You have essentially made my point. When most Americans get free time, they sure don't spend it protesting. We simply have too many toys to distract us.
Financial conglomerates going back to their old ways but with a new twist: desperation. Desperation to achieve high returns and take on more risk with taxpayer money. For example: Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo & Co., the bank that boosted its U.S. property-related holdings by acquiring rival Wachovia Corp., is adding to those investments with purchases of mortgage-backed bonds, even as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warns of another wave of defaults.
Wells Fargo, who still has not paid back its TARP money, is taking on additional risks. It is betting that it deeply discounted assets for a song and just maybe these assets will pay off despite more defaults in commercial real estate. Sad thing is that since TARP money is allegedly so fungible they could be doing this with taxpayer gift.
Check this quote out from the Bloomberg article and this is priceless:
Banks buying mortgage-backed debt, which caused much of the $1.5 trillion of writedowns and credit losses at the world’s largest financial companies since 2007, can be looked at “two ways,” said Thomas Atteberry at First Pacific Advisors LLC in Los Angeles.
“One is: Your past history tells me you don’t know how to assess this risk that well,” he said in an interview. “The other is: Well, you’re bright people, you won’t make that same mistake again. Personally, I’m not convinced of the latter.” Atteberry was Morningstar Inc.’s fixed-income manager of the year in 2008
The joke is on us. Financial conglomerates have not learned their lesson.
Last time I checked in January, JPMorgan stood at $80 trillion, Citi and BofA at roughly $40 trillion apiece, and Goldman Sachs at $30 trillion, so $190 trillion total, plus Morgan Stanley (whatever they are at, it can't be good) and any growth - since nothing has been really put in place to stop this securitization/derivatives scam.
Note that in Michael Lewis' article in this month's Vanity Fair on A.I.G., he states that A.I.G. still has $450 billion of credit default swaps on the corporate side (meaning, I guess, corporate receivables, CLOs, CFOs, and any other myriad of derivatives categories).
Say, which party was it that won that last presidential election?
We simply have too much to entertain us and are thus lazy. Back when people took to the streets they didn't have tv, the internet, dvr's, dvd's, etc. and were thus much more linked to reality than people are now.
My guess is that unemployment will be extended again sometime this fall, when it becomes very apparent that there will be no jobs created during the aftermath of this recession.
For my focus has always been on major policy, structural problems deep at the root of today's economy, which regardless of cycles, are pushing more and more people out of the middle class and over a very long haul are reducing the economy power of the U.S.
That said, on the keyword "recovery", I think this is being seriously abused. One can call a bottom, one can say the cliff diving has stopped but even if one has > 1.5% GDP growth, I really question using the keyword recovery when the middle class is not brought along with it and/or keyword "jobless" is used in conjunction. To me, "jobless" recovery means no recovery but that is due to the first paragraph and a firm belief that long term, the middle class is the economy, is the real strength which puts the U.S. as #1 and also is required to even have a Democracy or any form.
So, with that....CR really is "on" the housing markets and has been for years, but Ritholtz has been also.
I am beginning to suspect, as noted yesterday in midtowng's post, affirmed by the Atlanta Fed., this cycle may have anomalies which are not lending well to using past indicators as historical predictors.
I think CR's post on "distressed graph" is trying to dig around in this same arena, looking for divergent indicators as suspect.
But ya know, for us, who the f&*k cares about Wall Street if you're about to go homeless, can't get any job and can't make rent? Who cares if one cannot retire? ya know what I mean?
That is the most relevant question. Sure, it may be an improvement from last month. But, as Ritholtz points out, was it artificially inflated by subsidies and low low prices.
What happens when subsidies run out? Only time will tell.
But again it is certainly not enough to create jobs in real estate sector. And where is the demand for new homes? The drivers for housing demand are missing: employment and confidence.
Same goes for GDP growth: Is it enough to create jobs? If not then this "recovery" talk is just academic.
Baseline scenario was picked up as a front page link post by HuffPo on health care horror stories and he notes he's gotten 40k reads in a matter of hours (could we be so lucky some day!).
More to the point, he took advantage of the reads and updated his post on some overviews on health care in Health insurance "innovation".
A most deserving blog to be pushed to the top of the pile by HuffPo frankly.
Really? I opened up a brokerage account without a credit check. I didn't want any margin. If someone ran a credit check on opening up some free checking account that's beyond my awareness but I know the brokerage account didn't do it.
In a past life, I created a program that involved a partnership between a large city government - city college system and banks. It targeted a large group of people who were "unbanked". People who were participating in our economy because they were employed and were purchasing stuff but didn't have bank accounts (usually because banks require credit checks to open checking accounts). People who are "unbanked" usually do their "banking" through currency exchanges or even worse payday lenders.
The program was based on a curriculum developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It was free to city residents. It was a 6 week program and upon successful completion (attend all 6 classes and pass exams) a person would receive a certificate of completion. The person could take this certificate of completion to a participating bank and open a checking account without a credit check.
So, all the things you stated certainly are doable with Financial Literacy Centers.
You make an excellent point about unionism and social movement. It is definitely something unions should revisit especially as a matter of public relations.
I think there should be a test and class, similar to driving school. Say someone gets into bankruptcy due to financial illiteracy, the judge could order them to personal finance school.
Or have it like a driving test, in order to get a mortgage you must have your financial school certification and have it be online, such a quiz, so getting certified is as easy as possible and doesn't add more "red tape".
A class should also be required in high school to graduate.
Right now we have predators running ads to "help" with mortagages to credit cards on TV. These "groups" should be shut down, anyone claiming to be a "financial adviser" needs to be certified and all of this could go under the consumer financial protection agency.
I mean when it comes to white collar rip offs it's clear anything goes, just don't rob people the old fashioned way, only then does someone go to jail.
It was started in the UK at the turn of the 20th century in order to provide opportunities for adult education. Participants can take a number of courses ranging from lacemaking or carpentry to medieval history. I think that real effort to provide adult education, and in particular economic and political education so that people can understand what a CDO is and how it destroyed the economy would be a powerful tool in fighting back against the neo-libs.
For many years local central labor halls did provide social services of this sort. But over the years unions have lost this social movement aspect, and become more focused on a strictly business unionism model.
Reviving social movement unionism could do a lot to counter the decline of the working class. And, with new technologies there are many opportunities that never existed before. The key is making people aware of how they are being screwed.
'"There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay."'
This is a very well-thought out post, but still it contains a programmed misconception (or foundation-sponsored "manufactured consent" phrase): that any such labor shortage at such a salary actually existed.
Should you ever do any extensive research, you will find many Americans working beside undocumented workers throughout North America, fact - not fiction!
The notion of a worker shortage due to "baby boomer" retirees was first promoted (and promoted quite strenuously up to the present) by Peter Peterson, formerly with the Reagan Administration, former head of the Peterson Commission, former head of the NY Federal Reserve Bank and Council on Foreign Relations, and founder of the Blackstone Group and the Peterson Institute for International Economics (whose sole agenda is the offshoring of American jobs and the privatization of social security - sometime check out their membership list).
Great post, but mental flexibility and that sunlight disinfectant are still required.
When you use the phrase "labor shortage" or "skills shortage" you're speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: "There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay." That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence, the intellectually honest statement.
If you start raising your wages and improving working conditions, and continue to do so, you'll solve your “shortage” and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.
Re: Shortage due to retirees: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, people entering retirement age are being forced to work well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.
Okay, fine. Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, raise your wages and improve benefits! You’ll incentivize people to self-fund their education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to fund their own education.
This decision is one of the biggest hurdles to campaign finance reform. It is often used as a "crutch" by those who oppose campaign finance reform.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
You have essentially made my point. When most Americans get free time, they sure don't spend it protesting. We simply have too many toys to distract us.
Financial conglomerates going back to their old ways but with a new twist: desperation. Desperation to achieve high returns and take on more risk with taxpayer money. For example: Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo, who still has not paid back its TARP money, is taking on additional risks. It is betting that it deeply discounted assets for a song and just maybe these assets will pay off despite more defaults in commercial real estate. Sad thing is that since TARP money is allegedly so fungible they could be doing this with taxpayer gift.
Check this quote out from the Bloomberg article and this is priceless:
The joke is on us. Financial conglomerates have not learned their lesson.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Money talks? Literally made legal?
That's incredible, never heard of that one.
Last time I checked in January, JPMorgan stood at $80 trillion, Citi and BofA at roughly $40 trillion apiece, and Goldman Sachs at $30 trillion, so $190 trillion total, plus Morgan Stanley (whatever they are at, it can't be good) and any growth - since nothing has been really put in place to stop this securitization/derivatives scam.
Note that in Michael Lewis' article in this month's Vanity Fair on A.I.G., he states that A.I.G. still has $450 billion of credit default swaps on the corporate side (meaning, I guess, corporate receivables, CLOs, CFOs, and any other myriad of derivatives categories).
Say, which party was it that won that last presidential election?
Ritholtz, who drives me nuts because he grabs stuff and doesn't link to it, has a quote of the day:
what was that about scale?
Are you frickin' kidding me? Americans are .....<fill in some blame the victim crap here>?
We have the longest hours, the least amount of leisure time, the best universities of any industrialized nation.
We simply have too much to entertain us and are thus lazy. Back when people took to the streets they didn't have tv, the internet, dvr's, dvd's, etc. and were thus much more linked to reality than people are now.
My guess is that unemployment will be extended again sometime this fall, when it becomes very apparent that there will be no jobs created during the aftermath of this recession.
For my focus has always been on major policy, structural problems deep at the root of today's economy, which regardless of cycles, are pushing more and more people out of the middle class and over a very long haul are reducing the economy power of the U.S.
That said, on the keyword "recovery", I think this is being seriously abused. One can call a bottom, one can say the cliff diving has stopped but even if one has > 1.5% GDP growth, I really question using the keyword recovery when the middle class is not brought along with it and/or keyword "jobless" is used in conjunction. To me, "jobless" recovery means no recovery but that is due to the first paragraph and a firm belief that long term, the middle class is the economy, is the real strength which puts the U.S. as #1 and also is required to even have a Democracy or any form.
So, with that....CR really is "on" the housing markets and has been for years, but Ritholtz has been also.
I am beginning to suspect, as noted yesterday in midtowng's post, affirmed by the Atlanta Fed., this cycle may have anomalies which are not lending well to using past indicators as historical predictors.
I think CR's post on "distressed graph" is trying to dig around in this same arena, looking for divergent indicators as suspect.
But ya know, for us, who the f&*k cares about Wall Street if you're about to go homeless, can't get any job and can't make rent? Who cares if one cannot retire? ya know what I mean?
That is the most relevant question. Sure, it may be an improvement from last month. But, as Ritholtz points out, was it artificially inflated by subsidies and low low prices.
What happens when subsidies run out? Only time will tell.
But again it is certainly not enough to create jobs in real estate sector. And where is the demand for new homes? The drivers for housing demand are missing: employment and confidence.
Same goes for GDP growth: Is it enough to create jobs? If not then this "recovery" talk is just academic.
Baseline scenario was picked up as a front page link post by HuffPo on health care horror stories and he notes he's gotten 40k reads in a matter of hours (could we be so lucky some day!).
More to the point, he took advantage of the reads and updated his post on some overviews on health care in Health insurance "innovation".
A most deserving blog to be pushed to the top of the pile by HuffPo frankly.
Really? I opened up a brokerage account without a credit check. I didn't want any margin. If someone ran a credit check on opening up some free checking account that's beyond my awareness but I know the brokerage account didn't do it.
I've created some interactive unemployment level heat maps for each state. Check out this one for California:
http://www.localetrends.com/st/ca_california_unemployment.php
and this map for Florida Unemployment:
http://www.localetrends.com/st/fl_florida_unemployment.php
In a past life, I created a program that involved a partnership between a large city government - city college system and banks. It targeted a large group of people who were "unbanked". People who were participating in our economy because they were employed and were purchasing stuff but didn't have bank accounts (usually because banks require credit checks to open checking accounts). People who are "unbanked" usually do their "banking" through currency exchanges or even worse payday lenders.
The program was based on a curriculum developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It was free to city residents. It was a 6 week program and upon successful completion (attend all 6 classes and pass exams) a person would receive a certificate of completion. The person could take this certificate of completion to a participating bank and open a checking account without a credit check.
So, all the things you stated certainly are doable with Financial Literacy Centers.
You make an excellent point about unionism and social movement. It is definitely something unions should revisit especially as a matter of public relations.
I think there should be a test and class, similar to driving school. Say someone gets into bankruptcy due to financial illiteracy, the judge could order them to personal finance school.
Or have it like a driving test, in order to get a mortgage you must have your financial school certification and have it be online, such a quiz, so getting certified is as easy as possible and doesn't add more "red tape".
A class should also be required in high school to graduate.
Right now we have predators running ads to "help" with mortagages to credit cards on TV. These "groups" should be shut down, anyone claiming to be a "financial adviser" needs to be certified and all of this could go under the consumer financial protection agency.
I mean when it comes to white collar rip offs it's clear anything goes, just don't rob people the old fashioned way, only then does someone go to jail.
Worker's Educational Association?
It was started in the UK at the turn of the 20th century in order to provide opportunities for adult education. Participants can take a number of courses ranging from lacemaking or carpentry to medieval history. I think that real effort to provide adult education, and in particular economic and political education so that people can understand what a CDO is and how it destroyed the economy would be a powerful tool in fighting back against the neo-libs.
For many years local central labor halls did provide social services of this sort. But over the years unions have lost this social movement aspect, and become more focused on a strictly business unionism model.
Reviving social movement unionism could do a lot to counter the decline of the working class. And, with new technologies there are many opportunities that never existed before. The key is making people aware of how they are being screwed.
'"There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay."'
This is a very well-thought out post, but still it contains a programmed misconception (or foundation-sponsored "manufactured consent" phrase): that any such labor shortage at such a salary actually existed.
Should you ever do any extensive research, you will find many Americans working beside undocumented workers throughout North America, fact - not fiction!
The notion of a worker shortage due to "baby boomer" retirees was first promoted (and promoted quite strenuously up to the present) by Peter Peterson, formerly with the Reagan Administration, former head of the Peterson Commission, former head of the NY Federal Reserve Bank and Council on Foreign Relations, and founder of the Blackstone Group and the Peterson Institute for International Economics (whose sole agenda is the offshoring of American jobs and the privatization of social security - sometime check out their membership list).
Great post, but mental flexibility and that sunlight disinfectant are still required.
the average weekly hours worked. It sort of has the same implications as capacity utilization, but more directly effects workers.
My brother is getting furloughed 3 days a month, and it will probably be 4 days a month before everything gets done.
When you use the phrase "labor shortage" or "skills shortage" you're speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: "There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay." That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence, the intellectually honest statement.
If you start raising your wages and improving working conditions, and continue to do so, you'll solve your “shortage” and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.
Re: Shortage due to retirees: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, people entering retirement age are being forced to work well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.
Okay, fine. Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, raise your wages and improve benefits! You’ll incentivize people to self-fund their education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to fund their own education.
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