MONEY: Pensions in the bulls eye

http://www.wnd.com/2013/03/poverty-hits-the-suburbs/

WND EXCLUSIVE
Poverty hits the suburbs
Disturbing stats show dangers overlooked as Wall Street bulls run wild

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He calls “the great 401k experiment of the past 30 years” a “disaster,” and says the actual average 401(k) balance for 65 year olds is closer to $25,000 than the $100,000 claimed by the retirement industry. Siedle predicts, “a catastrophic outcome for at least a significant percentage of our elderly population is inevitable.”

He is just as pessimistic about pensions, warning, “Americans today are aware that corporate pensions have been virtually eliminated and that the few remaining private, as well as the nation’s public pensions, are in jeopardy. Even if you are among the lucky few that have a pension, you cannot rest assured that it will be there for all the years you’ll need it. Whether you know it or not, someone is busy trying to figure how to screw you out of your pension.”

*** end quote ***

Obviously, the individual will have to save for themselves.

And, it’s in things that will retain value.

Not numbers on a bank statement.

Productive assets.

Bullion.

Bullets, bandaids, beans!

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INTERESTING: Evenings in artificial light

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/4-things-you-should-know-about-your-third-eye?akid=10235.1122391.8sa7Wx&rd=1&src=newsletter813955&t=11

Personal Health
AlterNet / By Scott Thill

4 Things You Should Know About Your ‘Third Eye’
We still lack a complete understanding of the pineal gland — but that doesn’t stop us from speculating.

*** begin quote ***

Located in nearly the direct center of the brain, the tiny pinecone-shaped pineal gland, which habitually secretes the wondrous neurohormone melatonin while we sleep at night, was once thought to be a vestigial leftover from a lower evolutionary state.

Indeed, according to recent research, we could be increasing our chances of contracting chronic illnesses like cancer by unnecessarily bathing its evenings in artificial light, working night shifts or staying up too late. By disrupting the pineal gland and melatonin’s chronobiological connection to Earth’s rotational 24-hour light and dark cycle, known as its circadian rhythm, we’re possibly opening the doors not to perception, but to disease and disorder. A recently published study from Vanderbilt University has found associations between circadian disruption and heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

By hacking what pinealophiles call our mind’s third eye with an always-on technoculture transmitting globally at light-speed, we may have disadvantaged our genetic ability to ward off all manner of complicated nightmares. No wonder the pineal gland is a pop-culture staple for sci-fi, fantasy and horror fandom, as well as a mass attractor of mystics and mentalists. Its powers to divide and merge our light and dark lives only seems to grow the more we take it seriously.

*** end quote ***

Nightmares?

Hmmm!

I’m interested in anything about that!

Argh!

No idea if it’s linked. Nor if there’s anything that can be done!

Argh!

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PRIMAL: Taking a swipe at the paleo diet

http://www.alternet.org/food/popular-paleo-diet-bunch-baloney?page=0%2C3&akid=10235.1122391.8sa7Wx&rd=1&src=newsletter813955&t=3

Food
AlterNet / By Jill Richardson
Is the Popular ‘Paleo Diet’ a Bunch of Baloney?
The Paleo diet might be more successful in generating profit for its proponents than producing health for its followers.

*** begin quote ***

Long story short, while many aspects of the paleo diet are uncontroversial and beneficial, like increasing fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, switching to pasture-raised meat, and cutting out processed foods, the overall premise of the diet as well as some of its key components appear based on pseudoscience and unsubstantiated claims. But, you might notice that many of the most popular, well-known paleo diet Websites sell books, diet plans and memberships. It appears that this diet might be more successful in generating profit for its proponents than producing health for its followers. 

*** end quote ***

Well, their arguments certainly penetrated my thinking.

I can’t say that I’m a “good paleo”. Heck, I’m probably not even a “bad” one.

I have replaced water for ALL soda — diet or otherwise.

I have virtually eliminated the “pink stuff”.

I have been eating more salad, bananas, and organic apples.

I have been eating a LOT LESS pizza.

Beer and pizza is still my weakness!

Argh!

One thing’s for sure, they aren’t making any money from me.

Maybe it will be better for me, it can be worse. Can it?

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QUOTE: Not enough to cover the giant web of obligations

“What remains are games of musical chairs, Ponzi schemes, frauds, swindles, stonewalls, ruses, ploys, scams, dodges, bluffs, subterfuges, QE martingales, interventions, rehypothecations, pretenses and other modes of evading or disguising reality. The reality is that there is not enough real wealth to go around, certainly not enough to cover the giant web of obligations that masquerades as ‘money.'” – James Howard Kunstler in an essay titled The Cyprus Fiasco Is A Metaphor For The Entire Global Financial System

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PRODUCTIVITY: Keep records

“Everything is an idea for something, something that touches the imagination, a fact that seems relevant or maybe just a statement I find interesting — either because it resonates or because I disagree. All of it is fodder for continued work or thinking on the topics. It’s also important to me to record the ideas that my instincts tell me are bad.”

 
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PRODUCTIVITY: Roles for meetings

http://www.designstaff.org/articles/always-be-capturing-2013-02-22.html

A tip for effective meetings: Always be capturing
Joshua Porter/Director of UX, HubSpot

*** begin quote ***

At HubSpot, we recently did a product design sprint with the Google Ventures Design Studio. It was a great experience, not only to work alongside a team of highly accomplished designers, but to observe their design process and how they proceed through a project.

Our design team learned a lot from Google Ventures. We learned about designing quickly. We learned about keeping laser focus on the goals of a project. We learned about keeping the scope as small as possible (but no smaller). But one of the most powerful things we learned was a simple lesson that applies to way more than design: Always be capturing.

“Always be capturing” is about the habit of continuously recording the value from your conversation. For example: If you’re talking about a new concept, you should be sketching it as you talk so your team has a shared understanding and an artifact of the conversation.

*** end quote ***

Argh!

I’ve tried … …

(“NO! … Try not! … Do or do not… there is no try.” (To do it justice, you must say the word try with all the revulsion and disgust you can put on it. Like you were talking about a rapist, a child murderer, or a politician!) — Yoda (Fictional character from George Lucas’s “Star Wars” movie)

… … to change the culture about meetings!

I might as well be speaking Greek — scrums, huddles, meetings — to redefine the bad behavior.

“Camp fires” where everyone sits around and tells stories and departs with no “totem poles” erected to memorialize anything.

Argh!

Amazing how undisciplined modern corporations are and then they are surprised when they gon’t get the results that they want.

Sigh!

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INTERESTING: Another aid to think old people

http://www.shiotsu-used-car.com/blog/hitachi-selfdrivingroboticcar-ropits.htm

Hitachi’s Self-driving Robotic Car ROPITS
Posted on March 22, 2013 by Shiotsu

*** begin quote *** 

This narrow car is designed to aid the needs of aging population as well as physically challenged individuals in Japan. The course & transport time of ROPITS can be programmed through map-loaded tablet computer. This is the unique factor of this self driven car. ROPITS can be used on sidewalks. Once the passenger uses the tablet PC to summon the car, it reaches to the location of the passenger. And passengers just need to indicate their destination using a touch screen. ROPITS is ideally suitable to move in & out of pedestrian spaces and even in crowded streets.

*** end quote ***

I’d like one of these for trekking back and forth between NJ and VA!!!

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QUOTE: Why?

“Why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks?” –  Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose), Resistance Leaflet 3, 1942

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RANT: Vietnam, Republic of

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2013/03/black-eye.html

Saturday, March 23, 2013
Black Eye

*** begin quote ***

For once, we agree with Bob Beckel.

The veteran Democratic operative and panelist on Fox News Channel’s “The Five” was outraged over a recent segment on the CBS’s reality show, “The Amazing Race.” And rightfully so. On a swing through Vietnam, someone thought it would be a swell idea to have the contestants pick up a clue in front of the wreckage of a U.S. B-52 bomber, shot down by an SA-2 battery during the war.

*** end quote ***

How insensitive can the Liberal Media be?

I lost friends, directly and indirectly, in the Viet Nam “war”. As a country, the Gooferment screwed over “We, The People”.

Argh!

As a vet, I feel for all the folks on all sides of the debate. I was lied to as was everyone else. 

BUT, that doesn’t give the Liberal Media / Hollywood the right to taunt.

There’s a reason that Jane Fonda is reviled!

Add CBS to my personal list!!!

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RANT: Moat, like around a castle?

http://www.alternet.org/books/outrageous-david-cay-johnston-explains-how-big-corporations-withhold-your-taxes-and-then?page=0%2C1&akid=10233.1122391.f44_vU&rd=1&src=newsletter813672&t=9

JH: David, you detailed very, very well how we are constantly being ripped off. It’s a death of 1,000 cuts. Why is that? The story that we’ve gotten, for years and years and years, is that we have less regulation in order to spur competition. Ultimately, that competition was supposed to benefit consumers. What’s going wrong?

DCJ: I want more competition. Here’s what really goes on, however. We put up barriers to competition, and in fact, Wall Street has institutionalized this concept. Morningstar, they’re a big financial advice firm. They tell people that they should grade companies and decide whether to buy their stock, based on something called a “moat index.” Moat, like around a castle? A moat index asks, “What barriers has the government erected to keep anybody else from competing against that company?” Indeed, as I show in my book, you could get rich if you invest in those companies that have regulatory moats — where under the name of deregulation, we have insulated them from the rigors of the market. 

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Unfortunately, what we have today is faux capitalism!

The “regulators” are in bed with that which they are supposed to “regulate”.

FDA and Big Pharma is the classic example.

The SEC, FTC, OCC, and all the other bureaucrats are a revolving door with Wall Street.

And, the politicians are like the whorehouse Madam!

Argh!

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“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”- Winston Churchill

MONEY: TAX ON YOUR BANK

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/16/eurozone-country-surprise-were-putting-at-least-a-6-75-tax-on-your-bank-account/

BUSINESS
EUROZONE COUNTRY: SURPRISE! WE’RE PUTTING AT LEAST A 6.75% TAX ON YOUR BANK DEPOSITS
Mar. 16, 2013 10:12pm Erica Ritz

*** begin quote ***

Congratulations Cyprus savers – you were just betrayed by both your politicians, and by Europe – sorry, but you are the “creeping impairments” in the game known as European bankruptcy. And so is anywhere between 6.75% and 9.9% of your money, which you were foolish enough to keep with your banks (where at least you were compensated with a savings yield of… 0%).

More importantly, as of this morning Europe has finally grasped that there is a 6.75% to 9.9% premium to holding physical cash in your mattress rather than having it stored with your local friendly insolvent bank.

Luckily Cyrpus is so “small” what just happened there will never happen anywhere else: after all in Europe nobody has ever heard of “setting an example“. Or so the thinking among Europe’s unthinking political elite goes…

*** end quote ***

So, how do you, the average Sheeple, protect yourself?

Don’t think that this will go unnoticed around the world!

My concern is not so much a tax on “savings”; my concern is a seizure of IRA/401ks.

Figure there are only about 3k financial institutions that are “custodians”. All regulated up the wazoo by the District of Corruption. 

Every so often, “trial balloons” get floated about the Gooferment taking those in exchange for an “enhanced Social Security benefit”.

So my gold and silver bullion or nickels strategy don’t look so bad now!

Sometimes capital preservation is more important than investment gain lost!

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INTERESTING: Preventable mistakes happen; six sigma? NOT!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/17/judge-spelling-error-gives-12-year-old-second-chance-at-competition/?test=latestnews

Judge’s spelling error gives 12-year-old a second chance at county competition
Published March 17, 2013
FoxNews.com
How do you spell M-I-S-T-A-K-E?

*** begin quote ***

A 12-year-old California girl was eliminated from a spelling bee after she spelled “Braille” correctly, but the word was spelled the wrong way on the judges’ sheet with one less “l”, KMPH reports.

*** end quote ***

Sadly, not enough concern about checking?

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SECESSION: Laugh, ridicule, and shun

http://ericpetersautos.com/2013/03/15/fixing-their-wagon/

Fixing Their Wagon
March 15, 2013

*** begin quote ***

Shun them.

The model for this is easy enough to understand. If the person who owned the house down the road from you was known to be a child sex offender, would you invite him to your summer barbecues? Would you contract with his business to perform work? Would you shake his hand when you bumped into him at the store? You probably – hopefully – would not.

Apply the same treatment to the people who insist on living by doing violence to others. For they are exactly like child molesters in the sense that matters: They victimize people. They manipulate and coerce and threaten. They leverage power – force and its threat – to get what they want. It is only because we’ve been conditioned to accept the unacceptable via euphemism and evasion that we tolerate such people among us. Those reading this column no doubt do not accept it. Hence, they ought not to tolerate it. There may be occasions when we are forced to deal with them. But wherever possible, wherever we have the choice, we ought to elect not to deal with them. And we ought to tell them exactly why we want nothing to do with them. Call them on it. Do not let it – their reliance on violence – go unmentioned. Mention it. Bring it into the open. Make them squirm – those that still have the vestigial capacity to squirm when confronted with their own ethical atrocities. But never, ever, accept them as members of civilized society. Because civilization is dying on account of them.

*** end quote ***

Sounds like a great strategy.

Laugh at them, make them absurd, and then turn the other cheek.

Secession takes many forms!

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SURVIVAL: Disabled cruise ship is a practice bug in

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2013/03/15/what-to-do-if-cruise-ship-becomes-disabled/?intcmp=HPBucket

What to do if your cruise ship becomes disabled
By Paul Motter
Cruisin For Deals
Published March 15, 2013

*** begin quote ***

One approach is to pick a new ship or one that has just been refurbished. Some of these include Disney Fantasy and Carnival Breeze. Also coming soon are Norwegian’s Breakaway and Royal Caribbean’s Royal Princess.

*** end quote ***

I’d say “what should you have done BEFORE your ruse ship becomes disabled”!

You should have your “bug out” bag. 

OK, you may have had to leave the guns home. But everything else should be there. 

Plastic bags, duct tape, water, food.

Hunker down.

It’s a survival situation.

Retrovirus — isolate yourself; become a germophobe.

Stuck — collect supplies. 

It’s a bug in situation with guaranteed extraction within a week. 

Good practice?

Stay out of situations where your movement is restricted! 

Airplanes, boats, trains, buses!

The big key is always have a plan!

Like Ike said: “Plans are worthless; planning is everything!”

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POLITICAL: Bozell Blasts GOP Leaders In CPAC Speec

http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/bozell-blasts-gop-leaders-cpac-speech-you-are-not-what-you-promised-be

Bozell Blasts GOP Leaders In CPAC Speech: ‘You Are Not What You Promised To Be’ (Conservative)
March 16, 2013

By Craig Bannister

*** begin quote ***

“You’ve done nothing for over two years but give us excuses and more commitments that tomorrow, yes tomorrow, you’ll honor your promises. Gentlemen, where promises are concerned, you are not what you promised to be.

“Do you want to restore your reputations as conservative leaders? All you need to do is honor your promises. They were good ones. Watch what happens next. You’ll be heroes.”

*** end quote ***

Absolutely true.

We don’t need bigger Gooferment!

Balance the budget today!

Eliminate the national debt!

Kill the FED!

Honest money!

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INTERESTING: Seven thought-provoking questions you will ask at the end of your life | Impact Lab

Seven thought-provoking questions you will ask at the end of your life | Impact Lab: “1.  Am I proud of how I lived?”

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Easy one!

Sure, I never deliberately hurt anyone. I think I lived up to the expectations I set for myself. Met my promises head on. 

Could I have done more and better. Absotively!

Am I mad at myself for not do so? Yup!

Regrets? Doesn’t everyone?

Sigh!

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MONEY: 12 Cognitive Biases That Endanger Investors

Good thing I have a team. Otherwise, I’d be sitting, guarding my “pirate’s chest” of gold coins. I don’t know what bias being a Gold Bug is, but I have it bad. The thieves in DC are robbing us poor folk blind. And, what’s worse, folks are clueless. Argh!

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12 Cognitive Biases That Endanger Investors: “

Before Todd Harrison created Minyanville, he was an options trader at Morgan Stanley, eventually becoming President of Cramer Berkowitz, where he toiled as head trader at Jim Cramer’s hedge fund.

Todd has an excellent analysis of the various biases that endanger investors.

Here is the full list:

1. Confirmation Bias
2. In-Group Bias
3. Gambler’s Fallacy
4. Post-Purchase Rationalization
5. Neglecting Probability
6. Observational Selection Bias
7. Status-Quo Bias
8. Negativity Bias
9. Bandwagon Effect
10. Projection Bias
11. The Current Moment Bias
12. Anchoring Effect

Check out his explanation and descriptions here.

 

 

Source:
12 Cognitive Biases That Endanger Investors
Todd Harrison
Minyanville January 17, 2013
http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/random-thoughts/articles/12-Cognitive-Biases-that-Endanger-Investors/1/17/2013/id/47441

(Via The Big Picture.)

 

–30–

SOFTWARE: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features. | Building Feedly

Have to move from Google Reader. Argh! Change is never fun. And, why should we ever trust Google again. 

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Priorities: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features. | Building Feedly: “Building Feedly Re-imagine how people keep in touch with their favorite sites.

SearchMain menu Skip to primary content Skip to secondary content Post navigation← Previous Priorities: Keeping the site up, listening and adding new features. Posted on March 15, 2013 by @feedly More than 500,000 Google Reader users have joined the feedly community over the last 48 hours. We love passionate readers. Welcome on board.

Our main priorities over the next 30 days are 1) to keep the service up, 2) listen to new users for suggestions and 3) add features weekly.

To keep the service up, we 10x our bandwidth and added new servers.

For new features, we are listening actively to our new uservoice forum and will be pushing out new releases on a weekly basis. Be vocal: we love candid feedback.

Note 1: Here are some tips on how to make feedly less pretty and more functional.

Note 2: If you are a Google Reader, give feedly a try before July 1st, and you will be able to migrate seamlesly: Feedly for i”

(Via.)

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RANT: don’t have a good place to put this!

“Think about the last time you met someone new. What did you think of them? What did you tell yourself about what they thought of you?”

This is a tough one.

I don’t usually care what folks think of me.

Egotistical?

Yes.

Sadly, I’m a very shallow person. I only care what I think!

FOr example, there are two parents in a local dive with their two young children.

One younger girl and one slightly older boy.

“Celebrating” saint patricks DAY, with green face paint and hats.

Why do I feel that this is NOT what saint pat would want?

When I read all the jokes about the Irish, facebook posts, and assorted stuff, I think “pioneer society”.

Padriac, I am thinking of you.

I wonder if I’d have been better off following in your footsteps / example.

We’ll ever know.

I have this vision of hitting Saint Pete’s Gate and finding out what could have been?

Argh!

–30–

IPAD: can’t interact with contacts from gmail client

Interesting.

From the natve GMAIL client on the IPAD, I can’t figure out how to save a contact.

Argh!

AND, it apparently doesn’t support the native IOS address book.

I am really getting tired of having to maintain addresses.

Plaxo had promise but all they wanted was to spam, charge, and interfere.

Maybe I should write an X500 directory service.

LinkedIn, Facebook, and everyone else has a different agenda.

I just want one synced address book!

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: Computers … …

Here’s a great quote to inspire you to write:

“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.” – Paul Ehrlich

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As a corollary of this, I came up with the idea of “negative progress”! I can screw up more in a wasted effort than any profess that I can make on a good day. 

seems so obvious to me, other than the concept of checkpoints, where one can fall back to a previously know good state, that one can actually “destroy” progress.

Given enough time, I am sure I can come up with examples, but who cares?

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SOFTWARE: Googles RSS Subscription Extension, Removed From Chrome Web Store

a reason to abandon Chrome?

 

 

Google’s RSS Subscription Extension, Removed From Chrome Web Store: “Three years ago I tried to convince the Chrome team that it makes sense to add native support to feeds. At that time, Google built an extension that showed feed previews and allowed you to subscribe to feeds. The explanation for building an extension instead of implementing the feature in Chrome was simple:

‘This decision was made based on our philosophy of trying to limit ourselves to adding only the UI features that a vast majority of users need and allow each user to customize the browsers to fit their needs with Extensions. Given that most people are not familiar with and don’t consume RSS feeds, we thought that RSS support would be a better fit as an extension, at least to begin with.’

In 5 months, more than 300,000 people installed the extension. More than 1,600 people starred a feature request for implementing RSS detection natively. Chrome still doesn’t have this feature and the extension released in 2010 has been removed from the Chrome Web Store a few days ago. The issue is that the extension used Google Reader to preview feeds and Google Reader will be discontinued in July.

‘RSS Subscription Extension’ had 869,743 users. Fortunately, it wasn’t the only extension for subscribing to feeds. Here’s another extensionbased on an old version of Google’s extension.

(Via Google Operating System.)

POLITICAL: Where do the Second and First Amendment intersect? A fat old white guy injineer wants to know.

http://www.nraila.org/legislation/federal-legislation/2013/3/us-senate-judiciary-committee-passes-semi-auto-and-private-sales-bans.aspx

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Passes Semi-Auto and Private Sales Bans

Posted on March 15, 2013

*** begin quote ***

On March 12 and 14, the Senate Judiciary committee held two working sessions to deal with gun-related bills.

The result of those hearings was the passage of Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) S. 374, the “Fix Gun Checks Act of 2013”–which would criminalize virtually all private firearm sales, even temporary transfers–and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) S. 150, the “Assault Weapons Ban of 2013.”

Both of these bills pose a direct threat to our Second Amendment rights and both were passed on party-line votes, with committee Democrats supporting the bills and all Republicans voting no.

*** end quote ***

Respectfully, let’s apply these restrictions to the “First Amendment”?

You can blog, xerox, or anything else.

DO you think this is what the Dead Old White Guys had in mind?

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ECONOMICS: Why is the taxpayer the “bank” for the Bankers?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-15/why-we-should-rip-the-banks-in-two.html

Why We Should Rip the Banks in Two

Equity-capital ratios in the range of 20 percent to 30 percent would make banks safer, so you’d expect the return on bank equity to fall. That’s a feature not a bug. Bankers who have been feasting on profits from excessive risk-taking will see their pay fall too. Count that as a further benefit. It might do a little something to slow the 30-year trend toward greater income inequality.

Bankers might call these proposals radical, but in fact they’re moderate. The structure of the banking system wouldn’t change. Banks would still operate two essentially different businesses: selling short-term debt and making loans. The potential for a mismatch would remain. More capital would certainly help, and taxpayers would be less on the hook, but the risk of bank failure wouldn’t disappear. The same goes for making banks smaller, so that more of them could be left to fail on their own. It would help, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem.

There’s a way to do that. Divide the banking business in two. Deposit-takers don’t have to be credit-creators — they can be told to hold entirely safe assets. Credit-creators don’t need to take deposits — they can fund their operations by borrowing in financial markets. As renowned Yale economist James Tobin once said, “The linking of deposit money and commercial banking is an accident of history.” He and other thoughtful scholars have been discussing how to correct this “accident” for many years.

*** end quote ***

Why does the taxpayer get stiffed?

That’s not supposed to be the way it works.

You fail; you go bankrupt.

I understand that we don’t want the poorest saving their pennies to be wiped out.

But they are being wiped out by inflation. Even the middle class is being screwed royally.

So why can’t we figure out a compromise?

“Crony capitalism”!

It’s the illusion of a “free market”. But it’s one where the politicians, lobbyists, and the “rich” can’t lose.

Kill the Federal Reserve. Andrew Jackson was ABSOLUTELY correct.

Restore GOLD as the basis for the monetary unit. (OK, if you don’t like gold, how about a loaf of bread, gallon of milk, barrel of oil? Or a basket of them?)

Economists are fond of mental experiments. Let’s try this one: “If money grew on trees, then it wouldn’t be very valuable.”

What is a dollar anyway?

Dammed if I know.

I know what it used to be.

Then Govenrments like Abe lincoln and FDR and … wanted to spend more than they dare take in in taxes.

Sorry!

I’d deny them the printing press and the debt window.’

Yeah, a road may need to be financed over it life. But our congress critters can’t be trusts.

Privatize everything!

Argh!

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