October 6, 2007
Elaine Meinel Supkis
A reader in Singapore kindly sent me a link to a PDF page which is very long and very enlightening. The charts and data in this document are astonishing and also shows how fast Asia had evolved in the last 5 years from being US-centric and dependent to interlocking economies within their own sphere. Also, economics professor, Kuttner, testifies before Congress and as usual, I throw up my hands in despair at his inability to see the obvious. And I am invited to go to a forecasting/prediction conference where world business leaders and important professors can tell me how to see into the future...hahahaha. I am not being paid to go there so they will have to hoof it alone without me.
This is an invitation I got in my email from Prediction Markets Cluster.
What are Prediction Markets?Also known as information markets, decision markets, idea futures, event derivatives and virtual markets, prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event, outcome or parameter (e.g., total sales next quarter). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter.
People who buy low and sell high are rewarded for improving the market prediction, while those who buy high and sell low are punished for degrading the market prediction. Evidence so far suggests that prediction markets are at least as accurate as other institutions predicting the same events with a similar pool of participants.
The great gambling casinos are open and roaring! And the Golden Ring of Power, the Rheingold, the Holy Grail is someone who can predict the future with unerring accuracy. Why, all we need to do is to see what will happen next and we will all be very rich indeed. The premise of this organization which is backed by major corporations, go click on the above URL and you will see, is that groups of astute people can jointly come to a consensus that will be accurate. I would like to say, if you get a roomful of ruling elites together, they can 'predict' the future nearly as well as I! Not that they will breathe a word of this to outsiders. This is why the military rings their secretive meetings and why outsiders are not allowed access to their meetings like the infamous Bilderberger bashes, for example. Indeed, locking out the people who want to know from the people in the know is what the New World Order is all about.
Readers ask me about the Bilderberg meetings and all the other jolly Roger junkets these people have. Yes, these organizations conspire to rule the earth in the name of the European empires who fly, along with Japan, under the shadow of the huge US empire. And they want to keep their power which is why reporters not only don't report about these meetings, if they are invited, it is to shut them up, not give them news to pass on.
Unfortunately, I can't attend this meeting here which is going to be in a boat club, imagine hobnobbing there! No, it is too far away and too expensive. The US dollar can't buy a newspaper-wrapped fish and chips anymore, much less, illegal drugs, in London. I would have to sleep under a bridge or in a cheap sex-worker hotel. This actually happened to my parents once when they were travelling during the early 1970's when the Bretton Woods Accord was sprung on them while they were deep in the Himalayan mountains. When they flew through London, they discovered their allotment for a hotel room which was plenty when they flew to Asia, was now worth half of what it was a mere three months earlier! So my dad decided to find a cheap hotel.
They ended up in this place for sex workers. It was rather noisy at night. My father said it was easier sleeping in a yurt.
Back to predicting the future, my favorite topic. The ruling elites in the US/Europe/Japanese empire want the status quo to continue. I will predict right now that this wish will be granted by the Chinese dragon because it is hosting the Olympics and also, looking at all the charts and graphs in the next link, one can clearly see that China is winning this present economic race so they want it to continue, not end. They are racing ahead of both Japan and its fellow 7 dwaves and so it has a huge interest to keep this race on track.
As previous stories here showed clearly, the problems with the US financial markets collapsing due to our stupid lending policies and the resulting housing bubble, barely touched Asia. The vast majority of all the trashy tranches are held by Americans and attending pirates and hell hounds operating out of tax havens at sea. The banks here in America don't even hold anywhere near as many of these fatal floosies, the ABX-He papers, as the hedge funds. So the curious collapse of the G7's banking systems was purely internal. It didn't even cause the slightest pause in the Chinese or other Chinese-oriented banks in Asia. This is why I dubbed it 'The Great Seven Dwarve's Banking Crisis.' Heh. Just now. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to bankruptcy we go!
The trick with future predicting isn't 'will the Fed prop up speculators and wild spenders instead of protecting the economy?' Of course, they always do this. They even did this in the late 1920's. They have to protect the dollar and protect the rich at the same time and every time, the dollar loses. What a shock. In the 1970's, when Nixon and then Ford struggled to keep Wall Street speculators happy while dealing with devaluing the dollar by 50% or more of its purchasing power overseas, they and the Wall Street begged the Fed to keep interest rates always at least 2-3% below the real rate of inflation. So we had stagflation.
Jimmy Carter backed Volker raising rates. This was politically unpopular and Wall Street hated it but it saved the system. Many of us thought it would totally collapse and the US empire would end by 1982. Instead, we got Reagan and his funky tax cuts and the new system was set into motion. This system was the systematic deindustrializing of the winners of WWII: Russia and the US. Both continued their military wild spending and both had to win allies so they allowed their allies to eat into their own industrial bases. This ended suddenly with the collapse of the Soviet Empire due to bankruptcy.
And stupid wars in places like Afghanistan. And the irritation with the Soviet alliances within the subject populations dominated by Russia. The US trianglated with China during all this. The present system was set so that China and Japan as well as Eastern and Western Europe should stay our staunch allies and friends via one-way trade with the US: they would defend our empire and add to it by simple self-interest. The need to keep the US empire funded via loans while they all run trade surpluses meant they would vote with us when we ask the UN to disarm countries we intend to invade and then the UN and the governments of the world would look the other way while we murder millions of people and steal stuff.
This is 'The New World Order.'
It has some fatal flaws: China is not our ally or friend, China is a rival. Ditto, Japan. In spades. But unlike Japan, China is a military and population power. It is a big country like the US, Russia and Brazil, not a tiny nation that can't last more than 5 minutes into WWII without losing its entire population! This ability to endure an all-out war determines who is a world power and who isn't.
Back to predictions: the Big Events are seldom foreseen by the rich and powerful. They always blunder right into these Big Bangs utterly and totally clueless. For example, all the banking collapses of the 19th centuries led to confrontations of the empires with each other but all of these were limited and brief. But in 1914, an identical confrontation blew up into WWI which they charmingly called, 'The Great War' and 'the War to End All Wars.'
Which it didn't, of course. Despite all the warning signs after WWI, the pundits and thinkers in world economics didn't foresee the Great Depression which was supposed to be the Depression That Ends All Depressions. Except it won't. The small flames from the US Revolution back in 1776 were thought to be a passing spasm in the eternal French/English wars that fitfully burned ever since the Battle of Hastings and France won that round...only to suddenly fall into a much nastier and more serious Revolution which resolved itself by putting into power, Napoleon, who then nearly overran all of Europe.
The ups and downs in the value of assets and stocks are interesting to me but the huge shape and form of real history is my passion and this is where I like to make predictions. And obviously, China is gaining ground by the hour against the US and their economic forces are in the ascendent while our are in full decline as well as much of Europe and even in Japan, it is now declining, not growing. Japan is besting the US in the realm of auto sales but this is only because China is just beginning to enter that field, rapidly. If the past is any guide, the US and European auto making complexes will completely collapse and vanish, already, the retreat is great and this, with mainly the Japanese winning the race.
DBS is the largest bank in Singapore as measured by assets, and a leading bank in Hong Kong, with leading positions in corporate, SME and consumer banking, treasury & markets, wealth management, securities brokerage, equity and debt fund raising. With one of the highest credit ratings in the region, DBS is ready to serve customers in 15 markets as a bank that specialises in Asia.
I spent about 5 hours, reading this and then playing with the charts and graphs. I can't reproduce them here because of the copywrite problems which I don't have when I publish the various Central Bank documents and charts, for example, or our Treasury or Congressional report documents and charts. But I do urge serious readers to go visit and leaf through this big PDF publication. I disagree with many key points in the analysis which seems bent on ignoring obvious facts that the data clearly shows but this is due to the writers of this report not wishing for the status quo to collapse.
Here is my take on one very important chart, it shows how Asia is increasingly trading with China, not the US.
We tried to cross the Rubicon and are now in midstream, drowning. This Singapore report clearly states that the US is no longer the sole destination of world trade. And indeed, this is obvious to any unbiased onlooker. I have detailed over the years, the relentless work under Hu and Wen to form trade alliances with as many neighbors as possible. They have pointedly denied the US access to many of these regional meetings, for example. The fact that they can do this is a sign of growing power and influence. The US has retaliated by locking China out of the G-meetings. This is why we read about 'G-7' this and 'G-3' that. China has asked us to stop doing this but just this week, we did this again. As I reported. And like always, the US wants everyone to attack China's value of the yuan while ignoring the yen.
Reading this report shows why China won't knock over the apple cart and derail the gravy train: they are winning hands down.
According to this bank, European and US equity index has risen this year by around 12%, Japan went down around 4% and China went up over 200%. Think of this! An insane rate, no? Japan's depression which is connected with them penetrating both European and American auto markets as well as cameras and electronics, for example, is slowly bleeding Japan dry at home. This report doesn't notice that Japan's depression ended 5 years ago. It assumes the dropping prices are due to weakness and not strength and the startling issue of Japan assembling the world's biggest FOREX reserves while 'mired in a depression' isn't even mentioned slightly. I must have been the ONLY person on earth to notice this fact. Only this last two months have other writers begun to sit up and scratch their heads.
Back to the DBS report: US Economic indicators were mostly in the red unlike virtually all the major manufacturing nations they covered. Exports are over -$600 billion a year and our overall current account balance is almost -$800 billion. Our current account is nearly 6% of our GNP. They expect this to be worse next year! In stark contrast, China is running entirely in the black on every level. China's GNP growth has been between 9-12% a year this last 10 years. Their trade surplus is around 10% of their GNP, too. From 2006 to 2008, the projection is for China's exports to rise from nearly $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. Trade is growing at over 20% a year. And the worst news of all for us: their fearsome FOREX funds which we are all guessing is over $1.3 trillion right now will rise to $1.7 trillion NEXT YEAR!
Japan's trade surplus was about 4% of their GNP last year and is projected to rise to over 6% next year. As I keep saying, something is working just fine in Japan despite the eternal depression there. The DBS report basically is saying, the status quo, if it doesn't collapse, will mean the US will stagnate while still running up awesome, huge debts in the form of trade red ink for at least another year if not the next 5 years while China will grow massively, at about 10% a year which is TERRIBLE NEWS FOR US! If we grow at 2% a year or even, in 'good times', 3% a year, this means China will outclass us by an astonishing 7-8% per annum!
The Chinese hope to do this for a mere 10 years. Then we are totally bankrupt, totally de-industrialized and they will rule the earth. Easy prediction to make. Look at the chalkboard picture below:
The grave mistake of the Emperor of Prussia and the Reich was the desire to undercut England by destroying France via military force. All Germany had to do was to keep on building up its industrial base, increasing its markets by using superior technology, to increase the health of its citizens via the Bismark socialized state policies and to encourage education and use diplomacy.
But the Kaiser thought the road to riches was to occupy various countries like China or to carve up and ruthlessly exploit Africa like King Leopold of Belgium was doing. So he gambled it all on conquering King Leopold and the French and then, of course, going into Eastern Europe, etc. The Chinese leadership worships the book, 'The Rise and Fall Of the Great Powers' by Kennedy, a book I highly recommend despite it being old now, and the Chinese know that jumping the imperial gun can lead to grave disasters. They know the US is not really that weak...yet. If we are forced, we can still rally ourselves and recapture our home markets and redevelop our industrial base. The trick is the 'feather bed of doom' approach: everyone should be much happier to slowly sink into debt and creature comforts so the will to resist will cease.
This is why I can confidently say, the Chinese are just as intent on keeping this system going for as long as possible. For the longer it runs, the better the chances are, they will win without violence. The recent squeeze plays which I suspect are entirely due to China changing the course of how money flows via their new sovereign wealth funds as well as their purchases of yens instead of just dollars and euros, to hold in their dragon cave in Beijing. They are testing the systems, giving warnings to anyone thinking of excluding them from the New World Order which as the US going deep into debt while bogged down in fruitless wars with Muslim fanatics.
So the status quo is safe. ALAS.
As a fine historian, he covers all the bases pretty well. Here he explains why all ths same stupid, hoary, old, nasty tricks that create bubbles keep reappearing.
When the schemers build their conspiratorial machines designed to crank out money while driving up serious levels of debt, they seldom think ahead about the inevitable consequences of doing this. To prevent any interference with these schemes, they corrupt the government and demoralize the nation. This means telling everyone, greed is good and if speculators run amok, everyone will be zillionaires in no time at all. And if the speculation fever comes to Main Street and bids up everything in sight, then this is good news, it means a chicken in ever pot and the life of Reilly in every home as everyone makes money speculating while at home. Especially when the home itself is the item being speculated upwards.
This is why the only barriers to speculative bubbles are central banks. And of course, they end up creating these bubbles because this is wildly popular. Who doesn't want to get rich quick, betting on bubbles expanding thanks to easy credit? A bubblemania is easy to spot: people stop saving and start going deeply into debt. And always, if interest rates are below the real rate of domestic inflation, people will gladly go into debt 100% since this makes a profit beyond the cost of the debt itself.
I have rich neighbors who aren't really all that rich. Every economic downturn, a number of them go bankrupt and lose their homes. The latest example is on the mountainside opposite of mine.
It is always the same story: someone wants a fancy mansion, in this case, it is three buildings, one, the main house and two major outbuildings that are also residences. The buyers don't realize the costs of upkeep which, on high-grade buildings, is much higher than slums, for example. You can't 'do it yourself' if you want to ever sell the mansion. Polishing fine hardwood parquet floors, cleaning a million windows, fixing a four-story tall chimney that is as big as many people's bathrooms on the ground level, snow plowing, maintaining the gardens and rolling estate grounds, etc. An army of servants and specialists!
In this case, the debt load ran up to half a million bucks. The constricting markets coupled with inflation and then worsened by real interest rates rising above 1% again has doomed the people who bought this place. First, they tried renting only due to the housing bubble, rents are lower than the value of the house so the rents even on three buildings can't cover the debt loaded on the property. Then they tried selling it themselves so they could 'save' the money from real estate agent costs. Then boom. They lost everything, they fell off the cliff.
Frankly, I am ticked about their little adventure. They raised my own property values and thus, my taxes. Now they join the previous pretend rich who used to be my nearest neighbors and who also lost everything with simple stock or bond market downturns. These people interest me because they are mirrors of our entire culture and society. They go deep into debt in various gambles on rising asset and stock values so the slightest downwind causes them to crash. They are NOT playing with 'extra funds'.
In classic capitalism, one uses money above and beyond the cost of living to invest in various business ventures who want to raise money via selling stocks, NOT GOING INTO DEBT! OH! I see a big, bad wolf here: not only have armies of people gone very deep into debt against the value of their assets but whole capitalist systems from manufacturers to banking houses, have rung up gigantic debts! This is what the buy-up and buy-outs are all about: NOT excess funds that need a home but EXCESS DEBTS seeking something to squat on! We are hyper-indebted due to this!
And it isn't a mistake: the quickest and easiest way to make money is to get a loan, preferrably at sub-inflation rates. So the key here is to keep interest rates ABOVE the rate of inflation. The DBS report above does talk about this happening in China: the interest rates are below the rate of inflation so the stocks there are rising. But it doesn't connect the same dots in the US or Europe, for that matter. Indeed, the true rate of inflation in Japan is well over 4% but is masked brutally by restricting purchasing power of the masses there.
Citibank was summoned last April to their 'silent partner' who was not silent at all but who yelled at them and swatted them with his cane and kicked the 'rich' President of Citibank in the face as he knelt on the carpet. Heh. Well, he wasn't forced to kneel but he was forced to sit on a small cushion rather than the ornate chairs. The Saudis do this when they are displeased. Trust me on this. Citibank was ordered to cut overhead, fire people and invest more in China.
And anyone imagining that China will be a 'silent partner' with its immense sovereign wealth fund, all I can say is, they but need to whisper and the Wall Street and banking hot shots will shoot up and yell, 'Yes, sir Dragon, SIR!' This is why 'sovereign wealth' has the word for 'royal rule' in it! None of these people will be 'passive'. They will let their servants play around but when push comes to shove, the real rulers take over. I suggest we remember this in the future: our fates are not in our own hands.
The red section of this snippet of Kuttner's testimony pissed me off so I made it red. This was Greenspan's work. He was buddies with the guys running that scam. He wanted to save THEM, not the credit markets, etc. Right after they got to bail out, he raised rates while Al Gore was running for President and thus, and I complained about this back then, online, made the 1999 downturn worse. Then the SAME WEEK Bush was sworn in by the Supreme Whores, he dropped rates like mad long before the 9/11 excuse.
This utterly infuriates me! Over and over again, all the armies of zombie economics professors, Wall Street shysters and speculators join in with our lying politicians to openly lie about our present situation! I look at our factories and I see 'Japanese bosses run this joint' or 'European banking consortiums at work in this bank!' or 'Speak Mandarin, you fool.' Or I see closed factories, dropping wages, loss of pensions and benefits. I saw many farms here vanish over the years and then all our export businesses in Berlin, New York, ceased manufacturing or producing much of ANYTHING and vanish. In less than 10 years.
I see a sea of red ink sloshing from coast to coast! How can this be 'sound'? Like the neighbors I can spy on with my binoculars, I see really beautiful, huge houses nestled in a glorious landscape, very lovely, and they are GOING BANKRUPT. One by one, step by step. All of my neighbors 'on the Gold Coast' here are drowning in debts. The neighbor who flies a private jet between his vacation house here and Manhattan: gone. The guy with the three houses, one overseas, bankrupt. This process is easy to track. And this, with barely a tiny blip in the economic data! Right now, every slight downdraft is counteracted by the Fed making loans cheap again.
Dear professor Kuttner: the Window of Opportunity I used to lecture about way back in 1974 is closing just as I accurately predicted, in 2000 AD. I said often, even on TV, 'We must prepare for the inevitable future for the time frame where we can easily redesign our energy systems and our cities will begin to close in 2000 and by 2010, we will be hard put to retrofit.' This is because, if energy is very expensive, retrofitting is even more so! This is why one uses cheap energy to retrofit early and often.
Indeed, I suggested long ago, raising the tax on gasoline and fuel continuously over the following 30 years and using these taxes to retrofit! Every house in America would have solar energy panels if this was required by Federal law and loans for the cost was covered by gasoline taxes! But we chose the other route. Congress can't stop speculators. Only the Fed can. Congress CAN and SHOULD cut gasoline consumption via higher taxes. The whole SUV boom would never had happened if they did this long ago. Higher fuel prices are very much a big part of our trade deficit and a key component of the build up of sovereign wealth of the top 10 sovereign wealth nations as yesterday's chart showed. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and RUSSIA are all building huge sovereign wealth funds.
It's not easy being a big player in the stock market. Trading huge quantities of stock on traditional exchanges has become ever more challenging, costly, and potentially disruptive. And if other players see your moves, they can disrupt your trades. That's led to the emergence in recent years of alternative trading systems known as dark pools. And their growth could have significant implications for big stock exchanges—and individual investors.Dark pools sound like something from Greek mythology or a sci-fi epic, but in stock-market speak they are private trading networks that big brokerages such as Lehman Brothers (LEH) and Merrill Lynch (MER) have developed primarily for the internal matching of orders between buyers and sellers who are clients of the same brokers. But dark pools have developed links among Wall Street firms as well, so that orders can be matched across different brokerages. Indeed, some firms are teaming to launch new dark pools such as BIDS Trading.
These Dark Pools have a very strong link to the vast sea of debt that we are sinking in. They must move money about secretly so we don't know what the hell is going on. And they 'control' all this and I say, they are also TRAITORS. For note that they do this for their own benefit and for the benefit of those Sovereign Wealth Funds held by our rivals and even outright enemies! This reminds me of Bush's granddaddy helping Hitler's money machine up until the government here forbade this well AFTER Germany declared war on us!
Note how the Bushes flourished after this scandal. Indeed, the Jewish financial powers that supported all these Bushes as they took over America, never talked about this tidbit of history. It is quite simple: the Bushes are working with them so they conspired to cover this up. The New York Times and Washington Post ignored this history when talking about the Bushes. AIPAC doesn't give a hoot about this. The various 'Nazi hunters' ignore this support of the Biggest Nazi of Them All. So here we have a consortium of financiers who also give gigantic sums of money to their favorite pet politicians, playing secret money moving/money manipulation games that gets them even richer and no one has the faintest idea, as Prof. Kuttner said above, what the hell is going on! And frankly, they don't care.
Money is magic and connected to it is this very dark pool I call the Outer Darkness. If one wants to see in that place, all you have to do is get hit by lightning and then find a guide like Pegasus who doesn't give a horse's neigh about dark things. And who doesn't care about money at all. If one goes there seeking someone who loves money, one meets Demons. They love money, they make money and they use it. They consider it one of their best and easiest tools to use.
So here we have it: a bunch of very rich guys swimming in the darkest of stygian waters, they are swimming with these demons who tell them, 'Don't be afraid, we won't let you drown, BWAHAHAHA.' Right! Temptations are geat instruments of power. Everyone uses them, who seek power. For example, when we should have raised gasoline taxes, the GOP ran on 'drop the tax on gasoline!' And they won! Lots of power! But we will drown in this inky black oily pool! They didn't care, they didn't think about the consequences. Nor can anyone explain this to the American people. The choices we make are fatal choices. And the choice of our top financial geniuses to go swim in the darkest pools deep in the dark caves guarded by hell hounds and pirates will end with us being another pile of bones on the road of history.
The top of this story is the invitation for me to go learn how to predict the future! And they would either laugh at me or throw me into the Thames if I were to give them a lecture on real future-sight! I can see the future clear as day no matter how dark. And the solutions are often laughably simple though, thanks to the passage of time, harder and harder to obtain. All it requires is the will to do it. Which we lack. We WANT to swim in dark pools, we WANT to drown in red ink!
One mansion here owned by a top NYC public figure had this huge swimming pool. His wife drowned in it so he decided to eliminate it. But he forgot to tell the guy who fills this pool who we happen to know! Every spring, he would drive up the steep mountain here and pump in huge amounts of clean water. But when he found out, at the top, there was no pool, the rich man told him to dump thousands of gallons of water on the road because the loaded truck couldn't turn around without getting rid of the water!
So he did this and the entire road's asphalt washed away! There are consequences when we do things. Dumping a ton of US dollars in a flood when the Chinese and Saudis no longer can hold them will wash away our nation!
Another reader sent me this link the the Labor Department of the USA:
Labor is in trouble. Inflation isn't bothering the rich, they get super-cheap loans that makes them richer as the dollar dies and workers get eaten alive by inflation of necessities! Note that Japan's workers are mired in a terrible depression WHILE OIL PRICES SHOOT UP IN JAPAN! Australia and New Zealand are both shown with the Asian nations but they are actually more part of the EU/US system. Korea has inflation but most of the other Asian manufacturing/export nations have nearly no inflation coupled with weak currencies and high FOREX rates.
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China is obviously the Workhouse of the World. This is very significant. According to Kennedy's book, 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers', the US became the Workhouse of the World, displacing both Germany and England...in 1914! This is why we and only we, won WWI. England was fatally crippled by it.
This chart is a total fraud. The US does manufacture a lot of something: military stuff! This is directly connected with the half a trillion a year we spend on our military and is a very significant part of the red ink problem that bedevils us. Indeed, we are the world's biggest arms dealers! And our manufactured export statistics are very heavily infested with military deals...which we often pay for, ourselves, by generous loans which are often not repaid in full or in the case of Israel, cancelled outright! But they remain on the books as 'deals' rather than 'steals.'
China's manufacturing is less than ours but getting rapidly the same size. This chart makes it look as if China is but some midget compared to our great might. But then, the military manufacturing there is part of the great Dark Pool of money that we can't see nor are we allowed to see. Our government complains about this all the time, of course. I would strongly suggest that the correct chart will show that China is EQUAL to us in manufacturing size. Certainly, the statistics in the DBS report above would suggest this, too.
Job Growth: 110,000 new jobs were created in September, the 49th straight month of job gains. The United States has added 1.6 million jobs in the past 12 months and over 8.4 million jobs since August 2003. Employment increased in 48 states and the District of Columbia over the year ending in August. (Last updated: October 5, 2007)
*snip*
There are Still Many Signs of Economic Strength:Economic Growth: Real GDP growth was 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2007, supported by strong gains in business investment and exports.
Business Investment: Business spending on commercial structures and equipment strengthened in the second quarter. Strong corporate profits and healthy balance sheets bode well for continued investment growth.
Exports: Strong global growth is boosting U.S. exports, which grew by 7.1 percent over the past 4 quarters.
Inflation: Core inflation remains contained. The consumer price index excluding food and energy rose 2.1 percent over the 12 months ending in August.
Tax Revenues: Tax receipts rose 11.8 percent in fiscal year 2006 (FY06) on top of FY05's 14.6 percent increase. As a share of GDP, FY07 receipts are projected to be above their 40-year average.
Americans Are Keeping More of Their Hard-Earned Money:Real Wages Increased 2.2 percent Over the Past 12 Months . This translates into an additional $720 above inflation for the average full-time production worker over the last year.
I don't know anyone who got wage hikes more than the rate of inflation! Most, none at all or below the rate of real inflation. It is dishonest to have fake inflation rates and then celebrate wage hikes that are nothing of the sort. The US exports grew but this was due to Boeing deals coupled with low interest loans, military 'purchases', Israel needing another $21 billion in freebies which were listed as 'sales' even though there were no sales, it was all gifts from Congress, etc. I love the 'tax receipts...above 40 year average' part. This included long stretches when we had hideous stagflation and years of irresponsible GOP tax cuts! Now that we have Democrats in Congress again, taxes will climb.
The childish notion that we don't have to pay our own way won't die. Democrats will be blamed for raising taxes. People want a free lunch and Santa Claus which is why we are in a bad fix here. The Treasury sees nothing wrong. Professor Kuttner sees bad things but thinks, overall, things are Jim Dandy fine! Everywhere, I see happiness with the status quo. Which is being forcibly held up by the Chinese Communist leaders, Hu and Wen. Who will throw this down When they see fit.
The Treasury::
We are on track to balance the budget by 2012. The Mid-Session Review of the FY 2008 Budget shows that we are on track to achieve a small surplus in 2012. This year, the deficit is projectedto be down to 1.5 percent of GDP. Much of the improvement in the deficit reflects strong revenue growth, which in turn reflects the continued strength of the U.S. economy. Looking ahead, higher spending on entitlement programs dominates the future fiscal situation; we must squarely face up to the challenge of reforming these programs.
Kick those sick children to the curb and taser the brats! Throw grandma under the train only we don't have trains, throw her out of the Boeing jet! And note how the Treasury plays stupid number games! If we add the 'little' deficit of 'only' 1.5% of our GNP to the ferocious trade deficit, we get a -7% or more of GNP. This is a fatal level of red ink. Does this spell 's-t-r-o-n-g'?
When Wall Street stared down Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last month, it was the central banker who blinked and lowered interest rates. The risk of recession, in the financial services industry, at least, trumped the threat of inflation to Main Street.
*snip*
Commodity prices are a leading indicator of inflation. On world markets, prices of raw materials are up--agricultural products are only the latest to the party--and the value of the dollar is going the opposite way. That combination does not make for cheaper imports at either the gas pump or the grocery store shelf.Elsewhere in the world, six central banks from Switzerland to Taiwan raised rates over the past month, fearing the threat of inflation more than the risk of recession. Of the seven central banks that cut rates, only Hong Kong did so as dramatically.
Maybe the Fed sees something in the U.S. economy that the rest of us don't, or fears a financial firm meltdown still to come. But a 10% rise in the S&P 500 since August makes a pretty good case that Bernanke did bend too far in Wall Street's direction.
Well, I said the same thing the same day Bernanke played Santa Claus. I remember being rather bitter about all this, in fact. Wall Street went into an instant celebration and drank themselves under the table, cheering and laughing. This didn't save the banking system at all! We are in a SAVINGS CRISIS. Savings are collapsing because interest rates are below the rate of inflation. So dropping the rates increased speculation and going into debt, not savings and caution that would save the banking system. So our banks exist only courtesy of the Dragon in Beijing letting dollars flow into their own accounts. The Singapore bankers expect the FOREX reserves of China to zoom up to nearly $2 trillion next year. It crossed the trillion threshold only slightly over a year ago.
Washington Mutual Inc. said Friday that the weak housing market and the recent mortgage crunch will lead to a 75 percent drop in its third-quarter net income, making it the latest financial institution to warn investors it took a major hit over the summer.WaMu, the nation's largest savings bank, reported net income of $748 million in the third quarter of 2006, meaning third-quarter 2007 net income is likely to be somewhere around $187 million.
And here is a typical news story! Savings have collapsed and of course, the savings banks are collapsing. They gave out too many cheap loans and attract no easy savings to counterbalance all this. And off the cliff we ride! I don't expect this bank to survive but it will be saved like Countrywide, the big shots will force government agencies to buy up all the crappy dying loans and bankroll their collapse while at the same time, the Fed will be asked to make loans even cheaper.
MARK HULBERT
Still bullish
Commentary: Best long-term market timing newsletters still charging aheadIn early August, when I last surveyed the stock market forecasts of the 10 market timers with the best long-term records, they on balance were quite bullish. And, as we now know with the benefit of hindsight, they were right to be bullish
Of course they are bullish! Foolish Bernanke showed the world, he is a push-over just like Greenspan showed that he was a criminal conspirator! Arrest these bankers! Canada just handed over its national banking system to a Goldman Sachs invader! They are going to be integrated into our economic system and will follow the same foolish path we are on. They won't build up sovereign wealth funds like China, Russia and the oil Arabs, they will sink in a sea of debt. Isn't that charming?
The US dollar can't buy a newspaper-wrapped fish and chips anymore, much less, illegal drugs, in London. I would have to sleep under a bridge or in a cheap sex-worker hotel.
LOL LOL :) :)Funny!!!
Posted by: Greg | October 06, 2007 at 07:25 PM
Looks like an attempt to integrate not just Canada but Australia, NZ and England into one economic entity to survive the coming economic fallout???
Posted by: OC | October 06, 2007 at 09:04 PM
We are the British Empire Reborn! Complete with a Queen who looks like King George III and a George Bush who is as insane as king George III. Aren't we lucky!
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 06, 2007 at 09:27 PM
Amazing how many commentators remarking how good the economic fundamentals are at this time. every reason to believe that this tree is going to grow to heaven, this time, finally....
Stock prices have gone up on the expectation of further rate cuts, which many commentators think is unlikely that the Fed will deliver, since the market appears stable. Makes you wonder if the speculator chiefs would attempt to create a correction prior to the next Fed meeting. Any particular dates that this could happen, Elaine? I can sense that triggering such a thing would create great fear in the speculators heart this time, even if they feel rather cozy right now with 'the fundamentals being strong'
Posted by: Neuro Artist | October 07, 2007 at 05:21 AM
My Sunday article goes over a lot of fresh data from the UN that answers some interesting questions no one is asking right now.
China is definitely in charge of what will happen next! And the flow of sovereign wealth funds is most interesting, how it has changed in the last 35 years, it has TOTALLY changed! Into a very dangerous form that is extremely fluid.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 07, 2007 at 11:53 AM
I actually slept in a sex-worker Hotel in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city), for about two weeks in early 1992. I came to Saigon with about 200 USD in my pocket, and this hotel would let me stay there for 5 dollars a night. the reception area was interesting, lots of charming girls and mainly Taiwanese or Chinese business men, who were renting air-conditioned rooms by the hour (at 10 dollars/hour), mine wasn't airconditioned though.... I ended up teaching English for food (so if you find people in Vietnam speaking English with a distitinctly Sweedish accent you know why). I went to the museum of American War Atrocities, and got a different view on history. And I was able to buy 10 GI Zippo-lighters for 250.000 Dong (about 22 USD). I especially liked the one engraved with 'Oh lord, please don't let atomic bomb drop on me, Cu Chi 1964', which I later gave to my father in law, the rest I sold to bikers in Sweden. I was amazed by the true free market economy they had in this communist country. And I really have a special place in my heart for the Vietnamese people after my experiences there.
Posted by: Neuro Artist | October 07, 2007 at 02:59 PM
Absolutely nothing is better than a good dose of communism to prepare one for a great capitalist career!
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 07, 2007 at 05:30 PM
True Elaine, the best free market economies I have seen has been in communist countries. Socialist countries doesn't seem to have that effect. And the capitalist mecca USA seems to become a place where a small priviledged elite controlls everything, just like the old communist states. The world surely has changed.
Posted by: Neuro Artist | October 07, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Very eloquently put, Neuro Artist. We live in a world where reality is what you see in the mirror, not what's in front of the mirror.
Elaine, the NWO has factions. When you read the news, bank reports, watch TV, the perspective given is relative to the "brand" or faction these mouthpieces belong to. It's actually funny to watch and listen to them speak to each other this way! It is how they posture, project, and feint in their battle for domination.
Posted by: Carlos | October 08, 2007 at 01:02 AM
Hmmm.....Is the Belgian empire breaking up?:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071007/ap_on_re_eu/belgium_here_to_stay
Imagine if Brussels would end up outside the EU with a new constitution, hahaha!
Posted by: Neuro Artist | October 08, 2007 at 05:13 AM
Bad link Neuro. Try this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6978720,00.html
I believe their plan is consolidation, not fragmentation. So unless Belgium has a few Ethiopian warlords training and advising their secessionists that's not going to happen.
Posted by: Carlos | October 08, 2007 at 07:15 AM
Politically, countries are falling apart the more they consolidate within a greater empire. The old configurations collapse, look at the former Ottoman empire and Russia.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 08, 2007 at 09:18 AM
Carlos touched on something I had been thinking about recently. He described our ruling elites as belonging to different factions, unless I misread him.
I believe this is so. There are too many different names and secret organizations for them to be united. They remind me of feudal lords. They are in agreement that they are superior to the masses, but beyond that, they hate each other with a passion.
Even while they all oppress the helpless, they scheme, conspire, undermine, murder, and assassinate each other. They smile at their meetings, but would happily stab another elitist in the back if it would advance themselves up the ladder of power.
All this talk of a New World Order is just that: talk. It is just a rehash of the feudal order and the other despotic systems that have evolved everywhere there are humans.
Even if only two people are left vying for the right to rule, they will not cooperate with each other. They will distrust the other and stare at the other until one blinks. After all, they both know full well how each came to be where they are.
There is no round table at the top. There is only a throne, and it is not a loveseat. It can fit only one man.
Posted by: DeVaul | October 08, 2007 at 11:21 AM
HAHAHA, Like in my own family: we don't just stab each other in the back, we do frontal assaults!
Indeed, selling out to a third party is old hat. Look at the Shakespeare plays about historic figures, he had their mentality down pat! The Byzantines and the Ottoman rulers, it must be the city that does this....would put out each other's eyes, murder and rape, they just did hideous things to each other.
The rulers so feared their own uncles, sons and fathers, they took extrordinary measures like the Ottoman rulers locking their eldest sons in the huge tower and never letting them out or letting them meet anyone except the eunachs!
The Chinese did this sort of thing, too. Very ugly stuff.
This is why the real ruling class isn't the very top but one step lower: where the merchants intersect with the palace go-betweens. This is because they have great freedom and can institutite actions and schemes.
Indeed, watch the BBC series, Blackadder. I love this series. Laugh nonstop.
Typical line: ' So, you are Pitt the Younger? Who's going to run for your old seat? Pitt the Embryo?'
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 08, 2007 at 01:32 PM
That's interesting, Elaine. I can see what you are saying about these behind the scenes men and women. They are the powerbrokers and movers and shakers, but they push someone else into the limelight to take the heat.
I could never live like that. It is a cowardly way to live, and I see no worthwhile purpose in it. These people are forgotten by history because they never wanted to be known. I rarely see historians writing much about the men who hide behind the emporer's robes.
I wonder if they ever even consider this?
Posted by: DeVaul | October 08, 2007 at 06:30 PM
Yes, slackbladder is good fun.
The Wallenbergs, Swedens foremost financial family who are in controll of aproximately 40% of Swedens Industry (Ericsson, Electrolux, ABB, Saab Scania to name a few). Their family motto is to 'rule but not to be seen'. They have had immense power over Swedens history over the last one hundred years, with all the governments being their lapdogs. the powersharing agreement they had with the social democrats (who was ruling most of the time), has been kind of mindblowing. You'll keep the working class in order, supress small business, and we'll give you development, and keep you in government. Nowadays about 60% of the population works in the public sector, 20% in their controlled industry (shrinking rapidly because of outsourcing to low-cost countries), and 20% struggling with very high taxes and rules in small companies. Sweden is deep in debt, and there is no infrastructure to get out of this mess. The entrepreneurs have been killed....
I agree with DeVaul that the kind of life these people live is not something I would like either for myself. But they are the real power-holders, and historians should have focused on these instead of the front figures.
A Swedish king (Charles XII) was stuck in Ottoman Turkey for about 10 years in the early 1700's, he had lost the war against Russia, and couldn't get back to Sweden because he couldn't get safe passage through catholic Europe. The money lenders where getting anxious for him to return to Sweden so that they could get their money back. They demanded that the Pasha (prime minister) kicked him out, he failed to do this, even though he tried. And he was beheaded for this treason. Eventually when a safe passage was negotiated, the money lenders came a long to Sweden, and some of them stayed for many years because Sweden was bankrupt after our failed empire and couldn't pay. Thus in Sweden today many of the foods swedes considers swedish are actually Turkish (like meatballs). Further all the old chestnut trees in Sweden stems from a seed brought back by an officer in the caroline army. Sweden had a depression after our failed empire that lasted about 170 years. The current king we have is a descendant of a general in the Napoleonic army who bought the throne in 1814 (bailing out our most urgent debts with war loot).
Posted by: Neuro Artist | October 09, 2007 at 02:38 AM
That is very interesting, Neuro. I had read a little about the Napoleanic king just recently, so I know a little about him. I did not know how serious Sweden's finances were when he took over. I guess that explains why the people accepted him.
"To rule but not be seen"
I have never heard of that, and I have read a lot of history over the years. What a strange notion.
Posted by: DeVaul | October 09, 2007 at 11:14 AM
Elaine, DeVaul, you both are Bingo! The NWO is a brand name that projects the illusion of a Democracy, you can say our current political world system is a feudal system in the guise of a Democracy.
Elaine, you are as usual spot on... The real power is the "hidden merchant class", the politicos are just the puppets, no matter how rich they may be, say like the Bushes. They may even be married into the top elite class, but are still fronts. Even the largest publicly known billionaires are poster boys for the top of the spectrum.
Like Aso of Japan mentioned a few articles back, would be upper mid level of the Asian faction. Even the Emperor and the Queen are not the real power behind their respective thrones. The two R's, religion and royalty are but tools, one uses the fear of God, the other love of King and country, to keep the sheeple in line.
While I concur with Elaine on the fall of the Ottoman and Russia, these elites factions were entrenched in France, Germany (where their faction got taken out by Hitler), and the UK. The EU is part of their continued consolidation. Russia is now a wild card. Though they tried to regain control by taking over the oil and natural gas, Putin routed them and jailed their champion.
Neuro, the Wallenbergs are a good example of the European faction, yes. But there are still bigger.
Posted by: Carlos | October 09, 2007 at 11:19 AM
DeVaul it is possible that my translation is a bit off, 'rule' is not exactly the right word. 'Do work' or 'To controll' may be better english terms for the phrase. But in the Swedish word 'Att verka' there is definetely a ruling component implied. The Wallenbergs started off as bankers and there influence over Swedens industry grew dramatically around the second world war while they cut extensive deals with the nazis. At the same time Raoul Wallenberg helped thousands of jews escape from Budapest, working at the Swedish embassy, issuing Swedish passports. He mysteriously disappeared in Soviet Union after wwII. So the Wallenbergs as a family came out morally unscathed, following the war.
No doubt the secret rulers of Sweden, isn't the biggest fish in the pond, Carlos. They are well represented in the Bilderberg meetings though. There is this story from 1973:
<<<<
Henry Kissinger was invited for the meeting in Saltsjöbaden in 1973. That was one year after Olof Palme´s scourching attack on the bombings of the United States´ in Vietnam, which he compared to the nazi atrocities during the Second World War. Foreign Minister Krister Wickman let the emmessary of
the USA know, that Kissinger´s visit was not appropriate and only would make matters worse - as both Palme and Wickman were going to participate in the meeting. And they would not be able to only “talk about the weather”...
Kissinger became furious and ordered the State Department, Foreign Ministry of the USA, to give Wickman a genuine scolding. The State Department leaked it to the press, that the Swedish government had informed Kissinger, that he was not welcome. Now it became the Bilderberger´s turn to react. Prince Bernhard became so angry at the Swedish government, that he threatened to move the entire meeting. This, in turn, got Marcus Wallenberg´s attention - so he rushed up to Olof Palme, who straightaway telephoned prince Bernhard, and sent Sverker Åström on an errand to the American Embassy to assure them, that the whole matter, naturally, was a misunderstanding. The Swedish
government hadn´t said that Kissinger wasn´t wellcome, of course not...
Palme claimed the same thing in front of the press.
But that it definitely was so - and that Palme was not telling the truth - is proven by documents, which DN´s Kurt Mälarstedt has located in Washington.
Peter Bratt.......................>>>>
Palme was murdered in 1986, shot down on an open street in front of witnesses in the central part of Stockholm, at the time he was negotiating peace between Iran and Iraq apart from being prime minister, no murderer was ever found, for the first year the police followed the Kurd-trace to no avail, and then they found an alcoholic who had been seen in that area, but had amnesia from that evening (he was convicted in the lower courts, but released in the higher court due to lack of evidence). Maybe it was bigger fish that got rid of Palme?
Posted by: Neuro Artist | October 10, 2007 at 03:51 AM
General rule of thumb: make peace, you get assassinated. Begin, Sadat, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. The list is very long. Run coups, be a despot, do total evil=you die of old age like Mao, Stalin, probably Kissinger, Perot, Nixon, etc, etc. Hitler was one of the few exceptions and he committed suicide.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | October 10, 2007 at 08:46 AM
"They remind me of feudal lords. They are in agreement that they are superior to the masses, but beyond that, they hate each other with a passion."
I must say, DeVaul gets it precisely correct, from what I've seen. They are indeed recreating the feudal system, on a global scale: 'first we put the rabble in its proper place (under our bootheels!), then we battle it out with each other for supremacy.'
Posted by: John | October 15, 2007 at 01:23 PM