Tag: Depression

MONEY: Time to get “small”

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/228428/output/print

Survivalism Lite
They call themselves ‘preppers.’ They are regular people with homes and families. But like the survivalists that came before them, they’re preparing for the worst.
By Jessica Bennett | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Dec 28, 2009

*** begin quote ***

In the end, what it all boils down to, at least for the preppers, is self-reliance—a concept as old as the human race itself. As survival blogger Joe Solomon pointed out in a recent column, during the Victory Gardens of WWII, Americans managed to grow 40 percent of all the vegetables they needed to survive. “My mother’s parents had a 10-acre garden, and my grandfather worked at the dairy farm next door,” says Hill, the former jet mechanic. “They worked by raising their own food, they had their own chickens, they canned vegetables, and my grandfather fed a family of 12 like that.” But in the modern world, he says, many of those skills are easily forgotten. Today, our food comes from dozens of different sources. Most of us aren’t quite sure how electricity gets from the wires to our stoves. We use debit cards to buy a can of tuna and we wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to filter contaminated water. We are residents of the new millennium; we simply haven’t needed to prepare.

*** end quote ***

Hard times are coming. While it may not be TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It), there’s no doubt that it will represent a lesser standard of living for everyone.

Get “prepared”!

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RANT: Pelosi seeks to divert attention!

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aE68O.jaWO4E&refer=home

Pelosi Wall Street Probe Follows Pecora After Crash (Update1)
By Mark Pittman and Laura Litvan

*** begin quote ***

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Wall Street may be heading for the deepest investigation of its practices since a congressional panel’s probe of abuses following the 1929 stock market crash.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to push for a comprehensive inquiry, saying that three-quarters of Americans want to know what led to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos. and Merrill Lynch & Co. She favors one patterned after Senate Banking Committee hearings led by Ferdinand Pecora starting in 1933, according to her spokesman, Nadeam Elshami.

*** end quote ***

And who investigates Congress?

Because, imho, “their fingerprints” are all over this mess — Dodd, Franks, Pelosi, and Reid!

Bush doesn’t escape clean, but they did block him.

The SEC, FTC, FDIC, and the Justice Department could have “blown the whistle”.

There’s enough blame to go around, but Pelosi is seeking to once again divert attention from her own troubles and that of her fellow congress critters.

Throw them all out!

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MONEY: Shills hide that some government debt is unsellable

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/
ambroseevans_pritchard/5220118/
The-capital-well-is-running-dry-and-some-economies-will-wither.html

The capital well is running dry and some economies will wither

The world is running out of capital. We cannot take it for granted that the global bond markets will prove deep enough to fund the $6 trillion or so needed for the Obama fiscal package, US-European bank bail-outs, and ballooning deficits almost everywhere.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:49AM BST 26 Apr 2009

*** begin quote ***

Unless this capital is forthcoming, a clutch of countries will prove unable to roll over their debts at a bearable cost. Those that cannot print money to tide them through, either because they no longer have a national currency (Ireland, Club Med), or because they borrowed abroad (East Europe), run the biggest risk of default.

Traders already whisper that some governments are buying their own debt through proxies at bond auctions to keep up illusions – not to be confused with transparent buying by central banks under quantitative easing. This cannot continue for long.

Commerzbank said every European bond auction is turning into an “event risk”. Britain too finds itself some way down the AAA pecking order as it tries to sell £220bn of Gilts this year to irascible investors, astonished by 5pc deficits into the middle of the next decade.

{Extraneous Deleted}

*** end quote ***

In this long article, the author asserts that not all is good in the “Emerald City”. No need to look behind the curtain.

The FED is buying Treasury debt.

Who is going to finance the American deficits?

And, at what interest rate?

How can shills buying the unsellable help the gangs finance their wasteful ways?

When does this one very big and ugly chicken come home to roost?

Argh!

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RANT: Obama’s False Choice; put us all on a plantation or a death camp!

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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjBlNjQyNzYzNzk2YjBhNjg4NDM2Y2I5MjJkMDYzNjQ=&w=MQ==

Obama’s False Choice
By Mark Steyn

*** begin quote ***

His plan to reduce tax deductions for charitable giving, for example, is not intended primarily to raise revenue, but to advance government as the distributor of largesse and diminish alternative sources of societal organization, such as civic groups. Likewise, his big plans for socialized health care, a green economy, universal college education: They’re about extending the reach of the state.

*** end quote ***

It is hard to imagine Obama’s vision.

Charity by the government; think the welfare office.

Socialized heath care; think the VA killing vets.

Green economy; massive regulation of every facet of our lives to be “green”.

Universal College education; close the parochial schools and everyone is taught the “religion” of big gooferment.

Sad future!

Hard to see how this is avoided without pain, death, and a revolt!

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INTERESTING: Deficits matter!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhtTfK6Vuz8&feature=player_embedded

Worst Case: The Day The Dollar Falls Part 1/6

A 2005 Dutch film about TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) caused by a financial panic. All caused by big US deficits.

Interesting?

Maybe the fellow just had the year and President wrong.

Now we have Trillion Dollar Deficits for forever.

Scary!

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MONEY: Where are we going to be in 20 years?

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http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5565&Itemid=48

The Money Meltdown: A Conversation with Thomas Woods Jr. by Brian Saint-Paul 3/11/09

*** begin quote ***  

Q: We’ve had bailouts and stimulus packages, and possibly more of both in the near future. If you were to look into a crystal ball, where are we going to be in 20 years? Where is all of this heading? Will we reach a point of total economic collapse? Or will we wind up as the newest Euro-style state?

It seems to me that the best-case scenario is a kind of European third-way stagnation: high unemployment, anemic growth (if any), and a whole bunch of people scratching their heads and wondering why this is happening. That could be our fate.

Of course, it could be worse. It may turn into something like what Japan endured in the 1990s and beyond — though at least Japan had some domestic savings as a cushion. Or there could well be a complete collapse of the system, with the dollar destroyed. This is all conditional, because it depends in large part on what the government does. Its cure is almost sure to be worse than the disease.

I’d love to think that if a collapse came, people would say, “Obviously, intervention doesn’t work, so let’s try what the Austrians have been suggesting.” But I think instead a demagogue would rise up to say — as usual — that the problem is not enough government involvement, and that he’s going to rescue us.

That’s the most likely outcome.

*** and ***

Thomas E. Woods Jr. is senior fellow in American history at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author of nine books, including two New York Times bestsellers: The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History and the just-released Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse, as well as the award-winning The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy. Visit his new Web site.

* end quote *

JOBSEARCH: Age Discrimination? No, really!

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http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2009/03/11/age-discrimination-is-the-new-reality-in-job-market-says-guest-expert-dave-opton/comment-page-1/#comment-117011  

Age Discrimination is the New Reality in Job Market Says Guest Expert Dave Opton
Posted in March 11th, 2009
By Dave Opton, CEO and Founder of Execunet, AARP member, exclusive for WWDS.

*** begin quote ***

If you are anything like me, while you always knew there were laws against age discrimination on an intellectual level, it wasn’t until you got out there in the real world looking to make a change at say 45+ that you came to internalize emotionally age discrimination was more than a phrase you read about from time to time but actually came with raw nerve endings. To understate the case, not a great feeling.

*** end quote ***

Unfortunately, you’re right. Exponentially.

From a societal pov, with the market crash killing 401ks and “savings”, as well as the home value crash, “we” as a society have a big problem. “We” are raising the social security retirement age, and more importantly the Medicare age. And, “companies” are shooting anyone under 40 at their first opportunity. How many “consultants” can our economy support?

As you know, I’m advising turkeys that after 50, they will find it IMPOSSIBLE to get another salaried position. (Now that may be a SLIGHT exageration, but NOT MUCH!)

I’ve revised my “emergency fund required” formula. The age component multiplier goes from a one multiplier at ages below forty to a plus one multiplier for every five years of age OVER 40. (That is 40-45 is DOUBLE; 50-55 is quadruple; 60-65 is five times. SHOCKING? You should see the old farts, myself included, who I tell that they will never work again at a salaried job like the old days! Their stunned. Some have high school age or younger kids in second marriages. Are they surpprised!)

This reflects the reality that “jobs” are really hard to come by.

I tell anyone who will listen that: “Success for future generations is: (1) ruthless financial discipline — no bad debt; (2) a life long interest in learning — education — a degree — they can’t take it away from you; (3) a white collar job in order to save big bux; (4) a blue collar skill for hard times — never saw a poor plumber; (5) one or more internet based businesses — your store is always open; (6) a free time hobby that generates income; and (7) a large will-maintained network of people who can “help” you.” Funny how no one believes me?

ERISA changed the corporate behavior of discharging “old” aerospace engineers before their pensions would vest. SO to we will need such a “game changer” to allow us to “bridge” “old age” to retirement.

I suggest that old farts, or those soon to be old farts, like myself, INSIST on an employment contract before they jump to the next opportunity. Can’t get it; be advised! You’ll soon be screwed. We have to change from an “at will” employment culture to something else.

:-(
fjohn
the big fat old turkey hisself

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POLITICAL: Tax increases in a recession?

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911_pf.html

Obama’s First Budget Seeks To Trim Deficit
Plan Would Cut War Spending, Increase Taxes on the Wealthy
By Lori Montgomery and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 22, 2009; A01

*** begin quote ***

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

*** end quote ***

Companies don’t pay taxes; people do. So raising the corporate tax is essentially a tax increase for everyone; poor included.

Rich folks have the ability to defer income and shit it and even “coast”. Watch how revenues “fail to appear”!

Stupidity!

Ignores the lessons of Kennedy and Regan.

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POLITICAL: Meling down O’s new new deal!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXxNRNOjCM8  

Five minute video on “Meltdown” and “New New Deal”. Bottom line — “stimulus” doesn’t work. Buy gold, we’re heading for the “uncharted waters”. Socialism aheard. Wrecked the Soviets, and every one else who tried it; will do the same to us.

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FUN: ISTP is that like an ITSJ?

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The analysis indicates that the author of http://www.reinkefaceslife.com/ is of the type:

ISTP – The Mechanics

[ISTP]

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

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POLITICAL: Make work, and infrastructure, is just inflation spending!

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http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2008/10/use-public-works-to-put-public-to-work.html

Friday, October 17, 2008

Use public works to put the public to work

*** begin quote ***

Anyone who thinks we can balance the federal budget and dig ourselves out of the financial quagmire is just fooling themselves. We can’t, and Paul Krugman explains why today:

{Extraneous Deleted}

On the other hand, there’s a lot the federal government can do for the economy. It can provide extended benefits to the unemployed, which will both help distressed families cope and put money in the hands of people likely to spend it. It can provide emergency aid to state and local governments, so that they aren’t forced into steep spending cuts that both degrade public services and destroy jobs. It can buy up mortgages (but not at face value, as John McCain has proposed) and restructure the terms to help families stay in their homes.

And this is also a good time to engage in some serious infrastructure spending, which the country badly needs in any case. The usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that they take too long: by the time you get around to repairing that bridge and upgrading that rail line, the slump is over and the stimulus isn’t needed. Well, that argument has no force now, since the chances that this slump will be over anytime soon are virtually nil. So let’s get those projects rolling.

*** and ***

Amen.

*** end quote ***

Posted by Hank Kalet at 5:38 PM

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fjohn said…

Can’t you see the utter absurdity of the gooferment printing more money to spend on make work projects? They are counterfeiters! See that’s why they want you confused about what is money. (And have done a superb job of dumbing down the entire population!)

Forget the “dollar”. It’s meaningless. It’s not a store of value, unit of account, or useful intermediary.

Lets pretend that a gallon of gas is a unit of money. How can the gooferment just print gallons of gass? It can certainly print more receits for gallons of gas, but someone is going to get screwed when they can’t redeem their receit for the gallon it represents.

So too, regardless of what you think a dollar represents, somebody in this “printing press” money gets screwed.

Let’s have a guessing game?

Senior citizens on fixed income as prices rise! Very good.

Anyone who holds an “old dollar” as the new ones get printed. Excellent!

Any one who has to buy something. You get the prize!

Who wins? (If there are losers, there has to be winners!)

Politicians who get to spend these counterfiet dollars first.

Unions, especially gooferment ones, who have contracts tied to the minimum wage or inflation escaators.

Those who hold commodities and land. (The gooferment can’t print more of those.)

So, now maybe, just maybe, you will see this as the fraud, the theft, the cheating of the poor, that it really is.

How fortunate we have the gooferment to save us all.

{Shaking my head in disbelief. How can smart people be soooo blind!}

Sheeple!

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RANT: “Poverty” versus “Poor”

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http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/2008/10/16/dealing-with-poverty-closer-to-home-wendys-list/

*** begin quote ***

To Easton Ellsworth who has labored mightily to bring us Blog Action Day 2008 and poke and prod us to participate, and to all my blogging colleagues who have posted about poverty and about what can be and is being done about it, my admiration and my thanks.

*** end quote ***

I heard the clarion call all bloggers to much ado about nothing. And, I ignored it as “drivel” at best; socialism at worst.

Not that anyone cares, but here’s why!

Sigh, seems so obvious to me.

“Poverty” is a industry here in the USA. There are folks who are deriving a lot of earnings, moral superiority, and kudos that they don’t deserve. Like the United Way CEO that earns megabucks. Like all the paid gooferment employees, that earn a healthy chunk of change now and in their future retirement, for their “public service”.

Don’t make me barf!

First, poverty, the industry is despicable. To be truly poor is a terrible human condition. But, not having stuff, isn’t being poor. Go to Africa, where folks die of starvation. Or, disease from not having clean water. Where their gooferment really does kill them. Or, they have massive inflation of money.

That’s true poverty.

Any time any one talks about “poverty” here in the USA, I am instantly reminded of the TV interview of this shell of a fellow waiting on line in some African community to get an application for a green card. The interviewer asked the fellow why he wanted to come to the USA. He responded immediately “You have fat poor people.”

I think that sums it up. We need folks like him. I’d have given him a green card just for that service to our country.

See the “poverty industry” wants us to think that the bottom ten, twenty five, or fifty percent is “poor”.

Sorry!

They aren’t. Not by that fellow’s metric.

And, their situation is USUALLY either due to their own mistakes or the gooferment.

So, that’s why I think all the blogging would do a bit of good. The problem is defined wrong!

I happily contribute to Homefront New Jersey, where a very underpaid lady, make a nickel in to six pennies, as she helps single moms (mostly) move off welfare and onto their own two feet. That’s progress.

We should be striking at the heart of the problem but that is the misconceptions and gooferment welfare. Good luck doing that.

Argh!

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GLOBAL: Looking for an exemplar of what might happen here

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http://www.impactlab.com/2008/10/11/studying-japans-dark-years-to-see-how-the-us-might-fare/

October 11th, 2008 at 4:32 am

Studying Japan’s Dark Years to See How the U.S. Might Fare

*** begin quote ***

Japan in the 1990s saw billions of dollars worth of wealth disappear. A generation of “parasite singles” grew up, living with their parents well into their 30s. The suicide rate spiked, and university graduates spent years in part-time jobs. Japanese entrepreneurs had no or limited access to capital, stymieing innovation. Yet the standard of living for the average Japanese did not dramatically change — the pain of the crisis unfolded over many years and the government refrained from dire pronouncements.

Unemployment would peak at only 5.5 percent, an enviable rate for much of the world in good times. Deflation — or price declines as gloomy consumers and skeptical businesses put off purchasing — sickened the economy. Yet leading experts now agree its impact was not as severe as originally thought.

Japan saw repeated years of low or negative growth, but the final tally was something short of a decade-long recession — with the 10 years leading up to 2000 averaging out at almost 1 percent growth. Companies like Toyota would prosper in adverse times, forced to sharpen their competitive edge. Emerging in the 2000s as the leader in hybrid cars, Toyota found itself on stronger footing than its U.S. counterparts.

*** end quote ***

Well, our politicians are dumber than the average bear in the woods. So what is our five or ten year forecast?

On the plus side, they can’t hide the distress. Unlike the Japanese did.

On the minus side, the Japanese people are savers; we aren’t. (As a nation. Not me personally. Now that I’m in the retirement red zone, I’m trying to make up for lost time and all my relatives will have to fend for themselves. Unless one of my books goes platinum, they would be kept in the style that they’d like to become accustomed to! And Frau Reinke could make a frugal squirrel look like a spendthrift.)

On the minus side, more than half of the people work for the gooferment. That’s not a model that can sustain itself. Especially, if the gooferment raises taxes and “producers” decide to chuck it all and go on the dole.

Inflation is unavoidable. Where do they get all these billions they are printing? Certainly not from savings. “Re capital ization”, my tush. Capital only comes from savings. You know Robinson Crusoe forgoes eating a fish so he can eat while he makes a fish net. Savings. Real savings.

Unfortunately, the sheeple are going to get a real “eddykation in ecckkyynomicks”. It’s called the dismal science for a reason. It’s dismal. There are NO silver bullets in real life. You can’t have it all. And, no amount of printing press money is going to make it so.

Forecast: Runaway inflation. More gooferment spending. More pain in the country at below the Teddie Kennedy level. (Don’t you love how rich politicians — redundant repetition of terms –have the audacity to say “i feel your pain”!) Fixed income folk takes the brunt.

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GOLDBUG: More paper money; higher gold values?

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff228.html

Gold, the Dollar, and the Dollar Index
by Michael S. Rozeff

*** begin quote ***

Since 2001, gold has risen as the dollar index has fallen, but it has risen more sharply because the other currencies have also fallen in terms of gold. This appreciation in gold coincides with a world-wide inflation of paper currencies. Gold caught up to the inflation, so to speak. As long as these central bank currencies continue to be manufactured without solid backing, either gold or tax revenues, gold will continue to have a long-term upward trend. The volatility in gold prices will, in all likelihood, also continue, and that makes it hard to forecast the shorter-term movements with a factor like money supply. Note that the big increases of recent days have not pushed gold to new highs. In the longer run, however, we can be quite sure that gold will move higher if nothing is done to improve the backing of the world’s central bank currencies.

*** end quote ***

Seems obvious to me.

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RANT: It’s not an “economy” failure, nor a “free market” failure. It’s a “political” failure!

Published on by reinkefj1 Comment

On Oct 10, 2008, at 10:08 PM, P wrote:

*** begin quote ***

From: “Chuck & Joyce”
Date: October 10, 2008 7:18:54 PM EDT
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Subject: Fw: Our failed economy

Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling booze?

*** end quote ***

TO WHICH I REPLIED:

the economy hasn’t failed. we’ve failed to keep our politicians in line with what the dead old white guys outlined as the proper role of gooferment. at our own peril. anyone who votes for an incumbent this year is part of the problem. even if the incumbent had NOTHING to do with it or did nothing bad, they were: (1) tacitly complicit; (2) too stupid to realize what was coming down the road; OR (3) ineffective to stop it. Look at how many times Ron Paul was the lone voice “no”! No on the war. No on taxes. No on Fannie and Freddie. No on the Fed. Sigh. Best gooferment money can buy. Sorry. It wasn’t an economy failure; it was a political failure. We may become the next hyperinflation — like present day Rhodesia, Argentina of the 70s, or Germany of the 1930s. We know how well those all worked out. Gold coins may be needed. The Dead Old White Guys told us that was money. But we didn’t listen as FDR and Nixon fooled us. The 1913 FED started to procession to where we are today. Spinning out of control. Does no good to be right when the commonweal goes over the cliff taking us all to perdition. Argh. It’s all socialism and the elite in their hubris have led us there. Now where is my pitchfork and torch!

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Warning! Don’t stick your fingers in the Libertarian’s cage and poke or prod them. They can snap back. Us little L libertarians are very frustrated. No amount of warning “Here comes The Cliff” has done any good. All we get are dumb looks as people ask “Who’s Cliff?” Guess you know now. Welcome to what Mises, Hayek, Rothfarb, and all the “Austrian School” economists have been warning about!

Don’t blame me. I supported Ron Paul!

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