Gold bugs -- including the honorable and redoubtable Jesse of Jesse's Café Américain -- are becoming a little more celeb culturalist than I like to see. I think it's their way of pointing out in more dramatic manner what Robert Oak says in plain old English.
Here's Robert Oak on today's globalisitc supersized banks --
Banks have become so powerful, so massive, it is to the point they are allowed to do just about anything.
Here's Jesse quoting from an article in The Independent by Jim Armitage (3 March 2012) --
"Blythe Masters [aka 'Queen Blythe'] who runs JPMorgan's commodities division, has steered the department to record turnover exceeding $2.8bn (£1.8bn) 2011 .... "
Someone at ChrisMartenson forums has somehow calculated that 'Queen Blythe' -- using an "unlimited digital line of FR credit" (hrh supposedly has the solid support of JPM's CEO, Jamie Dimon) -- routinely trades the total amount of physical silver available for investment, 890 times over each day.
BTW: About 'unlimited digital line of FR credit'. Check out this little-known provision of the American Monetary Act -- YES, it provides for elimination of FR (i.e., fractional reserve) banking! What a concept!
Check out recent pre-publication online release of a chapter from upcoming book by Greg Coleridge on impact of the FR (fractional reserve) banking system (to be published by American Monetary Institute) --
.... beginning with this quote -- "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." -- Dick Durbin, US Senator, Illinois, 2009
Fortunately more independent economics and financial experts are examining this bill. Naked capitalism overviews the latest analysis. This is a good post and one point outlined is how start-ups are not dependent upon IPO, stock to succeed. That's a huge point, VCs are looking to exit their investment either through acquisition or IPO but it's about profit margins and the "right" connections versus operating capital, although I do beg to differ in some start-ups, in particular complex engineering/technical projects which do require teams of engineers to bring the design to 1st rev., plus very, very expensive patent attorneys to boot. Bottom line, VCs do come late to the party most often. One usually gets Angel investors at best to get off the ground. It's pretty awful, to even get enough funding to hang out in your bedroom to create the prototype is near impossible and that's where money is most needed, to get that prototype, initial product launch out the door, IP protected, nailed down. Expansion is where the VCs often come in.
Anyway, this is one rigged bill as written! I still believe a mechanism to enable more crowd sourcing, small investors, who then enable directives such as hiring locally, say hiring older workers, U.S., most importantly, manufacturing in the U.S. is important.
Frankly, even state sponsored VC funds are riddled with politics. It's who you know not what you came up with and your ability to execute, all the way to the bank. That's a problem. We all know there are probably over a million extremely talented Americans flat ass broke right now who are capable of bringing a business from ground zero to profitability and success.
Not much detail or any info in the size of the fines. MarketWatch:
HSBC Holdings PLC , Goldman Sachs & Co., OneWest Bank, EverBank, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. , U.S. Bancorp, MetLife Inc. and SunTrust Banks Inc.
Interesting list in that not the usual suspects are here, but a couple I was aware of were "evil" but they never seemed to make press.
Honesty, I cannot think of votes, never mind co-sponsor and finally sponsor that was pro labor. She's been right at the forefront to push for unlimited guest worker Visas, enabling more offshore outsourcing, notorious to labor arbitrage STEM occupations.
California, I swear I think even a corpse running on the Democratic ticket will win, and then there is never any serious challenge in the primaries. A truly "rigged game" state, at least with the Senate.
Of course the offshore outsourcing queen Carly Fiorina was the opposition against Boxer, nuf said, there was no choice.
The one who did the hard work here is Sherrod Brown but it does seem Merkley is "coming alive" in terms of trying to do something for workers, the real economy as well as Oregon.
I didn't list the other amendments pursued since that's more regional.
Jeff Merkley, junior senator from Oregon. Already a great statesman and a true son of Oregon.
BTW: why isn't Feinstein taking the lead on this? Like she LIVES in San Francisco and she's up for re-election in November ... and she's a Democrat ... so she must be pro-labor ... she expects and deserves support of union construction workers, not to mention the Steelworkers ... right?
But -- surprise! surprise! -- the California Republican Party is pretty much on record as having decided not to contest the seat .... isn't our two-party system wonderful? So much freedom of choice!
Spot on. Don't fail to realize this same tactic is being applied to the treasury bond market. The Federal Reserve and failing European central banks are the only reason our debt is being sold. Treasuries continue to be massively overvalued, and wouldn't be bought by any smart investor.
"If you get the feeling the world is going crazy, you are right. Our global financial overlords have lost all sense of prudence, temperance, or conservatism – qualities that in the past were the hallmarks of the guardians of the financial Temple. It would take an in-depth cultural study to figure out how such institutions – especially the Federal Reserve – came to abandoning their fundamental ethos"
Every day I am scared about the financial world we live in. It honestly makes me wonder if I am the crazy one.
Your analysis on Goldman Sachs is really an example of how most large financial banks operate. Whether it is an investment bank like Goldman, or commercial like Bank of America, clients are put last. While this is horrid, it only exists in a world not ruled by free markets. Banks access to easy credit and label of "too big to fail" creates a moral hazard that allows this to happen. If banks were accountable to their clients, had actual competition available, and were not bailed out, the corrupt ones would go out of business. While I sincerely hate the banks, I hate the government and Federal Reserve more for allowing it to happen.
Most states are "at will" and as such techies become targets if they even think out unions. Activism on social media will also make you a target. All of a sudden, we would find that since we failed to put in our 60+ hour week as a salaried employee, we are now having paperwork generated to support their claimw when they find our replacement from India and show us the door.
It is better to keep quiet and try to remain employed than the alternative. After all, we are not the ones who get millions in yearly bonuses and just cannot afford to give them more reasons to import someone else to do our jobs.
And when it comes to lobbying Congress, the pockets of the corporations are much deeper than our collective pockets.
This love of KORUS will get him some PAC money. He can be swayed make no mistake. He is smart too and knows hes going to need a LOT of money in the fall. He is sacrificing potential jobs for auto company cash. Corporations always win even when you bail them out. They use your money to influence politicians to vote against the best interests of you the 99%. Real nice and Obama's the good guy.
Let this trend continue. Thursday mornings have been encouraging this year. We need a little break on gas prices and we could have liftoff.
Even the Repugs will be happy because they only care about social issues. Screw the economy its not in the bible. Not one primary candidate has the guts to put forth an honest economic plan. One that doesn't lead to being Greece anyway. They only offer us plans that would triple unemployment while providing taxcuts to their corporate owners. They can save their breathe and PAC money.
This chart showing the definitions of oil and gas type of quotes you'll see in the financial press might be useful to people. For example, brent crude is one market and then there are three ports quoted for gas.
I keep seeing the term "immoral," but what we're seeing is "amoral." Morality and immorality imply the existence of a code, a list of things that are right or wrong. The new state religion of America is the worship of money. In pursuit of a quick buck, anything is permissible. Morality doesn't enter into it.
This is why I go over the BLS is such gory detail each month, even when one has a statistical background, it can get really confusing. We haven't even touched on implicit price deflators from the BEA, now there I really get "garbage" when trying to hand calculate back to what they get.
Jobs are reported by businesses, there is a survey they ask and the birth/death is to capture those businesses on a monthly basis which are started up and also went under.
I knew that the model was for businesses, but somehow a cog slipped in my brain and I went off on a tangent.
If we're at the level of truly small businesses -- like Mom-and-Pops and the classic independent operators/partnerships -- then we're close to or at the level of the underground economy.
I am informed that on a typical agricultural crew (like vineyard workers in the Southwest or treeplanters in the Pacific Northwest), for every worker officially carried on worker comp and UI insurance, there are maybe three who are not counted. Similar situations sometimes are seen with gypo roofing, small fishing boats, etc.. This is especially the situation when illegal immigrants with falsified papers are involved.
Even without considering the birth/death model for businesses, we're mostly in a world of "creative" accounting when we get to working families who are scrambling to survive. Some of these working people will be counted in food stamp numbers, but many (including natural-born citizens) will avoid any kind of government office or program. In any case, these people are not likely to report numbers reflective of reality.
I was confusing the birth/death model with possible questions about differential mortality rates for real people -- members of workforce, long-term unemployed, etc., versus the overall averages that are generally broken down only by gender, age and ethnicity (and not much else).
It's hard to count jobs, hard to count the number of jobs created in a period of time, hard to count the people living in a given area during a period of time, hard to count transients, hard to count the number of people who are working, hard to count the number of unemployed who would be working if jobs were available, and, very hard to count the number of underemployed.
I still like the idea of including numbers developed from advertising real jobs for real money to see how many people (citizens and legal residents) show up and take the jobs, gathering data on individuals along the way. Such an approach takes the goal of full employment seriously.
Honestly I haven't looked at it recently. First, this is businesses not counted by state tax receipts, which I have issue with that because #1 when hiring employees is SA insurance and the state will go over any business not registering and paying into the UI fund.
Then, it was very clear the model was off significantly in 2009, where the "deaths" of businesses were dropping like flies.
I'm not of the school where it's all a big fat lie, repeatedly point out the Birth/death model is first applied to NSA, then everything is SA....
but I can revisit again. I know Roberts likes shadowstats and the reason I rarely mention him is I cannot get a clear answer on his methodology. I pull out raw statistics continually from the BLS and I don't know exactly what else shadowstats is doing, assuming he is using base numbers, so I cannot validate his methods.
* * * * * Excellent coverage of FED activity!
Gold bugs -- including the honorable and redoubtable Jesse of Jesse's Café Américain -- are becoming a little more celeb culturalist than I like to see. I think it's their way of pointing out in more dramatic manner what Robert Oak says in plain old English.
Here's Robert Oak on today's globalisitc supersized banks --
Here's Jesse quoting from an article in The Independent by Jim Armitage (3 March 2012) --
Someone at ChrisMartenson forums has somehow calculated that 'Queen Blythe' -- using an "unlimited digital line of FR credit" (hrh supposedly has the solid support of JPM's CEO, Jamie Dimon) -- routinely trades the total amount of physical silver available for investment, 890 times over each day.
BTW: About 'unlimited digital line of FR credit'. Check out this little-known provision of the American Monetary Act -- YES, it provides for elimination of FR (i.e., fractional reserve) banking! What a concept!
Check out recent pre-publication online release of a chapter from upcoming book by Greg Coleridge on impact of the FR (fractional reserve) banking system (to be published by American Monetary Institute) --
CreateRealDemocracy (blogspot)
.... beginning with this quote -- "And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." -- Dick Durbin, US Senator, Illinois, 2009
American Monetary Institute
The export-import bank, a bone of contention giving subsidies to large MNCs was blocked in the Senate.
Also, the "JOBs" act above has been delayed.
Fortunately more independent economics and financial experts are examining this bill. Naked capitalism overviews the latest analysis. This is a good post and one point outlined is how start-ups are not dependent upon IPO, stock to succeed. That's a huge point, VCs are looking to exit their investment either through acquisition or IPO but it's about profit margins and the "right" connections versus operating capital, although I do beg to differ in some start-ups, in particular complex engineering/technical projects which do require teams of engineers to bring the design to 1st rev., plus very, very expensive patent attorneys to boot. Bottom line, VCs do come late to the party most often. One usually gets Angel investors at best to get off the ground. It's pretty awful, to even get enough funding to hang out in your bedroom to create the prototype is near impossible and that's where money is most needed, to get that prototype, initial product launch out the door, IP protected, nailed down. Expansion is where the VCs often come in.
Anyway, this is one rigged bill as written! I still believe a mechanism to enable more crowd sourcing, small investors, who then enable directives such as hiring locally, say hiring older workers, U.S., most importantly, manufacturing in the U.S. is important.
Frankly, even state sponsored VC funds are riddled with politics. It's who you know not what you came up with and your ability to execute, all the way to the bank. That's a problem. We all know there are probably over a million extremely talented Americans flat ass broke right now who are capable of bringing a business from ground zero to profitability and success.
More economists, financial exports are shouting from the roof tops on what a bad bill HR 3606, the "JOBS" bill, is.
James Hamilton.
Not much detail or any info in the size of the fines. MarketWatch:
Interesting list in that not the usual suspects are here, but a couple I was aware of were "evil" but they never seemed to make press.
Honesty, I cannot think of votes, never mind co-sponsor and finally sponsor that was pro labor. She's been right at the forefront to push for unlimited guest worker Visas, enabling more offshore outsourcing, notorious to labor arbitrage STEM occupations.
California, I swear I think even a corpse running on the Democratic ticket will win, and then there is never any serious challenge in the primaries. A truly "rigged game" state, at least with the Senate.
Of course the offshore outsourcing queen Carly Fiorina was the opposition against Boxer, nuf said, there was no choice.
The one who did the hard work here is Sherrod Brown but it does seem Merkley is "coming alive" in terms of trying to do something for workers, the real economy as well as Oregon.
I didn't list the other amendments pursued since that's more regional.
.... that there are more than a few very bright techies who are, behind the scenes, powering what is happening with #occupy and more?
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Jeff Merkley, junior senator from Oregon. Already a great statesman and a true son of Oregon.
BTW: why isn't Feinstein taking the lead on this? Like she LIVES in San Francisco and she's up for re-election in November ... and she's a Democrat ... so she must be pro-labor ... she expects and deserves support of union construction workers, not to mention the Steelworkers ... right?
But -- surprise! surprise! -- the California Republican Party is pretty much on record as having decided not to contest the seat .... isn't our two-party system wonderful? So much freedom of choice!
Spot on. Don't fail to realize this same tactic is being applied to the treasury bond market. The Federal Reserve and failing European central banks are the only reason our debt is being sold. Treasuries continue to be massively overvalued, and wouldn't be bought by any smart investor.
"If you get the feeling the world is going crazy, you are right. Our global financial overlords have lost all sense of prudence, temperance, or conservatism – qualities that in the past were the hallmarks of the guardians of the financial Temple. It would take an in-depth cultural study to figure out how such institutions – especially the Federal Reserve – came to abandoning their fundamental ethos"
Every day I am scared about the financial world we live in. It honestly makes me wonder if I am the crazy one.
Your analysis on Goldman Sachs is really an example of how most large financial banks operate. Whether it is an investment bank like Goldman, or commercial like Bank of America, clients are put last. While this is horrid, it only exists in a world not ruled by free markets. Banks access to easy credit and label of "too big to fail" creates a moral hazard that allows this to happen. If banks were accountable to their clients, had actual competition available, and were not bailed out, the corrupt ones would go out of business. While I sincerely hate the banks, I hate the government and Federal Reserve more for allowing it to happen.
Most states are "at will" and as such techies become targets if they even think out unions. Activism on social media will also make you a target. All of a sudden, we would find that since we failed to put in our 60+ hour week as a salaried employee, we are now having paperwork generated to support their claimw when they find our replacement from India and show us the door.
It is better to keep quiet and try to remain employed than the alternative. After all, we are not the ones who get millions in yearly bonuses and just cannot afford to give them more reasons to import someone else to do our jobs.
And when it comes to lobbying Congress, the pockets of the corporations are much deeper than our collective pockets.
This love of KORUS will get him some PAC money. He can be swayed make no mistake. He is smart too and knows hes going to need a LOT of money in the fall. He is sacrificing potential jobs for auto company cash. Corporations always win even when you bail them out. They use your money to influence politicians to vote against the best interests of you the 99%. Real nice and Obama's the good guy.
Obama is for unions and unions are for Obama.
This is only one reason why oil and coal must be replaced as soon as possible: Oil spills a lot.
I will probably put up much more on gas prices, looking at supply/demand vs. speculation. I did one already.
The trend is clearly down but I'd like to see initial claims drop to 2007 levels...at least!
Let this trend continue. Thursday mornings have been encouraging this year. We need a little break on gas prices and we could have liftoff.
Even the Repugs will be happy because they only care about social issues. Screw the economy its not in the bible. Not one primary candidate has the guts to put forth an honest economic plan. One that doesn't lead to being Greece anyway. They only offer us plans that would triple unemployment while providing taxcuts to their corporate owners. They can save their breathe and PAC money.
This chart showing the definitions of oil and gas type of quotes you'll see in the financial press might be useful to people. For example, brent crude is one market and then there are three ports quoted for gas.
I keep seeing the term "immoral," but what we're seeing is "amoral." Morality and immorality imply the existence of a code, a list of things that are right or wrong. The new state religion of America is the worship of money. In pursuit of a quick buck, anything is permissible. Morality doesn't enter into it.
This is why I go over the BLS is such gory detail each month, even when one has a statistical background, it can get really confusing. We haven't even touched on implicit price deflators from the BEA, now there I really get "garbage" when trying to hand calculate back to what they get.
Jobs are reported by businesses, there is a survey they ask and the birth/death is to capture those businesses on a monthly basis which are started up and also went under.
I knew that the model was for businesses, but somehow a cog slipped in my brain and I went off on a tangent.
If we're at the level of truly small businesses -- like Mom-and-Pops and the classic independent operators/partnerships -- then we're close to or at the level of the underground economy.
I am informed that on a typical agricultural crew (like vineyard workers in the Southwest or treeplanters in the Pacific Northwest), for every worker officially carried on worker comp and UI insurance, there are maybe three who are not counted. Similar situations sometimes are seen with gypo roofing, small fishing boats, etc.. This is especially the situation when illegal immigrants with falsified papers are involved.
Even without considering the birth/death model for businesses, we're mostly in a world of "creative" accounting when we get to working families who are scrambling to survive. Some of these working people will be counted in food stamp numbers, but many (including natural-born citizens) will avoid any kind of government office or program. In any case, these people are not likely to report numbers reflective of reality.
I was confusing the birth/death model with possible questions about differential mortality rates for real people -- members of workforce, long-term unemployed, etc., versus the overall averages that are generally broken down only by gender, age and ethnicity (and not much else).
It's hard to count jobs, hard to count the number of jobs created in a period of time, hard to count the people living in a given area during a period of time, hard to count transients, hard to count the number of people who are working, hard to count the number of unemployed who would be working if jobs were available, and, very hard to count the number of underemployed.
I still like the idea of including numbers developed from advertising real jobs for real money to see how many people (citizens and legal residents) show up and take the jobs, gathering data on individuals along the way. Such an approach takes the goal of full employment seriously.
Honestly I haven't looked at it recently. First, this is businesses not counted by state tax receipts, which I have issue with that because #1 when hiring employees is SA insurance and the state will go over any business not registering and paying into the UI fund.
Then, it was very clear the model was off significantly in 2009, where the "deaths" of businesses were dropping like flies.
I'm not of the school where it's all a big fat lie, repeatedly point out the Birth/death model is first applied to NSA, then everything is SA....
but I can revisit again. I know Roberts likes shadowstats and the reason I rarely mention him is I cannot get a clear answer on his methodology. I pull out raw statistics continually from the BLS and I don't know exactly what else shadowstats is doing, assuming he is using base numbers, so I cannot validate his methods.
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