Culture of Life News

America's Teetering Banking System: "Where did all our deposits go?”

Mike Whitney

Somebody goofed. When Fed chairman Ben Bernanke cut interest rates to 3% yesterday, the price of a new mortgage went up. How does that help the flagging housing industry?

About an hour after Bernanke made the announcement that the Fed Funds rate would be cut by 50 basis points the yield on the 30-year Treasury nudged up a tenth of a percent to 4.42%. The same thing happened to the 10 year Treasury which surged from a low of 3.28% to 3.73% in less than a week. That means that mortgages—which are priced off long-term government bonds---will be going up, too.

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The Unicorns Of Derivative Deliriums

Time again to talk about history, magic and money. My favorite cocktail. The Europeans who created this wealth fund for the Arabs call it 'Unicorn Investment Bank'. So we must look at a great European painting by the Master, Bosch. We can see in it many lessons for today. This painting was done just as Europe discovered the New World and right after Portugal discovered how to circumnavigate Africa and thus, get through to China. And all the wealth in Europe began to flow to China which led to the Europeans attacking China. And we discuss derivatives. That fabulous mythical beast created by bankers to protect themselves from risk. In the US, it is now 6 times bigger than our entire collective debts. As well as our entire yearly GNP. And indeed, it is now greater than our collective national WORTH! Wow.

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The Great Credit Unwind of '08

By Mike Whitney

"The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency. Now the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to accumulate dollars.'' '' George Soros, World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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Male Hummingbirds Respond to Tail Noise Triggers

I have played with wild birds all my life. I have bred or trained or hosted many wild and domestic birds all my life. My godmother was one of the oldest bird banding scientists on earth, 100 years ago, she wrote one of the first scientific studies of the California Condors. She taught me a lot about birds as did my parents. I have figured out, many years ago, how to make male birds 'show their stuff' simply by imitating the sound of their feathers moving. The BBC reports that hummingbird males use their tail feathers in this way. No surprise to me.

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Walking Away Fad Will Destroy Entire Economy

Everything can be turned into assets and all things including gold can suddenly turn into debits. I see a need to explain this since people imagine there is some rock-solid form of asset that always gains in value no matter what and can be used as 'money' at all times. Nothing is that easy or we would all be trillionaires. Recently, there has been a madcap belief in using our houses as assets rather than necessary evils that drain our incomes. The crash of the housing asset bubble has returned housing to its traditional role as a necessary overhead COST rather than as a positive money flow. Time to talk about 'jingle mail' where people are not honoring their promises and are walking away from foolish 'investments'. This has a high social and economic cost we will all be forced to pay.

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Rate Cuts Fuel Gold Speculation

The Federal Reserve was set up to support asset markets and protect speculators. Of course, the more they are protected, the more they do stupid things. Right now, in the last 7 years of fiscal recklessness of historic proportions, the US has also suffered through a Federal Reserve regime where interest rates are used to create first a Dot Com Bubble then a Housing Bubble and now a GOLD Bubble. Every time rates are cut by the Fed, the price of gold shoots up. Time to explain speculative bubbles and their many dangers.

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Cinderella's Evil Step Sisters Burn In Bonfire Of Vanities

Finally, the main media has noticed that Japan has real inflation. I have proven in the past the only bar to inflation in Japan was to drop wages and squeeze workers to death. The workforce paid 100% the costs of inflation. The dying dollar is about to take a deeper plunge into the murky depths. The Japanese exporters want us to take on more debts so we buy more Japanese stuff. But this is killing the dollar. Evil Kerviel is still in the news. The panic of last week is wearing off but the banking collapse continues after this major hit. The Fed wants to stop this cascade of insolvencies via cheaper debts and this will fail just as it failed in Japan a decade ago.

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My Winter Has Moved To China And California

It has been beautiful, almost spring-like here on my mountain. Normally, it is as cold as Siberia. Usually, when it is warm here in winter, this means the earth balances everything by giving everyone else really miserable weather. Vicious storms and cold weather are hammering warm climes to the West of us, as the world turns. China and California are getting my normal weather which is often well below zero and blizzards. Also, an asteroid is passing very near the earth, in AU, that is. Reminds us of what the real dangers are: destruction from the Gods.

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Like Lucifer, Spy Satellite Falls To Earth, Menacing All Nations

A rogue US spy satellite set up to help us in WWIII, is falling from the heavens. And we have NO IDEA where this horrible thing will crash. It can start WWIII. The US can't understand our systems we set up are not protecting us even though it is obvious that anyone working to attack us can do this easily, even hit the Pentagon. As soldiers get blown up in Iraq on a daily basis, the GOP candidates left standing are a pair of corrupt war mongers, both of whom are egging each other on to see who is the most uncivilized. The Iranians are happily taking advantage of yet more US/Israel blunders. The Palestinians supporting Hamas are laughing at us as the Jews plan to reassume their Gaza/Warsaw Ghetto Gambit.

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Drunk Financial Orgy Ends With Classic Pan Attack

Today is a harmonic number day and a day of more Panic Attacks. I want to explain the entire history of money, wealth, death and the Gods themselves. And those goats we see at all Bacchanalian orgies. The goats that drunks at these orgies rip apart with their teeth and hands are the goats of inflation! And the entire world is overrun with these goats. Far from depressions, I see goats crashing around Japan, they are climbing all over the beds and tables of the US consumers, they are on the run and chewing up the furniture, etc. I used to have goats. Amusing animals. They are great escape artists as well as climbers. Time to arrest more money makers like Evil Kerviel of France. And I explain how offshore financial groups are destroying the world flow of money.

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