cyprus will not be a mere caduceus act, but eventually common practice. Eventually all citizens, of every nation with massive debt, no matter where you live, in particular in Europe, now no personal/private bank account anywhere in the world is safe. If the big wigs of the EU (Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), José Barroso, the president of the European Commission (EC) and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council), can pull this off, you can best believe some similar folk of status are meeting around the United States in the board rooms of the twelve Federal Reserve banks.
The precedent set by the Eurozone to go for depositors is a reflection of how uncertain the world of derivatives and complex papers is. What we see, what we understand, are the images of long lines in front of ATMs and for what – all to save the institutions that gave us the economic downturn, just to save the banks. Around the world, just in the US the banks are what are important and not the people even if they are the criminals, they only get larger and are even beyond incarceration [see JP Morgan Note below].
NOTE: [The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control found that JPMorgan had illegally aided dictatorships in Cuba, Sudan, Liberia and Iran, including transferring 32,000 ounces of gold bullion for an Iranian bank. Not to mention misleading investors, making fake and false trades, wrongfully foreclosed on soldiers charged veterans hidden fees for refinancing, illegally increased their collection of overdraft fees by processing large transactions before smaller ones or by switching its fixed-rate debt to variable helping push Jefferson County, Alabama into bankruptcy.]
Although under the guise of a bailout, what we see in Cyprus is an indication of things to come worldwide. If another bailout is need for another EZ nation, the likes of Spain and Italy, then the savings accounts of the citizens in Spain, Italy and other countries will be raided. Now some will say its different because in Europe, many nations are way over leveraged and that they are taking these steps to preserve the Euro by aiding insolvent and failing banks. I will agree but would ask how that is any different from the situation with the US dollar and “too big to fail banks?”
As during the time of the great depression and what America is dealing with now, it is common knowledge that excessive leverage was one of the primary causes of both – folk buying stocks and other complex papers on margin. And excessive leveraging undermines financial stability because the goal of the banker is to always transfer credit risk to those better able to absorb losses. When it is impossible to do the aforementioned, the financial sector becomes weak and breaks.
Ironic that I just finished reading Richard Bookstaber’s “A Demon of our own Making.” He describes this so aptly. He notes that new forms of investment strategies like portfolio insurance, based on the Black-Sholes formula of making it possible to set a price on an option and features such as “greenmail” gave us the crisis of not only the past but today.
Today the US banking system as a whole is leveraged at 13-to-1 compared to about 26-to-1 for the Banks of Europe. The US Federal Reserve has about $2.8 trillion in assets and only $52 billion in capital, meaning the US Central Bank is leveraged at 53 to 1 – worse than Europe. Just keeping it on the level, a recent report from the Comptroller of the Currency, noted that four U.S. banks have $235 trillion of OTC derivative leverage. As a nation, all the US banks are estimated to have a total OTC derivative exposure of $250 trillion.
When banking systems are or become excessively-leveraged, the risk that a crisis in one country will spread to another dramatically increases. Meaning that the reality is that the US financial system could come tumbling down the hill at any time because it is mathematically impossible for just the continuous printing of money alone can go on forever.
Another concern I have is that less than two years ago, all the banks of Europe were given stress test, which by all accounts were way harder than the stress test given to US big banks by the Treasury, and all the banks of Cyprus passed with flying colors. Now within the last two weeks we see such wasn’t the case since Cyprus’ two largest banks, the Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Popular Bank (the Laiki Bank), which hold half of all bank deposits in the country are the worse of the bunch, and if this is the case what can we interpret from the weak azz stress test the US Treasury implemented some few years back as well?
In addition to the math, the behavioral antecedents are clear as well – it’s all about the banks, fuck the people and the workers and the average family. The precedent of Cyprus is clear - nothing is safe from being seized by the state, no savings account, but also no house or apartment. The Germans experienced this after World War II, when they were charged an extra real estate tax in the form of compulsory mortgages. Governments have even banned the possession of gold during currency crises, forcing citizens to exchange the precious metal for the national currency.
Even with the aforementioned, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and Washington Politicians always want to point the finger at the average citizen. Ben Bernanke let it out the hat when he advocated for the elimination of all reserve requirements: “The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.”
The simple reality is that no matter what happens, the majority of people will be significantly poorer. As it stands, not only in the US, but around the globe the continuous transfer of wealth from the bottom into the pockets of the wealthiest is a reality unavoidable. Here in America consequently, we must not be fooled by leaders regardless of party affiliation and their words of addressing economic equity because their actions never fit the actual goals they promulgate via their illustrious oratory. No matter what Obama for example says on the political stump, his policy continues to add to the economic inequity in America. For example, no matter what he says his policy will always aid in the disparity for example of the average CEO’s hourly wage of $5000 per hour compared to $7.00 an hour. The point is if in Europe, Cyprus to be more exact, any level of personal savings decided upon by bankers for confiscation, is basically the same as just stealing money from people’s bank accounts.
On top of all of this (and I won’t mention our debt to China) China and Brazil just signed a trade, currency deal ahead of BRICS summit that will allow them to bypass using the dollar by agreeing to trade in their own currencies the equivalent of up to $30 billion per year, moving to take almost half of their trade exchanges out of the US dollar zone. Thus there is a new world post the 1950s, Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan when the US Dollar became the de facto global reserve currency.
Like the Euro, the reality is that the global exposure to the US Dollar remains by default rather than design and the global (at least European) sovereign debt crisis is placing the US Dollar at risk for the future. Just looking at Cyprus, it should be clear that oligarchs and plutocrats, who are protected by the elected elite, will always be considered over the average citizen. The Bankers (not the people or elected leaders) have decided that citizens, who had nothing to do with the national debt as individuals, will be forced without choice to pay for the faults of the elected elite which sets a truly alarming precedent for other debtor (all nations) around the world.
I am just asking the question and using basic match to formulate a possible answer. I mean there is only one answer, albeit multiple solutions to solve any equation. I just think this may become banking versions of reality TV, and if that show had a name, it would likely be called “F*** you, pay me (the international bankers anthem.)
For an average mind such as mine, what has happened in Cyprus will not be a mere caduceus act, but eventually common practice. Eventually all citizens, of every nation with massive debt, no matter where you live, in particular in Europe, now no personal/private bank account anywhere in the world is safe. If the big wigs of the EU (Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), José Barroso, the president of the European Commission (EC) and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council), can pull this off, you can best believe some similar folk of status are meeting around the United States in the board rooms of the twelve Federal Reserve banks.
The precedent set by the Eurozone to go for depositors is a reflection of how uncertain the world of derivatives and complex papers is. What we see, what we understand, are the images of long lines in front of ATMs and for what – all to save the institutions that gave us the economic downturn, just to save the banks. Around the world, just in the US the banks are what are important and not the people even if they are the criminals, they only get larger and are even beyond incarceration [see JP Morgan Note below].
NOTE: [The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control found that JPMorgan had illegally aided dictatorships in Cuba, Sudan, Liberia and Iran, including transferring 32,000 ounces of gold bullion for an Iranian bank. Not to mention misleading investors, making fake and false trades, wrongfully foreclosed on soldiers charged veterans hidden fees for refinancing, illegally increased their collection of overdraft fees by processing large transactions before smaller ones or by switching its fixed-rate debt to variable helping push Jefferson County, Alabama into bankruptcy.]
Although under the guise of a bailout, what we see in Cyprus is an indication of things to come worldwide. If another bailout is need for another EZ nation, the likes of Spain and Italy, then the savings accounts of the citizens in Spain, Italy and other countries will be raided. Now some will say its different because in Europe, many nations are way over leveraged and that they are taking these steps to preserve the Euro by aiding insolvent and failing banks. I will agree but would ask how that is any different from the situation with the US dollar and “too big to fail banks?”
As during the time of the great depression and what America is dealing with now, it is common knowledge that excessive leverage was one of the primary causes of both – folk buying stocks and other complex papers on margin. And excessive leveraging undermines financial stability because the goal of the banker is to always transfer credit risk to those better able to absorb losses. When it is impossible to do the aforementioned, the financial sector becomes weak and breaks.
Ironic that I just finished reading Richard Bookstaber’s “A Demon of our own Making.” He describes this so aptly. He notes that new forms of investment strategies like portfolio insurance, based on the Black-Sholes formula of making it possible to set a price on an option and features such as “greenmail” gave us the crisis of not only the past but today.
When banking systems are or become excessively-leveraged, the risk that a crisis in one country will spread to another dramatically increases. Meaning that the reality is that the US financial system could come tumbling down the hill at any time because it is mathematically impossible for just the continuous printing of money alone can go on forever.
Another concern I have is that less than two years ago, all the banks of Europe were given stress test, which by all accounts were way harder than the stress test given to US big banks by the Treasury, and all the banks of Cyprus passed with flying colors. Now within the last two weeks we see such wasn’t the case since Cyprus’ two largest banks, the Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Popular Bank (the Laiki Bank), which hold half of all bank deposits in the country are the worse of the bunch, and if this is the case what can we interpret from the weak azz stress test the US Treasury implemented some few years back as well?
In addition to the math, the behavioral antecedents are clear as well – it’s all about the banks, fuck the people and the workers and the average family. The precedent of Cyprus is clear - nothing is safe from being seized by the state, no savings account, but also no house or apartment. The Germans experienced this after World War II, when they were charged an extra real estate tax in the form of compulsory mortgages. Governments have even banned the possession of gold during currency crises, forcing citizens to exchange the precious metal for the national currency.
Even with the aforementioned, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and Washington Politicians always want to point the finger at the average citizen. Ben Bernanke let it out the hat when he advocated for the elimination of all reserve requirements: “The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.”
The simple reality is that no matter what happens, the majority of people will be significantly poorer. As it stands, not only in the US, but around the globe the continuous transfer of wealth from the bottom into the pockets of the wealthiest is a reality unavoidable. Here in America consequently, we must not be fooled by leaders regardless of party affiliation and their words of addressing economic equity because their actions never fit the actual goals they promulgate via their illustrious oratory. No matter what Obama for example says on the political stump, his policy continues to add to the economic inequity in America. For example, no matter what he says his policy will always aid in the disparity for example of the average CEO’s hourly wage of $5000 per hour compared to $7.00 an hour. The point is if in Europe, Cyprus to be more exact, any level of personal savings decided upon by bankers for confiscation, is basically the same as just stealing money from people’s bank accounts.
On top of all of this (and I won’t mention our debt to China) China and Brazil just signed a trade, currency deal ahead of BRICS summit that will allow them to bypass using the dollar by agreeing to trade in their own currencies the equivalent of up to $30 billion per year, moving to take almost half of their trade exchanges out of the US dollar zone. Thus there is a new world post the 1950s, Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan when the US Dollar became the de facto global reserve currency.
Like the Euro, the reality is that the global exposure to the US Dollar remains by default rather than design and the global (at least European) sovereign debt crisis is placing the US Dollar at risk for the future. Just looking at Cyprus, it should be clear that oligarchs and plutocrats, who are protected by the elected elite, will always be considered over the average citizen. The Bankers (not the people or elected leaders) have decided that citizens, who had nothing to do with the national debt as individuals, will be forced without choice to pay for the faults of the elected elite which sets a truly alarming precedent for other debtor (all nations) around the world.
I am just asking the question and using basic match to formulate a possible answer. I mean there is only one answer, albeit multiple solutions to solve any equation. I just think this may become banking versions of reality TV, and if that show had a name, it would likely be called “F*** you, pay me (the international bankers anthem.)
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Americas Biggest Threat is EU Sovereign Debt Crisis not AQAP
Okay, let’s get this straight. The injudicious assertions promulgated by political charlatans on both side of the aisle from Obama to Congressman Pete King that America’s biggest threat is Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is feculent and even dangerous. In fact it is one of the more laughable jactitations proffered in recent years and ranks up there with the suggestion that America is post racial or even that Wall Street and bankers can police themselves.
In all honesty as things stand, our truest and greatest threat is the European sovereign debt crisis and not AQAP. For if the chickens come home to roost, with the chickens in this sense being the massive preponderance of complex financial papers and derivatives which remain without a true valuation and inundate the global markets, and then we have seen nothing yet in terms of an economic disaster. I means, what is on the horizon given what is occurring in Europe will eventually demonstrate that what we just observed with regards to JP Morgan-Chase and Jamie Dimon will be just a drop in the bucket.
But instead of giving these events the attention they require and other signals, we ignore them and continue with the small thinking myopia that would advance a HR 1838 (SWAP Bailout prevention act) on behalf of Republicans or an HR 3784 (Gas Price Spike Act of 2012) on behalf of democrats. The later under whom oil companies would be taxed at 50 to 100 percent of profits considered to be “higher than reasonable.” Notwithstanding other distractions whether they concern Mayor Cory Booker’s honest remarks on private equity or the President’s personal opinion on Gay marriage, we never seem to be able to be proactive and address real issues that will impact us more than any of the aforementioned in aggregate. Fact is gay marriage has nothing to do with the US economy.
Bush, followed by the Obama administration implemented massive stimulus that were supposed to grow the economy. Unfortunately, such has not manifested as promised by the Keynesian heavy Obama administration (Bernanke, Krugman and Geithner). By their logic the stimulus was supposed to produce fifty cents of GDP growth for each stimulus dollar spent. But instead of increasing demand, what they did was discourage consumption and investment by the private sector who based on all this talk, rightly expect tax hikes to finance the stimulus somewhere in the near future. Meaning that the stimulus actually squashed the private sector spending it desired to stimulate.
This may be why the CBO recently reported the strong chance of another US recession soon. They predict that the US Gross National Product (GNP) will go negative for at least two quarters, given the eventually ending of the Bush-era tax cuts, the extended unemployment benefits and the reinstating of the payroll tax rates back up to 6.2 percent from the current 4.2 percent. Not to mention that currently as a nation, we spend $454 billion a year just on servicing the interest on the national debt alone. Then there is the $642 billion spent on the Afghan war (this includes this year’s spending). And let us not forget the 11 million homeowners in the US with in excess of $800 billion in negative home equity and you can see we have a big mess on our hands without the problems in Europe.
Starting with the UK, Britain's economy contracted by 0.3% in the first three months of the year, faster than previously thought and pushing the country back into another recession and equal to the contraction in the final quarter of 2011. There has been no growth in manufacturing after last year the sector exhibited a decline of 0.7% at the end of last year. The banking sector also contracted, by 0.3%.
Then there is Spain. Spanish banks’ total loan losses could range between 218 billion and 260 billion Euros, more than currently expected according to estimates by the Institute of International Finance. Spain’s economy is in critical condition with 23 percent unemployment of which 50% percent of those under 24 are unemployed (the highest in the Euro zone) and they are in their second recession in three years. Spain like all the European countries that, are uncompetitive, have high debt levels, and suffer from low savings rates that have been forced down in over the past years - one reason why 16 Spanish banks were downgraded last week.
The picture is no different in Italy which saw Moody‘s Investors Service downgraded 26 Italian banks, where investors are needing higher risk premiums for Italian government bonds on fears that Greece may exit from the euro zone and Italy's double-dip recession . Italy is estimated to have around a debt burden of €1.9 trillion (about 120% the size of its gross domestic product), or about $2.6 trillion).
The reality is all the talking and meeting the G-8 just did wasn’t anything and empty, especially without Russia, China and India in attendance. The realty remains that a Greek euro exit is very likely and soon. If it happens, it will lead to runs on Spanish and Italian banks, resulting in the need for the ECB to give out more credit to keep the banks from collapsing. Although the problem isn’t Greece, but rather that Greek banks are undercapitalized. Greece cannot crash the euro zone alone. But what it may lead to can. If they are allowed to leave, the same will be true for other nations.
Ben Bernanke and the politicians in Washington DC speak of recovery while the facts do not support their contention. Not to forget that it was in the 1970s when Nixon enabled bankers and politicians to print and spend at liberty without a gold standard and a Central Bank owned by Wall Street, has resulted in a country where the cost of things we need to live have risen at twice the rate of our income. The truth is that real inflation has been running 5% higher than government is telling us in spite of what is being told to us by Paul Krugman (that there are very few Americans living on a fixed income being impacted by Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy). Maybe this is why Krugman is so bent on another $4 trillion of debt and a debt to GDP ratio of 130% to get our economy back on track.
Yes we cannot see the big picture. The real US deficit is over $5 trillion. Our policy appears to ignore Greece, which after several years of austerity are in the midst of a full-blown economic depression and they still do not have a balanced budget. The Greek economy has contracted by 8.5 percent over the past 12 months and the unemployment rate in Greece is up to 21.8 percent, is already experiencing a depression that will only get worse. If or when they leave, investor confidence in the euro zone will be damaged forever. Already as a nation America has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.
Europe is our largest trading partner, especially as it pertains to exports. Yet our efforts are all over the place. Paul Ryan supposed spending cuts really only slow spending to 3 percent annually while Obama increases spending 4.5 percent a year in his budget. No to mention that like the EU zone banks who are undercapitalized and heavily burden with the uncertainty of how much banks actually hold in bad assets, and the potential need for the government to bail them out at the expense of a bigger debt burden, the same is true for US banks.
Economic growth is stalled both in Europe and in America plus there seems to be a lack of concern here and little if any coordination between the EU and US. None of the nations including the US are recalibrating either fiscal or monetary policy which is a must. Reform not stimulus is the answer if we look at the real world examples here and abroad. Both the ECB and Federal Reserve seem to focus on the nations and not the banks and the Obama administration has only tackled the issue from a short term perspective. So what there is a newly revealed Al Qaeda video that calls on followers to launch cyber attacks on Western targets that has Sens. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, scared, it aint got nothing on what’s going on across the pond and is nowhere as big a threat to America as the European sovereign debt crisis. Take note you heard it here first.
In all honesty as things stand, our truest and greatest threat is the European sovereign debt crisis and not AQAP. For if the chickens come home to roost, with the chickens in this sense being the massive preponderance of complex financial papers and derivatives which remain without a true valuation and inundate the global markets, and then we have seen nothing yet in terms of an economic disaster. I means, what is on the horizon given what is occurring in Europe will eventually demonstrate that what we just observed with regards to JP Morgan-Chase and Jamie Dimon will be just a drop in the bucket.
But instead of giving these events the attention they require and other signals, we ignore them and continue with the small thinking myopia that would advance a HR 1838 (SWAP Bailout prevention act) on behalf of Republicans or an HR 3784 (Gas Price Spike Act of 2012) on behalf of democrats. The later under whom oil companies would be taxed at 50 to 100 percent of profits considered to be “higher than reasonable.” Notwithstanding other distractions whether they concern Mayor Cory Booker’s honest remarks on private equity or the President’s personal opinion on Gay marriage, we never seem to be able to be proactive and address real issues that will impact us more than any of the aforementioned in aggregate. Fact is gay marriage has nothing to do with the US economy.
Bush, followed by the Obama administration implemented massive stimulus that were supposed to grow the economy. Unfortunately, such has not manifested as promised by the Keynesian heavy Obama administration (Bernanke, Krugman and Geithner). By their logic the stimulus was supposed to produce fifty cents of GDP growth for each stimulus dollar spent. But instead of increasing demand, what they did was discourage consumption and investment by the private sector who based on all this talk, rightly expect tax hikes to finance the stimulus somewhere in the near future. Meaning that the stimulus actually squashed the private sector spending it desired to stimulate.
This may be why the CBO recently reported the strong chance of another US recession soon. They predict that the US Gross National Product (GNP) will go negative for at least two quarters, given the eventually ending of the Bush-era tax cuts, the extended unemployment benefits and the reinstating of the payroll tax rates back up to 6.2 percent from the current 4.2 percent. Not to mention that currently as a nation, we spend $454 billion a year just on servicing the interest on the national debt alone. Then there is the $642 billion spent on the Afghan war (this includes this year’s spending). And let us not forget the 11 million homeowners in the US with in excess of $800 billion in negative home equity and you can see we have a big mess on our hands without the problems in Europe.
Starting with the UK, Britain's economy contracted by 0.3% in the first three months of the year, faster than previously thought and pushing the country back into another recession and equal to the contraction in the final quarter of 2011. There has been no growth in manufacturing after last year the sector exhibited a decline of 0.7% at the end of last year. The banking sector also contracted, by 0.3%.
Then there is Spain. Spanish banks’ total loan losses could range between 218 billion and 260 billion Euros, more than currently expected according to estimates by the Institute of International Finance. Spain’s economy is in critical condition with 23 percent unemployment of which 50% percent of those under 24 are unemployed (the highest in the Euro zone) and they are in their second recession in three years. Spain like all the European countries that, are uncompetitive, have high debt levels, and suffer from low savings rates that have been forced down in over the past years - one reason why 16 Spanish banks were downgraded last week.
The picture is no different in Italy which saw Moody‘s Investors Service downgraded 26 Italian banks, where investors are needing higher risk premiums for Italian government bonds on fears that Greece may exit from the euro zone and Italy's double-dip recession . Italy is estimated to have around a debt burden of €1.9 trillion (about 120% the size of its gross domestic product), or about $2.6 trillion).
The reality is all the talking and meeting the G-8 just did wasn’t anything and empty, especially without Russia, China and India in attendance. The realty remains that a Greek euro exit is very likely and soon. If it happens, it will lead to runs on Spanish and Italian banks, resulting in the need for the ECB to give out more credit to keep the banks from collapsing. Although the problem isn’t Greece, but rather that Greek banks are undercapitalized. Greece cannot crash the euro zone alone. But what it may lead to can. If they are allowed to leave, the same will be true for other nations.
Ben Bernanke and the politicians in Washington DC speak of recovery while the facts do not support their contention. Not to forget that it was in the 1970s when Nixon enabled bankers and politicians to print and spend at liberty without a gold standard and a Central Bank owned by Wall Street, has resulted in a country where the cost of things we need to live have risen at twice the rate of our income. The truth is that real inflation has been running 5% higher than government is telling us in spite of what is being told to us by Paul Krugman (that there are very few Americans living on a fixed income being impacted by Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy). Maybe this is why Krugman is so bent on another $4 trillion of debt and a debt to GDP ratio of 130% to get our economy back on track.
Yes we cannot see the big picture. The real US deficit is over $5 trillion. Our policy appears to ignore Greece, which after several years of austerity are in the midst of a full-blown economic depression and they still do not have a balanced budget. The Greek economy has contracted by 8.5 percent over the past 12 months and the unemployment rate in Greece is up to 21.8 percent, is already experiencing a depression that will only get worse. If or when they leave, investor confidence in the euro zone will be damaged forever. Already as a nation America has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.
Europe is our largest trading partner, especially as it pertains to exports. Yet our efforts are all over the place. Paul Ryan supposed spending cuts really only slow spending to 3 percent annually while Obama increases spending 4.5 percent a year in his budget. No to mention that like the EU zone banks who are undercapitalized and heavily burden with the uncertainty of how much banks actually hold in bad assets, and the potential need for the government to bail them out at the expense of a bigger debt burden, the same is true for US banks.
Economic growth is stalled both in Europe and in America plus there seems to be a lack of concern here and little if any coordination between the EU and US. None of the nations including the US are recalibrating either fiscal or monetary policy which is a must. Reform not stimulus is the answer if we look at the real world examples here and abroad. Both the ECB and Federal Reserve seem to focus on the nations and not the banks and the Obama administration has only tackled the issue from a short term perspective. So what there is a newly revealed Al Qaeda video that calls on followers to launch cyber attacks on Western targets that has Sens. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, scared, it aint got nothing on what’s going on across the pond and is nowhere as big a threat to America as the European sovereign debt crisis. Take note you heard it here first.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
where dem dollars at
Boy oh, boy, I’m glad my broker honored my request to put a quarter of my account in pounds and Euro’s each. Im certain by now you have heard that the dollar dropped to $1.40 against euro.This slide has been goin on for about 3 or 4 years now, but never has the change against other currencies been so dramatic. This was after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in the beginning of last week.The query is multifold, inclusive of asking what does it say about Greenspan's successor, Ben Bernanke. Not only do we have to worry about the decline in the greenback, but add to that the bust in the housing market and a reduction in manufacturing, this should have a major impact on the U.S. economy.
My concern is that politicians are not even talking about the importance of having a strong currency for the country during the current political dialogue. Especially since it has been reported that China has stocked piled about $200 billion US dollars. Then there is the Arab move to confound all of this. Borse Dubai has just secured 28 per cent of the LSE as part of a wider deal with the US-based Nasdaq designed to settle their long-running battle for control of the Nordic exchanges and telecommunications operator OMX. The Dubai group bought most of Nasdaq’s 31 per cent stake in the LSE for £14.40 a share in cash. In return, it will take a 19.9 per cent stake on the combined Nasdaq/OMX group and receive cash.Now days the dollar is equal to the Canadian dollar, which places the “loonie" at its highest point in about 30 years. This is important to me since see first had via my travels abroad how the value of the dollar is shrinking. If the dollar keeps dropping, it makes imports more expensive and maybe even increasing the likelihood of inflation.
As I mentioned last week about China, the US trade deficit in goods and service was $726 billion, as we had way more imports than exports. True, a lot of this is a consequence of the increasing price of oil; we may be seeing the beginning of a larger pain that will come in all of our pockets. So yawl keep track of your investments and it might be wise to start looking a forex exchanges and funds to make sure you hold on to your loot. So when Gangtsa Boo ask wher dem dollars at, we can answer china and Dubai. I take my investment seriously, this is America, and yawl can see some of where my money is in my portfolio on the side. And like Paul Harvey- Good Day.
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