10/28/2008
Elaine Meinel Supkis
The world's biggest economies are dropping interest rates to 0% while the smaller nations are being forced to raise rates to over 18%. All smaller currencies are dropping against the yen but finally, the G7 got the yen to weaken slightly and this has caused great rejoicing. I examine the flies infesting this ointment. China and Russia continue to merge. Russian billionaires continue to buy threadbare British officials. American banks are using the bail out money to party, give bonuses and buy out each other, not lend. And the Chinese design a gigantic rabbit shaped pavilion. Holy Monty Python!
Traders continued to shun the Australian dollar during another weak offshore session overnight as the popularity of high interest rate currencies continued to fall amid fears of a global recession.
The domestic currency hit US60.12c at 7.30am (AEDT), a level last reached in early April 2003, and came close to retesting that low point again two hours later.
This unstable system has become hopelessly destructive lately. For on top of everything, the central banks of the biggest powers all manipulate their currencies for trade advantages. Everyone but the US. The US, being dead center to all international trade, on the debit side, refuses to defend its own borders and industries. This is causing a huge global bloodbath while the US dies, rapidly. As we shall see clearly in today's news.
Australia is a scantily populated country compared to say, Japan, the Koreas, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. These countries are some of the highest population centers on earth. Australia is mostly a commodity export nation. It began as a giant prison for excess lumpen proletariat/Irish/Scottish rebels and petty criminals. The ones who survived brutal conditions became an important part of the British Empire.
Just as the Siberian prisoners, they opened up vast mineral, animal and plant reserves and made the very same empire that sought to banish them to the Outer Darkness, into a stalward protector of the empire. The Siberian soldiers who poured into Stalingrad to fight hand to hand, room by room combat with the Germans are a shining example of this dynamic.
Australia was not intended to be an industrial rival to England. But today, the main trade partners are now Asian, not English. Australia was a huge funnel for the Japanese carry trade which is now rapidly unwinding. As the Japanese and other G7 powers struggle to rewind that coo coo clock, Australia suffers currency troubles. The hope is, when the carry trade resumes, the good times will return to Australia.
Iceland Central Bank Raises Key Interest Rate to 18%
(Bloomberg) -- Iceland's central bank unexpectedly raised the benchmark interest rate to 18 percent, the highest in at least seven years, after the island reached a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Policy makers raised the key rate by 6 percentage points, the Reykjavik-based bank said in a statement today, taking the rate to the highest since the bank began targeting inflation in 2001.
``I don't think 6 percentage points will make the krona any more attractive,'' said Henrik Gullberg, a strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. ``Basically what we're seeing is a complete liquidation of everything in emerging markets, and Iceland, even in the emerging-market universe, is very vulnerable. Six percent isn't worth a lot if the currency drops another 15 percent.''
But the real fault lies in the modern economic/political system set into motion by the US after WWII. Iceland, for example, was used as a military base to threaten the Soviets. We overlooked all sorts of things so they would be our allies.
The British pirate coves run by the Crown are another example of this: they are intensely destructive for the US government because they function as funnels to move wealth out of reach of our government. This forces our government to run in the red. Normally, a sane nation would move rapidly to secure and put under government control, these pirate coves.
Instead, since England itself, despite having a huge population base, is trying to be Switzerland. 'We will be a global financial center,' the British declared proudly.
Well, they are a funnel for a host of Crown tax havens like Jersey as well as the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, etc. And these havens are hostile to the US government which uses US taxpayer money to protect not only them, but also the head of these pirates, Queen Elizabeth II. England is cutting back on military spending while leaning more and more on US military spending.
Eventually, someone will come along in the US who will understand that allies who destroy our tax base are enemies. Then he or she will sail a few ships...hopefully before we are bankrupt and have to mothball them...to these islands and take over. This is a legal invasion since these islands are being used for hostile purposes, undermining state power here.
The world’s biggest hedge fund is undertaking a radical restructuring amid a shake-up of the multi-trillion dollar industry which spells the end for thousands of its smaller rivals.
Highbridge Capital Management, which is majority owned by JP Morgan Chase and has $25bn under management, is axing 10 per cent of its New York-based staff and plans cuts in Europe and Asia.
The volatility in global stock markets has savaged the performance of some of the world’s best-known hedge funds, raising fears of a collapse in the sector, which could cause a fresh crisis in the financial system.
Big names including Deephaven, Marshall Wace, Citadel Investment Corp, Lansdowne Partners, Third Point and Harbinger, have in recent weeks sustained losses of as much as 20 per cent in some funds.
Investors pulled at least $43bn (£25bn) from US hedge funds in September, according to TrimTabs Investment Research. This is nearly five per cent of the global sector’s estimated $2 trillion in total assets.
Pulling out only 5% is causing all systems which were preset to run only on profits, into a tailspin. The folly of building business models that can operate only forwards and which have no reverse except for stripping the gears and destroying the brakes is obvious, isn't it? I marvel at the lack of genius here.
Whenever I locate a paper written about these instruments and businesses that are pure financial finaglings, it is perfectly clear that the downsides are always underestimated. This is because the true dynamics at work in any market is simple herd instinct: things happen because everyone does the same thing, at the same time.
When they create a bubble, they all make the same bets that the same outcome will be profitable to the same degree. When everyone is in total harmony and feel they don't have to think, all they have to do is have mindless computers automatically 'do x if y happens' sort of deals. This means, when x is now in reverse from the previous programming, the computer continues to do x when y is happening instead of y when x is happening.
If they all program their computers or have humans follow strict rules for deals, this still happens: sudden reversals occur and no one keeps up with it. When they do, they all reverse at the same time. The whole point of being 'smart' is to exit a bubble before it breaks. But if everyone is equally smart, this simply means they all beat each other's brains out as things collapse and they all rush to the exit.
Hedge funds were a simple fad. Since they were mostly if not all, connected to pirate cove tax haven schemes, they should be outlawed and shut down, not saved.
Time to check up on our other allies who are undermining us, Japan:
Nikkei Rebounds Sharply On Falling Yen, Short-Selling Ban
TOKYO (NQN)--Tokyo stocks bounced back strongly Tuesday, closing higher for the first time in five business days.
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Nomura Jul-Sep Loss Widens On Global Market Turmoil
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Nomura Holdings Inc. (8604) Tuesday reported a massive net loss in the July-September period - its third straight quarter of red ink - as the global financial crisis choked its proprietary trading operations, suffocated corporate financing and scared investors away from the market.
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Nakagawa: Plan To Ease Mark-To-Market Acctg Rules
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Japan plans to let financial companies value illiquid assets in a more flexible manner, partly to cushion the impact of the global financial crisis on the nation's banking sector, Finance and Banking Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Tuesday.
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Nakagawa: Plan To Ease Valuation Rules For Banks
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--As part of efforts to fight the global financial crisis, Japan plans to allow financial companies to value selected assets more flexibly, Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Tuesday.
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Latent Stock Losses Dampen Sanrio 1st-Half Profit Growth
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Sanrio Co. (8136) likely posted a group net profit of nearly 1.2 billion yen in the April-September period, up more than 60% on the year but 100 million yen less than its projection.
Good news for brainless traders! The yen was weakened slightly last night! The Bank of Japan worked with all the other goof balls in the G7 and succeeded in preventing the yen from strengthening. They are also now silent about China's currency. This is the core of the secret China/Japan central bank accord that was hammered out in August.
I am just guessing about that meeting's results. But history, as it evolves, makes it pretty clear, this is what happened. The Olympics was Team USA's last blow out attempt at unseating the Chinese. It was a failure. China took home most of the gold medals as well as the best of the secret deals. China's markets are in decline like the US. But China is NOT deindustrializing. It is shedding the low end businesses and building its true industrial base. More about that in a minute.
Now to Normura banks: HAHAHA. Just three weeks ago, they were buying up our banks. The US has decided to become a colonial third world nation. Japan boasted that they could take over everything here. Hello? Eh? Anyone alarmed for a minute? No. We figure, we will deal with them the same way a hiker deals with a bear: play dead.
I warn everyone, not to try this with DRAGONS. People playing dead with Dragons get burned to a crisp, anyway. Dragons have nuclear bombs. So do Russian Bears.
Well, it turns out that Normura wasn't so hot and is falling apart. So of course, the Bank of Japan moves swiftly to undo the BIS banking value rules concerning mark to market. Since the markets are rigged, why not keep them rigged? After all, this is the underpinnings of the fake cheap yen and the carry trade! And the G7 is desperate to get that going again!
So 'selective values' for Japanese banking gnomes is the nifty solution. Now, if I were allowed to restate the value of my own belongings and then burn my house down and then demand a credit default swap insurance value that is 10x reality, I would get real rich, real fast! Isn't that neat?
And Sanrio: only a 60% increase in profits rather than a 100%? Oh, the horror! This is due to the yen strengthening. Sanrio can't destroy competition world wide without the weak yen backing up their profit margins! Now, on to the real core of this game, the destruction of the entire US domestic auto industry:
LA Times: The end of the road for U.S. carmakers?
The U.S. auto industry's downward spiral has accelerated dramatically in recent weeks. In a desperate bid for solvency, General Motors Corp. is seeking a merger with Chrysler. Chrysler has talked with Renault and Nissan about partnerships. And now Ford Motor Co., GM and Chrysler -- backed by Michigan lawmakers -- are lobbying Washington to give them cash, implying that failure to provide a bailout could doom the industry to bankruptcy.
*snip*
Some analysts, economists and industry insiders predict a financial cataclysm, while others foresee little more than a shift of the industry to foreign companies such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. Some argue that, in the long term, the U.S. economy would be better off moving past automobile making."A failure from the Big Three would be a huge, huge hit," said Donald Grimes, a research specialist at the University of Michigan. "But there's a real question about whether there's room for all of them."
Others posit that the failure of just one of the Big Three would send shock waves through the entire manufacturing sector that could devastate suppliers and freeze up the other two carmakers. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost.
GM and Ford have barely half of their workforce or less, in the US. They are rapidly becoming anti-American corporations that might have headquarters here for a few more years before relocating to Mexico or China. If they made cars across our borders and then sold them there, it would not be a problem.
But they do NOT do this at all! These cars are built in cheap labor locations and then imported. Most of our corporations do this today with the full blessings of the political classes and most of the media and a huge hunk of the economic pundit class.
Note the economist traitor, Grimes: he thinks there is no room for 'three' automakers! HOW ABOUT JAPAN???? They have multiple automakers and they are now half of our markets here! We obviously have room for six, and if you include the three big German automakers, nine auto companies!
Why do universities hire economists this stupid? Eh? This guy wouldn't last 5 seconds in a debate with me. Then there are these 'some others' in the article, the economists who think that it would be better for us to 'move past automaking' to what, pray tell?
We are the major auto buyers in the world. We should be the major makers of autos! There is NO REASON to move 'beyond' that! Tell Japan to move beyond it, instead! This is why the loss of the tariff tool is so important. Japan ceased buying American cars long ago. We didn't retaliate.
This is a dual graph of rapid deindustrialization. And note the clever craveat at the bottom: these graphs show Canada and Mexico in the US data! Last time I looked, the mainstream media was mocking the idea of the Amero replacing the dollar. But it looks to me like the media treats our neighbors as if they are already assymilated by the US.
If we removed Mexico from these statistics, it would be much, much worse! A -50% rather than -30%, for example. Only one other nation is rapidly deindustrializing as fast as the US: Britain. We are both trapped in the same boat only Britain is also playing pirate.
SEM agrees to issue the Beijing Declaration
(Xinhua) -- The Seventh Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) issued a Chair's Statement here on Saturday, agreeing to issue the Beijing Declaration on Sustainable Development. The statement said the leaders held extensive and in-depth discussions on issues of realizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as the sustainable development targets agreed in Johannesburg, strengthening energy security cooperation, jointly addressing the challenge of climate change, and environmental protection, including water resources, forests and air, and improving social cohesion under the framework of sustainable development.
Leaders stressed the importance of mid-term review of the MDGs, and underscored the need for ASEM members to further deepen international development cooperation to meet the IADGs, particularly the MDGs, in a timely manner.
China is busy building the New World Dragon Order. We can only hope they succeed. This is because the US version of the New World Order is to spread chaos and destruction coupled with the US shooting at Syria illegally while the UN is totally silent thanks to the G7 control of the Security Council and the US dropping bombs in Pakistan while the Taliban shoot down more helicopters with their missiles.
Oh, they have missiles now. Maybe we could send in the Germans to attack Afghanistan! They sat on their base for three years there and didn't leave. But then, they caused no problems. If our own soldiers did the same, no more fighting, no more helicopters shot down, etc. We are rapidly surrendering in Iraq. The Iraqis use us like we are their garbage men. And they are taking vast satisfaction in knowing they are killing the US empire dead as a frozen duck after hunting season closes.
Third Sino-Russian economic forum opens in Moscow
(Xinhua) -- The Third Sino-Russian economic forum opened here Tuesday, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin addressed the opening ceremony.
Wen, who arrived here Monday evening on a three-day official visit to Russia, spoke highly of the rapid growth of Sino-Russian economic cooperation in recent years.*snip* Sino-Russian trade volume surged by 23 percent year on year in the first nine months of this year to hit 43 billion U.S. dollars, according to Chinese official figures. The two countries set the trade target of 60 to 80 billion U.S. dollars in 2010.
China does over $200 billion in trade surplus with the US. Russia wants balanced trade with China so it is much smaller trade. But much, much wiser trade. Putin and Hu love to negotiate. Both are canny, clever and cruel. So they are a perfect fit. We, on the other hand, send goofy guys who don't seem able to add 2+2 or demand a hard deal and some sort of balance.
This irritates me no end. The Chinese or Japanese should blanch in fear when we walk in the room, not laugh their heads off. Europe has to show more respect, too. Hard to ask them, when we send half-baked wanna be cowboy cowards to negotiate.
One can only hope Obama has more sense. He certainly has more intelligence. Even if he is a bastard, if he is a smart bastard, this is tons better than a stupid bastard or in the case of Palin, bastardette.
Tories took donations from Briton linked to Ukrainian billionaire
The Conservative Party has accepted more than £57,000 in cash donations from a British businessman who oversees the assets of a controversial Ukrainian billionaire embroiled in a battle over the control of gas supplies to a large part of western Europe, an investigation by The Independent has revealed.
Robert Shetler-Jones, a 39-year-old property developer who is the chief executive of Group DF – the holding company for the multi-billion pound assets of Dmitry Firtash with offices in Knightsbridge, has made a series of donations over the last two years to Conservative Central Office as a private individual and through Scythian Ltd, a company listed at Companies House as “dormant”.
Isn't it embarrassing that English opposition parties that depend on mindless patriotism of the Queen's subjects [hahaha...inside joke here] are in the pay of get rich quick former Soviets? And then there is the Rothschild's business: these pay out schemes were cooked on his private Corfu island estates. And international finances meets history here.
Foreign money that has island hideaways is being used to undermine democracies. These people should be arrested, not assisted in holding secret Bilderberger meetings where they all can plot to rule the earth and terrorize all of us.
So When Will Banks Give Loans?
It was Oct. 17, just four days after JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, agreed to take a $25 billion capital injection courtesy of the United States government, when a JPMorgan employee asked that question. It came toward the end of an employee-only conference call that had been largely devoted to meshing certain divisions of JPMorgan with its new acquisition, Washington Mutual.
Which, of course, it also got thanks to the federal government. Christmas came early at JPMorgan Chase.
*snip*
(He didn’t mean to, of course, but I obtained the call-in number and listened to a recording.)
“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he began. “What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”
Now, the IMF is saying, they will join the G7 central bankers in piling on the loans by making money out of thin air. They plan to do this to infinity if this is required to keep the crummy, awful status quo going no matter what.
Whatever sort of revolutionary changes we will witness will be shoved into the future. But the more we put of reforms, the nastier the revolution will be. Very explosive. This is why I don't want to put off reforms.
Time/CNN: How Washington's Bailout Will Boost Wall Street Bonuses
Uncle Sam has a new name on Wall Street — Sugar Daddy. Bonuses for investment bankers and traders are projected to fall by 40% this year. But analysts, compensation consultants and recruiters say the drop would be much more severe, perhaps as much as 70%, had it not been for the government's efforts to prop up the financial firms. "Year-end pay on Wall Street will be higher than it would have been had it not been for the government and mergers," says Alan Johnson, a leading compensation consultant. "You would expect it to be down much more."
Arrest them all! Every blasted one of them. Charge them with fraud and treason.
And now for today's most important news: HAHAHAHA. I believe in laughing.
All of which reminds me of Monty Python's Trojan Rabbit from the Holy Grail:
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