Sorry, forgot to mention that in the IG's report they stated that millions were lost when a bank has been lent TARP funds and then declares bankruptcy having zero net asset value.
Sounds like the smaller banks can't obtain those loans from the larger banks -- which effectively control that global financial virus of securitized "exotic" financial instruments they created (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Morgan Stanley, etc.) -- then fall accordingly.
Sure does sound like "last man standing" or a Ponzi-tontine scheme IMHO.
Don't mean to sound critical of IG Barofsky. He and Elizabeth Warren have done a magnificent job, all things considered, but don't have any power to render change.
One. SSI Supplemental Security Income while administered by SSA is not funded out of FICA and so in that sense not part of Social Security as defined.
Two. The idea that providing for widows and orphans is somehow welfare and not insurance is kind of a baffling concept, isn't that what people buy insurance for? In case of untimely death?
Three. DI Disability is funded out of its own dedicated FICA component and is once again a standard insurance product that say a self-employed person might buy. Lumping it in with SSI is just kind of ignorant even if the differences between somebody on SSI and somebody on DI are not that visible to the eye.
And yes there is some mild progressivity built into the system for lower income workers. On the other hand all Social Security beneficiaries enjoy a certain amount of progressivity from the system. The formula that adjusts initial benefits for overall Real Wage in the economy means that older workers who got left a little behind in terms of skill sets in their last working years still enjoy a boost in their ultimate living standard, in general each generation of retirees is able to buy a bigger basket of goods than the last. This doesn't translate to a higher replacement percentage just an acknowledgement that materially each generation has in the past advanced. I don't want to play the "when I was a kid" game but you can't compare the range of possessions of the typical middle class household of today to those of days past.
And finally I think you will find relatively few of those "actuarially based pensions" that come with inflation protection.
Calling any part of traditional Social Security welfare is kind of ridiculous, it is a combined disability policy and annuity with survivorship rights. You could find the functional equivalent at any private life insurance agent, though maybe not on such easy terms.
My usage of consumer, not uncommon today among lifelong volunteer political activist types (I didn't think up the differentiation, but I appreciate and use it now) is an American, most definitely in the 35/40 and above, age range, who has never been active in their citizenship, but militant in their ignorance.
We all begin in ignorance, but those who chose to remain and wallow in ignorance define stupidity -- they are most definitely stupid.
Ralph Nader said, over forty years ago, that if the majority, or at least a substantial number of Americans, didn't become active citizens, then one day this country would be completely stolen from us. That day has long since arrived.
When an American man in their fifties states to me that he is clueless as to why he can't find a job -- and has spent a substantial portion of his life immersed in TV and sports land and still is completely unaware of the collapse of the American banking system some time back -- he is a consumer -- most definitely not a citizen.
When an American woman in their forties, fifties or older, believes everything she heard on freakazoid Kramer's Mad Money show, remains completely unfamiliar with the voting record of her "progressive" senator (who is about as right-wing as one can get, even though said senaturd has a D following their name), she is a consumer.
If someone has reach their middle age -- doesn't know anything about the environment in which they have lived and existed for decades upon decades -- that individual is certainly no citizen.
Over the past year or so, there has been a 1,000% increase in the number of divisive programs on the media (TV, cable, radio, corp. news, etc.) which will only increase as the economy grows ever more stagnant, and worsens. This is the usual process of divide, divert and conquer. Happened before, will continue to happen while the sheeple sleep. (By divisive I mean pitting young against old, racial groupings against other racial groupings, male against female, this religion against that one, etc.)
When some clown who is 58 frigging years old, tells me (and he has just recently discovered politics) that he sends a positive note to his congress critter when he votes for something he is for, even though the legislation fails to pass, or a positive note for something his congress critter votes against, even though such legislation ends up passing; this too is a consumer.
Why? Anyone who is completely ignorant of how congress operates by their middle age -- who doesn't know of pre-vote counts, and that it only matters what they vote for which passes, or votes against, which doesn't, is a complete and utter idiot!
So to anyone in a union who doesn't understand that any stories put out there by NAM (National Association of Manufacturers -- the most anti-union and anti-worker group in existence, and for many generations so) and the US Chamber of Commerce, is certainly devoid of any citizenship qualities.
If I was to make a guess, I would say that a decade of dollar devaluations has made our exports competitive everywhere except in east Asia.
Considering the size of budget deficits we'll be seeing, it doesn't appear that this will change any time soon unless the Euro melts down.
in the "Buy American and Hire America" post here are more statistics but your point is something to pound on. Like the decline in the slope, or rate of change in job losses, looking at relative levels month to month and amplifying that misses the big picture....
This is a trough that U.S. manufacturing is coming out of and the truth is we have shipped our manufacturing to China and ships our jobs in other areas to India. (I guess I'll need to try to estimate the actual numbers in yet another post, but that about sums up the situation).
So, even though these relative numbers are great news...
comparing troughs to bleak is what we're doing here....
we need U.S. manufacturing to return to 20% of overall GDP.
Can we sue the government for causing high blood pressure? This post might be fun, we can correlate the increase in blood pressure (which is something like 33% of all Americans) to the selling of our nation down the river!
I will confess to being very demanding on post quality. There is no doubt about it and I am pushing people to really act as economics researchers, almost like a grad student push.
The reason I do that is because I know this site has a large readership and they are reading it because they cannot find such details and analysis elsewhere in part.
You were right, the comments are supposed to be very loose, almost anything goes and should also be for loose discussion and so on. Someone shouldn't have to watch their T's, I's, P's, Q's in a comment on here.
Got any damn drug that works which isn't toxic sludge to the rest of your system? Or natural alternatives?
It is bad enough that I perceived your comment to be snarky, and then went way overboard in my reaction. But I compounded the mistake by doing it in a public way, rather than privately. I sincerely apologize for that and assure you it will not happen again.
BTW, I too suffer from hypertension so I can attest that some days are better than others, even with the meds. That wasn't the problem last night however. I was just in a poor mental state and should not have been commenting on anything.
Can you explain the meaning of "consumer" and "citizen" as you have used them here? We are all consumers because we buy stuff, but that is obviously not what you mean. From the context, I assume you mean "citizen" as a person who cares about the good of society as a whole. Is this anywhere close? Note that I am not disagreeing with anything, but I am just curious because I am not familiar with the use of these two terms as opposites to each other, which is (I think) the way you are using them. Maybe my confusion is because I am new to this site.
Which thing of CT are you referring to? I'm referring to things like all money is a big enslavement plot and should be abolished, or say the Illuminati are alive and well, controlling the world or....these things go along with 9/11 didn't happen and the U.S. gov. actually blew up the towers, the Holocaust did not happen, Obama is an illegal alien, H1N1 vaccine's are a method to add RFID chips to the general population, and so on...
those are the things that I am 'banishing' as site admin, moderator.
Conjecture about Goldman Sachs controlling the world...well, there sure is a lot of evidence implying they do, so I wouldn't call digging around and looking at GS CT.
GS behaviors also do not violate econ 101 theory either, I think the world has a long history of GSes, i.e. Standard Oil, JP Morgan and so forth.
Elites controlling the world? Well, if someone wants to tie it to $$, buying politicians and super meetings where only the chosen ones are invited...I wouldn't even call that CT.
I also like to poke fun at CT. I personally enjoy sometimes some of the CT that's fairly fun, I mean the logic is flawed but it's fun to think of some ancient private secret society pulling all of the strings. I was even thinking of having a CT video night. Some of these things have rings of truth in them and there are plenty of CT type videos online!
Sorry, I didn't mean for it to read the way you are interpreting it. I am having trouble with high blood pressure, medication which is making periodically kind of shitty because high blood pressure increases short fuses and I do not feel well. I am legitimately getting discouraged in that I am doing most of the actual writing on the site. It's a lot of work and I wish others would write in depth posts more often and to dig into graphs, stats, analyzing numbers, does take a lot of work.
Other than that, I seriously am just looking for higher quality video economics/finance reports and was almost sarcastic and how often it's "corporate press release" types of news, which also frustrates me.
Nothing against you here! In fact you are one of our most insightful commentors, so I was assuredly not directing the sarcasm at you, more at the lack of objective reporting, esp. when one gets into the TV/video media realm.
I agree with you it is hunt and peck, a lot of it. Every week I spend enormous time reviewing both funny stuff related to finance/econ as well as documentaries that are legit vs. something less plus online, which is something else I could use others to help out with.
I was just responding to your request. Have you watched any "Tech Tickers" at Yahoo?
Robert, I don't know any person or website that has groundbreaking, revolutionary insight into what is happening, on a regular basis. Some days I find some and other days I don't. Not infrequently, I am significantly informed right here at EP. Still, I find some of the Yahoo finance stuff is definitely outside the mainstream, but not all of it. Check it out yourself and separate the wheat from the chaff.
On the otherhand, If you have already checked it out and determined that it does not rise to your pre-conceived notion of detail, importance, relevance, or whatever, then ok, I apoligize for the reference.
But I must say that I have noticed what I deem excessive criticism of posts and comments lately.
You have said on numerous occasions that this is a community blog, but you frequently chastise contributors because of what seems to be not reaching some sort of minimum standards of credibility. Sometimes I agree with your reasoning. Other times I have to wonder what you really seek to accomplish with this so called "community" blog. I have nothing against statistical analyses, in fact I absolutely recognize the validity of well reasoned analysis. Still, statistical/mathematical analysis doesn't explain everything that is happening in today's world.
Moreover, the banishment of anything approaching "conspiracy theory" on this site is a non starter. I have news for you. It is a grand conspiracy that is engulfing the American experience and we must, absolutely must, consider the possibility. Can it be demonstrated numerically, unequivically? Probably not because the conspirators themselves have cleverly safeguarded the factual data from the public using "constitutional" means. But that statement, by itself, is CT isn't it? So, how do we reasonably proceed?
Lots of factual circumstances are part of the official record and logically infer reasonable, if not controversial, conclusions. To me, that is not conspiracy theory.
Robert, it is your blog, even though you insist it is a "community" blog. When you ask an open ended question, please accept open ended, and diverse, answers/opinions/suggestions in the spirit they are intended. Let the "community" police itself as to what is the preponderence of truth, and what is suspect.
I don't really have a problem with that format. Just don't make it out to be something else. Check out Yahoo Finance or don't. It's up to you to determine the relevant value, not me. I have my own standards for credibility and I think they are sound.
In particular, Section 5 provides a discussion of Treasury’s adoption of SIGTARP’s most fundamental transparency recommendation — that Treasury require TARP recipients to report on their use of TARP funds. Section 5 also provides an update on the issue of imposing conflict-of-interest walls in PPIP, including a discussion of a series of suspect trades that has already occurred within one of the Public-Private Investment Funds (“PPIFs”) in which a portfolio manager directed the sale of a security from a non-PPIF fund under his management to a dealer after the security had been downgraded and then, minutes later, purchased from that dealer the same security at a slightly higher price for the PPIF. SIGTARP is reviewing these trades. The fact that these kinds of issues could arise in the first instance is the direct result of Treasury’s refusal to require information barriers or walls in PPIP, and in an environment in which large portions of the public already view the fairness of Government programs with skepticism, whether fairly or unfairly, the reputational risk associated with this review is a wholly unnecessary cost.
Among those PPIP players (which is what the fund's name, PPIF relates to) are Blackrock, of course, and Invesco, Marathon, Oaktree, etc.
From memory, I recall that everyone's fave, Wendy Gramm, used to be on the board of directors at Invesco -- forgot when she left. Also, Invesco is heavily invested in the Climate Exchange, PLC, the holding company registered in the Isle of Man (offshore haven, 'natch) which hopes the American cap-and-trade passes so it can go ahead with all that carbon derivatives stuff on all those worldwide climate exchanges they own.
But, the main point is that Prof. Michael Hudson (and, if memory serves, also Paul Craig Roberts) exactly predicted this would happen because that was the way it was structured. Period.
Two hundred and twenty-four pages to say the Treasury Secretary is a crook and much of this is being worked as yet another financial scam; certainly the PPIP is.
(Marathon sounds familiar, I'll have to research that one.)
I agree w/ you on Dylan Ratigan and he seemed to be channelling a sane Glenn Beck the other day, which is a good thing?
I was thinking of doing a FMV that had just TV clips and I have a host of Ratigan's recent reports that would be great.
But if you know of real financial/economic news of video media that is actually objective, in depth, accurate, let me know. I agree Bloomberg blows away CNBC (so isn't it interesting that CNBC and not Bloomberg is offered with most basic cable packages?) but if we could find more online, that would be great. Always on the hunt for good video/visual media generally, it's hard to come by, esp. when one is looking to embed it.
Anyway, Friday's Ratigan show made me think I need the financial "Populist rant" FMN show and looking for clip candidates.
Dylan Rattigan is very good, he's worked on CNBC and knows the games that goes on. He hosted a show called Fast Money, and caused a lot of ire to his bosses on that show. Hence his move to MSNBC. Rattigan called the CDS thing before some the talking heads on CNBC did.
With regards to CNBC, better when it's on mute. Bloomberg has better business news on television., but that's changing. They are in the process of upgrading (Dunno about HD), and you can tell it's gone all candy.
There is such a thing as the Social Contract. Toqueville observed it very astutely in his journals. People engage in cooperation because it serves the interests of the community. Social Security and Medicare were not simply the actions of greedy geezers who did not want to work or pay their doctors. Amid the poverty of the 1930s, a decision was made by Congress that putting those too old to work on an ice floe or leaving them to be eaten by bears was not the decent thing to do. We (they) created Social Security so the old and disabled would not have to starve or be a total burden to their (perhaps impoverished) relatives. It afforded them some dignity in their late years. It also took some people (finally) out of the labor force when jobs were scarce.
Then the government (Reagan Republicans as it happened) decided to follow the corporate example, and blend Social security into a leg of the Federal Employee Retirement System. Thus, it became an official part of a federal retirement system for government employees. The rationale was that the federal budget would absorb less of the cost of future retirement AND contribute to the Social Security Trust Fund. This model (pension, Social Security, and 401k) made sense -- even if it was crafted by conservatives. This should have put an end to the popular fiction that Social Security was "nothing but welfare," as J. Peter Grace (with that silver spoon in his mouth at birth) used to rant.
Private employers had already made a sililar decision about Social Security as part of retirement, and we have to live with it, even if the 401k leg is broken for many. But the federal printing press -- full faith and credit -- is behind the Social insurance contract of Social Security. Hell, if we can do it for AIG, we should be able to do it for the millions of Americans who had no choice but to pay the premiums to FICA. Call it a sort of insurance against pitchforks.
Medicare? No one asks you whether you want to pay the premiums, but look at your pay stub if you doubt it's insurance. It's the reason dad's heart bypass and mom's emergency stay in the hospital are not bankrupting the kids, or keeping the grandchildren from going to college. And if you think the medical profession does not like this "socialized medicine," ask your doctor whether he accepts Medicare. The AMA thinks it's a good idea, and so do I. It would be even better if that minimum wage kitchen worker making up the salad bar and the day care worker looking after your kids could have health insurance as well.
Frank T.
Sorry, forgot to mention that in the IG's report they stated that millions were lost when a bank has been lent TARP funds and then declares bankruptcy having zero net asset value.
Sounds like the smaller banks can't obtain those loans from the larger banks -- which effectively control that global financial virus of securitized "exotic" financial instruments they created (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Morgan Stanley, etc.) -- then fall accordingly.
Sure does sound like "last man standing" or a Ponzi-tontine scheme IMHO.
Don't mean to sound critical of IG Barofsky. He and Elizabeth Warren have done a magnificent job, all things considered, but don't have any power to render change.
Speaking of charts, Nomi Prins has an excellent series at (in conjunction with her recent book, It Takes a Pillage) this site as well as this other site with this web site the main one.
Also, a reference article regarding PPIP.
Ralph Gomory has a piece calling for some high level policy changes to put the U.S. national interest as a top economic priority.
The post is
One. SSI Supplemental Security Income while administered by SSA is not funded out of FICA and so in that sense not part of Social Security as defined.
Two. The idea that providing for widows and orphans is somehow welfare and not insurance is kind of a baffling concept, isn't that what people buy insurance for? In case of untimely death?
Three. DI Disability is funded out of its own dedicated FICA component and is once again a standard insurance product that say a self-employed person might buy. Lumping it in with SSI is just kind of ignorant even if the differences between somebody on SSI and somebody on DI are not that visible to the eye.
And yes there is some mild progressivity built into the system for lower income workers. On the other hand all Social Security beneficiaries enjoy a certain amount of progressivity from the system. The formula that adjusts initial benefits for overall Real Wage in the economy means that older workers who got left a little behind in terms of skill sets in their last working years still enjoy a boost in their ultimate living standard, in general each generation of retirees is able to buy a bigger basket of goods than the last. This doesn't translate to a higher replacement percentage just an acknowledgement that materially each generation has in the past advanced. I don't want to play the "when I was a kid" game but you can't compare the range of possessions of the typical middle class household of today to those of days past.
And finally I think you will find relatively few of those "actuarially based pensions" that come with inflation protection.
Calling any part of traditional Social Security welfare is kind of ridiculous, it is a combined disability policy and annuity with survivorship rights. You could find the functional equivalent at any private life insurance agent, though maybe not on such easy terms.
My usage of consumer, not uncommon today among lifelong volunteer political activist types (I didn't think up the differentiation, but I appreciate and use it now) is an American, most definitely in the 35/40 and above, age range, who has never been active in their citizenship, but militant in their ignorance.
We all begin in ignorance, but those who chose to remain and wallow in ignorance define stupidity -- they are most definitely stupid.
Ralph Nader said, over forty years ago, that if the majority, or at least a substantial number of Americans, didn't become active citizens, then one day this country would be completely stolen from us. That day has long since arrived.
When an American man in their fifties states to me that he is clueless as to why he can't find a job -- and has spent a substantial portion of his life immersed in TV and sports land and still is completely unaware of the collapse of the American banking system some time back -- he is a consumer -- most definitely not a citizen.
When an American woman in their forties, fifties or older, believes everything she heard on freakazoid Kramer's Mad Money show, remains completely unfamiliar with the voting record of her "progressive" senator (who is about as right-wing as one can get, even though said senaturd has a D following their name), she is a consumer.
If someone has reach their middle age -- doesn't know anything about the environment in which they have lived and existed for decades upon decades -- that individual is certainly no citizen.
Over the past year or so, there has been a 1,000% increase in the number of divisive programs on the media (TV, cable, radio, corp. news, etc.) which will only increase as the economy grows ever more stagnant, and worsens. This is the usual process of divide, divert and conquer. Happened before, will continue to happen while the sheeple sleep. (By divisive I mean pitting young against old, racial groupings against other racial groupings, male against female, this religion against that one, etc.)
When some clown who is 58 frigging years old, tells me (and he has just recently discovered politics) that he sends a positive note to his congress critter when he votes for something he is for, even though the legislation fails to pass, or a positive note for something his congress critter votes against, even though such legislation ends up passing; this too is a consumer.
Why? Anyone who is completely ignorant of how congress operates by their middle age -- who doesn't know of pre-vote counts, and that it only matters what they vote for which passes, or votes against, which doesn't, is a complete and utter idiot!
So to anyone in a union who doesn't understand that any stories put out there by NAM (National Association of Manufacturers -- the most anti-union and anti-worker group in existence, and for many generations so) and the US Chamber of Commerce, is certainly devoid of any citizenship qualities.
If I was to make a guess, I would say that a decade of dollar devaluations has made our exports competitive everywhere except in east Asia.
Considering the size of budget deficits we'll be seeing, it doesn't appear that this will change any time soon unless the Euro melts down.
in the "Buy American and Hire America" post here are more statistics but your point is something to pound on. Like the decline in the slope, or rate of change in job losses, looking at relative levels month to month and amplifying that misses the big picture....
This is a trough that U.S. manufacturing is coming out of and the truth is we have shipped our manufacturing to China and ships our jobs in other areas to India. (I guess I'll need to try to estimate the actual numbers in yet another post, but that about sums up the situation).
So, even though these relative numbers are great news...
comparing troughs to bleak is what we're doing here....
we need U.S. manufacturing to return to 20% of overall GDP.
As of 2008, Manufacturing sector contributed 11.5% to GDP. FIRE (Finance, insurance and real estate): 20%
Guess what it was in 1980:
Manufacturing sector: 20%
FIRE: 15.9%
They clearly moved in opposite directions. Just saying.
BEA: Value Added by Industry as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Can we sue the government for causing high blood pressure? This post might be fun, we can correlate the increase in blood pressure (which is something like 33% of all Americans) to the selling of our nation down the river!
I will confess to being very demanding on post quality. There is no doubt about it and I am pushing people to really act as economics researchers, almost like a grad student push.
The reason I do that is because I know this site has a large readership and they are reading it because they cannot find such details and analysis elsewhere in part.
You were right, the comments are supposed to be very loose, almost anything goes and should also be for loose discussion and so on. Someone shouldn't have to watch their T's, I's, P's, Q's in a comment on here.
Got any damn drug that works which isn't toxic sludge to the rest of your system? Or natural alternatives?
It is bad enough that I perceived your comment to be snarky, and then went way overboard in my reaction. But I compounded the mistake by doing it in a public way, rather than privately. I sincerely apologize for that and assure you it will not happen again.
BTW, I too suffer from hypertension so I can attest that some days are better than others, even with the meds. That wasn't the problem last night however. I was just in a poor mental state and should not have been commenting on anything.
Can you explain the meaning of "consumer" and "citizen" as you have used them here? We are all consumers because we buy stuff, but that is obviously not what you mean. From the context, I assume you mean "citizen" as a person who cares about the good of society as a whole. Is this anywhere close? Note that I am not disagreeing with anything, but I am just curious because I am not familiar with the use of these two terms as opposites to each other, which is (I think) the way you are using them. Maybe my confusion is because I am new to this site.
Which thing of CT are you referring to? I'm referring to things like all money is a big enslavement plot and should be abolished, or say the Illuminati are alive and well, controlling the world or....these things go along with 9/11 didn't happen and the U.S. gov. actually blew up the towers, the Holocaust did not happen, Obama is an illegal alien, H1N1 vaccine's are a method to add RFID chips to the general population, and so on...
those are the things that I am 'banishing' as site admin, moderator.
Conjecture about Goldman Sachs controlling the world...well, there sure is a lot of evidence implying they do, so I wouldn't call digging around and looking at GS CT.
GS behaviors also do not violate econ 101 theory either, I think the world has a long history of GSes, i.e. Standard Oil, JP Morgan and so forth.
Elites controlling the world? Well, if someone wants to tie it to $$, buying politicians and super meetings where only the chosen ones are invited...I wouldn't even call that CT.
I also like to poke fun at CT. I personally enjoy sometimes some of the CT that's fairly fun, I mean the logic is flawed but it's fun to think of some ancient private secret society pulling all of the strings. I was even thinking of having a CT video night. Some of these things have rings of truth in them and there are plenty of CT type videos online!
Sorry, I didn't mean for it to read the way you are interpreting it. I am having trouble with high blood pressure, medication which is making periodically kind of shitty because high blood pressure increases short fuses and I do not feel well. I am legitimately getting discouraged in that I am doing most of the actual writing on the site. It's a lot of work and I wish others would write in depth posts more often and to dig into graphs, stats, analyzing numbers, does take a lot of work.
Other than that, I seriously am just looking for higher quality video economics/finance reports and was almost sarcastic and how often it's "corporate press release" types of news, which also frustrates me.
Nothing against you here! In fact you are one of our most insightful commentors, so I was assuredly not directing the sarcasm at you, more at the lack of objective reporting, esp. when one gets into the TV/video media realm.
I agree with you it is hunt and peck, a lot of it. Every week I spend enormous time reviewing both funny stuff related to finance/econ as well as documentaries that are legit vs. something less plus online, which is something else I could use others to help out with.
I was just responding to your request. Have you watched any "Tech Tickers" at Yahoo?
Robert, I don't know any person or website that has groundbreaking, revolutionary insight into what is happening, on a regular basis. Some days I find some and other days I don't. Not infrequently, I am significantly informed right here at EP. Still, I find some of the Yahoo finance stuff is definitely outside the mainstream, but not all of it. Check it out yourself and separate the wheat from the chaff.
On the otherhand, If you have already checked it out and determined that it does not rise to your pre-conceived notion of detail, importance, relevance, or whatever, then ok, I apoligize for the reference.
But I must say that I have noticed what I deem excessive criticism of posts and comments lately.
You have said on numerous occasions that this is a community blog, but you frequently chastise contributors because of what seems to be not reaching some sort of minimum standards of credibility. Sometimes I agree with your reasoning. Other times I have to wonder what you really seek to accomplish with this so called "community" blog. I have nothing against statistical analyses, in fact I absolutely recognize the validity of well reasoned analysis. Still, statistical/mathematical analysis doesn't explain everything that is happening in today's world.
Moreover, the banishment of anything approaching "conspiracy theory" on this site is a non starter. I have news for you. It is a grand conspiracy that is engulfing the American experience and we must, absolutely must, consider the possibility. Can it be demonstrated numerically, unequivically? Probably not because the conspirators themselves have cleverly safeguarded the factual data from the public using "constitutional" means. But that statement, by itself, is CT isn't it? So, how do we reasonably proceed?
Lots of factual circumstances are part of the official record and logically infer reasonable, if not controversial, conclusions. To me, that is not conspiracy theory.
Robert, it is your blog, even though you insist it is a "community" blog. When you ask an open ended question, please accept open ended, and diverse, answers/opinions/suggestions in the spirit they are intended. Let the "community" police itself as to what is the preponderence of truth, and what is suspect.
I don't really have a problem with that format. Just don't make it out to be something else. Check out Yahoo Finance or don't. It's up to you to determine the relevant value, not me. I have my own standards for credibility and I think they are sound.
vs. corporate glorified infomercial.
Does Steve Jobs have media sewn up or what? Tampad managed to kick off of the headlines a major AIG hearing.
Deserves it's own separate write up.
What we need on this PPIP and other exchanges is a very good flow chart.
I think this one said Geithner is a crook is about 12 pages in the front.
They have a lot of videos in their "Tech Ticker".
From p. 11,
Among those PPIP players (which is what the fund's name, PPIF relates to) are Blackrock, of course, and Invesco, Marathon, Oaktree, etc.
From memory, I recall that everyone's fave, Wendy Gramm, used to be on the board of directors at Invesco -- forgot when she left. Also, Invesco is heavily invested in the Climate Exchange, PLC, the holding company registered in the Isle of Man (offshore haven, 'natch) which hopes the American cap-and-trade passes so it can go ahead with all that carbon derivatives stuff on all those worldwide climate exchanges they own.
But, the main point is that Prof. Michael Hudson (and, if memory serves, also Paul Craig Roberts) exactly predicted this would happen because that was the way it was structured. Period.
Two hundred and twenty-four pages to say the Treasury Secretary is a crook and much of this is being worked as yet another financial scam; certainly the PPIP is.
(Marathon sounds familiar, I'll have to research that one.)
I agree w/ you on Dylan Ratigan and he seemed to be channelling a sane Glenn Beck the other day, which is a good thing?
I was thinking of doing a FMV that had just TV clips and I have a host of Ratigan's recent reports that would be great.
But if you know of real financial/economic news of video media that is actually objective, in depth, accurate, let me know. I agree Bloomberg blows away CNBC (so isn't it interesting that CNBC and not Bloomberg is offered with most basic cable packages?) but if we could find more online, that would be great. Always on the hunt for good video/visual media generally, it's hard to come by, esp. when one is looking to embed it.
Anyway, Friday's Ratigan show made me think I need the financial "Populist rant" FMN show and looking for clip candidates.
Dylan Rattigan is very good, he's worked on CNBC and knows the games that goes on. He hosted a show called Fast Money, and caused a lot of ire to his bosses on that show. Hence his move to MSNBC. Rattigan called the CDS thing before some the talking heads on CNBC did.
With regards to CNBC, better when it's on mute. Bloomberg has better business news on television., but that's changing. They are in the process of upgrading (Dunno about HD), and you can tell it's gone all candy.
There is such a thing as the Social Contract. Toqueville observed it very astutely in his journals. People engage in cooperation because it serves the interests of the community. Social Security and Medicare were not simply the actions of greedy geezers who did not want to work or pay their doctors. Amid the poverty of the 1930s, a decision was made by Congress that putting those too old to work on an ice floe or leaving them to be eaten by bears was not the decent thing to do. We (they) created Social Security so the old and disabled would not have to starve or be a total burden to their (perhaps impoverished) relatives. It afforded them some dignity in their late years. It also took some people (finally) out of the labor force when jobs were scarce.
Then the government (Reagan Republicans as it happened) decided to follow the corporate example, and blend Social security into a leg of the Federal Employee Retirement System. Thus, it became an official part of a federal retirement system for government employees. The rationale was that the federal budget would absorb less of the cost of future retirement AND contribute to the Social Security Trust Fund. This model (pension, Social Security, and 401k) made sense -- even if it was crafted by conservatives. This should have put an end to the popular fiction that Social Security was "nothing but welfare," as J. Peter Grace (with that silver spoon in his mouth at birth) used to rant.
Private employers had already made a sililar decision about Social Security as part of retirement, and we have to live with it, even if the 401k leg is broken for many. But the federal printing press -- full faith and credit -- is behind the Social insurance contract of Social Security. Hell, if we can do it for AIG, we should be able to do it for the millions of Americans who had no choice but to pay the premiums to FICA. Call it a sort of insurance against pitchforks.
Medicare? No one asks you whether you want to pay the premiums, but look at your pay stub if you doubt it's insurance. It's the reason dad's heart bypass and mom's emergency stay in the hospital are not bankrupting the kids, or keeping the grandchildren from going to college. And if you think the medical profession does not like this "socialized medicine," ask your doctor whether he accepts Medicare. The AMA thinks it's a good idea, and so do I. It would be even better if that minimum wage kitchen worker making up the salad bar and the day care worker looking after your kids could have health insurance as well.
Frank T.
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