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Paul Merrell

Negative Interest Rates Show Desperation of Central Banks Washington's Blog - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...st-rates-sign-desperation.html

banksters negative-interest-rate cashless-societies

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Japan has joined the EU, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden in imposing negative interest rates. Indeed, more than a fifth of the world’s GDP is now covered by a central bank with negative interest rates.
  • And negative rates will eventually come to America. Central bankers are implementing negative interest rates to force savers to buy assets … so as to artificially stimulate the economy. Specifically: A negative interest rate means the central bank and perhaps private banks will charge negative interest: instead of receiving money on deposits, depositors must pay regularly to keep their money with the bank. This is intended to incentivize banks to lend money more freely and businesses and individuals to invest, lend, and spend money rather than pay a fee to keep it safe. Next up: The war on cash. Postscript: Ironically, the Fed has gone to great lengths to DISCOURAGE banks from lending to Main Street.
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Richard Ebeling on Higher Interest Rates, Collectivism and the Coming ... - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...tivism-and-the-Coming-Collapse

Richard-Ebeling The-Daily-Bell Austrian-Economics Liberty-Tryanny

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The "larger dysfunction," as you express it, arises out of a number of factors. The primary one, in my view, is a philosophical and psychological schizophrenia among the American people.
  • While many on "the left" ridicule the idea, there is a strong case for the idea of "American exceptionalism," meaning that the United States stands out as something unique, different and special among the nations of the world.
  • the American Founding Fathers constructed a political system in the United States based on a concept on which no other country was consciously founded:
  • ...95 more annotations...
  • But the American Revolution and the US Constitution hailed a different conception of man, society and government.
  • n the rest of the world, and for all of human history, the presumption has been that the individual was a slave or a subject to a higher authority. It might be the tribal chief; or the "divinely ordained" monarch who presumed to rule over and control people in the name of God; or, especially after the French Revolution and the rise of modern socialism, "the nation" or "the people" who laid claim to the life and work of the individual.
  • the idea of individual rights.
  • That is, as long as the individual did not violate the equal rights of others to their life, liberty and property, each person was free to shape and guide his own future, and give meaning and value to his own life as he considered best in the pursuit of that happiness that was considered the purpose and goal of each man during his sojourn on this Earth.
  • Governments did not exist to give or bestow "rights" or "privileges" at its own discretion.
  • Governments were to secure and protect each individual's rights, which he possessed by "the nature of things."
  • The individual was presumed to own himself. He was "sovereign."
  • The real and fundamental notion of "self-government" referred to the right of each individual to rule over himself.
  • Each individual, by his nature and his reason, had a right to his life, his liberty and his honestly acquired property.
  • during the first 150 years of America's history there was virtually no Welfare State and relatively few government regulations, controls and restrictions on the choices and actions of the free citizen.
  • But for more than a century, now, an opposing conception of man, society and government has increasingly gained a hold over the ideas and attitudes of people in the US.
  • It was "imported" from Europe in the form of modern collectivism.
  • The individual was expected to see himself as belonging to something "greater" than himself. He was to sacrifice for "great national causes."
  • He was told that if life had not provided all that he desired or hoped for, it was because others had "exploited" him in some economic or social manner, and that government would redress the "injustice" through redistribution of wealth or regulation of the marketplace.
  • If he had had financial and material success, the individual should feel guilty and embarrassed by it, because, surely, if some had noticeably more, it could only be because others had been forced to live with noticeably less.
  • left on its own, free competition tends to evolve into harmful monopolies and oligopolies, with the wealthy "few" benefiting at the expense of the "many."
  • They are the crises of the Interventionist-Welfare State: the attempt to impose reactionary collectivist policies of political paternalism and redistributive plunder on a society still possessing parts of its original individualist and rights-based roots.
  • it is in the form of communism's and socialism's critique of capitalism.
  • Unregulated capitalism leads to "unearned" and "excessive" profits; unbridled markets generate the business cycle and the hardships of recessions and depressions;
  • These two conflicting conceptions of man, society and government have been and are at war here in the United States.
  • And if it cannot be gotten and guaranteed through the redistributive mechanisms of the European Union and the euro, well, maybe we should return power to our own nation-states to provide the jobs, the social "safety nets" and the financial means to pay for it through, once again, printing our own national paper currencies.
  • This is the political-philosophical bankruptcy of the West and the dead ends of the collectivist promises of the last 100 years.
  • Ludwig von Mises's book, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, originally published in 1922, demonstrated how and why a socialist, centrally planned system was inherently unworkable.
  • The nationalization of productive property, the abolition of markets and the prohibition of all competitive exchange among the members of society would prevent the emergence and operation of a price system, without which it is impossible to know people's demands for desired goods and the relative value they place on them.
  • It also prevents the emergence of prices for the factors of production (land, labor, capital) and makes it impossible to know their opportunity costs – the value of those factors of production in alternative competing uses among entrepreneurs desiring to employ them.
  • Without such a price system the central planners are flying blind, unable to rationally know or decide how best to utilize labor, capital and resources in productively efficient ways to make the goods and services most highly valued by the consuming public.
  • Thus, Mises concluded, comprehensive socialist central planning would lead to "planned chaos."
  • And, therefore, there is no guarantee that the amount of investments undertaken and their time horizons are compatible with the available resources not also being demanded and used for more immediate consumer goods production in the society.
  • As a consequence, financial markets do not work like real markets.
  • Thus, the interventionist state leads to waste, inefficiency and misuses of resources that lower the standards of living that we all, otherwise, could have enjoyed.
  • We cannot be sure what the amount of real savings may be in the society to support real and sustainable investment and capital formation.
  • Government intervention prevents prices from "telling the truth" about the real supply and demand conditions thus leading to imbalances and distortions in the market.
  • We cannot know what the "real cost" of borrowing should be, since interest rates are not determined by actual, private sector savings and investment decisions.
  • Government production regulations, controls, restrictions and prohibitions prevent entrepreneurs from using their knowledge, ability and capital in ways that most effectively produce the goods consumers actually want and at the most cost-competitive prices possible.
  • This is why countries around the world periodically experience booms and busts, inflations and recessions − not because of some inherent instabilities or "irrationalities" in financial markets, but because of monetary central planning through central banking that does not allow market-based financial intermediation to develop and work as it could and would in a real free-market setting.
  • But in the United States and especially in Europe, government "austerity" means merely temporarily reducing the rate of increase in government spending, slowing down the rate at which new debt is accumulating and significantly raising taxes in an attempt to close the deficit gap.
  • The fundamental problem is that over the decades, the size and scope of governments in the Western world have been growing far more than the rates at which their economies have been expanding, so that the "slice" of the national economic "pie" eaten by government has been growing larger and larger, even when the "pie" in absolute terms is bigger than it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago.
  • European governments, in general, take the view that "austerity" means squeezing the private sector more through taxes and other revenue sources to avoid any noticeable and significant cuts in what government does and spends.
  • So there is "austerity" for the private sector and a mad rush for financial "safety nets" for the government and those who live off the State.
  • In reality, of course, it is the burdens of government regulation, taxation and impediments to more flexible labor and related markets that have generated the high unemployment rates and the retarded recovery from the recession.
  • Instead, the "common market" ideal has been transformed into the goal of a European Union "Super-State" to which the individual countries and their citizens would be subservient and obedient.
  • Keynesian policies offer people and politicians what they want to hear. Claiming that any sluggish business or lost jobs are due to a lack of "aggregate demand," Keynes argued that full employment and profitable business could only be reestablished and maintained through "activist" government monetary and fiscal policy – print money and run budget deficits.
  • What Britain and Europe should have as its goal is the ideal of the classical liberal free traders of the 19th century – non-intervention by governments in people's lives, at home and abroad. That is, a de-politicization of society, so people may freely work, trade and travel as they peacefully wish, with government merely the protector of people's individual rights.
  • Take the benefits away and tell people they are free to come and work to support themselves and their families. Restore more flexibility and competitiveness to labor markets and reduce taxes and business regulations.
  • Then those who come to Britain's shores will be those wanting freedom and opportunity without being a burden upon others.
  • What was needed was a change in ideas from the statist mentality to one of individual freedom and unhampered free markets.
  • In an epoch of collectivist ideas, don't be surprised if governments regulate, control, intervene and redistribute wealth.
  • The tentacle of regulations, restrictions and politically-correct social controls are spreading out in every direction from Brussels and its European-wide manipulating and mismanaging bureaucracy.
  • In the name of assuring "national prosperity," politicians could spend money to buy the votes that get them elected and reelected to government offices.
  • And every special interest group could make the case that government-spending programs that benefitted them were all reasonable and necessary to assure a fully employed and growing economy.
  • Furthermore, the Keynesian rationale for government deficit spending enabled politicians to seem to be able to offer something for nothing. They could offer, say, $100 of government spending to voters and special interest groups but the tax burden imposed in the present might only be $75, since the remainder of the money to pay for that government spending was borrowed. And that borrowed money would not have to be repaid until some indefinite time in the future by unspecific taxpayers when that "tomorrow" finally arrived.
  • instability
  • Keynes argued that the market economy's inherent
  • arose from the
  • who were subject to irrational and unpredictable waves of "optimism" and "pessimism."
  • animal spirits" of businessmen
  • Mises argued that there was nothing inherent in the market economy to bring about these swings of economic booms followed by periods of depression and unemployment.
  • If markets got out of balance with the necessity of an eventual correction in the economy to, once again, set things right, the source of this instability was government monetary policy.
  • Central banks too often followed a policy of trying to create "good times" in the economy by expanding the money supply through the banking system.
  • With new, excess funds created by the central bank available for lending, banks lower rates of interest to attract borrowers.
  • But this throws savings and investment out of balance, since the rate of interest no longer serves as a reliable indicator and signal concerning the availability of real savings in the economy in relation to those wanting to borrow funds for various investment purposes.
  • The economic crisis comes when it is discovered that all the claims on resources, capital and labor for all the attempted consumption and investment activities in the economy are greater than the actual and available amounts of such scarce resources.
  • The recession period, in Mises's view, is the necessary "correction" period when in the post-boom era, people must adapt and adjust to the newly discovered "real" supply and demand conditions in the market.
  • Any interference with the "rebalancing" of the economy by government raising taxes, imposing more regulations, or new artificial government "stimulus" activities merely makes it more difficult and time-consuming for people in the private sector to get the economy back on an even keel.
  • Friedrich A. Hayek, once observed, unemployment is not "caused" by stopping an inflation, but rather inflation induces the artificial employments that cannot be sustained and which inevitably disappear once the inflation is reined in.
  • The recession of 2008-2009 was the result of several years of central bank stimulus.
  • From 2003 to 2008, the Federal Reserve increased the money supply by about 50 percent.
  • Interest rates for much of this time, when adjusted for inflation, were either zero or negative.
  • Awash in cash, banks extended loans to virtually anyone, with no serious and usual concern about the borrower's credit-worthiness.
  • This was most notably true in the housing market, where government agencies like Fannie May and Freddie Mac were pressuring banks to make mortgage loans by promising a guarantee that they would make good on any bad home loans.
  • Since 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve has, again, turned on the monetary spigot, increasing its own portfolio by almost $3 trillion, by buying US Treasuries, US mortgages and other assets.
  • So why has there not been a complementary explosion of price inflation?
  • In some areas there has been, most clearly in the stock market and the bond market, But the reason why all that newly created money has not brought about a higher price inflation is due to the fact that a large part of all newly created money is sitting as unlent reserves in banks.
  • This is because the Federal Reserve has been paying banks a rate of interest slightly above the market interest rates to induce banks not to lend.
  • (a) general "regime uncertainty," that is, no one knows what government policy will be tomorrow; will ObamaCare be fully implemented after January 2014?;
  • Among the reasons for the sluggish jobs growth in the US are:
  • (b) what will taxes be for the rest of the current president's term in the White House
  • (c) what will the regulatory environment be like for the next three years – in 2012, the government implemented around 80,000 pages of regulations as printed in the Federal Registry;
  • (d) how will the deficit and debt problems play out between Congress and the White House and will it threaten the general financial situation in the country; an
  • (e) what wars, if any, will the government find itself involved in, in places like the Middle East?
  • China
  • is still a controlled and commanded society, with a government that works hard to try to determine what people read, see and think.
  • All these building projects have been brought into existence by a government that not only controls the money supply and manipulates interest rates but also heavy-handedly tells banks whom to specifically loan to and for what investment activities.
  • Central planning is alive and well in China, with the motives being both power and profits for those inside and outside the Communist Party having the most influence and connections in "high" places.
  • In my opinion, China is heading for a great economic crisis, resulting from a highly imbalanced and distorted economic system still guided far more by politics than sound market decision-making.
  • global financial markets in any foreseeable future. It is a money that still primarily exists to serve the political purposes of those who sit in the "inner circles" of power in Beijing.
  • One hundred years ago, in 1913, how many could have predicted that a year later a European-wide war would break out that would lead to the destruction of great European empires and set the stage for the rise of totalitarian collectivism that resulted in an even worse global war two decades later?
  • Thus, whether, at the end of the day, freedom triumphs and the future is one of liberty and prosperity is partly on each one of us.
  • Near the end of his great book, Socialism, Ludwig von Mises said:
  • "Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us . . . Whether society shall continue to evolve or where it shall decay lies . . . in the hands of man."
  • In my view, the idea of a "soft landing" is an illusion based on the idea held by central bankers, themselves, that they have the wisdom and ability to know how to "micro-manage" the all the changes and adjustments resulting from their own manipulations of the monetary aggregates. They do not have this wisdom and ability. So hold on for what is most likely to be another rocky road.
  • It was Mises's clear vision that once society has broken the relationship between value and payment, sooner or later people would not know the price of anything.
  • At this point, investment ceases and business becomes furtive and transactional.
  • People cannot plan for the future because they do not understand the reality of the present.
  • Society begins to sink.
  • Gary Edwards on 17 Jun 13
     
    Incredible.  A simple explanation that explains everything.  Rchard Ebeling's "Unified Theory of Everything" is something every American can understand.  If only they would take a break from "Dancing with the Stars" and pay attention to the future of their country and the world.  It's a future where either "individual freedom", as defined by our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, will win out; or, the forces of fascist socialism / marxism will continue to roll and rule.  Incredible read!!!!
Gary Edwards

Gold Price "Manipulated For A Decade", Repeatedly Slammed Lower, Bloomberg Reports | Ze... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...lammed-lower-bloomberg-reports

GOLD LiBOR

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Mar 14
     
    "While the FT promptly retracted an article on precisely the topic of gold manipulation from earlier this week (recorded for posterity here), Bloomberg appears to not have had the same "editorial" concerns and pressures, and today released an article once again slamming the final conspiracy theory that while every other asset class is manipulated, gold is in a pristine class of its own, untouched by close-banging, price fixing traders or central bankers, and reports that "the London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say." Of course, over the past 5 years we have reported time and again how official gold manipulation started in earnest some time in the 1960s (who can forget the "reshuffle club") but we will start with a decade. Here is what BBG finds: Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University's Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody's Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.   "The structure of the benchmark is certainly conducive to collusion and manipulation, and the empirical data are consistent with price artificiality," they say in the report, which hasn't yet been submitted for publication. "It is likely that co-operation between participants may be occurring."   The paper is the first to raise the possibility that the five banks overseeing the century-old rate -- Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC Holdings Plc and Societe Generale SA -- may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark. It also adds to pressure on the firms to overhaul the way the rate is calculated. Authorities around the world, already inv
Paul Merrell

"It's Carnage" - Swiss Franc Soars Most Ever After SNB Abandons EURCHF Floor; Macro Hed... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...dons-eurchf-floor-macro-hedge-

economic-collapse Switzerland negative-interest-rate FX bill-and-bond-yields-negative banksters

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Over two decades ago, George Soros took on the Bank of England, and won. Just before lunch local time, the Swiss National Bank took on virtually every single macro hedge fund, the vast majority of which were short the Swiss Franc and crushed them, when it announced, first, that it would go further into NIRP, pushing its interest rate on deposit balances even more negative from -0.25% to -0.75%, a move which in itself would have been unprecedented and, second, announcing that the 1.20 EURCHF floor it had instituted in September 2011, the day gold hit its all time nominal high, was no more. What happened next was truly shock and awe as algo after algo saw their EURCHF 1.1999 stops hit, and moments thereafter the EURCHF pair crashed to less then 0.75, margining out virtually every single long EURCHF position, before finally rebounding to a level just above 1.00, which is where it was trading just before the SNB instituted the currency floor over three years ago.
  • The SNB press release:
  • The resultant move across all currency pairs has seen the EUR and USD sliding, the USDJPY crashing, and US futures tumbling even as European stocks plunged only to kneejerk higher as markets are in clear turmoil and nobody knows just what is going on right now. In other asset classes, Treasury yields, understandably plunged across the entire world, and the entire Swiss bond curve left of the 10 Year is now negative, with the On The Run itself threatening to go negative soon as can be seen on the table below: All Swiss government bill and bond yields out to 7 years are negative: pic.twitter.com/b4YCVSDFu7 — Jamie McGeever (@ReutersJamie) January 15, 2015 Crude and other commodities, except gold, are also tumbling, as are most risk assets over concerns what today's epic margin call will mean when the closing bell arrives. An immediate, and amusing, soundbite came from the CEO of Swatch Nick Hayek who said that "words fail me" at the SNB action: "Today's SNB action is a tsunami for the export industry and for tourism, and finally for the entire country." More from Reuters:
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Swatch Group UHR.VX Chief Executive Nick Hayek called the Swiss National Bank's decision to discontinue the minimum exchange rate on the Swiss franc a "tsunami" for the Alpine country and its economy.   "Words fail me! Jordan is not only the name of the SNB president, but also of a river… and today's SNB action is a tsunami; for the export industry and for tourism, and finally for the entire country," Hayek said in an emailed statement on Thursday.   Swiss watchmakers, which are also grappling with weak demand in Asia, are very exposed to moves in the Swiss franc exchange rate because their production costs are largely in Swiss francs, but most of their sales are done abroad.   Shares in Swatch Group fell 15 percent at 1056 GMT, while Richemont CFR.VX was down 14 percent, underperforming a 9 percent drop in the Swiss market index .SSMI following the SNB's announcement.    "Absolutely shocking ... For companies with international operations – translated earnings are going to be lower and if companies make products in Switzerland it is going to hurt margin. It is a terrible day for corporate Switzerland," Kepler Cheuvreux analyst Jon Cox said
  • Indeed, in retrospect, it does seem foolhardy that the SNB, whose balance sheet ballooned to record proportions just to defends it currency for over three years would give up so easily. The one silver lining, so to say, is that gold prices in CHF just crashed by some 13%. Some more soundbites from strategists, none of whom foresaw this stunning move:
  • However, the best soundbites today will surely come from US hedge funds which are just waking up to the biggest FX shocker in years, and of course, any retail investors who may have been long the EURCHF, and who are not only facing epic margin calls, but are unable to cover their positions, as one after another retail FX brokerage has commenced "Rubling" the Swissy and the CHF pair is suddenly not available for trading for retail accounts. To say that today will be interesting, is an understatement.
Paul Merrell

Virtual Economy's Phantom Job Gains Are Based on Statistical Fraud. And More Fraud Is i... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5390330

banksters oligarchy employment stats

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Washington can’t stop lying.  Don’t be convinced by last Thursday’s job report that it is your fault if you don’t have a job. Those 288,000 jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate are more fiction than reality.  In his analysis of the June Labor Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, John Williams (www.ShadowStats.com) wrote that the 288,000 June jobs and 6.1% unemployment rate  are “far removed from common experience and underlying reality.” Payrolls were overstated by “massive, hidden shifts in seasonal adjustments,” and the Birth-Death model added the usual phantom jobs.  Williams reports that “the seasonal factors are changed each and every month as part of the concurrent seasonal-adjustment process, which is tantamount to a fraud,” as the changes in the seasonal factors can inflate the jobs number.  While the headline numbers always are on a new basis, the prior reporting is not revised so as to be consistent.
  • The monthly unemployment rates are not comparable, so one doesn’t know whether the official U.3 rate (the headline rate that the financial press reports) went up or down. Moreover, the rate does not count discouraged workers who, unable to find a job, cease looking. To be counted among the U.3 unemployed, the person must have actively looked for work during the four weeks prior to the survey. The U.3 rate automatically declines as people who have been unable to find jobs cease trying to find one and thereby cease to be counted as unemployed. There is a second official measure of unemployment that includes people who have been discouraged for less than one year. That rate, known as U.6, is seldom reported and is double the 6.1% rate. Since 1994 there has been no official measure than includes discouraged people who have not looked for a job for more than a year. Including all discouraged workers produces an unemployment rate that currently stands at 23.1%, almost four times the rate that the financial press reports.
  • What you can take away from this is the opposite of what the presstitute media would have you believe.  The measured rate of unemployment can decline simply because large numbers of the unemployed become discouraged workers, cease looking for work, and cease to be counted in the U.3 and U.6 measures of the unemployment rate.   The decline in the employment-population ratio from 63% prior to the 2008 downturn to 59% today reflects the growth in discouraged workers.  Indeed, the ratio has not recovered its previous level during the alleged recovery, an indication that the recovery is an illusion created by the understated measure of inflation that is used to deflate nominal GDP growth.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Insurance (most likely the paperwork of Obamacare) contributed 8,500 jobs. As so few can purchase homes, “real estate rental and leasing” contributed 8,500 jobs. Professional and business services contributed 67,000 jobs, but 57% of these jobs were in employment services, temporary help services, and services to buildings and dwellings.   That old standby, education and health services, accounted for 33,700 jobs consisting mainly of ambulatory health care services jobs and social assistance jobs of which three-quarters are in child day care services.   The other old standby, waitresses and bartenders, gave us 32,800 jobs, and amusements, gambling, and recreation gave us 3,500 jobs.
  • In other words, the economy did not gain 288,000 new jobs last month.   But let’s assume the economy did gain 288,000 jobs and exam where the claimed jobs are reported to be. Of the alleged 288,000 new jobs, 16,000, or 5.5 percent are in manufacturing, which is not very promising for engineers and blue collar workers.  Growth in goods producing jobs has almost disappeared from the US economy.  As explained below, to alter this problem the government is going to change definitions in order to artificially inflate manufacturing jobs. In June private services account for 82 percent of the supposed new jobs.  The jobs are found mainly in non-tradable domestic services that pay little and cannot be exported to help to close the large US trade deficit. Wholesale and retail trade account for 55,300 jobs.  Do you believe sales are this strong  when retailers are closing stores and when shopping malls are closing?
  • Another indication that there has been no recovery is that Sentier Research’s index of real median household income continued to decline for two years after the alleged recovery began in June 2009.   There has been a slight upturn in real median household income since June 2011, but income remains far below the pre-recession level.   The Birth-Death model adds an average of 62,000 jobs to the reported payroll jobs numbers each month. This arbitrary boost to the payroll jobs numbers is in addition to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ underlying assumption that unreported jobs lost to business failures are matched by unreported new jobs from new business startups, an assumption that does not well fit an economy that fell into recession and is unable to recover.   John Williams concludes that in current BLS reporting, “the aggregate average overstatement of employment change easily exceeds 200,000 jobs per month.”
  • Local government, principally education, gave us 22,000 jobs.   So, where are the jobs for university graduates?  They are practically non-existent. Think of all the MBAs, but June had only 2,300 jobs for management of companies and enterprises. Think of the struggle to get into law and medical schools.  There’s no job payoff. June had jobs for 1,200 in legal services, which includes receptionists and para-legals.  Where are all the law school graduates finding jobs? Offices of physicians (mainly people who fill out the mandated paperwork and comply with all the regulations, which have multiplied under ObamaCare) hired 4,000 people.  Outpatient care centers hired 700 people.  Nursing care facilities hired 2,400 people.  So where are the jobs for the medical school graduates? Aside from all the exaggerations in the jobs numbers of which ShadowStats.com has informed us, just taking the jobs as reported, what kind of economy do these jobs indicate:  a superpower whose pretensions are to exercise hegemony over the world or an economy in which opportunities are disappearing and incomes are falling?
  • Do you think that this jobs picture would be the same if the government in Washington cared about you instead of the mega-rich? Some interesting numbers can be calculated from table A.9 in the BLS press release.  John Williams advises that the BLS is inconsistent in the methods it uses to tabulate the data in table A.9 and that the data is also afflicted by seasonal adjustment problems.  However, as the unemployment rate and payroll jobs are reported regardless of their problems, we can also report the BLS finding that in June 523,000 full-time jobs disappeared and 800,000 part time jobs appeared. Here, perhaps, we have yet another downside of the misnamed Obama “Affordable Care Act.”  Employers are terminating full-time employment and replacing the jobs with part-time employment in order to come in under the 50-person full time employment that makes employers responsible for fringe benefits such as health care. Americans are already experiencing difficulties making ends meet, despite the alleged “recovery.”  If yet another half million Americans have been forced onto part-time pay with consequent loss of health care and other benefits, consumer demand is further compressed, with the consequence, unless hidden by statistical trickery, of a 2nd quarter negative GDP and thus officially the reappearance of recession.
  • What will the government do if a recession cannot be hidden?  If years of unprecedented money printing and Keynesian fiscal deficits have not brought recovery, what will bring recovery?  How far down will US living standards fall for the 99% in order that the 1% can become ever more mega-rich while Washington wastes our diminishing substance exercising hegemony over the world? Just as Washington lied to you about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Waco, and any number of false flag or nonexistent attacks such as Tonkin Gulf, Washington lies to you about jobs and economic recovery.  Don’t believe the spin that you are unemployed because you are shiftless and prefer government handouts to work.  The government does not want you to know that you are unemployed because the corporations offshored American jobs to foreigners and because economic policy only serves the oversized banks and the one percent. Just as the jobs and inflation numbers are rigged and the financial markets are rigged, the corrupt Obama regime is now planning to rig US manufacturing and trade statistics in order to bury all evidence of offshoring’s adverse impact on our economy.
  • The federal governments Economic Classification Policy Committee has come up with a proposal to redefine fact as fantasy in order to hide offshoring’s contribution to the US trade deficit, artificially inflate the number of US manufacturing jobs, and redefine foreign-made manufactured products as US manufactured products.  For example, Apple iPhones made in China and sold in Europe would be reported as a US export of manufactured goods. Read Ben Beachy’s important report on this blatant statistical fraud in CounterPunch’s July 4th weekend edition: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/04/we-didnt-offshore-manufacturing/ China will not agree that the Apple brand name means that the phones are not Chinese production. If the Obama regime succeeds with this fraud, the iPhones would be counted twice, once by China and once by the US, and the double-counting would exaggerate world GDP. For years I have exposed the absurd claim that offshoring is merely the operation of free trade, and I have exposed the incompetent studies by such as Michael Porter at Harvard and Matthew Slaughter at Dartmouth that claimed to prove that the US was benefitting from offshoring its manufacturing.  My book published in 2012 in Germany and in 2013 in the US, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, proves that offshoring has dismantled the ladders of upward mobility that made the US an opportunity society and is responsible for the decline in US economic growth. The lost jobs and decline in the middle class has contributed to the rise in income inequality, the destruction of tax base for cities and states, and loss of population in America’s once great manufacturing centers.
  • For the most part economists have turned a blind eye. Economists serve the globalists.  It pays them well. The corruption in present-day America is total. Psychologists and anthropologists serve war and torture. Economists serve globalism and US financial hegemony. Physicists and chemists serve the war industries. Physicists and computer geeks serve NSA. The media serves the government and the corporations. The political parties serve the six powerful private interest groups that rule the country. No one serves truth and liberty. I predict that within ten years truth and liberty will be forbidden words uttered only by “domestic extremists” who are a threat that must be exterminated without due process of law. America has left us.  We now have the tyranny of the Orwellian state that rules, not by the ballot box and Constitution, but by force and propaganda.
Paul Merrell

Amend the Federal Reserve: We Need a Central Bank that Serves Main Street | Global Rese... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5360637

banksters federal-reserve Federal-Reserve-reform

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • December 23rd marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve. Dissatisfaction with its track record has prompted calls to audit the Fed and end the Fed.  At the least, Congress needs to amend the Fed, modifying the Federal Reserve Act to give the central bank the tools necessary to carry out its mandates. The Federal Reserve is the only central bank with a dual mandate. It is charged not only with maintaining low, stable inflation but with promoting maximum sustainable employment. Yet unemployment remains stubbornly high, despite four years of radical tinkering with interest rates and quantitative easing (creating money on the Fed’s books). After pushing interest rates as low as they can go, the Fed has admitted that it has run out of tools. At an IMF conference on November 8, 2013, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers suggested that since near-zero interest rates were not adequately promoting people to borrow and spend, it might now be necessary to set interest at below zero. This idea was lauded and expanded upon by other ivory-tower inside-the-box thinkers, including Paul Krugman. Negative interest would mean that banks would charge the depositor for holding his deposits rather than paying interest on them. Runs on the banks would no doubt follow, but the pundits have a solution for that: move to a cashless society, in which all money would be electronic. “This would make it impossible to hoard cash outside the bank,” wrote Danny Vinik in Business Insider, “allowing the Fed to cut interest rates to below zero, spurring people to spend more.”
  • Business Week quotes Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office: “We’ve had four years of extraordinarily loose monetary policy without satisfactory results, and the only thing they come up with is we need more?” Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, calls the idea “harebrained.” He is equally skeptical of quantitative easing, the Fed’s other tool for stimulating the economy. Roberts points to Andrew Huszar’s explosive November 11th Wall Street Journal article titled “Confessions of a Quantitative Easer,” in which Huszar says that QE was always intended to serve Wall Street, not Main Street.  Huszar’s assignment at the Fed was to manage the purchase of $1.25 trillion in mortgages with dollars created on a computer screen. He says he resigned when he realized that the real purpose of the policy was to drive up the prices of the banks’ holdings of debt instruments, to provide the banks with trillions of dollars at zero cost with which to lend and speculate, and to provide the banks with “fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions.”
  • Bernanke created debt-free money and bought government debt with it, returning the interest to the Treasury. The result was interest-free credit, a good deal for the government. But the problem, says Lounsbury, is that: The helicopters dropped all the money into a hole in the ground (excess reserve accounts) and very little made its way into the economy.  It was essentially a rearrangement of the balance sheets of the creditor nation with little impact on the debtor nation. . . . The fatal flaw of QE is that it delivers money to the accounts of the creditors and does nothing for the accounts of the debtors. Bad debts remain unserviced and the debt crisis continues.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Bernanke delivered the money to the creditors because that was all the Federal Reserve Act allowed. If the Fed is to fulfill its mandate, it clearly needs more tools; and that means amending the Act.  Harvard professor Ken Rogoff, who spoke at the November 2013 IMF conference before Larry Summers, suggested several possibilities; and one was to broaden access to the central bank, allowing anyone to have an ATM at the Fed. Rajiv Sethi, Barnard/Columbia Professor of Economics, expanded on this idea in a blog titled “The Payments System and Monetary Transmission.” He suggested making the Federal Reserve the repository for all deposit banking. This would make deposit insurance unnecessary; it would eliminate the need to impose higher capital requirements; and it would allow the Fed to implement monetary policy by targeting debtor rather than creditor balance sheets. Instead of returning its profits to the Treasury, the Fed could do a helicopter drop directly into consumer bank accounts, stimulating demand in the consumer economy. John Lounsbury expanded further on these ideas. He wrote in Econintersect that they would open a pathway for investment banking and depository banking to be separated from each other, analogous to that under Glass-Steagall. Banks would no longer be too big to fail, since they could fail without destroying the general payment system of the economy. Lounsbury said the central bank could operate as a true public bank and repository for all federal banking transactions, and it could operate in the mode of a postal savings system for the general populace.
  • The Federal Reserve Act was drafted by bankers to create a banker’s bank that would serve their interests. It is their own private club, and its legal structure keeps all non-members out.  A century after the Fed’s creation, a sober look at its history leads to the conclusion that it is a privately controlled institution whose corporate owners use it to direct our entire economy for their own ends, without democratic influence or accountability.  Substantial changes are needed to transform the Fed, and these will only come with massive public pressure. Congress has the power to amend the Fed – just as it did in 1934, 1958 and 2010. For the central bank to satisfy its mandate to promote full employment and to become an institution that serves all the people, not just the 1%, the Fed needs fundamental reform.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Dec 13
     
    In my view, the Fed is beyond salvage. It needs abolition, not a new role. The Constitution grants Congress the power to mint and coin money, not a group of rent-seeking banksters. 
Paul Merrell

18 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Accelerating As We Enter The Last Half Of 2014 - 0 views

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financial-collapse bubbles economic-indicators

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • #1 The Bank for International Settlements has issued a new report which warns that "dangerous new asset bubbles" are forming which could potentially lead to another major financial crisis.  Do the central bankers know something that we don't, or are they just trying to place the blame on someone else for the giant mess that they have created? #2 Argentina has missed a $539 million debt payment and is on the verge of its second major debt default in 13 years. #3 Bulgaria is desperately trying to calm down a massive run on the banks that threatens of spiral out of control. #4 Last month, household loans in the eurozone declined at the fastest rate ever recorded.  Why are European banks holding on to their money so tightly right now? #5 The number of unemployed jobseekers in France has just soared to another brand new record high.
  • #6 Economies all over Europe are either showing no growth or are shrinking.  Just check out what a recent Forbes article had to say about the matter... Italy’s economy shrank by 0.1% in the first three months of 2014, matching the average of the three previous quarters. After expanding 0.6% in Q2 2013, France recorded zero growth. Portugal shrank 0.7%, following positive numbers in the preceding nine months. While figures weren’t available for Greece and Ireland in Q1, neither country is showing progress. Greek GDP dropped 2.5% in the final three months of last year, and Ireland limped ahead at 0.2%. #7 A few days ago it was reported that consumer prices in Japan are rising at the fastest pace in 32 years.
  • #8 Household expenditures in Japan are down 8 percent compared to one year ago. #9 U.S. companies are drowning in massive amounts of debt, but the corporate debt bubble in China is so bad that the amount of corporate debt in China has actually now surpassed the amount of corporate debt in the United States. #10 One Chinese auditor is warning that up to 80 billion dollars worth of loans in China are backed by falsified gold transactions.  What will that do to the price of gold and the stability of Chinese financial markets as that mess unwinds? #11 The unemployment rate in Greece is currently sitting at 26.7 percent and the youth unemployment rate is 56.8 percent.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • #12 67.5 percent of the people that are unemployed in Greece have been unemployed for over a year. #13 The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole is 11.8 percent - just a little bit shy of the all-time record of 12.0 percent. #14 The European Central Bank is so desperate to get money moving through the system that it has actually introduced negative interest rates. #15 The IMF is projecting that there is a 25 percent chance that the eurozone will slip into deflation by the end of next year. #16 The World Bank is warning that "now is the time to prepare" for the next crisis. #17 The economic conflict between the United States and Russia continues to deepen.  This has caused Russia to make a series of moves away from the U.S. dollar and toward other major currencies.  This will have serious ramifications for the global financial system as time rolls along.
  • #18 Of course the U.S. economy is struggling right now as well.  It shrank at a 2.9 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2014, which was much worse than anyone had anticipated.
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Richard Ebeling on Libertarianism, Anarchism and the Truth of Austrian... - 0 views

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Richard-Ebeling Libertarian banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • These are at least two conceivable methods of compelling the government to stop, or limit, its abuse of the monetary printing press.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 12
       
      Ebeling proposes two methods of reining in out of control government printing of paper money.  There is a third method; one used by Lincoln and Kennedy.  This is the issuance of gold/silver/oil backed reserve notes.  The notes represent gold or silver being held on deposit, and are fully redeemable.   The value of the gold/silver or another commodity represented floats in the marketplace against goods and services.  Nor is there a fixed exchange rate for converting fiat (paper) dollars.  The market will figure those things out if left free to do so.  And that's one big big "if".
  • So the normal market pressures of downward price and wage adjustments in the recession are partly counter-acted by a new monetary expansion that is delaying the necessary re-coordination of market activities. Thus, given these two pressures, prices do not fall as much as a post-recession adjustment may require and they do not rise as much or as fast as might otherwise occur due to the renewed monetary expansion.
  • At the same time, as you correctly ask, the Federal Reserve has been paying banks a relatively low rate of interest to keep large excessive reserves in their accounts at the Federal Reserve, rather than to fully lend those excessive reserves to private borrowers. And given the low market rates of interest that Federal Reserve policy has generated, even the low rate of interest on unlent excess reserves offered to banks by the Federal Reserve appears the relatively more profitable way to use their available funds.
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  • Why has the Federal Reserve done this? They infused these two trillion dollars into the financial markets back in 2008-2010 because they feared that an economy-wide bank collapse was possible. They are afraid to reverse this monetary expansion because to do so would reduce potential bank-lending capacity and put upward pressure on interest rates at a time when the Federal Reserve wants to prevent the sluggish recovery from slowing down even more and also raise the cost of the US government's financing of its trillion dollar a year deficits. So, instead, they leave this excess bank lending power sloshing around in the system, while keeping it off the market and from causing significant new price inflationary pressures, by paying banks not to lend those vast sums.
  • Austrians argue that economics is fundamentally a science and study of "human action." It attempts to trace out the logic and implications of man's intentional conduct in selecting among ends desired and applying perceived means to try to attain them. Austrians emphasize that all human action and the social and market interactions among men occur in a setting of imperfect knowledge, inescapable degrees of uncertainty and always through the passage of time.
  • They try to explain the market processes by which men discover mutual gains from trade.
  • They emphasize that the networks of social institutions in which and through which men discover ways to coordinate their interdependent actions in complex systems of division of labor are not the creations of government edict or command; but are most often among those unintended consequences of multitudes of self-interested individual actions and interactions.
  • They have developed theories of market competition and the role of the entrepreneur as the individuals always alert to market opportunities, and whose actions tend to bring about coordination between market supplies and demands.
  • The Austrian analysis of markets, competition and prices, led them to devastating critiques of the unworkability of all forms of socialist central planning, the inherent contradictions and inconsistencies in virtually all forms of government intervention and regulation, and a theory of money and the business cycle that points the finger of responsibility for inflations and recessions at the doorstep of government monetary and fiscal policies.
  • The philosophy of liberty proclaims that each individual is unique and possessing inherent rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property.
  • It is not surprising that classical liberal and libertarian ideas are often attacked. After all they are the ideas that consistently oppose the current political systems of plunder, privilege and power lusting.
  • That government, if it is to exist, is to serve as the protector and guardian of our distinct individual rights, and not the master of men who are obligated to sacrifice themselves for some asserted "national interest," "general welfare," or "common good."
  • The only reasonable meaning to the "common good" or the "general welfare" is when each individual is free to peacefully live his life as he chooses and is at liberty to voluntarily associate and interact with his fellow men for mutually beneficial improvements to their lives.
  • It is virtually inevitable that those who use political power for their own gain at their neighbor's expense will vehemently resist and oppose any attempt to stop them from feeding at the government trough.
  • there is everywhere a class of plundering peoples – politicians, bureaucrats, special interest groups – receiving tax-based income redistributions and subsidies and benefiting from anti-competitive regulations and protections against and at the expense of their fellow human beings.
  • This is the great battle of the twenty-first century;
  • Austrian Economics, not surprisingly, has been attacked precisely because of its insightful and cogent analysis of how it was government intervention and central bank monetary manipulation that generated the unsustainable boom in the last decade that set the stage for the inescapable bust, which the world is still suffering from.
  • There are "natural rights" libertarians
  • "utilitarian" or "consequentialist" libertarians.
  • most convincing case for human liberty
  • Because libertarians have not agreed about this among themselves, nor have they been able to persuade enough others in society to move the world further away from the collectivist premises and the interventionist-welfare state policies that guide so much that goes on in the world.
  • I happen to have been most strongly influenced by the "natural rights" defense of liberty, and especially as formulated by Ayn Rand in her philosophy of Objectivism.
  • First, it is argued that if one believes that the use of any and all forms of coercion are morally unacceptable in human relationships, then this should also imply that any compulsory taxation, even when for the funding of defense and legal justice, is unjustifiable. And, second, it is argued that the private sector could provide such admittedly essential services far more efficiently and cost-effectively than the monopoly agency of government. Murray Rothbard and David Friedman probably have been among the most well-known and articulate proponents of the anarcho-capitalist position over the last 50 years.
  • Others like the Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick and Ludwig von Mises have made the case for constitutionally limited government. Their counter arguments have centered on the ideas that conflicts over jurisdiction, disputes among private defense agencies contracted by different individuals who have disagreements, and the likelihood that "defense" would turn out to be a "natural monopoly" anyway – that is, a tendency for one agency to end up being the single provider of defense and judicial services over a wide geographical area – raise questions about the long-run workability and sustainability of competing defense companies in society.
  • From a moral perspective, I am in sympathy with the anarcho-capitalist position, in that I find the compulsory taking of people's income and wealth without their consent for whatever reason to be ethically repugnant.
  • We should focus on what we all agree upon:
  • This means that the Supreme Court has said that you are the slave of "society" and the government that represents "the people," since, in principle, anything that you do or not do can be argued to have some affect, positive or negative, on others.
  • Think about this Court decision. It is saying that if you do not buy health insurance the government will tax you to pay for it. If you refuse to pay the tax, the government will end up attempting to seize financial assets or real property you own in lieu of failure to pay. If you try to prevent this taking of your property, you are subject to arrest and imprisonment. If you resist arrest or imprisonment, the police have the authority to force you to comply – up to and including lethal force to subdue you into obedience.
  • the freedom and dignity of the individual human being; and the attempt whenever and wherever on our part to reduce, repeal and abolish all forms of regulation, control, restriction, prohibition on the peaceful and honest affairs of our fellow men.
  • Once you accept this premise, there is no end to the minutest detail and content of your life and actions the government cannot claim jurisdiction over to regulate, control or prohibit.
  • Here is that end-of-the-road of the notion of unlimited democratic rule by "the people" and those who claim to speak for "the people" and rule on their behalf.
  • Ayn Rand, of course, rejected any connection or compatibility with libertarianism. She argued this on two grounds. First, she felt that too frequently libertarians spoke of individual freedom, free markets and limited government, but failed to explicitly and clearly ground their political-economic ideas in a demonstrable philosophy of man, nature and society.
  • Government control of money is the potentially most dangerous and damaging form of government power short of outright socialism.
  • Rand's political philosophy arises out of the "natural rights" tradition, that rights are inherent in the nature of man and precede government.
  • Mises believed that rights were, in a sense, "social conventions" that had evolved out of the discovery that certain social institutional arrangements were more conducive to the mutual betterment of all members of society for achieving their individual goals and values
  • What they did agree upon was that, given their respective conceptions of the basis of individual rights, there was no social and economic system more consistent with the protection of those rights and more likely to generate the material and cultural achievements that are potentially possible than laissez-faire capitalism.
  • And in the twentieth century, Rand and Mises were two of the most principled and uncompromising advocates for the completely free market society
  • Second, she rejected the anarchist elements in the libertarian movement, believing that any reasonable analysis of the reality of man and the human condition strongly suggested the inescapable need for a single legal standard for defining and enforcing individual rights and a single authority to as impartially and "objectively" as possible enforce laws defending each individual's rights to his life, liberty and honestly acquired property.
  • "Hardly ever do the advocates of free capitalism realize how utterly their ideal was frustrated at the moment the state assumed control of the monetary system . . .
  • A 'free' capitalism with government responsibility for money and credit has lost its innocence.
  • From that point on it is no longer a matter of principle but one of expediency how far one wishes or permits government interference to go.
  • Money control is the supreme and most comprehensive of all governmental controls short of expropriation."
  • Government basically has three ways to acquire the income and wealth of its citizens: taxation, borrowing and printing money
  • So, governments throughout history have turned to the monetary printing press to fund the expenditures not covered by taxes or borrowed money
  • This "non-neutral," or uneven, impact on prices and wages in the economy during the inflationary process brings in its wake distorted profit margins, misallocations of resources and labor and various mal-investments of capital. Here are the seeds for the artificial and unsustainable "booms" that invariably come crashing down in the "bust" once the monetary expansion that has set it all in motion is stopped or slowed down.
  • I believe that the choice and use of money should be left to the market, that is, to the free and voluntary interactive decisions of those buying and selling in the market.
  • I consider a private, competitive free banking system to be the only one consistent with a truly free market society.
Paul Merrell

The Money Changers Serenade: A New Bankers' Plot to Steal Your Deposits | Global Research - 0 views

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banksters fraud electronic-currency Summers

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Writing in the Wall Street Journal (“Confessions of a Quantitative Easer,” November 11, 2013), Andrew Huszar confirms my explanation to be the correct one. Huszar is the Federal Reserve official who implemented the policy of QE. He resigned when he realized that the real purposes of QE was to drive up the prices of the banks’ holdings of debt instruments, to provide the banks with trillions of dollars at zero cost with which to lend and speculate, and to provide the banks with “fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions.” (See: www.paulcraigroberts.org) This vast con game remains unrecognized by Congress and the public. At the IMF Research Conference on November 8, 2013, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers presented a plan to expand the con game. Summers says that it is not enough merely to give the banks interest free money. More should be done for the banks. Instead of being paid interest on their bank deposits, people should be penalized for keeping their money in banks instead of spending it. To sell this new rip-off scheme, Summers has conjured up an explanation based on the crude and discredited Keynesianism of the 1940s that explained the Great Depression as a problem caused by too much savings. Instead of spending their money, people hoarded it, thus causing aggregate demand and employment to fall.
  • Summers says that today the problem of too much saving has reappeared. The centerpiece of his argument is “the natural interest rate,” defined as the interest rate at which full employment is established by the equality of saving with investment. If people save more than investors invest, the saved money will not find its way back into the economy, and output and employment will fall. Summers notes that despite a zero real rate of interest, there is still substantial unemployment. In other words, not even a zero rate of interest can reduce saving to the level of investment, thus frustrating a full employment recovery. Summers concludes that the natural rate of interest has become negative and is stuck below zero. How to fix this? The way to fix it, Summers says, is to charge people for saving money. To avoid the charges, people would spend the money, thus reducing savings to the level of investment and restoring full employment. Summers acknowledges that the problem with his solution is that people would take their money out of banks and hoard it in cash holdings. In other words, the cash form of money provides consumers with a freedom to save that holds down consumption and prevents full employment. Summers has a fix for this: eliminate the freedom by imposing a cashless society where the only money is electronic. As electronic money cannot be hoarded except in bank deposits, penalties can be imposed that force unproductive savings into consumption.
  • for Summers, the plight of the consumer is not the problem. The problem is the profits of the banks. Summers has the solution, and the establishment, including Paul Krugman, is applauding it. Once the economy officially turns down again, watch out.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Nov 13
     
    Paul Craig Roberts exposes Larry Summers formula for the banksters to grab money from everyone: eliminate all but electronic-currency and penalize savings. Not mentioned by Roberts, but much of the infrastructure for this is already in place. For example, late last year all recipients of Social Security and VA benefit checks were notified that after March 1, 2013, they would be in violation of the law if they continued to receive paper checks. They were required to enroll in approved electronic deposit programs, all of which are offered by banks. Until about two years ago, people could merely state in writing that they didn't want it and could continue receiving paper checks. But Congress closed that loophole.  (I remain out of compliance.) Debit card is now mandatory, although they have not yet enacted penalties for non-compliance.  So the banksters now get the "float" on virtually all federal SS and VA benefit payments until spent. That's as opposed to the prior Treasury Department drafts whose funds were not in the banking system.   More to the point, the web portal for the federal "Go Direct" program to sign up for direct deposit is in place and debugged. It wouldn't take much beyond a bigger data set to issue debit cards for everyone in the U.S. during a transition to a cashless economy.  The Constitution says gold and silver only for payment of debts; paper currency paved the way for financial abuse of the economy by banksters. Now Summers wants to do away with cash entirely in favor of digital currency with penalties for saving? My life savings must be surrendered to a bank so I can be penalized for saving? And of course moving to all-digital currency would give the spy agencies a much more detailed record of your purchases to work with. The location where you bought that last cup of coffee is instantly available to the NSA? Gimme a break!    
Paul Merrell

Obama's NSA Speech Has Little Impact on Skeptical Public | Pew Research Center for the ... - 0 views

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surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback polls Obama Snowden Obama-speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • President Obama’s speech on Friday outlining changes to the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone and internet data did not register widely with the public. Half say they have heard nothing at all about his  proposed changes to the NSA, and another 41% say they heard only a little bit. Even among those heard about Obama’s speech, few think the changes will improve privacy protections, or make it more difficult for the government to fight terrorism.
  • The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and USA TODAY, conducted Jan. 15-19 among 1,504 adults, finds that overall approval of the program has declined since last summer, when the story first broke based on Edward Snowden’s leaked information. Today, 40% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 53% disapprove. In July, more Americans approved (50%) than disapproved (44%) of the program. In addition, nearly half (48%) say there are not adequate limits on what telephone and internet data the government can collect; fewer (41%) say there are adequate limits on the government’s data collection. About four-in-ten Republicans (39%) and independents (38%) – and about half of Democrats (48%) – think there are adequate limits on the information that the government can collect.
  • Reflecting the limited impact of Obama’s address, overall approval of the program and opinions about whether adequate safeguards are in place were no different in three nights of interviewing conducted after the speech (Jan. 17-19) than during the two nights of interviewing conducted prior to the address (Jan. 15-16). Overall, the public is divided about whether Edward Snowden’s leak of classified information, which brought the program to light, has served or harmed the public interest: 45% say it has served the public interest while 43% say it harmed it. Nonetheless, a 56% majority wants to see the government pursue a criminal case against Snowden, while 32% oppose this. This is little changed from June, shortly after Snowden’s first leaks of information about the program.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The public is split on whether Edward Snowden’s leaks served the public interest, with 45% saying they did and 43% saying the leaks harmed public interest. But by 56% to 32%, most think that the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden. These opinions are largely unchanged from last June, when Snowden first disclosed classified information to news organizations. There is a large age gap when it comes to views of the NSA revelations and the public interest. More adults ages 50 and older believe that the leaks harmed the public interest (49%) than served the public interest (37%). Among adults 18-29, sentiment is reversed, with 57% saying Snowden served the public interest and 35% saying he harmed it. There are no significant differences on this issue by party, as both Republicans and Democrats are divided.
  • Obama’s proposed changes to the NSA’s data collection program did not register widely with the public. Just 49% say they heard about the proposed changes, with little difference across partisan groups. Among those that did hear about the proposals, large majorities of Republicans (86%) and independents (78%) say these changes will not make much difference when it comes to protecting people’s privacy. Among Democrats who have heard of the changes, 56% say they won’t make much difference. There is little concern that the changes to the NSA’s surveillance activities will hurt the government’s ability to fight terrorism. Overall, 79% of those who have heard about the proposals say they won’t make much difference in the government’s ability to fight terrorism; this view is shared by 85% of independents, 77% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans.
  • Democrats remain more supportive of the NSA surveillance program than Republicans, though support is down across party lines. Today, Democrats are divided (46% approve, 48% disapprove) in their view of the program. Last June, they approved by a 20-point margin (58% vs. 38%). Republicans now disapprove of the program by a 56% to 37% margin. Approval is down eight points among Republicans from 45% last June. There continues to be a substantial divide within the Republican base: Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party are overwhelmingly opposed to the NSA program, while those who do not identify with the Tea Party are more divided. The decline in approval of the NSA surveillance program spans most demographic groups, though the drop in support is particularly evident among minority groups. Last June, 60% of both blacks and Hispanics approved of the government’s surveillance program. That has fallen to 43% among blacks and 40% among Hispanics today. Among whites, 39% approve of the program today, little changed from 44% in June.
  • Those who attended college are more likely than those who didn’t to see the leaks as serving the public interest. About half of college graduates (49%) and those with some college experience (51%) say this, compared with 38% of those with no more than a high school degree.
  • While most of the public wants the government to pursue a criminal case against Snowden, young people offer the least support for his prosecution. Those younger than 30 are divided, with 42% wanting a criminal case against Snowden and 42% saying the government should not pursue one. Support for prosecution is much higher among those 50 and older, who think the government should pursue a case by more than two-to-one. Both Democrats (62%-27%) and Republicans (54%-28%) think the government should pursue a criminal case. About half of independents (51%) want a criminal case against Snowden, while four-in-ten (39%) say the government should not pursue one. Fully 70% of those who approve of the government’s surveillance program favor Snowden’s prosecution. Those who disapprove of the program are divided: 45% say the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden while 43% are opposed.
  • Barack Obama’s job approval rating has shown little change from last month. In the current survey, 49% disapprove of how he is handling his job and 43% approve. Obama’s ratings had steadily declined from May to November of last year, before he regained some ground in December. In the last month, there have been no significant changes in partisan approval. About three-quarters of Democrats (77%) approve and 17% disapprove; among Republicans, 12% approve and 84% disapprove. Independents, on balance, continue to view his job performance negatively — 37% approve and 53% disapprove.
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Gerald Celente on Multinationalism, Breaking the Chains and Individual... - 0 views

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  • Gerald Celente: As I said, they're in a trap and it's a tapering trap, the quantitative easing trap. They can't keep printing more money because it's going to devalue the currency. And by the way, this is complicated, because it's not only the United States that's doing it; most of the central banks are doing it. China, the Europeans – they're all pumping money into their systems to keep them afloat. They're all in a trap. A time comes when you just can't keep doing it anymore. You can only take heroin so much before it kills you. This is monetary methadone and it's not going to cure the problem so they're going to have to stop. When it stops, that's when we go back into a recession and/or a depression.
  • Is it a depression? Is it a depression if you live in Greece or Spain or Portugal? Is it a depression if you're among the over 12% unemployed in Italy? When you look at John Williams's ShadowStats, in the US we're looking at about 22% unemployment. So yes, it's a depression for a lot of people. And then again, median household income in the US, accounting for inflation, is 10% below 1999 levels. That's a fact. So if you're earning 10 percent less for your family than you were in 1999 and the costs have skyrocketed since then, particularly in healthcare, food, rent, property, gas and other costs, do you think you're living in a depression? Daily Bell: Is central banking an art, a science or just a fraud?
  • Gerald Celente: Neither. It's a criminal operation. Throughout the 1800s, one of the major issues of every presidential election was whether or not to have a central bank. They fought it successfully not to have one until 1913. These are private banks that are running our country and many others. This goes back to the scriptures; it's Christ chasing the moneychangers out of the temple. The moneychangers have just got new names – Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and, of course, JPMorgan Chase got that name because you're going to have to chase them to get your money because they just put a limit on how much you can withdraw or deposit each month in certain accounts, with a limit of $50,000.
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  • Daily Bell: It seems like people don't believe in central banking anymore so why does it continue? What holds it up in a so-called democracy where people have a vote? Gerald Celente: Most people don't even know what a central bank is and they still believe the lie that the Federal Reserve is a quasi-government institution when it's not. It's a totally private bank. Most people don't even know that. So most people are uninformed and like in all countries, they follow their leaders. Very few people rebel. There was an incident that happened in late October in the States. Hillary Clinton was speaking in Buffalo, delivering her model for what is required to solve complex problems. There was a heckler in the crowd who she admonished by saying, "... which doesn't include yelling. It includes sitting down and talking." What patronizing bullshit. You know what happened? The audience of 6,500 stood up and gave her a standing ovation that extended on and on. So it's the people. The people can blame the politicians all they want, but as I see it, it's the people's responsibility for the state of their nation.
  • Daily Bell: What's the employment picture like going forward in the US?
  • Gerald Celente: Lower paying jobs, less benefits, more temporary jobs and I think the question at the end is rather than going forward in the US it should be what's going forward in Slavelandia, because that's what it's become. You get out of college and you're an indentured servant. For the rest of your life you have to pay off your debt for your degree in worthlessness, for the most part. There are degrees that are worth something but not a lot of them. Where are you going to work? Name the company – Macy's? Starbucks? You can become a barista. Are they going to start teaching Shipping & Handling 101 in college? What are they going to do? Who are you going to work for? What are you going to do – stock shelves? This is better than slavery because when they had the plantation you had to take care of the slaves. Now you can just use them up and send them home. It's kind of like Bangladesh right here in the good 'ol USA.
  • Daily Bell: How about the rest of the world? Give us a global summary.
  • Gerald Celente: The global summary is this: Everybody can see what happened when the Federal Reserve talked about tapering several months ago. All of a sudden you saw the emerging markets start to crash; they dropped about 11% in a year before the Fed reversed its policy because all the hot, low-interest rate money that was leaving the US was flowing into the emerging markets, where you could borrow the money cheaply. So when they started to talk about tapering the hot money started flowing out of these countries, such as India, Brazil. They were really suffering from it and so were their stock markets. So without the cheap money flowing from the central banks, the entire global economy goes on stall and then it turns negative. You can see what's going on in China now; they're facing a banking crisis. Real estate prices in cities like Shanghai and Beijing have gone up over 20% in a year and no matter how the government tries to deflate it, the housing bubble keeps growing. The banks also have a lot of bad loans they're carrying. Now the Chinese government is trying to restrain that free-flow of cheap money, and what happens to their stock market when they do? It dives and the contagion spreads to other Asian equity markets. They all start dropping. It's all tied to cheap money and when the cheap money spigot begins to tighten up the global economy goes down. As I've made very clear, when the interest rates go up the economies go down – it's as simple as that. They've run out of this game. Compare this with the Great Depression, when it began essentially in 1930. This recession begin in 2008. It's now 2013 – we're only in 1935.
  • Daily Bell: China and the BRICS seem to be making noises about setting up their own monetary infrastructure without the dollar. Will that happen?
  • Gerald Celente: Yes, they are making noise, but reality is another issue, and the currency issue is complicated. The dollar goes down but where are you going to go, the euro? We were talking briefly about what's going on in Europe. There's financial market propaganda boasting that the worst of the eurozone crisis is over. They're bragging that The GDP of Spain was just reported to have gone up 0.1% and they made a big deal out of it. "The recession's over" is the B.S. message. No, the recession is not over! They're cooking the numbers to make a rotten situation look less rotten. In countries like Greece and Spain, youth unemployment is running above 50% and overall unemployment around 30%. The recession continues unabated, and there's absolutely no way out of this and they can't print their way out. Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland are doing terrible – what would anyone substitute euros for dollars? And what other currency choices are there, the yuan? As I mentioned, China has plenty of its own problems. They've been dumping a lot of cash into that society to keep it going. You know what China's greatest fear is? It's not the Spratly Islands or the South and China Sea territorial problems that are going on between them, the Philippines, Vietnam or the Japanese. China's greatest fear is its people. They've got 1.2 billion of them and if they're hungry or not happy there's going to be a lot of problems.
  • Again, what do you substitute the dollar for, Brazil's real or the Indian rupee? Remember, we saw what happened when the hot money started leaving the emerging market countries. The South African rand is also under pressure. The BRIC nations can speak as much as they want and they may have the greatest intention to create another reserve currency, but the fact is their economies are not robust or independent enough to create one at this time. As I said, talk is one thing, facts are another and although the world is less dependent on the dollar it is still by far the major reserve currency of the world and I don't see that rapidly changing unless there's a catastrophe that would cause it to happen. However, over the years, I do expect a new reserve model to develop.
  • Daily Bell: Let's talk about military action, particularly in Syria where Al Qaeda types have been fighting on the side of the US and NATO. Why does the US want to destabilize Syria and what country will be next – Iran? Russia?
  • Gerald Celente: We wrote about this in the Trends Journal going back to 2011. After Libya fell, Syria was the only port that the Chinese and the Russians had in the Mediterranean – the Port of Tartus. And also, Syria's only real ally in that area is Iran and, of course, Hezbollah in Lebanon. So with Syria out of the way there's nothing in the Middle East other than Iran to stop the continued spread of US influence and control in that area. It's really more about that than anything we see – again, having more control over that area for the US to do as it wants, with Iran really being the main target.
  • When President Obama backed off his red line threat and didn't attack Syria that was a tipping point. And, as important, the vast majority of Americans opposed the attack plan. That was a significant statement. The country said it was tired of war – and so are a lot of other nations.
  • Gerald Celente: Again, talk about morality and the recent Amnesty International report that said the United States was breaking international law in its use of drones to kill people that were convicted of nothing in addition to innocent people. How much more immoral could you get?
  • I can tell you how much immoral. How about starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – in Iraq with the proof that a war was started that killed at least a half a million people that was started under fake reasons; lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. An Afghan war that's the longest war in American history, the war in Libya that they called a time-limed, scope-limited kinetic action that's destroyed the entire nation. You want to talk about immorality? How about the "too big to fail"? The government mandated immoral act of stealing money from the American people to give it to the banks, financiers and favored corporations? They say the fish rots from the head down and that's it; the fish has rotted in America for a long time. It didn't start with Obama. It goes back to Bush, Clinton, and keeps going back. Society gets the message from the top and, as I see it, they're simply following their leaders. For example, if their leader can start wars, rob people, take their money, why shouldn't I? Why should I operate on a moral level when immorality is condoned at the top?
  • Most recently, the United States government, in virtually every fashion of behavior, has been fascist. I don't say that by throwing the word out loosely. It's called the merger of corporate state and powers. It goes back to "too big to fail." Under capitalism there's no such thing. You're not too big to fail; you fail. Big, small, medium, you fail – it's capitalism.
  • Not anymore. You have your money taken from you by government order and it's transferred to the people who are the most favored by those in power. That's the only reason why the stock market keeps going up and why the multinationals are doing so well. That's where the $85 billion a month that the Federal Reserve is using in their quantitative easing is going. Then when you look at the other levels of immorality, as I mentioned, why shouldn't people feel as though they can do anything the government is doing? That's why it just keeps getting worse and worse. It's reflected in the music, the politics, every element of culture – both pop culture and political culture.
  • Under the dictates of the eurozone and globalization, the love of one's culture and pride of nation is denounced as "populism."
  • Daily Bell: Let's talk hard money. Can you give us an update on the price action of gold and silver? How about equity? Where is the stock market headed? We think the big boys are trying to rev it up and go for one last killing. Your thoughts?
  • Gerald Celente: The stock market will continue to rise as long as interest rates stay low. That's the best estimate you could give. They keep all of this quantitative easing that, for example, benefits the big private equity firms. Look what's going on in the United States with Blackstone Group. They own 40,000 homes. Where are they getting the money? Deutsche Bank is loaning them tons of money because they're getting money with overnight rates near zero, and they in turn loan it to the "bigs" really cheaply so it is just another example of what's keeping the whole stock market scam going.
  • As long as the money stays cheap the stock market keeps going up. As the money stays cheap gold and silver go up, and you're seeing gold making a bit of a rebound lately because of, again going back to the employment numbers in the States – there is no recovery, the jobs stink, they're not creating enough jobs. The tapering keeps going on, which is a devaluation of the currency, and quantitative easing continues. As long as money stays cheap gold goes up. Now, gold may go down when quantitative easing and tapering slow down. However, that's only going to be temporary because when that happens the bond market's going to explode, when interest rates go up, there's going to be another financial crisis. My best analysis at this time is the second quarter of 2014. The 'experts' are saying the stock market is booming. It has gone from a 14,000 high in 2007 to mid-15,000 now. Accounting for inflation, the stock market has to be about 15,750 just to be back at the 2007 level.
  • Daily Bell: There are other trends, of course, ones you often mention. You spoke to us last time about the New Millennium Renaissance.
  • Gerald Celente: Back to the renaissance... To me, that's the only thing that's going to change the future. We need a cultural, artistic and moral redevelopment, a restoration. Every issue that we've been talking about so far is based on human behavior and the human spirit – morality or immorality. Until morality is restored and the human spirit rises, nothing's going to change. As I was mentioning before, the fish rots from the head down. If you see the people at the head acting immorally, and from the head all the way down, why shouldn't you or I act immorally? What license do they have to steal that we don't? What license do they have to kill that we shouldn't?
Paul Merrell

Fallout from Obama's Russia Strategy Is Spreading through Europe - Yahoo Finance - 0 views

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war & peace economic-warfare Russia U.S.-foreign-policy blowback EU

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia, reluctantly supported by the Europeans, bite more deeply every day. But it is also clearer with each daily news report that Russians are not going to suffer alone.
  • The Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia, reluctantly supported by the Europeans, bite more deeply every day. But it is also clearer with each daily news report that Russians are not going to suffer alone.
  • Russia’s immediate neighbors and the Europeans will, too. And—not to be missed—so will the trans-Atlantic alliance that has served as the backbone of Western policy since the postwar order was established 70 years ago next spring.This president is intent on making history. But does he distinguish between good history and the other kind?
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  • It’ll be the other kind if the European Union swoons into another recession as a consequence of America’s geopolitical ambitions to Europe’s east. Emphatically it’ll be the other kind if Obama hastens a drift in Washington’s ties to the European capitals that have been faintly discernible, if papered over, for decades.     Let’s look at this from all angles.
  • On Friday the Polish zloty hit a 15-month low against the euro—straight-ahead fallout from Russia’s crisis. Among the CIS nations, Belarus just doubled interest rates, to 50 percent, and imposed a 30 percent tax on forex transactions.Kyrgyzstan is closing private currency exchanges, and Armenia is letting the dram, its currency, collapse—17 percent in the past month—in a policy it calls “hyper-devaluation.” Further afield, the Indian rupee, the South African rand, and the Turkish lira are among the emerging-market currencies taking hits from the ruble crisis.Flipping these eggs over, Switzerland just imposed negative interest rates to discourage a stampede of weak-currency holders from piling into the franc in search of a safe haven.
  • What happened as E.U. ministers and heads of state convened in Brussels last week can come as no surprise.On one hand, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that Europeans must “stay the course” on Russia. Just before the Brussels summit, the E.U. barred investments in Crimea—a gesture more than anything else, but one with clear intent. On the other hand, deep divisions are now on the surface. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi declared “absolutely no” to more sanctions, and François Hollande seemed to say no to the sanctions already in place. Noting signs of progress on Ukraine, the French president said, “If gestures are sent by Russia, as we expect, there would be no reason to impose new sanctions, but on the contrary to look at how we could bring about a de-escalation from our side.”Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard asserted that the sanctions already in place may be hitting too hard. We want to modulate Russia’s behavior, he said in an especially astute distinction, not destroy Russia’s economy.
  • In short, two serious fissures are emerging as the hard line against Russia advances. One, the E.U. is plainly getting fractious. Reflecting the rainbow of political tendencies among their leaders, Europeans may have reached their limit in acquiescing in the Obama administration’s tough-and-getting-tougher policies. Note, in this context: Europe has nothing like the fiscal and monetary wherewithal it had six years ago to withstand another bout of financial and economic contagion. Two, Obama appears ever closer to overplaying America’s hand with the Europeans. Tensions between Washington and Europe have simmered just out of sight since the Cold War decades. There are significant signs now that Obama has let the Ukraine crisis worsen them to the point the tenor of trans-Atlantic ties is permanently modulated. If this goes any further it will be very big indeed. 
  • Question: Do President Obama’s big-think people at State and the Treasury know the magnitude of the game they’re playing? This is the issue the economic fallout of sanctions and the new shifts in Europe raise. Follow-on query, not pleasant to ask but it must be put: Does Obama have any big thinkers in either department? As the consequences of this administration’s Russia policy unfurl, they appear to travel on a wing and a prayer—“making it up as they go along,” as a friend and Foreign Service refugee said over lunch the other day.
Paul Merrell

European Central Bank Goes Sub Zero » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names th... - 0 views

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  • On Thursday, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi dropped rates on overnight deposits to minus 0.1% thereby charging commercial banks to keep their money at the ECB. The move, which was applauded by the media as a “historic measure to fight deflation”, is nothing of the kind. Negative rates have been used in both Sweden and Denmark in recent years, but to little effect. The policy will not “get the banks lending again” as the ECB suggests, nor will it ease the high unemployment and slow growth that have plagued the Eurozone for the last six years. In truth, the rate change will have no impact at all. It’s merely public relations stunt designed to create the impression that the ECB is aggressively addressing the crisis for which it is largely responsible. Here’s how the World Socialist Web Site summed it up: “The move is an expression of the fact that, nearly six years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the world economy remains mired in deep crisis, for which the world’s central banks have no solution outside of pumping trillions into banks and financial firms. While trillions are handed out to the banks, workers throughout the continent are told that there is “no money” to pay for pensions, social programs, and healthcare benefits.” (European Central Bank cuts interest rate below zero, World Socialist Web Site)
  • Stock traders loved the news that the ECB was going “sub zero”. As we’ve seen before, any indication that the easy money regime is here-to-stay is enough to send equities skyrocketing, which it did. All the main indices notched substantial gains on the day while the SandP 500 surged to a new record of 1,940. The idea that charging the banks a small fee on overnight deposits will induce them to lend more freely, demonstrates a laughable misunderstanding of how the system really works.
Paul Merrell

President Xi's speech to Davos in full | World Economic Forum - 0 views

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shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” These are the words used by the English writer Charles Dickens to describe the world after the Industrial Revolution. Today, we also live in a world of contradictions. On the one hand, with growing material wealth and advances in science and technology, human civilization has developed as never before. On the other hand, frequent regional conflicts, global challenges like terrorism and refugees, as well as poverty, unemployment and widening income gap have all added to the uncertainties of the world. Many people feel bewildered and wonder: What has gone wrong with the world? To answer this question, one must first track the source of the problem. Some blame economic globalization for the chaos in the world. Economic globalization was once viewed as the treasure cave found by Ali Baba in The Arabian Nights, but it has now become the Pandora’s box in the eyes of many. The international community finds itself in a heated debate on economic globalization.
  • Today, I wish to address the global economy in the context of economic globalization. The point I want to make is that many of the problems troubling the world are not caused by economic globalization. For instance, the refugee waves from the Middle East and North Africa in recent years have become a global concern. Several million people have been displaced, and some small children lost their lives while crossing the rough sea. This is indeed heartbreaking. It is war, conflict and regional turbulence that have created this problem, and its solution lies in making peace, promoting reconciliation and restoring stability. The international financial crisis is another example. It is not an inevitable outcome of economic globalization; rather, it is the consequence of excessive chase of profit by financial capital and grave failure of financial regulation. Just blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems is inconsistent with reality, and it will not help solve the problems.
  • But we should also recognize that economic globalization is a double-edged sword. When the global economy is under downward pressure, it is hard to make the cake of global economy bigger. It may even shrink, which will strain the relations between growth and distribution, between capital and labor, and between efficiency and equity. Both developed and developing countries have felt the punch. Voices against globalization have laid bare pitfalls in the process of economic globalization that we need to take seriously. As a line in an old Chinese poem goes, “Honey melons hang on bitter vines; sweet dates grow on thistles and thorns.” In a philosophical sense, nothing is perfect in the world. One would fail to see the full picture if he claims something is perfect because of its merits, or if he views something as useless just because of its defects. It is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is no justification to write economic globalization off completely. Rather, we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impact, and deliver its benefits to all countries and all nations.
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  • Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical trend.
  • First, lack of robust driving forces for global growth makes it difficult to sustain the steady growth of the global economy. The growth of the global economy is now at its slowest pace in seven years. Growth of global trade has been slower than global GDP growth. Short-term policy stimuli are ineffective. Fundamental structural reform is just unfolding. The global economy is now in a period of moving toward new growth drivers, and the role of traditional engines to drive growth has weakened. Despite the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and 3-D printing, new sources of growth are yet to emerge. A new path for the global economy remains elusive. Second, inadequate global economic governance makes it difficult to adapt to new developments in the global economy. Madame Christine Lagarde recently told me that emerging markets and developing countries already contribute to 80 percent of the growth of the global economy. The global economic landscape has changed profoundly in the past few decades. However, the global governance system has not embraced those new changes and is therefore inadequate in terms of representation and inclusiveness. The global industrial landscape is changing and new industrial chains, value chains and supply chains are taking shape. However, trade and investment rules have not kept pace with these developments, resulting in acute problems such as closed mechanisms and fragmentation of rules.
  • Third, uneven global development makes it difficult to meet people’s expectations for better lives. Dr. Schwab has observed in his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution that this round of industrial revolution will produce extensive and far-reaching impacts such as growing inequality, particularly the possible widening gap between return on capital and return on labor. The richest one percent of the world’s population own more wealth than the remaining 99 percent. Inequality in income distribution and uneven development space are worrying. Over 700 million people in the world are still living in extreme poverty. For many families, to have warm houses, enough food and secure jobs is still a distant dream. This is the biggest challenge facing the world today. It is also what is behind the social turmoil in some countries. All this shows that there are indeed problems with world economic growth, governance and development models, and they must be resolved. The founder of the Red Cross Henry Dunant once said, “Our real enemy is not the neighboring country; it is hunger, poverty, ignorance, superstition and prejudice.” We need to have the vision to dissect these problems; more importantly, we need to have the courage to take actions to address them.
  • First, we should develop a dynamic, innovation-driven growth model. The fundamental issue plaguing the global economy is the lack of driving force for growth.Innovation is the primary force guiding development. Unlike the previous industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution is unfolding at an exponential rather than linear pace. We need to relentlessly pursue innovation. Only with the courage to innovate and reform can we remove bottlenecks blocking global growth and development. With this in mind, G-20 leaders reached an important consensus at the Hangzhou Summit, which is to take innovation as a key driver and foster new driving force of growth for both individual countries and the global economy. We should develop a new development philosophy and rise above the debate about whether there should be more fiscal stimulus or more monetary easing. We should adopt a multipronged approach to address both the symptoms and the underlying problems. We should adopt new policy instruments and advance structural reform to create more space for growth and sustain its momentum. We should develop new growth models and seize opportunities presented by the new round of industrial revolution and digital economy. We should meet the challenges of climate change and aging population. We should address the negative impact of IT application and automation on jobs. When cultivating new industries and new forms models of business models, we should create new jobs and restore confidence and hope to our peoples.
  • Second, we should pursue a well-coordinated and inter-connected approach to develop a model of open and win-win cooperation. Today, mankind has become a close-knit community of shared future. Countries have extensive converging interests and are mutually dependent. All countries enjoy the right to development. At the same time, they should view their own interests in a broader context and refrain from pursuing them at the expense of others. We should commit ourselves to growing an open global economy to share opportunities and interests through opening-up and achieve win-win outcomes. One should not just retreat to the harbor when encountering a storm, for this will never get us to the other shore of the ocean. We must redouble efforts to develop global connectivity to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share prosperity. We must remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening-up and say no to protectionism. Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will also block light and air. No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war.
  • Third, we should develop a model of fair and equitable governance in keeping with the trend of the times. As the Chinese saying goes, people with petty shrewdness attend to trivial matters, while people with vision attend to governance of institutions. There is a growing call from the international community for reforming the global economic governance system, which is a pressing task for us. Only when it adapts to new dynamics in the international economic architecture can the global governance system sustain global growth. Countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are all equal members of the international community. As such, they are entitled to participate in decision-making, enjoy rights and fulfill obligations on an equal basis. Emerging markets and developing countries deserve greater representation and voice. The 2010 IMF quota reform has entered into force, and its momentum should be sustained. We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions. We should honor promises and abide by rules. One should not select or bend rules as he sees fit. The Paris Agreement is a hard-won achievement which is in keeping with the underlying trend of global development. All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations.
  • Fourth, we should develop a balanced, equitable and inclusive development model. As the Chinese saying goes, “A just cause should be pursued for common good.”Development is ultimately for the people. To achieve more balanced development and ensure that the people have equal access to opportunities and share in the benefits of development, it is crucial to have a sound development philosophy and model and make development equitable, effective and balanced.
  • We should foster a culture that values diligence, frugality and enterprise and respects the fruits of hard work of all. Priority should be given to addressing poverty, unemployment, the widening income gap and the concerns of the disadvantaged to promote social equity and justice. It is important to protect the environment while pursuing economic and social progress so as to achieve harmony between man and nature and between man and society. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be implemented to realize balanced development across the world. A Chinese adage reads, “Victory is ensured when people pool their strength; success is secured when people put their heads together.” As long as we keep to the goal of building a community of shared future for mankind and work hand in hand to fulfill our responsibilities and overcome difficulties, we will be able to create a better world and deliver better lives for our peoples.
  • This is a path that puts people’s interests first. China follows a people-oriented development philosophy and is committed to bettering the lives of its people. Development is of the people, by the people and for the people. China pursues the goal of common prosperity. We have taken major steps to alleviate poverty and lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, and good progress is being made in our efforts to finish building a society of initial prosperity in all respects. This is a path of pursuing reform and innovation. China has tackled difficulties and met challenges on its way forward through reform. China has demonstrated its courage to take on difficult issues, navigate treacherous rapids and remove institutional hurdles standing in the way of development. These efforts have enabled us to unleash productivity and social vitality. Building on progress of 30-odd years of reform, we have introduced more than 1,200 reform measures over the past four years, injecting powerful impetus into China’s development.
  • This is a path of pursuing common development through opening-up. China is committed to a fundamental policy of opening-up and pursues a win-win opening-up strategy. China’s development is both domestic and external oriented; while developing itself, China also shares more of its development outcomes with other countries and peoples. China’s outstanding development achievements and the vastly improved living standards of the Chinese people are a blessing to both China and the world. Such achievements in development over the past decades owe themselves to the hard work and perseverance of the Chinese people, a quality that has defined the Chinese nation for several thousand years. We Chinese know only too well that there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. For a big country with over 1.3 billion people, development can be achieved only with the dedication and tireless efforts of its own people. We cannot expect others to deliver development to China, and no one is in a position to do so. When assessing China’s development, one should not only see what benefits the Chinese people have gained, but also how much hard effort they have put in, not just what achievements China has made, but also what contribution China has made to the world. Then one will reach a balanced conclusion about China’s development.
  • Between 1950 and 2016, despite its modest level of development and living standard, China provided more than 400 billion yuan of foreign assistance, undertook over 5,000 foreign assistance projects, including nearly 3,000 complete projects, and held over 11,000 training workshops in China for over 260,000 personnel from other developing countries. Since it launched reform and opening-up, China has attracted over $1.7 trillion of foreign investment and made over $1.2 trillion of direct outbound investment, making huge contribution to global economic development. In the years following the outbreak of the international financial crisis, China contributed to over 30 percent of global growth every year on average. All these figures are among the highest in the world. The figures speak for themselves. China’s development is an opportunity for the world; China has not only benefited from economic globalization but also contributed to it. Rapid growth in China has been a sustained, powerful engine for global economic stability and expansion. The inter-connected development of China and a large number of other countries has made the world economy more balanced. China’s remarkable achievement in poverty reduction has contributed to more inclusive global growth. And China’s continuous progress in reform and opening-up has lent much momentum to an open world economy.
  • Despite a sluggish global economy, China’s economy is expected to grow by 6.7 percent in 2016, still one of the highest in the world. China’s economy is far bigger in size than in the past, and it now generates more output than it did with double-digit growth in the past. Household consumption and the services sector have become the main drivers of growth. In the first three quarters of 2016, added value of the tertiary industry took up 52.8 percent of the GDP and domestic consumption contributed to 71 percent of economic growth. Household income and employment have steadily risen, while per unit GDP energy consumption continues to drop. Our efforts to pursue green development are paying off. The Chinese economy faces downward pressure and many difficulties, including acute mismatch between excess capacity and an upgrading demand structure, lack of internal driving force for growth, accumulation of financial risks, and growing challenges in certain regions. We see these as temporary hardships that occur on the way forward. And the measures we have taken to address these problems are producing good results. We are firm in our resolve to forge ahead. China is the world’s largest developing country with over 1.3 billion people, and their living standards are not yet high. But this reality also means China has enormous potential and space for development. Guided by the vision of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, we will adapt to the new normal, stay ahead of the curve, and make coordinated efforts to maintain steady growth, accelerate reform, adjust economic structure, improve people’s living standards and fend off risks. With these efforts, we aim to achieve medium-high rate of growth and upgrade the economy to higher end of the value chain.
  • — China will foster an enabling and orderly environment for investment. We will expand market access for foreign investors, build high-standard pilot free trade zones, strengthen protection of property rights, and level the playing field to make China’s market more transparent and better regulated. In the coming five years, China is expected to import $8 trillion of goods, attract $600 billion of foreign investment and make $750 billion of outbound investment. Chinese tourists will make 700 million overseas visits. All this will create a bigger market, more capital, more products and more business opportunities for other countries. China’s development will continue to offer opportunities to business communities in other countries. China will keep its door wide open and not close it. An open door allows both other countries to access the Chinese market and China itself to integrate with the world. And we hope that other countries will also keep their door open to Chinese investors and keep the playing field level for us.
  • — China will vigorously foster an external environment of opening-up for common development. We will advance the building of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to form a global network of free trade arrangements. China stands for concluding open, transparent and win-win regional free trade arrangements and opposes forming exclusive groups that are fragmented in nature. China has no intention to boost its trade competitiveness by devaluing the RMB, still less will it launch a currency war. Over three years ago, I put forward the “Belt and Road” initiative. Since then, over 100 countries and international organizations have given warm responses and support to the initiative. More than 40 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China, and our circle of friends along the “Belt and Road” is growing bigger. Chinese companies have made over $50 billion of investment and launched a number of major projects in the countries along the routes, spurring the economic development of these countries and creating many local jobs. The “Belt and Road” initiative originated in China, but it has delivered benefits well beyond its borders.
  • Ladies and Gentlemen,Dear Friends, World history shows that the road of human civilization has never been a smooth one, and that mankind has made progress by surmounting difficulties. No difficulty, however daunting, will stop mankind from advancing. When encountering difficulties, we should not complain about ourselves, blame others, lose confidence or run away from responsibilities. We should join hands and rise to the challenge. History is created by the brave. Let us boost confidence, take actions and march arm-in-arm toward a bright future.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 17
     
    Very important speech. A must-read (I snipped only portions).
Gary Edwards

U.S. Treasury Says Financial Crisis Is Over But The Next One May Be Right In Front Of Us - 0 views

problembanklist.com/y-be-right-in-front-of-us-0494

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Obammunism USA-bankruptcy

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 12
     
    More great charts, this time courtesy of the US Treasury Department. The charts use select areas of measurement to show a slowly improving economy, with the private sector leading the way. What the charts don't show or discuss is that the Obama economy has been assisted by $3 Trillion in Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel "quantitative easing", and the $5 Trillion in debt that Obama spending has racked up. Throw in the secret $16.1 Trillion the Federal Reserve pumped into the international bankster system, and the question becomes, "Where is all this money going? And why isn't the economy jumping?" The numbers are staggering. One chart provided by Treasury shows a successful TARP program where the Banksters have paid back in full the massive bailout funds. One has to wonder though, are they paying back the taxpayer bailout with newly generated profits? Or are they simply using freshly printed Federal Reserve dollars ($19.1 Trillion by the Federal Reserve's count), passed to them at zero interest? The shell game Obama, the ruling establishment, and the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel have been playing may be running out of steam. We're now in the money laundering stage where Banksters and trading partners like China are dumping their digital-ions of dollars for real property, corporate assets and hard currencies. The St Louis branch of the Federal Reserve Cartel says as much in their most recent economic study. From the article: ....... The nation's debt load has grown to the point where the U.S. is now threatened with bankruptcy but the economy is not likely to grow fast enough to reduce the need for additional government borrowing. Empirical studies have shown a strong correlation between high levels of debt and reduced economic growth which results in decreased government revenue as explained below.......... An essay published by the St. Louis Federal Reserve on the Federal debt poised the question, "Too Little Revenue or Too Much Spe
Paul Merrell

The Dying Dollar -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...ying-dollar-paul-craig-roberts

financial-collapse China U.S. reserve currrencies yuan dollar settlement currency

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Since 2006, the US dollar has experienced a one-quarter to one-third drop in value to the Chinese yuan, depending on the choice of base.   Now China is going to let the dollar decline further in value.  China also says it is considering undermining the petrodollar by pricing oil futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange in yuan. This on top of the growing avoidance of the dollar to settle trade imbalances means that the dollar’s role as reserve currency is coming to an end, which means the termination of the US as financial bully and financial imperialist.  This blow to the dollar in addition to the blows delivered by jobs offshoring and the uncovered bets in the gambling casino created by financial deregulation means that the US economy as we knew it is coming to an end. The US economy is already in shambles, with bond and stock markets propped up by massive and historically unprecedented Fed money printing pouring liquidity into financial asset prices.  This month at the IMF annual conference, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said that to achieve full employment in the US economy would require negative real interest rates.  Negative real interest rates could only be achieved by eliminating cash, moving to digital money that can only be kept in banks, and penalizing people for saving. The future is developing precisely as I have been predicting. As the dollar enters its death throes, the lawless Federal Reserve and the Wall Street criminals will increase their shorting of gold in the paper futures market, thereby driving the remnants of the West’s gold into Asian hands.
  • The People’s Bank of China said the country does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policymakers will rein in dollar purchases that limit the yuan’s appreciation. “It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 13
     
    By Paul Craig Roberts
Gary Edwards

Reason Foundation - Out of Control Policy Blog - 0 views

reason.org/blog

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • A large-scale MBS purchase program has many of the benefits associated with purchases of longer-duration Treasury securities, such as inducing investors to shift to other assets, including bonds and equities. But it could also have more direct effects on the housing market. By increasing demand for MBS, such a program should reduce the effective yield on those MBS, which in turn should put downward pressure on mortgage rates. The aggregate demand effect should be felt not just in new home purchases, but also in the added purchasing power of existing homeowners who are able to refinance. Indeed, homeowners who refinance get the equivalent of a permanent tax cut. Concerns about central banks making sectoral credit allocation decisions are understandable in general. But here we are talking about a widely traded instrument in a sector that appears, now more than ever, to be central to the slow pace of recovery.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11
       
      Federal Reserve Bankster Tarullo makes an interesting point here.  He's connecting a Federal Reserve buy back of mortgage securities to the Federal Reserve purchasing of long term Treasury securities.  
  • This whole policy argument hinges on a belief that lower mortgage rates will solve the problem
  • Where I disagree with Tarullo is that there are not very many potential homebuyers out there right now just waiting until mortgages rates go from 4 percent to 3 percent. Nor is the mortgage rate what is holding back refinances (it is much more related to negative equity, refi costs, and bank backlogs). So of none of that happens, you don't get the aggregate demand impact.
Paul Merrell

Russia Abandons PetroDollar By Opening Reserve Fund - 0 views

oilprice.com/...r-By-Opening-Reserve-Fund.html

war & peace economic-warfare Russia U.S. 2015 oil-forecast

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • 2015 has not been good to Russia; the spread between Brent and WTI is gone in anticipation of US exports and both benchmarks have flirted with sub $45 prices. A hostage to such prices, the ruble has yet to begin its turnaround and the state’s finances are in extreme disarray. President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings remain sky-high, but his country has not faced such difficult times since he took office more than 15 years ago. Since the turn of the new year the ruble has fallen over 13 percent and Russia’s central bank and finance department are running out of options – to date, policy makers have hiked interest rates to their highest level since the 1998 Russian financial crisis and embarked on a 1 trillion-ruble ($15 billion) bank recapitalization plan to little effect. Their latest, and most dramatic, plan is to abandon the dollar – at least somewhat.
  • In late December, the Kremlin ordered five large state-owned exporters – including oil and gas giants Rosneft and Gazprom – to sell their foreign currency reserves. Specifically, the companies must bring their foreign reserves to October levels by the beginning of March. To comply, the exporters may have to sell a combined $1 billion per day until March. Private companies have not yet been hit by these soft capital controls, but have instead been advised to manage their foreign exchange maneuvers responsibly. More recently, the Kremlin announced it will open its $88 billion sovereign wealth fund and flip it for rubles. The plan will see Russia convert as much as $8 billion to rubles (~500 billion) over a two-month span and place them in deposits for banks. Overall, the move will provide the Russian economy with some much needed liquidity and could speed up the healing if oil were to rebound, but it sends the wrong signals to investors and Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukaev believes the country’s credit rating will soon be marked below investment grade.
  • In any case, the move does little for the country’s ailing oil industry. The domestic market is projected to shrink amid the economic slowdown, and competition for market share abroad is increasingly competitive. Production forecasts are no rosier and the EIA predicts Russian crude production growth will be among the worst performers in both 2015 and 2016 – contrasted by continued growth in North America. Russia’s gas industry has fared no better. Gazprom’s 2014 output was historically awful and LNG is ever more a counter to the country’s pipeline politics.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • While Russia likely envisioned abandoning its dollars under far better circumstances, the news is just as worrying for the United States and its dollar hegemony. Along with Russia, energy exporters worldwide are pulling their petrodollars out of world financial markets and other USD-denominated assets in favor of greater, and certainly necessary, spending domestically. In the past, these dollars have given life to the loan market and helped fund debt among energy importers, contributing to overall growth.
  • Petrodollar exports – otherwise known as petrodollar recycling – were negative in 2014 for the first time in nearly two decades. The result is falling global market liquidity, record low US Treasury rates, and higher borrowing costs for everyone – a tough pill to swallow for energy producers if oil prices remain low. The US dollar remains the global reserve currency for now, but the fact remains that nations are increasingly transacting on their own terms, and often times without the USD.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 15
     
    Re: "EIA predicts Russian crude production growth will be among the worst performers in both 2015 and 2016 - contrasted by continued growth in North America." That's not what is being reported. Many shale oil production facilities are no longer profitable in North America and credit for new efforts has completely dried up. And unless Congress can raise enough votes in both houses to overried Obama's promised veto of a bill to alow construction of the KXL Pipeline, Most of Canada's new oil production capacity will never reach the market. (Canada has ruled out pipelines from the Alberta tar sands to its own ocean coasts, so there is no alternative to KXL.)
Paul Merrell

New Poll Highlights Need for Reform in the Middle East « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/-for-reform-in-the-middle-east

war & peace public-opinion polls Israel-Palestine Iran Turkey Egypt Jordan Iraq Lebanon Saudia-Arabia

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • A new public opinion survey undertaken in six Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey finds that people are more likely to blame “corrupt, repressive, and unrepresentative governments” and “religious figures and groups promoting extremist ideas and/or incorrect religious interpretations” for the rise of violent groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State than they are to blame “anger at the United States.” These findings are the result of a series of face-to-face polls conducted by Zogby Research Services on a commission from the Sir Bani Yas Forum in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and released at a Middle East Institute-sponsored event on Wednesday. In September, ZRS interviewed a total of 7,400 adults across eight countries—Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE—on a broad range of topics, including the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen; the Israel-Palestine situation; the Iranian nuclear deal; and the threat of religious extremism. Respondents in Iran and Iraq were also asked a separate series of questions about internal affairs in those countries.
  • With respect to Israel-Palestine, the poll found that people in five of the six surveyed Arab nations are less likely to support a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace deal now than they were back in 2009, when Zogby International’s “Six-Nation Arab Opinion Poll” asked a similar question of respondents in those five countries. In Egypt, which has seen the sharpest decline in support for a peace deal, almost two-thirds of respondents said that they would oppose a peace deal “even if the Israelis agree to return all of the territories and agree to resolve the refugee issue,” compared with only 8% who answered similarly in the 2009 survey. This represents a potential risk for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has worked to improve Egyptian-Israeli relations despite the apparent feelings of most of the Egyptian public. Similar, albeit smaller, shifts were seen in Jordan (where 24% oppose a deal today, compared with 13% in 2009), Lebanon (30% vs. 18%), Saudi Arabia (36% vs. 18%), and the UAE (19% vs. 8%). Iraq was not part of the 2009 survey, but 59% of respondents in this survey said that they would also oppose a comprehensive peace deal with Israel.
  • Still, it was in the area of extremism and its causes where the poll generated its most interesting findings. When asked to rate eight factors on a 1-5 scale (where 1 means “very important factor”) in terms of their importance as a driver of religious extremism, respondents in all eight countries gave “anger at the U.S.” the fewest number of ones and twos, although that factor was still rated as important by a majority of respondents in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey. Zogby argued that this was a sign that Barack Obama’s attempt to leave a “softer U.S. footprint in the region pays off.” However, when asked whether the United States is playing a positive or negative role in combating extremist sectarian violence, large majorities in each country said that the U.S. was playing a negative role. Instead, the two most commonly cited factors in the development of religious extremism were “corrupt governments” and “extremist and/or incorrect religious ideas.” Other commonly cited factors, like “lack of education,” “poverty,” and “youth alienation” also speak to a consistent sense that extremism is an internal problem stemming from poor governance. Majorities in each of the eight countries except Iran agreed that “countering the messages and ideas promoted by recruiters for extremist groups” and “changing the political and social realities that cause young people to be attracted to extremist ideals” were “most important” in terms of defeating violent extremist groups like the Islamic State. Within Iraq, majorities from all three of the country’s major ethno-religious groups (Sunni Arabs, Shi?a Arabs, and Kurds) agreed that “forming a more inclusive, representative government” is the best way to resolve the conflict there, but even larger majorities from each group said that they were “not confident” that such a government will be formed within the next five years.
Paul Merrell

Central asset bubbles, currency wars are destroying emerging markets | Sunday Guardian - 0 views

www.sundayguardianlive.com/...re-destroying-emerging-markets

economy Fed Bank-of-England European-Central-Bank hdge-funds bubbles real-estate

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • as the out-of-control cabal of central banks inflated grotesque asset bubbles in global property, stock, and fixed-income markets? Or are we to believe traditional media’s “fake news” mantra of “it’s different this time?” Well, bad news, folks. It’s never different, not this time, not anytime, never.  Capitalism is being destroyed The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank have become gargantuan, out-of-control, rogue hedge funds. They are loaded with non-elected academics operating in opaque groupthink bubble chambers, repeating the broken Keynesian economic mantra of “whatever it takes, more debt is good”. They have magicked-up 100s of trillions in debt and guarantees, while the US Federal Reserve has gobbled up over 90% of the US mortgage market. Global stock market valuations are buoyed by stock buybacks, funded by record corporate debt, and enabled by reckless central bank zero-interest-rate policies. Pay no attention to the fact that in the past few years, US stock indices have surged over 70% to new all-time highs, while profits have only risen an anaemic 2%. Today’s record amount of corporate debt is cannibalising corporations, by bringing future earnings forward, which makes future stagnation and collapse into bankruptcy a certainty. For the near term, CEOs will continue to receive record pay packets for out-performing the market, as their stock prices bubble like a rocket ship into outer space, while these actions decimate any long-term growth prospects.
  • In 2005, preceding the credit crisis and the subsequent nationwide property price collapse, US Federal Reserve chairman, Dr Ben Bernanke was asked about risks associated with a dangerous subprime housing bubble that could destabilise the economy.  Bernanke stated that “I disagree with your premise. We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilise: might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s going to drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.” So, what led to history’s biggest financial crisis in 2006? Too much debt, credit, and leverage—proving that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke was dead wrong. What did we learn? Nothing, a big fat zero. In fact, property prices have recently eclipsed previous 2006 highs, bubbling to frothy new all-time highs, while real wages declined and high-paying jobs have disappeared. 
  • Real estate is an asset but not an asset class because it lacks liquidity. It takes time to sell property and the difference between what a buyer is willing to pay and what a seller is willing to sell for may be huge. For example, a buyer may be willing to pay $750,000, but the seller will only sell at $900,000. In good times, frenzied buyers create “bidding wars” on coveted properties, sometimes rocketing the price 30% above the original offer. This is terrific if you are a property owner or property seller, but not so much if you are a first-time buyer. In bad times, prices collapse and the only price a buyer is willing to pay for the $900,000 home above is $90,000. Great for buyers, but not so great for the owner, who holds a mortgage of $700,000 that must be repaid to a bank.  During these boom times, optimism bias creeps into the minds of buyers, allowing them to pay off the charts, wildly inflated, irrational prices for fear of “missing out”. Optimism bias is a cognitive bias that causes a person to (mistakenly) believe nothing negative could ever happen to them. It is a “close your eyes and buy at new all-time highs” belief system. If the prices collapse, the banks can require more capital. If you do not have more capital, the bank can take your property. If the government wants to increase your taxes, you must pay or they will confiscate your property. In fact, property confiscations are already happening in Greece and Italy.  Commercial and residential real estate are now grotesque asset bubbles ready to explode. 
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