I saw this post several places and thought the poster made some sense, especially when one drills down to the securitized loans involved, and those pension funds, and insurance industry investments utilized along with bank loans to make up the private equity funds of funds, etc.
When it comes to age discrimination, it's ingrained. Not only assumed but often glorified! It's almost a "lynch" mentality against older workers.
Literally I saw a major Progressive radio talk show person try to claim the answer to our unemployment problem should be to force those over 50 into early retirement in order to "make room" for jobs for younger people.
Believe it or not, this was cheered in the left as a "great idea"!
I was horrified and disgusted that no one even seemed to get that was older worker apartheid.
Instead people just said oh that's just great, let's create a massive age discrimination program!
I mean can you imagine someone presenting a "solution" to the unemployment problem which say, banned all black people from getting a job in order to "open up" those jobs to "other people".
That is what this guy said!
We also have citizenship status discrimination going on in the U.S. and this is against U.S. citizens as well as perm residents in some occupations in this country. So, I believe we need a "U.S. citizens preferred" program with the belief that a nation-states responsibility is to first and foremost provide income, job security to it's citizens (you can include perm residents in here as well for the most part)
I think there is a good argument that age discrimiation is at least as ingrained in American society as race discrimation. Therefore why doesn't the federal government require the same koind of afirmative action to elimiate age discrimation as they do for racial disrimation? I see this a the civil rights issue of the 21 century. let's start a movement!
EconomPic Data has another graph on this, showing if the Fed is not counting, lending has dropped like a cliff and is calling the justification for TARP (i.e. liquidity, lending) a massive ruse and this is the "greatest story never told".
EPI has done quite a bit of research on income inequality, wage declines and the Urban Institute has some as well. Also, hidden (almost) are Sloan Foundation reports.
Then, Census.gov has a lot of stats, if you look at the right hand column on news feeds, I put the BLS there, which has a lot of stats online.
The St. Louis Fed has Fred2, which is a very fast way to post graphs. They allow customized graphs via their server and you can just link to your customized graphs.
Indentured servitude - that is where this leading.
Take a look at this article: Mortgage Problems Are Walloping Americans' Credit Scores. The article does provide some good advice for people who are struggling with their mortgage. What better way to gouge people for more fees and interest if credit scores go higher.
For example, roughly 36.6 million of the 213 million consumers tracked by the three national credit bureaus in the first quarter of 2008 had Vantage scores above 900 -- the super-prime credit rung. That select group represented 17.2% of the country's consumers.But by the end of the second quarter of this year, just 15.4% -- 33.3 million out of 216.9 million individuals' files -- were left among the elite. By credit industry standards, that's huge.
More Americans' scores are slipping into the worst credit category as well. In the third quarter of 2006, 34.4 million consumers were in the lowest segment -- 16.6% of 206.9 million individuals. But by the second quarter of this year, 18.3% of all files were in that category -- 39.8 million consumers out of 216.9 million.
Florida is a special case since it has such a large population of retirees. As I understand it from talking with friends who own properties there, Florida has no income tax and relies very heavily on local property taxes to maintain its infrastructure.
If that is true, then the scenario you relate is potentially devastating. Reducing property values by whatever % translates into the same reduction in property tax collections. Faced with choices to cut services or increase tax rates, many communities will probably try to do both. Of course, this brings both the inflationary pressure you have mentioned, as well as degrading the quality of the community that attracted residents in the first place. And each of these will reinforce the deflationary cycle in property values.
I am trying to find stats to say back up that point. I have a sense for Middle Class families the most valuable asset is real estate and not stock/bond portfolio in which case this $2 trillion increase is just as illusory as in the past.
I've been saying right from the start that the banks are playing games with accounting to hide massive losses. Now it appears they are going to extreme levels.
This has the Japan scenario written all over it.
Geithner uses "It's unfortunate" because a government official can't say "too f*cking bad" in public. Or as the British used to say, "I'm all right, Jack."
Here in south Florida, we have communities where two-thirds of houses are sold at a loss -- in Tampa, it's something like 50%. Waterfront condo developments in St. Pete are plagued by people wanting to walk away from their contracts, citing technical or financial reasons, but developers and sales people make optimistic forecasts. On St. Pete beach, one shopping center has a good number of store locations vacant. The Bennigan's restaurant and pub on Gulf Blvd. was closed down over a month ago -- last time I was there, it was crowded. Something has happened in America, and it's "unfortunate" because it happened to the middle class.
Of course, a lot of the people in south Florida are retirees. If they have saved their money as we were taught to do (and didn't lose a lot of it in the stock market), they now have the wonderful choices of getting near zero interest from banks and other "institutions," or accepting the 3% returns for longer term certificates (say 5 years) and praying that inflation doesn't return during their lifetimes. Well, Geithner would say that's "unfortunate" but near-zero interest rates are necessary to rebuild the capital structure of our financial system. And yes, those geniuses who run that system should be rewarded with generous pay packages -- otherwise, they might take jobs in the NFL, which would be "unfortunate."
Frank T.
I'm glad you wrote this up for the headlines seem highly misleading. As far as I know the upper 1% are the ones where wealth increases, due to stocks/bonds, portfolios.
Yet the title says "Americans" instead of "the wealthiest Americans".
This is good news, as there certainly was no need to have these private lender 'intermediaries' profiting from government-backed loans.I don't know if this bill will necessarily have a significant impact on the cost of education though, which has been skyrocketing out of control to the point where in many cases the cost is not commensurate with the return.
Financial Times is reporting that Barclays is selling $12 billion of toxic assets to some Cayman based company called Protium Finance (a partnership of unknown investors).
Barclay sold $12 bil. in toxic assets to this company and issued a $12 bil. loan to the company for the purchase. Great way to smooth out earnings by possibly avoiding a huge hit in the de-valuing of these assets.
Gillian Tett has a very good explanation of the impact of the deal:
But in another sense, there is an uneasy echo of the past. Most notably, by selling those $12.3bn assets to Protium, what Barclays is essentially doing is taking a pile of toxic items out of its front room (ie the balance sheet) and stuffing it into an entity that is not inside the house (the garage, or cellar).
After all, the fine print of the Barclays announcement makes it clear that while the British bank is going to count the Protium assets as being “on balance sheet” for regulatory purposes, it is removing the assets from the balance sheet in accounting terms, since Protium is legally “independent”, based in the Cayman Islands.
I am sure other financial conglomerates are watching how this works out for Barclays.
I get the feeling that the public, in general is just kind of mega depressed because basically Congress/administration isn't doing at all what is needed (although today's bill on student loans was a very pleasant stealth surprise!)
I think we're all sick of hearing about "recovery" when "recovery", i.e. 2007, was actually already economic disaster for the middle class and as you note, this really started in the 1980's.
Here is what I see driving around. Empty strip malls, empty office buildings, empty buildings which used to hold businesses.
I also see a lot of for sales signs while the banks/Realtor/country tries to hide the foreclosures, which are popping up like mushrooms.
Makes money now: keeper
Doesn't make money now: toss it
Issues like accuracy, realism, etc are secondary.
I've done my share of modeling and therefore my share of huge assumptions. But people in my field 1) always validate against data, and 2) don't stake everybody else's money on the outcome.
please don't forget to use the promotion system to put stuff onto the front page. It is a "put the best stuff" as well as the most in depth stuff at the same time, we should be putting "some stuff" on the front page periodically...
else we have posts that are almost a week old and it looks like people are not writing and discussing.
I'm pretty sure his blog is all about cranking out graphs from spreadsheet data (original) with analysis.
(S)He's becoming one of my favorite blogs. Title is awful but his "darn nice economic eye candy" is dead on.
Hate to be a nag, but your graphs overflow the blog width, which is on the default about 525 pixels.
...this site, chart on page 53.
I saw this post several places and thought the poster made some sense, especially when one drills down to the securitized loans involved, and those pension funds, and insurance industry investments utilized along with bank loans to make up the private equity funds of funds, etc.
I'm going to add it to my post.
When it comes to age discrimination, it's ingrained. Not only assumed but often glorified! It's almost a "lynch" mentality against older workers.
Literally I saw a major Progressive radio talk show person try to claim the answer to our unemployment problem should be to force those over 50 into early retirement in order to "make room" for jobs for younger people.
Believe it or not, this was cheered in the left as a "great idea"!
I was horrified and disgusted that no one even seemed to get that was older worker apartheid.
Instead people just said oh that's just great, let's create a massive age discrimination program!
I mean can you imagine someone presenting a "solution" to the unemployment problem which say, banned all black people from getting a job in order to "open up" those jobs to "other people".
That is what this guy said!
We also have citizenship status discrimination going on in the U.S. and this is against U.S. citizens as well as perm residents in some occupations in this country. So, I believe we need a "U.S. citizens preferred" program with the belief that a nation-states responsibility is to first and foremost provide income, job security to it's citizens (you can include perm residents in here as well for the most part)
I think there is a good argument that age discrimiation is at least as ingrained in American society as race discrimation. Therefore why doesn't the federal government require the same koind of afirmative action to elimiate age discrimation as they do for racial disrimation? I see this a the civil rights issue of the 21 century. let's start a movement!
EconomPic Data has another graph on this, showing if the Fed is not counting, lending has dropped like a cliff and is calling the justification for TARP (i.e. liquidity, lending) a massive ruse and this is the "greatest story never told".
EPI has done quite a bit of research on income inequality, wage declines and the Urban Institute has some as well. Also, hidden (almost) are Sloan Foundation reports.
Then, Census.gov has a lot of stats, if you look at the right hand column on news feeds, I put the BLS there, which has a lot of stats online.
The St. Louis Fed has Fred2, which is a very fast way to post graphs. They allow customized graphs via their server and you can just link to your customized graphs.
Indentured servitude - that is where this leading.
Take a look at this article: Mortgage Problems Are Walloping Americans' Credit Scores. The article does provide some good advice for people who are struggling with their mortgage. What better way to gouge people for more fees and interest if credit scores go higher.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Florida is a special case since it has such a large population of retirees. As I understand it from talking with friends who own properties there, Florida has no income tax and relies very heavily on local property taxes to maintain its infrastructure.
If that is true, then the scenario you relate is potentially devastating. Reducing property values by whatever % translates into the same reduction in property tax collections. Faced with choices to cut services or increase tax rates, many communities will probably try to do both. Of course, this brings both the inflationary pressure you have mentioned, as well as degrading the quality of the community that attracted residents in the first place. And each of these will reinforce the deflationary cycle in property values.
I am trying to find stats to say back up that point. I have a sense for Middle Class families the most valuable asset is real estate and not stock/bond portfolio in which case this $2 trillion increase is just as illusory as in the past.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I've been saying right from the start that the banks are playing games with accounting to hide massive losses. Now it appears they are going to extreme levels.
This has the Japan scenario written all over it.
Geithner uses "It's unfortunate" because a government official can't say "too f*cking bad" in public. Or as the British used to say, "I'm all right, Jack."
Here in south Florida, we have communities where two-thirds of houses are sold at a loss -- in Tampa, it's something like 50%. Waterfront condo developments in St. Pete are plagued by people wanting to walk away from their contracts, citing technical or financial reasons, but developers and sales people make optimistic forecasts. On St. Pete beach, one shopping center has a good number of store locations vacant. The Bennigan's restaurant and pub on Gulf Blvd. was closed down over a month ago -- last time I was there, it was crowded. Something has happened in America, and it's "unfortunate" because it happened to the middle class.
Of course, a lot of the people in south Florida are retirees. If they have saved their money as we were taught to do (and didn't lose a lot of it in the stock market), they now have the wonderful choices of getting near zero interest from banks and other "institutions," or accepting the 3% returns for longer term certificates (say 5 years) and praying that inflation doesn't return during their lifetimes. Well, Geithner would say that's "unfortunate" but near-zero interest rates are necessary to rebuild the capital structure of our financial system. And yes, those geniuses who run that system should be rewarded with generous pay packages -- otherwise, they might take jobs in the NFL, which would be "unfortunate."
Frank T.
I'm glad you wrote this up for the headlines seem highly misleading. As far as I know the upper 1% are the ones where wealth increases, due to stocks/bonds, portfolios.
Yet the title says "Americans" instead of "the wealthiest Americans".
May the Cayman Islands be so overloaded with rats it sinks.
That's why I wrote it, using the Caymans to get out of whatever your government is doing is a long standing "tradition".
This is good news, as there certainly was no need to have these private lender 'intermediaries' profiting from government-backed loans.I don't know if this bill will necessarily have a significant impact on the cost of education though, which has been skyrocketing out of control to the point where in many cases the cost is not commensurate with the return.
Financial Times is reporting that Barclays is selling $12 billion of toxic assets to some Cayman based company called Protium Finance (a partnership of unknown investors).
Barclay sold $12 bil. in toxic assets to this company and issued a $12 bil. loan to the company for the purchase. Great way to smooth out earnings by possibly avoiding a huge hit in the de-valuing of these assets.
Gillian Tett has a very good explanation of the impact of the deal:
I am sure other financial conglomerates are watching how this works out for Barclays.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I get the feeling that the public, in general is just kind of mega depressed because basically Congress/administration isn't doing at all what is needed (although today's bill on student loans was a very pleasant stealth surprise!)
I think we're all sick of hearing about "recovery" when "recovery", i.e. 2007, was actually already economic disaster for the middle class and as you note, this really started in the 1980's.
Here is what I see driving around. Empty strip malls, empty office buildings, empty buildings which used to hold businesses.
I also see a lot of for sales signs while the banks/Realtor/country tries to hide the foreclosures, which are popping up like mushrooms.
I think no matter who cynical you can "think" you won't hit the reality of what has been happening.
check this out
Remember Enron talking about taking money from grandma while manipulating energy blackouts in California?
I think the decision tree goes like this:
Makes money now: keeper
Doesn't make money now: toss it
Issues like accuracy, realism, etc are secondary.
I've done my share of modeling and therefore my share of huge assumptions. But people in my field 1) always validate against data, and 2) don't stake everybody else's money on the outcome.
please don't forget to use the promotion system to put stuff onto the front page. It is a "put the best stuff" as well as the most in depth stuff at the same time, we should be putting "some stuff" on the front page periodically...
else we have posts that are almost a week old and it looks like people are not writing and discussing.
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