Reinke Faces Life

http://episteme.ca/2008/09/19/im-not-an-economist-but/

I’m not an economist, but…

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I just read the info on the new US mortgage bailout.

I’m bothered.

I can’t figure out how this works. I mean, I get the idea – the federal government purchases (and later attempts to sell) “hundreds of billions of dollars” of bad paper.

But, if the paper is no good, it means there’s no resale value.

So, that hundreds of billions of dollars gets piled on top of the federal debt.

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Well, I’m not an “eccky-nonny-mist” either, but … …

(1) Where does the gooferment get the authority to pick winners and losers in the marketplace?

(2) Where is the money going to come from for all this “saving”?

(3) Where is the end of the national debt raising?

(4) When did the Federal Reserve become the bankruptcy court?

Sigh!

Call me a “gold bug”, but I can’t afford any more of this type of “saving”. Not that they need my permission. They just do what they want.

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The Mess On Wall Street: Four Trillion Dollars Down The Drain

The Mess On Wall Street: Four Trillion Dollars Down The Drain by Erick Schonfeld on September 16, 2008

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Each box in the graphic is proportional to the size of the market capitalization of the biggest financial firms then and now. As you mouse over the squares, you can see how much each value each company lost between October 9, 2007 and September 12, 2008. Here are some of the individual losses by market cap:

Citigroup: $236.7 billion to $97.8 billion.

Bank of America: $236.5 billion to $150.2 billion.

AIG: $179.8 billion to $32.3 billion

Goldman Sachs: $97.7 billion to $61.3 billion

American Express: $74.8 billion to $45 billion.

Morgan Stanley: $73.1 billion to $41.1 billion.

Fannie Mae: $64.8 billion to $700 million.

Merrill Lynch: $63.9 billion to $24.2 billion

Freddie Mac: $41.5 billion to $300 million.

Lehman Brothers: $34.4 billion to $2.5 billion.

Washington Mutual: $31.1 billion to $2.9 billion

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Ouch! Never mind these companies’ “market capitalization”!! What we are seeing is the pensions and retirements of some folks going up in smoke. Never to return. Some one (all of us) is taking these losses.

Argh!

And, politician talk about the various “lipstick” issues!

Where are the two fellows now? We need smaller gooferment, now! Do they think that “tax receipts” (i.e., the money they steal from us) is going to increase to pay for all their new programs? Or that there will be any “rich” left to steal from? Unemployment insurance, Social Security Ponzi benefits, Gooferment pensions.

Watch the screwing we will all take!

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http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/
b4099087568542.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

http://tinyurl.com/68yf3w

Fair Value September 4, 2008, 5:00PM EST
Why American Savers Have Drawn the Short Straw
There are painfully real reasons why America’s savers feel they’ve got the short end of the stick
by Roben Farzad
BW Magazine

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American savers, take a bow. This is your moment of vindication. Your hour of glory. And you earned it (in a manner of speaking).

*** and ***

Good for you! Your reward: injurious savings yields, inflationary rot, and election-season neglect, all served up with a dollop of institutional insecurity.

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Indeed, a year ago, a six-month certificate of deposit earned, on average, 3.53%, according to Bankrate.com (RATE). Today, that’s down to 2.03%. A one-year CD that earned 3.75% at this point in 2007 was offered for as little as 1.92% in April, before inching up to its present 2.38%. It’s hardly a secret that banks are only able to pay out such pittances thanks to depositors’ knee-jerk desire for security: “Hey, I might be earning crumbs on my cash, but at least I’m not losing money.”

Sure you are. Wholesale inflation has soared 9.8% in the past 12 months, the highest clip since 1981. The more widely cited consumer price index jumped to 5.6%. In other words, while your saved buck was adding 2 cents or so on one end (and even less after taxes), three times as much was getting singed off the other end of that dollar bill. “Inflation is just deadly to savings,” says David Gitlitz, chief economist at TrendMacrolytics, an investment adviser. Gitlitz observes that, taking into account the hit from inflation, rates haven’t been this negative since the dreary 1970s. (That, in turn, gave way to an early ’80s that saw the worst inflation in U.S. history since the Civil War.) “It steals your purchasing power and sets less and less of an incentive to keep money in the bank.”

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So, what are the politicians saying about this PARTICULAR pig? Oh I’m sorry, they are only chatting about who put lipstick where!

Argh!

Only Ron Paul even had a glimmer of a plan.

“Savers” are fools. They have to be “Investors”. And, you laugh at my fascination with gold coins and other forms of commodity money.

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http://www.survivalblog.com/2008/08/jims_quote_of_the_day_911.html

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“You have to choose [as a voter] between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.” – George Bernard Shaw

***End Quote***

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http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2008/08/questions-of-life-and-death.html

Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Questions of life and death
Hank Kalet
managing editor of the South Brunswick Post

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And who pays? Should the answers to these questions depend on a patient’s financial situation, as they do now? (The wealthy can by medical services not available to the poor, meaning that the same $4,000 life-extender that was out of reach for Ms. Wagner might be easily obtainable for someone else — and not necessarily Donald Trump.)

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Well, at one time, insurance was not in the business of rationing health care. Thanks to the gooferment, it has been throughst into arse over hear.

Insurance was, at one time, a pooling of risks. A largee pool of people, who all had a similar risk profile, were ‘pooled’. If “an unaviodable tragedy” would strike one out of a million and the million put in a dollar ahead of time, the “winner” would get a million bucks. You know the idea. But it’s been morphed into something else.

You can insure a new car against transmission failure pretty cheaply; you can’t insure the cost of an oil change.

In gooferment-regulated health insurance, we’re insuring “oil changes” and complaining when the operator of the swimming pool tried to keep it from being drained.

Perhaps, we need to return to the old fashioned free market version of insurance. I remember my Mom sitting at the kitchen table with all her hospital and doctor bills from my apendix operation. She had her receipts attached to the bills. She filled out the form. And we sent it in registered mail. About six weeks later, she got a check back for 80% of what she put in. No reasonable and customary. No “not covered”. Just a check.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5394214&page=1

Sen. Levin: Shut Down Giant Swiss Bank UBS
Investigation Reveals Secrecy Tricks Allegedly Used by Swiss Bankers
By BRIAN ROSS, AVNI PATEL, and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
July 17, 2008

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Federal regulators should consider revoking the US banking license of the giant Swiss Bank UBS because of its role in helping wealthy Americans evade billions of dollars in taxes, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) told ABC News today.

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Guess the Senator doesn’t have a UBS account. His might be at Citibank, NA, New York, Succursale de Genève, or any of the hundreds of other ones.

Why is he attackign the rich for doing what any normal person would want to do — keep one’s own money. From the theiving politicians!

Here’s the list of “tricks”:

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Tax Haven Bank Secrecy Tricks
• Code Names for Clients
• Pay Phones, not Business Phones
• Foreign Area Codes
• Undeclared Accounts
• Encrypted Computers
• Transfer Companies to Cover Tracks
• Foreign Shell Companies
• Fake Charitable Trusts
• Straw Man Settlors
• Captive Trustees
• Anonymous Wire Transfers
• Disguised Business Trips
• Counter-Surveillance Training
• Foreign Credit Cards
• Hold Mail
• Shred Files

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[Private note to Luddite: Watch out you have a CODE NAME!]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/
idUSWA000014120080714

http://tinyurl.com/5l2t7z

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“I have $360,000 in this bank, and I was misled by this bank,” said Robert Clark, a Glendale resident. “I gave the names of my mother, my sister and my brother on the account so I thought I would be insured. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t know what to do.”

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Old Wall Street saying: “I’m not so concerned about the return on my money as I am about the return of my money!”

Word to the wise!

And, in my eexperience, the clerk at the bank — regardless of level or office — may know less than you. It’s your money, be sure!

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-29-Scratchoff_N.htm

Scratcher lottery tickets under fire
Updated 15h 17m ago | Comments136 | Recommend38
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

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Feeling lucky today?

Then don’t buy a $20 scratch-off ticket for the New Jersey Lottery’s “$1,000,000 Explosion” game.

Your chances of winning the $1 million top prize are Z-E-R-O.

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Just in case you thought your gooferment was looking out for you?

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This table makes little sense to me. Money Market pays more than a 90 day CD? Seven, thirteen, and sixteen month terms? 125 basis points for a delta of three months on the 13 month CD. One hundred basis points for an extra year off the 2 year CD BUT only 75 basis points for two more years off the 3 years CD.

And, they make no effort to teach their Customers about a CD ladder and eliminating interest term sensitivity on your “mad money”. ANd minimizing interest rate risk.

(Ohh you don’t understand that concept? You should always have an emergency fund of some number of months of your run rate. Then a base of savings. Then investments. In your ‘savings tier’, how could you always be earning the Five Year CD rate? Yup, five five year CDs with different maturities. You can always get it by paying a small penalty. How do I do that? Each year on your birthday, you scrape up all your change and go get a Five Year CD. On your sixth birthday, you roll it over and add a little to it. You are an adult; aren’t you? When you get to 20k$, you move it to a different bank. FDIC insurance 100k. What do you think pension funds, insurance compnaies, and brokerages do?)

Now, we all know why I’m not running a bank! I’d try and use my ad dollars to explain how to ‘save’.

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