Saturday, March 15, 2008

My 2 cents (really $11,071.27)

Kelso, to a recent post in which I wrote regarding male sartorial splendor, made a comment supporting not only the necessity of having a passport, but also an off shore account. Now I do have both and won’t tell you what country mine s located in, but I will say Seychelles (in picture) is a great place to have one being a few hours flight from Durban, South Africa (Yawl need to go there its beautiful).

Now Jones, your folk here aint the richest man in the world, in fact I am one of the poorest. With that said, over the past two months i done lost a lot of loot. I kind of hoard loot and try to stay away from spending it if I do not have to, especially if I aint got it.

The current credit crunch is hitting everybody nowadays and I am not just talking about the financial institutions. I mean the common man, the banks, Wall Street, Japan, and even Europe. I know people are doing all they can to ameliorate these problems, but suffice it to say, it will be hard to fix when the average person doesn’t have, and has a desire to spend, even when the do not have the money on hand. I feel I have the right to complain about the government practicing deficit spending, but those that do such themselves do not.

What I anticipate next is that Banks and Brokerage houses (one in the same since Clinton abrogated Glass-Stegall), which have already been hit hard by the sub prime lending practice and home mortgage losses, are not going to being seeing the good times any time soon. Since August of last year, the U.S. government has given financial institutions nearly a trillion dollars and things have yet to improve. Now the Federal Reserve Bank is getting into the act and is talking bout allowing banks/brokerage houses to exchange mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) for about 200 billion in Treasury bonds. Talking about shooting dice, I mean, the have never accepted MBSs as collateral before – not to my knowledge. This will make the FR a holder of long-term credit risk. I figure the FR doesn’t need t do this for it is the financial and lending institutions that need to make corrections on their practices and get their shit tight.

We already see our trade deficit increasing. Especially as it relates to exports as a function of being offset by higher oil prices. It increased almost $60 billion last month alone, and the increase specifically with China seems to grow more and more each day.

So in summary, it is the value of the dollar that is essential to a strong economy in the US. I do not like losing money, not even in the washing machine, and over the last 60 days I have lost $11,071.27. My problem is if I can see this, not as an economists, why can’t our government? vote

47 comments:

Unknown said...

Make way for the Amero!
This system has crashed. What Americans don't realize is that they have essentially become the children of Israel in the land of the wicked Pharaoh and now it's time to make more brick, however there is less straw and in the words of the infamous Scarface, when you say you don't have his money, he says " F__k You, Pay Me!"

Anonymous said...

Bernake is the anti christ

Anonymous said...

Never really thought about this. Since I'm poor as hell, no job at the moment, the only thing that comes to mind is my own business. I have to becareful with my bank account, money in my room ain't being kept safe.. too many greedy hands around...

jmsjoin said...

Those mortgage companies that practiced predatory lending have no worries. They know Bush will bail them as he is.
It is the common citizen that the chief scum bag accuses of speculating that will once again be screwed. It is a necessity in the forming of a new societal order that after all these years of trying to warn the country is now almost done!
This whole mess country and world is just barely starting. I don't know if you know him but I know you know his work as he is now 90 and lectures as active as ever. You can google Jerome Grossman or Relentless Liberal
Anyway, he's a trip and just wrote about this today. I am in touch with him and his son daily because he is a grassroots organizer behind every accomplishment in the last 65 years.
I want to get him to realize we have never been where we are today and normal politics or activism will not work but we have to do something!
By the way is this your flagship Blog?

Anonymous said...

Of course they know they are fucking us (I assume you are being facetious). All the way to the bank and taking others down.

http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/the-200-billion-bail-out-for-predator-banks-and-spitzer-charges-are-intimately-linked/

Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

They don't see the crisis, at least that's what they would have us believe, because they don't really care to see it. It's a syndrome of hubris and silly hope.

Peace.

Anonymous said...

They can. They really don't give a damn about everybody else. I'm in that upper class tax bracket. I can't crossover republican. I think the amero is coming 2011.

I hear. I have some money overseas in oil,american toll roads, euros, gold, other investments. I hear this was coming in 2000 so I made the switch. I moved to France a while ago. I come back to the states to see family and friends only. My family and loved ones are taken care of.

I also have food and clean water stored away. I'm trying to wake other folks up.

Question is folk are You ready? Its' gonna take more than a gun to handle what's coming. Its' happening over time. I hope You and others are. I got faith we will make it. The things that happen is basic common-sense information.

KELSO'S NUTS said...

Torrance: Are you SURE you want to stop teaching? I've read your fiction (nly in the last excerpt) and you tell a good yarn with style. But, gee whiz, buddy...this post of yours is direct, correct, and easy for everyone to understand yet somehow by design or accident has escaped your "leaders."

I have no idea who "is" what here, but I believe Black people understand all of this at a gut level in a way White people don't. Why? Because they or their parents have had to live with the results of a bad dollar and stagflation and it's very, very, very un-good. I was lucky to have a father who could explain this to me. He had been in Watts in the bad days not as some kind of "great White father savior" but merely as a stringer for a shitty medical trade paper doing a story for peanuts on hypertension and was himself lucky enough to have had as his main source for the article a Freeman Cardio-vascular specialist FROM Watts (and key to physical survival!) during the shitstorm.

I have a dark complexion but I'm a Caucasian, as in REALLY a Caucasian because I come from a Russian family. I don't know what's best for anybody but combined with what my Dad taught me and that which I learned in economics and finance, that civil unrest of that time had something to do with politics but mostly to do with economics.

Here are two figures. 10% and (minus-2%). Boring, I know. Imagine if inflation was 10% and growth was -2%. Anybody who doesn't know what that means is either too young, too ignorant, or too committed to a point of view.

If the United States continues on this fiscal, monetary and foreign policy course, 10% inflation and (-2%) growth will obtain. And when it obtains, there will be live action riots and a slow-motion holocaust. Why? Because the dollar would have very little value in world markets, prices would be going up rapidly and unemployment would be at record highs.

Every city in America and most small towns could end up like New Orleans during Katrina. 10%/-2%=MAYHEM.

"Anonymous," Bernanke isn't the anti-Christ. He was given a job to run monetary policy during the worst period of fiscal insanity in the history of the United States, with a contemporaneous housing bubble. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. And it was the Bush Administration, the Congress, the Media and Organized Religion's fault. Not Bernanke's. He raises interest rates, he risks crushing the housing market. He lowers interest rates into super high commodity prices and fiscal insanity and he risks inflation. He does nothing and what use is he? He rolled the dice with cuts and guessed wrong because the housing crisis was coming no matter what.

I am agnostic on the mortgate question. One way to go is to "Brady-ize" the CMO's in exchange for mortgage debt forgiveness of ALL,not just the "good" risks who paid the wrong price. It seems fair although it's bad practice as fiscal and monetary policy. It could stave off a bank failure crisis (Torrence is right on point with reference to repeal of Glass-Stegall).

Doing nothing is the classic libertarian, free-market position. Let citizens lose their homes and let the investor class take a big beating. It won't be any fun for anyone but that, too, is "fair," though way less so because of the starting wealth differentials than the above and it has the virtue of being prudent (what a time to be living in) fiscal and monetary policy.

The problem could be solved by a policy right out of the Marxist-Leninist handbook: pin everything on the beneficial owners of the CMOs and guarantee nobody loses their homes. That's called expropriation of wealth and if it's done you end up with a country somewhat like a mix of Zimbabwe and the USSR. And then you are committed to the same perverse version of Marixm for decades or centuries.

Make the CMO holders whole and boot everybody out in the street and you've got Nazi Germany.

As long as PEACE is off the table, there's no way for the USA to wriggle out of this bind. Make no mistake about it, PEACE is very much OFF THE TABLE. Obama isn't leaving Iraq or Afghnistan, nor is Clinton and McCain is just adding on to both and likely attacking Iran and Venezuela as well.

Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

Unknown said...

The government knows and doesn't care because seemingly they are not directly effected...yet.
The lower class is effected but doesn't really react because they have lived this way forever and knew nothing different. Now the middle class will probably feel the brunt of the economy.
But no matter what economic class you fit in things are changing and everyone will eventually be effected.

KELSO'S NUTS said...

Torrance: I hit you with a Blogovia game. As you, Fairlane and Dave Dancy may be the only three who've taken a more bizarre path through life than I have, I'm very curious to see your answers.

Anonymous said...

I think this country needs a nice kick in its' ass. This country is so damn cocky it does not make any sense. We think the world revolves around us it does not. Its' sad Your just understanding this. I'll say like I have said before betta late than never. I'm from here I left a while ago. You forgot its' 10 regions being setup. The European union is the new European soviet.

KELSO'S NUTS said...

I WANT TO THROW A QUESTION OPEN TO THE PANEL. I'M DOING A NON-SCIENTIFIC SURVEY TO HELP ME GET A HANDLE ON THE DEMNOM MARKET,THE GEN'L ELECTION MARKET AND THE OVERALL SENSE OF THE USA....

You are given a choice of two candidates for President. You must pick one. You may not abstain. You may explain and qualify if you like. But you must choose one or the other. I am using a random number system to determine who is row A and who is rob B, to try to wash out that bias. If I've found this useful and made real money decision with results I will inform.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH)
or
FMR. REP HAROLD FORD, JR. (D-TN)

Babz Rawls Ivy said...

Torrance this is a great post and very thought provoking. I think you ought to follow with additional posts on this very theme--sort of like a mini web class. I agree with Kelso, you have an amazing way of laying things out plainly and simply.

Kelso-to your question Kucinich or Harold Ford, Jr. I am one of these people that is torn by race and gender and history and class. I rather like Kucinich.

christina said...

So much to think about. I will begin with fighting the urge to spend. Thanks for the informative post :)

Jameil said...

I've been asking the same thing!! How is it that SUDDENLY people are like the recession has already started and is in full swing and some are like what recession? are you just not keeping an eye on your stocks? b/c my 401k is going nowhere but down seeing as its 91% stock. i'm young, i figure why be conservative? now's the time to be risky. except the market is in the toilet. hence me looking at my 401k like ERRRRRRRR????

These economists have way more in the market than we do so WHAT IS THE DEAL!?!? WHY do so many lenders/banks have to be at or near bankruptcy for the gov't to GET A CLUE??!!?!?!

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

Tony oh - yep, its on the wy, they gone pul an abe lincoln like the greenback, too much paper floating around

Anon - see Kelso comment

D lee trecia - just save that paper and be ready when the call for the swap

An Avergae patriot - yep, like the song say "ill b comin around the montai whe she comes."

BuelahMan - the figure was really real, but more like last 90 days, and like another song my folk Shatwy Lo sing "They Know"

Thepoetryman - i hope they are not that stupid nd thanks for the drive by, do return, which spot of yours is your regular blog?

Anon - i hope we are ready, i have faith too, but wha will it tak? grat point. hpe u come back too. 2011 wil be here befor u know it.

Kelso - i still tach, nd my fiction, well history will show u, i hav sold more than 4500 copis of my other five and u chk the reviews on amazon - jus dont buy them there they dont pay and to be real, u sound prophetic, black folk dont care about your color, rather your actions, so thats enuff said there

Regina - nd the sad thing is tht the money printers, not makers want it that way

Reginald - yes, nd they lmost mst the regions of the federal reserve banking system, i see yo re aquained with BEHOLD A PALE WHITE HORSE nd wiliam cooper

Kelso - my home boy and neighbor of course HFJr (u see he on my blog rool under folk)

Babz - y thank u swety

Christina - thats ral good start

jameil1922 - yep, its on i two words

MP said...

Hmmm... you lost more than I even have. *one tear* To answer your last question, the government does see it but as with everything else, they are denying in hopes that nobody else will notice.

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

MP - been saving money since 25, thats all. ad 20 yrs to that and being concerned with ones loot, and some self taught understanding of investments, in 20 yrs u may be saying the same

msladyDeborah said...

Ah, home schooling does have its advantages! I swooped over here to see what you were up to and discover an on time post.

I am definitely concerned about my dollars. What I do not need~is not purchased. My 401 is looking really anemic! So I am going to have to work on saving and planning elsewhere.

The current lack of leadership knows that the nation is in a recession. But it is going to be up to individuals to handle their money business differently. Self-education and restraint is what's happening in my mind.

You know that the national policies are not citizen friendly. The O~State is off the chain with the number of foreclosurers that have happened. It is really sad to see so many people who are going under fincially.

However we also need to remember that this is a capitalist nation. We need to stop being just consumers of useless goods that suck up our incomes.


I have to agree with a lot of the remarks that I have read on this post. I hope you continue to school us T.

Anonymous said...

What I've always wondered is, where is the public outrage for things like this? Sure, I know, realistically and in the grand scheme of things, what good can "little man" public outrage do? Were we asking for any of this??? We sat back and let Bush get elected a second time--fraudulently, we cheered when we *first* started dropping on Iraq (I didn't like it myself, but when it looked like we were kicking ass, I was kind of "whoa!"), yadda yadda. And now, we're bending over and taking this financial mess in the ass.

There are the expected financial cycles, and then there is the "how the hell was that allowed to happen" stuff.

I don't think many people feel like they have recourse of any kind. Do we not?

Again though, aside from the general public becoming smarter with regards to you don't have it, don't spend it--or be smart and invest--how do you fight the government over shit like this???

What I still don't get is, where were the risk management people for the banks in all of this?

I don't mean to sound dooms-dayish, but I'm one of those who thinks America's decline (due to not just this but a *number* of reasons) is imminent.

Folks need to wake up.

Sorry for the ramble. When I think about this shit it really makes me angry. Excellent, excellent post.

Curious said...

T forgive my 2 classes in Economics education done years ago but I just have question, if the Fed doesn't start to back he brokerages and finacial institutions and they start to fail as we are seeing with Citigroup, Bear Stearns and others, won't ordinary people who have their 401k's and their pension funds tied up in this be hurt by the lack of action. Won't the dollar fall even more because the fincial instruments are no longer attractive to foreign investment. If that happens, won't the costs of oil, transportation and industry increase as a result.

God yes, I above most believe what has happened should never have been allowed to happen and certain people should pay, but we can't allow it to continue to fester like an open sore waiting for gangrene to set in. Something needs to be done.

My question is what?

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

curious - u are correct, they must d something, i'd just rather see them hel the individual, and not use what is really a junk bond as colatteral. Not to mention, i know of no new rules to regulate thse institutions. Tht the problem. I also xpect them to be smartr than me. I would not like for some med school to pass dr. because he has failed each class, just because he needs to pay his loans back

Tamara _ they not doing their job, but they geting fat bonuses each yr

Msladyd - y thank u, so it is that bad up there?

dejanae said...

im mad u lost more than i even got
grimace

Christopher said...

T-Daddy,

You've been to South Africa?

Have you been to Cape Town? Man, I wanted to go there since I was a boy and go to the top of Table Mountain and look south, towards Antarctica and then look north, and see African continent unfolding.

Back in the day, you didn't go to South Africa cuz of aparteid but now, I can travel there and see the sights and meet the people.

In fact, I think South African Airways even has a nonstop flight from Atlanta-Hartsfield.

Maybe one day I will go.

Tera said...

Although many are living in denial, I contend that we are in a Depression.

Anonymous said...

Love the idea of an off short account, but was never clear on the how/where/tax implications.

Thanks for the tip.

Ok, I may have missed a post or two, but are you planning to stop teaching and pursue your writing fulltime?

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

Exquisitely Black - had my first acccount in nigeria when i lived there for 16 mths, and all that time in and around south africa, well u learn.


Tera - I agree, and talked about if briefly when i mentioned that oil and gold were rising as the dollar decreased here

Christopher - yea, lived there for the summers of 1999-2004 (durban - really westbrook beach really, capetown (really green point at waterclub yacht club) and Joburg). and about 10 other times i was there for aroun 10 days to 3 weeks. doing NIH funded research

dejanae - but chk this, im not loosing as much as other

12kyle said...

1st timer coming thru...great post, bruh. You made some very interesting points.

Aly Cat 121 said...

oh they see it alright. SOMEBODY is making money, just not the folks who NEED too.

Don said...

Truth be told, if you discount the US military, China is more of a Superpower than we are.

I need to move to Seychelles. Just say f it, and move.

Don said...

You lost that much money in 60 days? You're doing damn good.

Tha BossMack TopSoil said...

Heater Post once again peoples!

1/3 said...

Seychelles looks beautiful:-)

Yea its kinda sad how low the dollar is ranking to other nations. Wow 11,071? It would take me a year to make that so your doing pretty good if you ask me.

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

bosmack - good look folk and we down. you know u good up in this camp

Don - yep, and man it is the bomb, and you da lady's man, so u will really enjoy this tax haven

Aly Cat - thats what im saying. Make me wanna, well i cant say now lol

12kyle - good look and u down here in the A with me to, why is it always divide and conquor, do drive back again folk

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

1/3 - most loosing more, but i am kind of doing good, but all i do is save, no spend, keep my stuff maintained, and u would love it, i only been 3 times but lived like a king, and i got in on the stock market when it was 3500

Rich Fitzgerald said...

Hey T, give me about a week and I'm gonna holler at you about an investment approach I'm working on. I may even find a way to extend it to the blog fam so folks ain't hurting when things go to the two class system -- the haves and the have-nots.

Anonymous said...

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH)
or
FMR. REP HAROLD FORD, JR. (D-TN)


Kucinich hands down.

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

Bueleahaman - i ca respect that, I just didnt grow up with Dennis acros the street LOL

Rich - will do. You still got m cell right?

KELSO'S NUTS said...

Torrance: That's why I'm throwing your response out as a out-lier. You're from Memphis. He's your boy. I grew up around the the children of Stanley and Ethel Danzig, quite possibly two of the most corrupt judges in the NYC of the last 40 years. Of course, I had their back all the way.

That's what a "man's man" does...but I'll pick up on that theme in the proper post.

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